How Should Christians Address Transgenderism?

In the last post, we saw that it can be problematic to refer to some people as “Christian homosexuals.”In this post, the continuation, I’d like to discuss the idea of Christian LGBT—specifically the “T.” I’d read a blog post where a well-meaning person suggested it would be a good step for the Southern Baptist Convention to seek to hear from members of the LGBT Community. There’s a charitable way to interpret this suggestion, but it got me thinking about this issue. In the acronym LGBT, one of these things is not like the other. The “T,” specifically, does not relate to sexual orientation. In fact, it trades on the supposed distinction between gender and sex, and so differs greatly. A trans man is one who was born a female in sex, but identifies as a man in gender. This identification may or may not coincide with sex re-assignment (now called “gender confirmation”) surgery.

Can the Christian Church recognize so-called Christian transgender? In order to answer this, one must answer what his anthropology and philosophy of gender/sex are. On the Christian view, we are persons made in the image of God, created as male and female. The intention is for the two to be separate, and thus, along with the last post I made, we can conclude there is something wrongly ordered about the mixing together of the two in one human being in some way.

However, we must ask ourselves the questions: are gender and sex two separate things, or identical? Are there really such things as gender roles or gender distinctives? Our society has been of incoherent mind about each of these questions, but Christians cannot afford to be. To the first: if gender and sex coincide (or are identical), then there really isn’t such a thing as transgender as outlined above. Whatever sex you are “assigned”[1]is what your gender is, and hence what you really are. If gender and sex are not identical or do not coincide, we have to ask if we think God assigns a gender and allows it to be distinct from the sex. If we think that God does assign a gender, then we must answer the second question in the affirmative. We must think there are gender distinctions, and that includes at least functional roles of some kind or other. Additionally, if we answer the first question by saying gender/sex are identical or at least coincide, we must answer the second question in the affirmative. Only in the case that we say sex and gender do not necessarily coincide and God does not assign a gender to a person can we answer the second question in the negative (and even here, answering “no” does not necessarily follow). 

If there are no gender roles or distinctions, it makes little sense to say there is a true gender beyond the sex one is (at least currently). So this means, essentially, there are gender roles and distinctions. As Christians, we ought to think about gender and sex in terms of what God intends, in a rightly-ordered fashion. God intends that some of us are male and some are female, not switching or intermingling the two. I further think it’s problematic to say there are no gender roles or distinctions, given the Christian view. Thus, while we can debate about the functions of the roles and the kinds and extent of the distinction, Christians should not debate that there aresuch roles and distinctions.

As such, recognizing “Christian transgender” as a category is unhelpful from a Christian standpoint. As with the LGB post earlier, it’s important for us to recognize these people are made in the image of God. We ought to find ways to love them and come alongside them in support of who they are or can be in Christ. And we ought to recognize there is a rightly ordered way—a way humans were meant to be—and move forward with any proposals with a distinctly biblical and Christian way of viewing this issue.

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[1]A somewhat silly concept, as what sex one is typically is a matter of objective, empirical fact, not subject to arguments from the humanities.

Review of Craig-Wielenberg Debate on Morality

There was a debate held tonight at N.C. State University in Raleigh, NC, between Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and Eric Wielenberg, an academic philosopher at DePaul (not 100% sure about which school). The debate format featured an opening, two responses, and a closing, followed by a Q-and-A. Two responses felt like a bit much, as the participants ended up repeating each other somewhat. The question was something like: What is the most plausible foundation for objective moral values and duties? Craig offered the theistic solution, while Wielenberg argued for what he called “godless normative realism.” What follows is my scattered and only slightly cleaned-up notes, plus some concluding evaluation.

