I have read J. P. Holding's "refutation" of my critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Faith.  I actually confess that some of his points showed weaknesses in my prior presentation.  I have revised the portions that I feel needed revision based on his comments.  At least as of this time, he has not updated his comments per my latest edition, so I believe his "refutation" is out of date.  But you can read it for yourself if you like.

Here is what I wrote as a response, prior to updating my paper.  So, some of the following comments may not reflect the paper as it stands now.

Objection 1: Since Evil and Suffering Exist, A Loving God Cannot

Before I address Holding’s comments, the first thing I would like to note is, I used to be a Christian.  And, when I was a Christian, one possible explanation for situations such as the starvation of the baby that I contemplated was that perhaps they are to teach us that man cannot solve our own problems, we need God.  I thought that perhaps we are to learn that while some forms of human government may be superior to others, none are good enough.  In other words, maybe Capitalism is better than Communism, but maybe all human forms of government are bound to eventually fail.  And then, after Armageddon, and Jesus returns to Earth, man could see that nothing we came up with proved to be a lasting solution.

That was my own personal “pet” theology.  And it seemed like it could possibly be right.  But my own counter-argument to such a theory was that if what we are supposed to learn is that man is ultimately doomed to fail, then what is the point of trying?  Most Christians try to make the world a better place.  And yet, what is the point of trying to make the world a better place if the ultimate purpose of the world is for it to be destroyed by man?

The reason I bring up my “pet” theology is that I see in Holding’s response the same conflict.  On one hand, he says that it isn’t God’s fault if man doesn’t do good stewardship of the resources He has provided us.  But Holding’s also depicts man as generally, “too stupid or involved in our own sinful, petty concerns to get off our duffs and take the needed steps.”  If that is what man is like, would it not be the expected outcome for us to not do good stewardship?

Then of course this also brings up the question, from whom does our nature come from?  If man is generally too stupid or self-involved, from whom does this nature originate from?  Wouldn’t it have to originate from God?  Now I know the counter-argument would “free will”.  But I don’t believe that is a satisfactory answer.  Some people have “free will” and generally choose good, others frequently choose evil.  What is the difference between the person who chooses good, and the person who chooses evil?  Both have free will, but yet there must be some reason why one chooses good, and the other chooses evil.  Whatever that reason is, must it not come from the nature of the individual people, or perhaps their environment?  And since God controls their nature and their environment, then ultimately is not God’s fault that the person who chooses evil does so?

So, now let me more directly answer Holding points.  Holding says that surely I’m not suggesting that God could have also given us an omniscient nature.  Why not? 

Holding says that if we are like “pets” to God, there is nothing wrong with that.  Okay, but when someone chooses to be a pet owner, one understands the nature of their pets.  Humans choose pets that have a nature that we like.  We don’t generally choose alligators for pets as their nature is not conducive to being a pet.  God, as designer of His “pets” should be capable of designing a pet that matches His requirements of a pet.

Holding says that since I cannot know what would happen in all possible worlds, I cannot know if the death of the child would not indeed result in a greater good.  This is true, but for one, does God really want a “greater good” on Earth anyway?  Like in my personal theology I discussed above, I considered the idea that God actually does not want a greater good on Earth, as the purpose of Earth is to show man our faults.  Therefore, it is not necessarily true that God is working towards any “greater good,” at least on Earth.  But, if we assume that God does indeed want a greater good on Earth, surely an omniscient, omnipotent Creator could know how to bring this greater good without needing something bad to happen first.

Ultimately, however, what I find the biggest problem in the kinds of arguments as Holding (and Strobel/Kreeft) provide is, they seem to not apply to heaven.  Holding says that without suffering, we can become "impossibly spoiled little brats".  But he doesn’t explain why we don’t become spoiled brats in heaven without suffering.  Holding makes some attempt to discuss where I mention this in my critique, but really, I don’t see how his response sheds any light at all on this.  We expect that in heaven, it won’t be necessary for people to die of starvation in order to produce a greater good.  We expect in heaven that we won’t become “brats”.  We expect that an omniscient, omnipotent God to be capable of creating heaven such that this isn’t a necessary.  But if God can create heaven that way, then there is no reason for Earth to not be that way.

