Troll Feeding Time

Dave "Troll" Armstrong must need his ego stroked, because he's gone back on his word, yet again, with respect to engaging "anti-Catholics," calling people names and so on and so on.

Over at Beggars All, he says of Jason Engwer:

I engaged apologist Jason Engwer in a huge, CARM-sponsored debate on SS and the fathers, but alas, he decided to leave the debate less than halfway through:

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/11/reply-to-jason-engwers-catholic-but.html

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/11/reply-to-jason-engwers-catholic-but_21.html

I've been in many debates about the fathers' views. My experience has been -- almost universally --, that the Protestant (even the many who weren't anti-Catholics, that I have debated) offers no further argumentation, once the Catholic side is presented. That's a shame, because for me, the best part of every debate or dialogue is in the second round, where things get very interesting. It's so rare to find anyone who is even willing to get that far into a discussion. 'Tis a pity. But if one has a weak case, this is altogether to be expected.

He writes of me:

The ones who turned down the chat debate made it very clear at the time, why they did so. For example, Gene Bridges, writing on TAO's blog on 10-25-07:

http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2007/10/debate-challenge-by-dave-armstrong.html?showComment=1193345040000#c5196332919770302740

". . . you are a chronic liar . . . I'd rather not waste an over an hour of my already brief life on talking to you. It would be poor stewardship of my time. I follow the same policy with you that Steve Hays follows, and since the greater luminaries of the debate world aren't debating you, why should I? You're the one that refuses to debate them in public, . . . And here's another reason Dave: Titus 3 says to reject the factious man. You are the epitome of that man. You've demonstrated that several times. Further, this isn't about the truth for you Dave, however defined, it's about stroking your own overbloated ego. Frankly, after observing your past behavior as well, such as particular artwork that gets posted from time to time, I'm not willing to debate with a person of such obviously low character either."

There you go! I am a wicked, wascally scoundrel,and so ole Gene has no time to debate me!

Jason can speak for himself...

With respect to me...By way of reply:

Thank you, Dave for proving my words about you being a chronic liar are 100 percent true.

Here's what Uncle Dave didn't include, namely the full quote:

Dave, I don't keep up with your blog or comments that you hide in the comments of other blogs. I come by you when I stumble across you.

I have not received a proper request from you for a debate, so don't go running about telling people I have "refused" to debate you about anything. Notice that this is, what, all of one or two days, and already, according to you I've "refused."

In fact, let's put this in context, the only reason I am aware of your request now is that I saw it here.
It's announcement was not in an email to me (that would be too easy and logical, since my mail is public) but in a link to your blog that you posted one or two days ago, near the end of a comment thread on a prayer request for rain! Since it is presently raining here, I wasn't aware I needed to check it for debate challenges on Catholicism. Sorry,but that tactic earns you an automatic "No," since you lacked the integrity to simply email. You had your chance, and you blew it.
This reply is also here, and not on my blog to make that point. I've placed it where I found the challenge, and it's not in my email box.

Further, you are a chronic liar who says that we want monologues with you. As I recall, you are not banned from posting commentary in any article I have written on Catholicism on Tblog, and, since I've written on you recently, as I look around, I've seen my name show up once on your blog. Again, you had your chance then,and you blew it.

Oh - and since the infallibility of the Pope had not yet been made a de fide object of faith in Rome until the 19th century, what Steve and I have said stands, and, as usual, what you say doesn't begin to touch what we have stated. It suffers from anachronistic reading of texts.

If you would write something less than the long, incoherent, and rambling posts you write - posts that an English professor would grade "C" at best, I might be willing to do a blog debate. I prefer to respond to other articles or, in your case, to you shoddy, incompetent,and anachronistic exegetical work.