Craig opening: Godless normative realism is just Moral Platonism (akin to mathematical Platonism); conceptual reality for most, but Platonists must say there are real abstract objects. When the right physical situations occur, these abstract objects supervene on the situations. What this means is that moral duties are superveniences on physical objects and situations. What Wielenberg needs is a rationally compelling argument against the presumption against Platonism (or a knockdown argument for Platonism). No rationally compelling arguments against the presumption against Platonism exist. Theists do not face such a problem, since God is a concrete, not abstract, object. Supervenience account seems unintelligible. Wielenberg claims physical objects cause the abstract objects to supervene on physical situations; Craig says this is super-duper-venience (utterly mysterious). How can this happen? Wielenberg appeals to theistic causation as an example; this won’t work due to the difference of concrete objects, as listed above. Another problem is as-follows: What if these physical objects pick out some other abstract object instead of the right one? Some are only contingently caused. That is, what if the physical object, when one is a brain-state like love, picks out the abstract object of the square root of 4? What accounts for the correct physical-abstract pairing? Wielenberg appeals to divine concurrence as an example.. This fails due to God’s being a personal agent. Wielenberg does not have agency here. He postulates decisive moral reasons for acting constitutes obligations. However, this eliminates supererogation (moral heroes going above and beyond the call of duty). This also is only for instrumental actions (or conditional obligation, “If you want to act morally, then do this”). In other words, godless normative realism can only get you that such-and-such is moral and that if you want tobe moral, do such-and-such; it cannot get you the further fact that you ought to do such-and-such. This view also subverts moral duties by undermining freedom of the will, according to Craig. Mental supervenes on the physical; you are a machine; machines are not obligated to do anything. There is no enduring self. Thus no one can be held accountable for particular acts. Moral knowledge is also impossible, due to Plantinga’s EAAN. The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, in brief, states that if naturalism and evolution were true, then our cognitive faculties are aimed at survival, not necessarily truth. If this is the case, then, probably, we have a defeater for every belief we hold (this is because, for all we would know, our entire belief set is held for survival purposes only, and only incidentally gets at the truth rarely, if at all. But if you have a defeater for every belief, then you have a defeater for evolutionary naturalism. This also applies to knowledge from evolutionary naturalism about morality!

Wielenberg opening: He gives a story about a suffering child and one’s obligation to save them. He claims that moral features of things are fundamental features of reality. Craig’s view has all the same problems as his does, so why should these problems count against Wielenberg? First, the causal connection problem attends to theistic causal views. Second, what explains why there is a necessary connection between an act commanded by God and an obligation to do that thing? Third, how to the possible worlds know how to generate God? Fourth, dualism posits things not accounted for in physics. Fifth, no argument by Craig for no self. Sixth, it could be that mental states and physical states are identical and thus accounted for. Seventh, physical and immaterial interactions are also problematic. Eighth, as to moral supererogation, Christianity has the same problem (e.g., love one another). His view can be tweaked by having exclusionary permission. This is the view that there is value in performing our own goals for our lives (if they are moral); in these cases, acting on moral reasons anyway is supererogatory. It is implausible that God’s commands are what constitute moral obligations, since we can just see that someone in need ought to be helped, for example. Next, people must be aware of the commands and of the authority of the one giving the commandment. Craig’s view makes moral obligations inexplicable.

Craig response: Frames the issues of Wielenberg’s responses to Craig: 1. Craig’s view arbitrarily singles out divine commands: Craig denies this; there can be multiple sources, but commands are the highest in the order. God issues general commands to all of humanity; in any specific situation it is up to us to apply that general principle. 2. Craig’s view implies non-believers have no obligations since they are not aware. On Christianity, God has written the law on their hearts, so that they do have such obligations. 3. Craig’s view makes morally wrong acts inexplicable, since God commands them to do what he knows they won’t do. Didn’t catch fully his response here. No powerful objections by Wielenberg to first contention. Second: So’s-your-old-man response. The alleged problem with the view of Wielenberg is unresolved. Second, if opponent can show any relevant difference, then the strategy collapses. Next, even given moral Platonism, there are still formidable objections: first, the account of supervenience seems unintelligible; Wielenberg says it is also obscure how non-physical entities can be causally connected to physical entities. It’s not as obscure though! We have experience of our own causal connection, even if we don’t know how it works. Craig can’t know why God’s commanding gives us a powerful reason to do it, Wielenberg claims. Theists are not naturalists, so this is not relevant. After all, on Wielenberg’s view, obtaining reasons that direct one to a moral action is the naturalistic one. Craig responds that possible worlds do not instantiate God, so something of a category error has been committed. Supererogation: the tweak contradicts his own view; it is no longer godless natural realism accounting for morality, but this new principle. Freedom of the will: reductionism has been largely rejected by philosophers of mind. Moral knowledge is impossible: EAAN: needs to be addressed.