On the question about why doesn’t God give absolute proof of His existence, I again fail to see how Holding response sheds any light on this.  I said that I have absolute proof of my wife’s existence, and I’m still able to choose her.  Holding responds that God would need to do more than just prove that some God of some sort exists.  A sign in the sky saying “I exist” wouldn’t not prove which God exists.  But then, inexplicably, seems to say that if God were to show specifically which god exists, that would be like a shotgun wedding where I’m forced to marry my wife.  This makes no sense.  I say again, I know my wife exists, and I know what woman she is, and her attributes, and that did not mean I was forced to choose her.

Holding comments on where I claim that our concepts of “good” and “evil” seem to be merely conceptualizations of biological functions.  He makes the usual charge that this reduces “good” and “evil” to “might makes right”.  My first response is, even if we might want God to decide what is “good” and what is “evil,” if there is no God, then there is no God.  And we are just out of luck in wanting God to decide what is “good” and “evil”.  Secondly, the fact that on every single moral issue that I know of, birth control, homosexuality, divorce, etc., there are Christians that argue on each side.  And of course there are theists of other religions to argue on both sides.  This seems rather conclusive evidence that God has, at the very least, not made what is “good” and “evil” clear.  Holding’s claims that God has made it clear, we just haven’t been willing to understand flies in the face of the evidence.  Therefore, I must conclude that, like it or not, God has not provided clear definition of “good” and “evil” and humans are just stuck doing the best we can.  I don’t like it.  Really, I don’t.  But that does seem to be the facts.

Objection 2: Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot be True

Partially in response to Holding's defense, and partly due to the fact that the issue of how miracles interact with natural law has come up from other critics of my work, I have revised the first seven paragraphs on Objection 2.

Craig provides a definition of a miracle that I actually like.  He says, "an event which is not producible by the natural causes that are operative at the time and place that the event occurs."  Good definition.  However, this definition makes no claims as to whether the natural laws are “suspended” or “violated” or “interceded” or whatever term you like.   And, in my current version, I argue that there is no difference, or at least no difference that we can know of.

Holding argues that in validating potential miracles, it is important that a deity has claimed responsibility for the miracle.  I don’t recall Craig having made this claim.  But at any rate, whether or not Craig would agree, this obviously begs the question, how does one know that a deity has claimed responsibility?  As near as I can tell, all reports that a deity has claimed responsibility of various acts have always been by people claiming some deity has made the claim.  Which leads us nowhere.

Holding also claims that one should consider whether there are possible natural causes to the purported miracle.  But that’s the problem, there are always possible natural causes!  Or, at the very least, there is at least always naturalistic explanations for why it appeared that the miracle happened.  Memories can be faulty, things might not always be the way they appeared, etc.  For example, while a genuine Resurrection is not naturalistically possible, there are many ways that a Resurrection might have appeared to happen.  Maybe it was a trick by Jesus; maybe he paid off Pontius Pilate to fake the crucifixion.  I don't actually take this possibility too seriously, this is not what I think happened.  But, it remains a possible explanation that does not require the supernatural.  So, as I said, there is always a possible naturalistic explanation to every miracle.

Holding then comments on Craig’s denial that “extraordinary events” require “extraordinary evidence.”  Holding concedes that Craig’s lottery analogy isn’t very good, but says I should cut Craig some slack, seeing how that was an off-the-cuff analogy.  Okay, but, the problem is not merely that the analogy is bad, the problem is, the point he was trying to make is wrong.  Extraordinary events do indeed require extraordinary evidence.  See my article on this subject, and my debate with G. Brady Lenardos.

Objection 4: God Isn't Worthy if He Kills Innocent Children

Holding seems to concede that Geisler did a poor job of answering these questions, and that at least much of my criticism of Geisler is reasonable.  Cool!  J

In my analogy to the movie Titanic, Holding comments that much effort was undertaken to surround the fictional characters in true history.  And I concede that modern movie budgets allow for fantastic realism within fictional stories that certainly did not exist in the first century.  But my basic point was, the Gospels could be at least similar to the extent that the authors wanted to put fictional characters into a realistic setting.  And, given that the authors lived in that time period, they no doubt had a good understanding of the region. So, it may well have been easy for them to put fictional characters into a realistic setting.  Today, somebody writing a fictional story set in the first century, if they wanted realism, would need to do a great deal of study of the period.  Somebody who lived in the first century would not need to do this.  Therefore, if the stories somebody wrote at the time had accurate settings, this shouldn’t be surprising.