I don't use a chat function on my computer-not even for AOL - all chatrooms are blocked-, and I'm not a member of Paltalk, and don't intend to be. I don't even use a soundcard. I also have a real life in the real world, and that includes working as a freelance writer who will be chronically several conferences beginning in November. I also live with terminal illness. I'd rather not waste an over an hour of my already brief life on talking to you. It would be poor stewardship of my time.

I follow the same policy with you that Steve Hays follows, and since the greater luminaries of the debate world aren't debating you, why should I? You're the one that refuses to debate them in public, and then you have all the courage to issue a debate challenge to me near the end of a comment stream on praying for rain. I learned about it here, and then I had to Google that by first Googling for a debate challenge from you to me, going to your blog, which I don't read already, and then finding the thread on my blog, not in a thread on the topic of Catholicism, but on a prayer request for rain. Why should I honor that, Dave?

And here's another reason Dave: Titus 3 says to reject the factious man. You are the epitome of that man. You've demonstrated that several times. Further, this isn't about the truth for you Dave, however defined, it's about stroking your own overbloated ego. Frankly, after observing your past behavior as well, such as particular artwork that gets posted from time to time, I'm not willing to debate with a person of such obviously low character either. You've also taken an oath to stop interacting with "anti-Catholics", and yet here you are wanting us to interact with you. I, for one, take the Law on making vows seriously, and I am not going to contribute to you sin before God in violating your word.

But here is something you can do Dave. You can renounce Rome and all her merits. You can cast yourself on Christ and Christ alone, and you can trust in Him and Him onlyfor your eternal salvation.

I'll remind, you, Dave:

you are the very definition of the factious man about whom Paul warned Titus, as well as a chronic liar. Indeed, let's not forget, Dave, the way you "challenged" me to a "debate," and let's not forget that you were the one dictating the terms of the debate.

Let's put it this way...you really are a second rate adversary. Debating you is about feeding your own overbloated ego. You sir, need to repent and turn to Christ, not engage in debates. That's one reason people refuse to debate you. It's not worth our time. TF is being extremely generous. If you really wanted a debate, you'd take him up on his terms. Debate his way on his terms...but, as always, it's all about Dave. It always has been and it always will.

Further, on the one hand, you constantly oscillate between not engaging anti-Catholics and then calling people whom you label anti-Catholic, such as yours truly and Jason, to debate. These two propositions pull in logically opposing directions. Pick a position and stick with it, Dave. It's just that simple. But the fact that you can't be bothered to keep you own word, much less tell the truth signals to us that you are dishonest opponent. Why should anybody on your side of the aisle or ours debate dishonest opponents?

You're a troll, Dave. Normally, I don't feed them. Now go back under your bridge. Away with you. Go pester somebody else.

And before you get the completely illogical idea that I am either up for debate now or are somehow "afraid" to debate you. No, Dave, not at all, on either count. Why? Well, I've had some very serious family issues going on for the past few months, some of which has cleared up, some of which has not. That is a large part of the reason I don't post on Tblog very much at all. I've not had much to say, and I've not had the time to say much. Simply put, my real world responsibilities are taking my priority right now. It's that simple.

Singers on singing

While we're on the subject of vocalism, Jerome Hines has some revealing comments about a shift in vocal standards in opera:

************************************************************************************

Hines: Let me put it this way. We are facing a generation of young singers who are much more diminutive in their approach to singing. I will sing King Mark with a Tristan who I feel should be doing Almaviva.

Shore: Jerry, a few years ago a major regional opera company did DON CARLO and hired you to do the Grand Inquisitor. A young international bass of the current generation, who I will simply call Mr. X, was the Philip. The Chorus Master is a friend of mine and he relayed this account of the show. He said, "We all thought Mr. X was sounding just fine as Philip until out walked Jerome Hines as the Grand Inquisitor, and he made Mr. X sound like a teenager. WE HAD ALL FORGOTTEN WHAT A REAL BASS SOUNDS LIKE."

Hines: I have a tape of that performance and Mr. X sounds like my little boy!