Wielenberg’s response: Craig’s view needs to make sense of morality as well or better than Wielenberg’s view, and it’s not clear he has. So the tu quoque is relevant, says Wielenberg. He doubles down on lack of theory being the equalizer. Great-making properties: how do these actually cause God to be great? Mental states are not brain states according to Craig. Wielenberg claims this is inaccurate; that philosophers of mind don’t reject the view as Craig says. We don’t know how souls can possess agency, so there’s no special problem for Wielenberg. EAAN: unguided evolution has made rational creatures, so EAAN is doubtful. Be perfect is a Christian obligation to show there is no supererogation. As for Craig’s intuitive remarks, psychopaths refute this. Wielenberg discusses, basically, Molinism. Craig’s idea: I deserve punishment, so God commands me to help; if I can be punished, then command is not needed; if command is violated, then that can’t be a reason for the command (deserving of punishment). The million Holocausts objection to God’s presence needed: if you could lift a finger and prevent a million Holocausts, it is evident, morally, you should do it, even if you receive no command.

Craig’s second: Craig’s view is arbitrary; we do experience duties, but this doesn’t reveal to us the ultimate source. Psychopaths: if they don’t know the difference for real, they are not culpable. Craig did not say by issuing commands God is able to hold those who do wrong responsible; rather, able to those who do evil acts, so no circularity. A problem with Wielenberg’s account is the kind of causal connection, not primarily how it works. Great-making properties: this is a misconceived objection, same as possible worlds, since great-making properties are just things it’s better for a perfect being to have than to lack, not things that “generate” God. “Christianity has no supererogation”: perfect obedience does not entail there are no supererogatory acts. Freedom of the will: mental states and brain states have different properties, meaning mental states are not reducible. Mental states cannot cause anything not already determined by brain states. Causal agency is necessary for free will. Physical states do not have brain states. Wielenberg denies initial premise of EAAN. This is question-begging.

Wielenberg second: Craig’s great-making God must just be so, which is a tu quoque. Supererogation: Craig didn’t address this. Craig’s phil of mind claims are controversial. Craig appealed to Plantinga’s EAAN, which solves nothing. Consider that the lighter is reliable. In the same way, unguided evolution produces mostly true beliefs. The million Holocausts objection again. Craig says an order is needed. Reiterating evil act circularity objection. Psychopaths objection pressed again. Combined with Craig’s evil/wrong distinction, so that psychopaths should be punished, but if they don’t perceive the wrong, they shouldn’t be.

Craig closing: First, theism provides sound foundation of objective moral values (God as concrete object). Second, it provides for objective moral duties. Objections have been morphing throughout, not consistent. Several powerful objections to godless normative realism. Correction on EAAN.

Wielenberg closing: Million Holocausts again. Craig’s view predicts no morally wrong actions. Now introduces pointless evil; evildoing merits punishment. Psychopaths are plausible exceptions to what Craig says, which means they don’t have obligations; however they are evildoers; Craig’s view requires that psychopaths then do have moral obligations.

Evaluation: I will try to keep this brief. I thought Wielenberg did well; better, in fact, than the average Craig opponent. However, I thought his criticisms of Craig were more often than not based on misunderstandings, and what was perhaps his best critique of Craig wasn’t fully articulated until the closing statement, which was unfortunate. Craig seemed to get the best of Wielenberg several times—especially with respect to the EAAN. I will say, before going back to earlier points in the debate, Wielenberg’s handling of the EAAN was his poorest aspect. In response to the EAAN, Wielenberg claims we can just look around at the kind of things naturalism has produced, to see if they have regularly true beliefs. This is both question-begging and circular! Question-begging because he assumes naturalism is true—which is the very thing under question! The whole point of the EAAN is to figure out if it’s true—you can’t very well respond to an argument for its falsehood by saying, “Well, since naturalism is true, we know that evolution and naturalism do yield true beliefs on a good enough scale!” It’s circular because it turns out that one would have to be using his cognitive faculties to know that the cognitive faculties around him were functioning toward truth, in general.

It seems to me Craig was pretty right on in his critique of Wielenberg’s account. Additionally, he did fairly well against Wielenberg’s critiques. I wanted to address a couple. First, Wielenberg didn’t seem to appreciate fully the distinction between objective moral values and duties. If you do evil (value), you should be punished. But God’s commands constitute your duties, so God gives a command (duty). Thus, evildoers are punished. But what about non-believers? These people do not recognize God’s authority and do not know about God’s commands. Craig’s intended meaning becomes clear: he means normally functioning people do receive God’s commands in the form of general moral knowledge on the heart. So what about psychopaths?