Generally speaking, the other defenses that Holding provides is along the same lines used in his defense of Objection 1:  I would need omniscience to be able to determine whether something wasn’t the best solution in the long term.  And to which I would respond the same way as I did there, one would think that an omniscient, omnipotent Being would not need a “bad” to make a “greater good”.  Otherwise, how could heaven be any better than Earth?

Objection 5: It's Offensive to Claim Jesus is the Only Way to God

Holding says that I “change the subject” to the question of how does one become saved?  Well, I concede that I mostly ignored parts of his interview that did not deal with this question.  But, I would indeed say that this question is a big part of the interview.  But, I can concede that maybe by focusing on this one subtopic, which perhaps Zacharias didn’t completely flesh out because of the other topics, perhaps I skewed Zacharias’ position on the topic.

The “official” topic of this chapter was whether or not Christianity is fair in claiming exclusivity.  And I can concede to Holding and Zacharias that if Christianity is indeed true, then it is exclusively true.  My main problem is that if it is true, one would think that God would want people to know it is true.  Though the topic of the Trinity was not discussed by Zacharias, I’d like to use that topic for a moment.  Most Christians seem to believe in the Trinity.  In fact, most Christians think this is of paramount importance.  I’ve heard Christians say that not believing in the Trinity could cause you to lose your soul.  Here are some audio tracks by Walter Martin arguing this position:

http://www.waltermartin.org/trinity.ram

http://www.waltermartin.org/trinity2.ram

The only reason I bring this up is, how could it be possible that the Trinity is so important that you could lose your soul over it, and yet God’s “chosen people”, the Jews, had no idea of the Trinity?  The whole idea of God wanting people to know who He is, and He is omnipotent, and yet has somehow failed to have people know who He is, is not plausible in my view.

Holding refers to an analogy by Dr. Kreeft of multiple paths to salvation.  Well, what happened to Christianity have exclusive lock on the truth?  That the only road to salvation is through Jesus Christ?  Holding seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth here.  This multiple paths to salvation idea is directly contradictory to there being only one path to salvation.

Objection 6: A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell

Okay, this chapter is where the fun begins J.  Holding says, “Jacobsen as a whole is clearly not a depraved individual” well, I’ve had people say otherwise… J  He says he thinks I have “overestimated the options for leisure activity, so to speak, in hell.”  Depends on if I’m, um, fully functional… J  Seriously, what could people do for all eternity, whether or not in the company of God, seems rather difficult to imagine.  I’ve heard one atheist say that the idea of eternal life is terrifying—they couldn’t imagine not eventually getting bored.  And after being bored long enough, insanity would come.

Since I don’t personally like the idea of turning to dust, I would hope that it might be possible for God to be able to keep bringing new experiences so that boredom never comes.  But that of course begs the question, if God can do that in heaven, why can't God do the same for hell?  Why shouldn’t those that have decided they would rather spend eternity without God have a way to spend eternity productively?

Holding asks, how I could know for certain the people would change their minds?  Can I read their minds?  No, but I know that the nature of people is that they do tend to change their minds.  So, at the very least, one would have to conclude it likely that some people would change their minds, even if not everybody would.

Now for the sub-objections.  For several of them, I feel that I don’t really have anything new to say, it is up to the reader to decide if my take on them (from the critique) or Holding’s take is the better argument.  But for the others, I wish to rebut some of Holding’s comments:

1. No further comment.

2. No further comment.

3. Holding says that God could, so to speak, “spread out the suffering”.  So that someone that only deserves a relatively small amount of suffering could have it dolled out over eternity.  I suppose that I can’t prove him wrong, but this implies an infinitely thin “layer” of punishment that one would receive.  ‘X’ amount of punishment, levied over an infinite amount of time, would imply that per time unit, you should receive ‘X’ divided by infinity punishment.  This implies that per time unit, one should receive essentially zero suffering/punishment.

4. Holding says I’m mind reading to say that people would want to return to God.  Well, to claim otherwise also requires mind reading.  And it also flies in the face of human nature where people tend to change their mind.