(Shore: While Jerry was alive I never revealed who "Mr. X" was but now that Jerry is gone I don't mind revealing that Mr. X was Sam Ramey and the opera company was Tulsa where Ramey was singing Philip and Hines was the Inquisitor.)

http://www.josephshore.com/Hines/interview%204.htm

Shore: Can you describe the differences in the way singers sounded when you were coming into the business 50 years ago and how they sound now?

Hines: Yes, when I came to the Met, Robert Merrill and Leonard Warren sounded more like basses than most of the basses you hear today. Take Lawrence Tibbett. He had a big, world-class sound. It was a richer, heavier sound by far than what you hear from baritones today.

Shore: Jerry do you think that we in the universities should hold up the professional singer's voice as a model for our young students?

Hines: Oh, absolutely. I'll give you an example. I went to a major university to do a series of master classes. They had a recital the first thing when I got there. The worst singer on the program was a tenor. He was just a disaster. But he had a couple of notes that really got my attention. I heard buried in there another Mario Del Monaco. I took him aside and told him to come for a voice lesson within the next day or two. He came in with "Nessun dorma," and "Ch'ella mi creda." I started working with him. I said, "Don't be afraid of it. Sing with some real guts," and I started showing how to do it, how to correct the high voice. Within an hour he was just knocking the socks off of it. So I spoke to the chairman of the department and said, "Come to this guy's next lesson. I want to get your opinion." So she did, and he just sang up a storm. At the end of the lesson she said to me, 'I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT HE HAD THAT VOICE IN HIM, AND IF I HAD SUSPECTED IT, I WOULD HAVE BEEN AFRAID TO HAVE LET HIM SING THAT WAY FOR FEAR HE WOULD HAVE HURT HIS VOICE AND I WOULD HAVE LOST MY JOB." Then she said, "YOU KNOW, I THINK I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE. I THINK THAT WE VOICE TEACHERS IN ACADEMIA ARE DESTROYING A WHOLE GENERATION OF SINGERS. WE ARE AFRAID TO LET THEM SOUND LIKE OPERA SINGERS FOR FEAR THAT THEY MIGHT HURT THEIR VOICES AND WE MIGHT LOSE OUR JOBS.' And that was her confession to me."

http://www.josephshore.com/Hines/interview%205.htm

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!

NEWS FLASH ALERT!

Michael Jackson's condition remains stable and unchanged this week.

Police state football genius Steve McNair was murdered by the woman he was cheating with over fears that he was cheating on her.

Good news! Unemployment not as bad as feared, despite hitting record high since the Labor Department began keeping statistics in 1967! Huzzah!

Protests chanting in weird foreign language get murdered in Iran over something inconsequential and hardly worth mentioning.

New poll confirms: Michael Jackson cool!


Stay tuned to Triablogue for more on these important events.

Peter Pan forever

Since I was never a teenage girl, it’s hard for me to identify with the mindset of a teenage girl. But there’s apparently a phase during which otherwise sane and sober members of the opposite sex swoon and scream and pine for boys of a particular type. Soft and sweet–like a stuffed animal.

In the nature of the case, the professional lifespan of teenybopper heartthrob rivals the Mayfly.

Over the years I’ve had a succession of forgettable, replaceable, interchangeable specimens inflicted on me as a captive member of the audience while I stood in line for the cashier. Once upon a time it was David Cassidy. Then his brother Shaun upstaged him. Justin Timberlake came and went. So did Ryan Philippe.

I take it that Zac Efron is the current teenage heartthrob du jour, although he's dangerously close to being over the ill. Maybe the Jonas brothers are easing him out.

Besides the checkout stand, you also stumble across this sort of thing when you're channel surfing. It’s a strange, parallel universe.

Normally, these performers fade from the scene when they can’t pass for junior high or high school students any more. However, the Sixties locked in the youth culture.

In this respect we might compare Frank Sinatra with Michael Jackson. Sinata started out as a teenage heartthrob.