The psychopath objection ultimately was Wielenberg’s best, in my opinion. Eventually, the idea is this: Craig says that evildoers have commands by God that give them an obligation that they flout—otherwise, they would get away with murder. Psychopaths do evil, so on Craig’s view, they get a command and now have an obligation not to do it. But, plausibly, psychopaths do not know the difference between right and wrong and so, on Craig’s view, do not have an obligation. So now psychopaths both do and do not have an obligation, and anything that generates a contradiction is absurd.

The answer to this for Craig came out in the Q-and-A: Craig means this as a normally functioning thing. He doesn’t mean this for the mentally disabled, or infants, or psychopaths (if indeed they truly do not perceive right and wrong at all). Thus they simply have no moral obligation, and no contradiction is generated.

As for the “Million Holocaust” objection, I think this is answered by asking a single question. Recall the objection is that if you could stop a million Holocausts by raising a single finger, you would have an obligation to do so, even in the absence of a command by God. Since God’s commands are what constitute moral obligation, there must be something wrong with Craig’s view.

It seems to me the answer is clear: ask the question, “Why?” Why is it we would be obligated to help? Suppose Wielenberg answers, “Because if you can help prevent people from dying then, all things being equal, you should,” then Craig can plausibly claim this just is what is meant by general commands from God. Preserve life. Love people. These two general commands clearly find application here.

What about, finally, Wielenberg’s claim that in order to be obligated by an authority one must recognize that authority? Craig quite accurately pointed out this isn’t true. He appealed to an example by Matt Flannagan that I will paraphrase loosely here: suppose you are walking along a large farm and come to a gate. This gate is closed, and has a sign that says “No admittance. Violators will be punished.” You don’t know who placed the sign, but you are aware that there is a rule and there is a rule-giver, and this is plausibly enough to place an obligation on you not to enter (it would be disingenuous to enter on the grounds that you weren’t familiar with the authority who wrote it, and so didn’t find the sign to be conveying obligatory acts). The same goes for morality.

In the final analysis, I found Wielenberg to be a nice guy who has some interesting thoughts, and he did better than your average Craig opponent. With the exception of the EAAN (where he appeared to be dealing with it for the first time, at places), he appeared to be familiar with Craig’s arguments and responses. However, Craig countered almost every single objection, and provided devastating (I think) objections of his own. He further shared the Gospel message in the Q-and-A portion! I enjoyed it, and I hope others did, too!

Condemning, Confessing, Promoting on Social Media

I missed much of what happened over the weekend. I wasn’t on social media for most of the weekend, and since I’ve now come to realize I get the vast majority of my news from it, I wasn’t really aware of what happened. I wasn’t going to address the Charlottesville issue because I don’t address that many political issues on Facebook much anymore.[1]

So let me just say that I condemn racism and using violence to solve ideological issues in this country, regardless of right, alt-right, left, center, progressive, far-left, far-right, whatever your preferred political label is. The Gospel needs to be the answer; the transforming power it contains in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Father who sent him, and the Holy Spirit is what we all need.

Now instead of giving you all of my opinions on what has happened, I’m going to take a bit of a different approach. My wife mentioned to me that she has seen some on social media insisting on something like the following: you must condemn this on social media, and if you don’t, then insert your favored term here (“then you’re a racist,” “then you’re not a Christian,” “then you’re bigoted,” “then you must be alt-right,” etc.).

I think this is problematic, and frankly appears to be a single step above the old Christian chain e-mails, whereupon receiving one a believer was expected to forward it to 25 friends, lest she be condemned as “ashamed of Christ.” While one should not be ashamed of Christ, and one should even utilize their e-mail platform to promote Christ, whether or not she sent the e-mail has no bearing on whether she is fulfilling her duties as a Christian (even though it could—say, if in fact she was ashamed of Christ, and this is why she didn’t send the e-mail).

In a similar way, I am not required to condemn everything loudly, even when it may be worthy of condemnation. I did so above only because, since I am addressing the issue, it’s quite appropriate to do so. Nothing about my previous non-response entails my view on a subject, and anyone who interprets that way is doing so illegitimately. I’m afraid what the combination of social media and competitive, customized journalistic agendas has produced is a world filled with fundamentalists, where not saying, thinking, and doing the same exact set of things as everyone else in the group is condemned in the most extreme terms, where people are virtually incapable of nuanced debate, and where they are constantly looking for conflict. This kind of thinking, without check or restraint, nearly always leads to violence, and leads us to hate others in our hearts, in violation of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matthew 5:21-22).