5. No further comment.

6. Holding says I’m mind reading.  He is mind reading to conclude otherwise.

7. I’ve decided to try to more strongly defend my take on Moreland’s position.  I said that I’m not sure, but Moreland “seems” to be making a reference to chaos theory.  Whether he would use that term or not, I agree is debatable.  But I’m am all the more convinced that I am correct that is what he is basically saying.  Moreland says that God probably could have created just a handful of people that would all be saved.  But then says, “the problem is that once God starts to create more people, it becomes more difficult to just create the people who would choose him and not create the people who wouldn’t.”  How could anything ever be “more difficult” for someone omnipotent?  The only conclusion one could make from this statement, and Morland’s Back to the Future analogy is that Moreland is indeed saying that God is not capable of predicting every ramification of every act.  I intend to revise my critique, and make my argument on this sub-objection stronger.

8. As to “second chances,” Holding responds, “How about a 187th, 1296th, 78,463rd chance?”  But this doesn’t really address the question.  And that is, maybe it does take some people “78,463” chances.  But of all the people that get 78,463 chances, and fail, surely some of them would choose right on the 78,464 chance.  How can God know for certain not?  Or, if God really would know that you would choose right on the 78,464 chance, but decides tough doo-doo, you only get the 78,463 chances and that’s that--and you are stuck for all eternity because you never got the 78,464 chance--is this the God you would want to worship?

9. Holding says that he doesn’t think anybody defines reincarnation as for certain to be a human again is what any religion teaches.  I’m pretty certain Holding is incorrect, and that many Buddhists and Hindu teach reincarnation this way.  Then he claims that what would it matter anyway, someone that chooses against God would make the same choice every time.   This is an assertion with no evidence.  And in fact, contradicts what he said in sub-objection 7:  “the argument actually is that one's decision is actually a syncretistic event, in which the people you meet, the experiences you have, and your own free will decision combine.”  In every new life, the people you meet and the experiences you have will be different, and Holding agrees that these are part of the equation.   Therefore, he contradicts himself saying that reincarnation as a human again is inherently futile.

Okay, in summary, I think that Holding has done just about as poor of a job as Moreland did in defending hell.

Objection 7: Church History is Littered with Oppression and Violence

I have only a few things to say in response to Holding on this topic.  First, on the witch trials, Holding says, “IF indeed there had been real witches -- casting spells on people, destroying crops, or otherwise threatening others -- then the only difference between themselves and someone who sticks a knife in your gut is the means by which they kill you.”  Well, since he capitalized IF, I assume he realizes this is a real big IF.  Secondly, even if there were/are witches, aren’t some of them “good” witches?  Don’t they need to be tried on the specific crimes, like “destroying crops” instead of merely being condemned for being a witch?

And, given that the evidence points to the non-existence of effective witchcraft, this says the evidence points to the Bible pronouncing a death sentence for non-existent crimes.  I have heard numbers of executions from “merely” tens of thousands of such executions, to numbers as high as ten million.  (Europe saw many more witch trials than the US.)  I suspect the high numbers are exaggerations.  But, there were indeed many executions that the Bible helped sanction.

Holding says that he doesn’t “see where Woodbridge is ‘all for blaming atheism for bad things done by atheists.’”  Let me be of assistance.  On 216 he says, “in talking about the sins of Christianity to forget the role of atheism in trampling human rights.”  Strobel then quoted to Woodbridge from another Christian, Luis Palau discussing atheism’s role in Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, etc.  To which Woodbridge responds, “give the lack of framework in atheism for making moral decisions, it is easy to see why the world has experienced the horrors of these regimes.”  Okay, there you go.

Objection 8: I Still Have Doubts, So I Can't be a Christian

Holding responds to Objection 8 by denying that there are various levels of being convinced.  He says, “my own take on this matter is that those who speak of being at various levels of being ‘convinced’ are fooling themselves.” 

Well, I’d have to say that my own take is that Holding is fooling himself.  If I asked him if Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, could he say that he is 100% certain yes, or 100% certain no?  Well, I guess he could if he were the second gunman… J  But, generally speaking, it is clear to me that various levels of belief in everything, not just religious beliefs, is human nature.  But that Holding can’t allow for this, for it would mean that my take on Objection 8 is right.  So, he has to deny this.  Sorry, but your denial doesn’t work.

Use the links below to return to my critique, or to follow the rest of my debate with Mr. Holding.