But he grew up. And when he grew up, he outgrew that image. He became a grown man. He didn't try to look or act like he was a high school student all his life.

But I think the Sixties created a market niche for a permanent teenybopper pop star.

Michael Jackson never grew up. Made a virtue of immaturity. Precious.

And there’s a teenybopper subculture for whom arrested adolescence is the new ideal. Boyhood over manhood. Indeed, androgyny over masculinity. Jackson–with his little girl speaking voice. His little girl singing voice. His girlish hair and dainty complexion.

Doomed to repeat the past

We’ve all heard Santayana’s popular aphorism, variously paraphrased, that those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. But is it true?

To take an obvious example, many kids refuse to learn from the mistakes of their parents. And that’s not out of ignorance. Their parents have regaled them on their own youthful indiscretions, in hopes of deterring their kids from repeating the same mistakes.

Liberal academicians assure us that history is written by the winners. But that’s not true. Losers, precisely because they lost, are equally motivated to rewrite history to their advantage. They either recast themselves as the winners or else recast themselves as the victims. The injured party–even if they were the aggressors.

There’s a sense in which historical knowledge can enslave a people. They identify with the plight of their forebears. Historical grudges are handed down from one generation to the next. Who did what to whom.

One can imagine a science fiction story, set in post-apocalyptic future, in which a totalitarian regime forbids the teaching of history. It does so on the grounds that historical knowledge is divisive and dangerous. Historical knowledge perpetuates ancient animosities. Real or imagined wrongs are never forgotten. Never laid to rest.

As a result, the regime has banned historical textbooks. Existing copies are confiscated and destroyed.

But there’s an underground movement of insurgent historians who, in the name of freedom, foment a revolt. They recruit the younger generation. Together, they successfully topple the regime.

But once the new regime begins teaching history, the social fabric starts to unravel as various racial and ethic groups which had been living in a state of peaceful coexistence are suddenly given a long list of reasons to resent and distrust one another.

This leads to street gangs. Urban warfare. Civil war. The cycle repeats itself.

My point is not that we should stop teaching history, although a lot of what passes for history is historical revisionism and pure propaganda.

My point is simply that Santayana’s prescription is naïve. We will not find our salvation in the annals of history. Historical knowledge cannot deliver us from the bondage of sin.

People can become enslaved to the past. Fatal camaraderie with the dead. They keep fighting the last battle. Living in the past–sometimes a past that never existed. Defending the honor of the dead.

Thriller

Michael Jackson fans frequently cite Thriller as the peak of his artistic career. This is the showcase of his artistic “genius.” It was downhill from there. Thriller was made before Jackson started getting “weird.”

Now, I admit that I’ve never seen Thriller from start to finish. It’s not my cup of tea. But I have seen the usual clips that are replayed ad nauseum.

From what I can tell, Thriller is a campy take-off of some horror film clichés. Night of the Living Dead. A terrified babe who’s desperately fleeing a psychopathic killer. That sort of thing.

How that adds up to musical genius isn’t transparently clear to me.

In addition, it seems to me that there’s already something a little bit “weird” about dancing zombies.

I really don’t see how this rises above the level of a popcorn movie. Indeed, the whole thing seems cornier than Kansas in August.

When Jackson fans defend his musical “genius,” they talk about the “complete package.” It isn’t any one thing–but the sum of the parts.

Okay, but aside from the fact that he seems to have been a pretty good hoofer in his prime, the sum of the parts is only as good as the parts.

It’s not as if he invented the musical. Remember Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?

I can see how Thriller might be appealing to teenagers at a drive-in movie theater–alongside other camp classics, like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

Responding to Dan

Dan asked:

Peter: re: Regeneration prior to faith
Titus 3:5 5(A)He saved us, (B)not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but (C)according to His mercy, by the (D)washing of regeneration and (E)renewing by the Holy Spirit.." We are saved by the washing of regeneration. That, in my opinion, occurs when we receive Christ as articulated in JN. 1:12 "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become (A)children of God, even (B)to those who believe in His name..." I don't see regeneration as occuring prior to faith. I understand why Calvinism believes this; I just don't think the Bible teaches it. Can you point me to some explicit texts that clearly teach it? Thanks.