Finally, while some good can be done on social media, let us not kid ourselves: the world’s social ills are not solved on Facebook. Should you use your platform to advance the Gospel and truths related to it (which will doubtlessly include condemning racism)? Of course you should do this occasionally, at least. Let’s engage the world with the hope of the Gospel—one that transcends race and political ideology!

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[1] And I get that it’s not merely a political issue. I really do! But it’s become one, and almost immediately after it occurred.

Arguments from Tradition

I have recently realized why I don’t find arguments from tradition (especially in theology) very persuasive.[1] It used to be that I didn’t take church tradition very seriously at all. Now, I certainly think there is value in it (though I don’t perceive it to be authoritative). Nonetheless, I still find such appeals to tradition to be problematic.

It seems to me that the argument typically goes like this: this is a position tradition has upheld for a thousand years or more; you are arrogant to think that you somehow have it right where a thousand + years of Christianity had it wrong.

While there are issues on the periphery that bother me (e.g., if it’s arrogant, while that’s interesting, this alone says little about whether I am correct; it’s not clear why mere disagreement entails arrogance, and potentially so on), a bigger issue seems to me to lie in the claim itself that, in our example, has stood for a thousand years or more.

So let’s take it to be the case that this traditional position has been either: a) affirmed by a council, or b) made official dogma (I only differentiate in cases where someone might; I’m just trying to cover bases). This prevents a weaker case of tradition where some view has simply been held by Christians over the years; this is a view held by perhaps the vast majority of Christians over centuries.

While I agree that going against such a view should only be done in the gravest of care, I think we have an interesting scenario: it isn’t, presumably, the case that over the course of a thousand years, the vast majority of Christians who ever lived tested out the position to see if it was true, and all independently came to this conclusion that the position is true. Instead, in cases of (a) or (b), the position simply becomes the paradigm within which Christians work. At best, most Christians simply accept the position, and the rest work assuming the paradigm is true (in apropos Kuhnian fashion) and seeing how to defend it or what results from it.

Much, perhaps even most, of the force of these types of traditional arguments are removed when one realizes that the claim amounts to, “Everyone else has gotten in line; why haven’t you?” That claim, of course, works easily in cases where one takes tradition itself to be a kind of authority; but I don’t (for better or, as my Catholic friends may say, for worse).

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[1] This is true in most contexts. Obviously, where the discussion centers around what tradition has typically upheld, I take it that traditional appeals are demonstrative.

CARM and Molinism (But Really Just Prevenient Grace)

It has come to my attention that there is a newer, recent article from Matt Slick on prevenient grace and Molinism. In it, he attempts to argue that total depravity rules out prevenient grace (he applies this reasoning to two versions of prevenient grace, but since it relies on the same foundational reasoning it will be sufficient to deal with that). This is what I take to be his argument, in premise form:

1.     If total depravity is true, then man cannot come to God freely.

2.     If prevenient grace is true, then unregenerate man is still totally depraved.

3.     Total depravity is true (assumption of prevenient grace).

4.     Prevenient grace is true (assumption of prevenient grace, by definition)

5.     Therefore, if prevenient grace is true, then man still cannot come to God freely.

6.     Therefore, man still cannot come to God freely.

I believe I have represented Slick fairly and accurately here. However, there are some problems. First, he takes total depravity to mean that there is no free choosing of God and that prevenient grace doesn’t rectify this at all, since man is still totally depraved, and that prevenient grace relies on total depravity (since otherwise it wouldn’t be necessary). But this is just question-begging. After all, the advocate for prevenient grace can just insist that he doesn’t accept (3) if this is what total depravity entails (instead, call it “total depravity lite,” where the only difference is that prevenient grace can restore such an ability as an act of divine grace); or she can say she rejects (2), since, after all, prevenient grace is intended to restore, and so restores to a condition of total depravity lite. Why can’t he or she make this move?

Spelling it out more, this assumes prevenient grace doesn’t accomplish what it intends to accomplish. Prevenient grace agrees that man is totally depraved, but that any good that can be done by man is due to God’s enabling grace, and that he can come to the Father on the occasion of the Spirit’s moving work. But Slick simply claims that, in premise 2, we can see it doesn’t accomplish this. Why should we think this? Well, Slick quotes a few verses without doing any exegetical work. In other words, he builds his conclusion into his argument; he begs the question.

In truth, why can Molinists not just reject (2), and point out prevenient grace is meant to solve the ability problem? You can’t very well reply that prevenient grace doesn’t solve the ability problem because there is an ability problem!