First, you could start by dealing with what's already been mentioned about 1 John 5:1. ;-) Never mind, I'll deal with it again below.

As for your quote of Titus 3:5, you are committing a category error. Paul is mentioning specific steps toward a general outcome.

If it helps you to think about it, suppose you have a computer that will transport a signal to launch a rocket when it receives a command to do so. Further suppose that you have a button that instructs the computer to send such a message when it is pressed.

At time (t), you press the button. This causes the computer to send a signal to the rocket. That signal causes the rocket to launch. Which of these following statements is true:

1) The rocket launched because the button was pressed.
2) The rocket launched because the computer sent a signal to launch.
3) The rocket launched because the button sent a signal to a computer.
4) The rocket launched because Dan implemented the launch sequence.

The answer, of course, is that all of them are true. Yet none of them give the same information. However, if we stipulate all of the above four statements are true (and if we further restrict it by saying that there are safeguards in place to guarantee there can be no accidental launches), we can reconstruct the logical order of events. Namely: The rocket launched because Dan pushed a button that sent a signal to a computer that sent a signal to launch. Indeed, using logic like this, you can easily answer the following (assume all statements are true, and that the end result is always produced the same way so you can't have more than one possible path):

1) All Lumin is an effect of Beezles.
2) All Pilter cause Lumin.
3) All Lumin cause Refrax.
4) All Beezles is an effect of Pilter.

What is the logical order of the above?

Obviously we know from the first two points that both Beezles and Pilter precede Lumin. From the third point, we know that Refrax goes after Lumin, so it must also go after Beezles and Pilter. Finally, the fourth row tells us that Beezles comes after Pilter. Thus, the order is Pilter -> Beezles -> Lumin -> Refrax.

You can verify this easily enough.

1) Is Lumin an effect of Beezles in the above chain? Yes.
2) Does Pilter cause Lumin in the above chain? Yes.
3) Does Lumin cause Refrax in the above chain? Yes.
4) Is Beezles an effect of Pilter in the above chain? Yes.

So we know this chain is right.

Now, given that we all agree that the Bible contains true statements about salvation, let us examine them. Obviously, the roughest sketch of salvation would be:

Sinners -> some salvation process -> Christians

But what are the ingredients in that salvation process? Let's toss in all the passages I used in my previous post (which included Titus 3:5 too):

1) He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7).

2) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (1 John 5:1)

3) No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5)

4) If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9)

5) No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:3)

6) The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

These are merely the passages I quoted before. There are more passages that deal with salvation, but most of them will repeat the above. If Dan thinks there's another relevant passage, he is certainly free to post it and we can examine it too.

Now let's try to summarize them a bit to make it easier to compare the concepts. I assume that Dan agrees that regeneration = new birth/rebirth = renewal by the Holy Spirit. So we have:

1) Salvation comes through regeneration.
2) Those who have faith have been regenerated.
3) No one can be saved unless he is regenerated.
4) You must confess Christ as Lord and have faith to be saved.
5) No one can say Christ is Lord except if he has the Spirit.
6) The man without the Spirit thinks spiritual things are foolish.

Now given all these statements are true, what must the logical order be? I will show you without even using the 1 John 1:5 passage (# 2 above)!

We see that 1 and 3 say pretty much the same thing; salvation requires regeneration. So we know that regeneration precedes salvation.

Regeneration -> Salvation

4 tells us that we must confess Christ is Lord and also have faith before we can be saved. So confession and faith precede salvation.

Confession/Faith/Regeneration -> Salvation

5 Tells us that one must have the Spirit before one can confess Christ is lord, so having the Spirit precedes the confession of Christ.

Faith/Regeneration -> Confession -> Salvation

6 Tells us that the man without the Spirit thinks spiritual things are foolish. If one accepts that faith is a spiritual activity, then the man without the Spirit cannot engage in faith. (And really, how can one believe in what one considers foolishness?)

Regeneration -> Faith -> Confession -> Salvation

So now we apply the method back. If Regeneration -> Faith -> Confession -> Salvation is true, let us evaluate the 6 expressions and see if the 6 expression remain true:

1) Salvation comes through regeneration.

This is true in the above. Salvation comes through Regeneration because as soon as Regeneration occurs, the rest inevitably follow.

2) Those who have faith have been regenerated.

True.

3) No one can be saved unless he is regenerated.

True.

4) You must confess Christ as Lord and have faith to be saved.

True.

5) No one can say Christ is Lord except if he has the Spirit.

True.

6) The man without the Spirit thinks spiritual things are foolish.

True.

So Regeneration precedes Faith. But just for fun, what happens if we flip Regeneration and Faith?

Faith -> Regeneration -> Confession -> Salvation

1) Salvation comes through regeneration.

True.

2) Those who have faith have been regenerated.

Potentially False! One has faith first, so one can potentially believe without having been regenerated, which means that it would be FALSE that "Those who have faith have been regenerated." The only way to try to "save" this chain is to say that faith and regeneration coincide temporally. Thus, the instant one has faith, one is regenerated. If there is any time delay at all, 2 is false and that means the Arminian chain is false.

3) No one can be saved unless he is regenerated.

True.

4) You must confess Christ as Lord and have faith to be saved.

True.

5) No one can say Christ is Lord except if he has the Spirit.

True (because the confession comes after regeneration even in the above).

6) The man without the Spirit thinks spiritual things are foolish.

False. The man without the Spirit somehow believes in spiritual truth because faith causes regeneration in the above chain.

So we see that the Arminian is required to hold that faith and regeneration are simultaneous events (something that is not too controversial to hold in and of itself...yet danger lurks!); but also that someone who is without the Spirit can still have faith. 6 is a major weakness to the Arminian position, and unfortunately for the Arminian, we can pile on more proof texts that would agree with 6:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:5-8).

We see that non-believers cannot please God, nor can they submit to His law. Since it certainly pleases God for someone to exercise faith, then we see once again that faith cannot come before regeneration. It is only the mind already set on the Spirit who can discern spiritual things.

Naturally, with all the texts such as the above, point 6 is a really tempting point to emphasize for the Calvinist. And really, it is sufficient. But more important than that, the Arminian position on point 2 is also in danger. We've already seen that it is potentially false as is; and when we examine the implications of 1 John further, we see that the Arminian position that faith can be temporally simultaneous with regeneration such that faith can logically precede regeneration is fatally flawed.

Though I already pointed this out in my previous post, I will run the following three passages through the logic:

1) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (1 John 1:5).

2) If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him (1 John 2:29).

3) No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God (1 John 3:9).

Now again, we see the construct of these passages as follows. Each uses the perfect tense of "born". Each also has an active verb dealing with a present action. The Arminian claim MUST BE that when Paul uses this construct, the active, on-going verb must begin simultaneous to the perfect verb, and also be the cause of that completed verb. So we have the following:

1) Those who have faith have been regenerated.
2) Those who practice righteousness have been regenerated.
3) Those who avoid sin have been regenerated.

For the Arminian, all of these must take place simultaneously with faith. Just as regeneration must be simultaneous (temporally) with faith or else the Arminian has errors, so too must righteousness and avoidance of sin be simultaneous with faith. But not only that, if faith logically causes regeneration, then so too must righteousness and avoidance of sin logically cause regeneration. For faith, righteousness, and avoidance of sin are all treated identically by John in those statements. If something is true for one, it is true for all three.

Raising the bar

(Posted on behalf of Steve Hays.)

I don't normally discuss matters of musical taste. I think musical taste is...well...a question of taste. Adiaphorous.

But the Michael Jackson phenomenon introduces aesthetic standards into the debate. I often run across an argument that goes something like this: "Sure, Jackson was weird, but he was also a great song-and-dance man. So, to be fair, you have to balance the good with the bad."

My major problem with this argument concerns the moral priorities. Even if he was a great "artist," that hardly offsets his moral deficits.

However, another problem I have with this argument is that I don't accept either premise.

A lot of folks only listen to pop vocalism. As a result, their standards of vocalism are set by pop vocalism. What they consider great singing is great by the standards of pop vocalism. And they’re entitled to listen to whomever they please.

But by the same token, when I'm told by others that Jackson was a great vocalist, I'm entitled to disagree.

Singing, especially great singing, is a form of athleticism. To be a great athlete, you need a great natural endowment. You also need the skill to properly exploit your natural endowment.

And, to be frank, if you want to hear great singing, opera is the place to go. Notice I didn't say you should listen to opera. By and large, opera is a fairly decadent art form. But the opera stage sets the standard of great vocalism (not that all opera singers are great singers.)

Pop vocalism is to opera what badminton is to Wimbledon, put-put golf is to Augusta, or a pick-up game of football is to the Super Bowl.

Finally, classical vocalism, like many sports, develops the distinctive resources of the male and female body. In that respect it's a projection of masculinity or femininity. And that raises it above mere aesthetics.

It wouldn't hurt some folks who extol Jackson's musical "genius" to expose themselves to some genuine standards of vocal excellence.

Here are three examples of great male vocalism, representing tenor, baritone, and basso ranges respectively:

And here are some examples of great female vocalism:

The Empire Strikes Back

James Anderson responds to TurretinFan.

The apotheosis of Michael Jackson

It was impossible to find any real news on TV yesterday afternoon. Regularly scheduled programming was preempted by live, wall-to-wall coverage of the Jackson memorial. And then, of course, we were treated to a repeat performance–just in case we suffered the inconsolable loss of having missed the live coverage.

I try my best to avoid this, but, to some extent, it’s unavoidable, so I’ll make a few comments.

1.Part of the hype is market-driven. Supposedly, this is good for business. A ratings boost. It plays to a market niche.

Up to a point that’s true. There’s a demographic that can never have enough celebrity coverage. However, there is another demographic which finds that saturation coverage a major turn-off. So the media is pandering to one market niche while alienating another market niche. What causes some viewers to turn in causes others to tune out.

2.Another function of these public tributes is for washed-up entertainers and other has-beens to briefly reclaim the limelight.

3.I’m also a bit amused by how the act of dying can suddenly rehabilitate one’s image. Before the body was cold, the media immediately began to canonize Michael Jackson.

Yet, for many years prior to his death, the same media which has suddenly sainted him was busy shredding his reputation.

4.Apropos (3), I seem to remember a time when some prominent members of the black community turned against him. For one thing, they were offended by the way in which he mutated into a white man.

But, at a later date, it seems as if the black community rallied around him.

That’s unfortunate. One the one hand, the black community rightly resents the popular stereotype of blacks as pimps and gang-bangers and dope dealers. On the other hand, some segments of the black community never miss a chance to reinforce negative stereotypes by reflexively defending the worst possible representatives of black ethnicity and culture.

5.Jackson has also been praised for his success as a crossover artist. For his mass appeal to white audiences.

I don’t see how his popularity on that score indicates evolving social acceptance. At the risk of stating the obvious, Michael Jackson was a sorry excuse for a black man. You only have to put him up against Dennis Haysbert or Laurence Fishburne to see what’s missing. If the only black man that white music consumers can go for is a self-loathing eunuch like Jackson, then I don’t think that says very much about racial progress.

6.Finally, there’s a defiant amorality about the coverage. The studied refusal to consider the disturbing evidence of pedophilia. Turning an icon of evil into a great humanitarian.

Taking liberties with civil liberties

I largely agree with Posner’s critique of liberal fanaticism (see below). It brings the notion of civil liberties into disrepute when self-appointed civil libertarians stake out such willfully suicidal positions.

Having said that, I also think Posner presents us with a false dichotomy. The question at issue is not whether Americans need to curtail their preexisting civil rights to be safer. The issue, rather, is whether we should extend civil rights to groups which never had that protection before, to groups which are our sworn enemies, and will use the civil rights we extend to them to as another weapon to use against us.

What imperils our safety is not the preservation of our civil rights, but the unprecedented extension of civil rights to our mortal enemies (i.e. treating unlawful combatants as POWs).

***********************************************************************************

I said in an earlier post that “religion” should be confined to the theistic religions. That is sensible when the issue is the role of faith-based morality in public policy. But in other contexts a broader sense of the word, to denote the embrace of a system of thought that is not responsive to scientific or pragmatic argu ment and hence is dogmatic, and that occupies a central place in the ideology of its adherents, can be illuminating. I am in creasingly struck by the aptness of the term to the type of civil libertarian who will have no truck with tradeoffs between secu rity and liberty. The choicest recent example of this outlook happens to be found in the opinion by an English judge, Lord Hoffman of the House of Lords, in a decision invalidat ing a post-9/11 British law allowing indefinite detention, with out a hearing, of aliens suspected of terrorism who can't be deported, either because no nation will accept them or only a nation in which they would be exposed to torture or other seri ous harms.

The case is A v. Secretary of State, [2004] UKHL 36, [2004] All ER(D) 271 (Dec. 26, 2004). I am not interested in whether it was decided correctly—one would have to know more about English and international human rights law than I do to opine responsibly on that question—but only in the mind set illustrated by Lord Hoffman’s opinion. Noting that “the power which the Home Secretary seeks to uphold is a power to detain people indefinitely without charge or trial,” he says that “nothing could be more antithetical to the instincts and traditions of the people of the United Kingdom.” This is a pious fraud, ignoring a long history of abuses of civil liberty by British police and security agencies, documented by the English legal historian A. W. Brian Simpson in his book In the Highest Degree Odious and by others. And Hoffman quickly retrenches by adding that the draconian laws enacted to curb the Irish Republican Army, laws similar to those challenged successfully by “A,” were justifiable because “it was reasonable to say that terrorism in Northern Ireland threatened the life of that part of the nation and the territorial integrity of the United King dom as a whole.” He acknowledges that “the threat of...atrocities" similar to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. “in the United Kingdom is a real one.” But he denies that it is “a threat to the life of the nation….Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda.” Actuallly, there is more doubt that the United Kingdom will survive Islamist terrorism than there was that it would survive the Irish Republican Army, the aims of which were modest compared to those of Osama bin Laden and his associates and which did not aspire to the possession of weapons of mass destruction. Hoffman adds that “terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government.” But considering how fiercely the British authori ties responded to the 9/11 attacks one imagines that their response to a similar or worse attack on Britain would leave little of the institutional framework of civil liberties standing; and Hoffman surely regards that framework as an important part of “our institutions of government.”

He concludes with what has become the first article in the civil liberties common book of prayer: “The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accor dance with its traditional laws and political values, come not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.” What he is saying is that terrorism is not a “real threat,” but the enactments of a democratic legislature (“laws such as these”) are. Terrorism that kills thousands of people (in time, it could be millions) is less menacing than laws that cut back on “traditional laws and politi cal values,” even if the “traditions” are only a few years old. An ordinary sensible person would think that terrorism on the scale enabled by modern technology and inflamed by religio-political fanaticism can do more harm to a nation than a law authorizing the in definite detention of nondeportable aliens suspected of being terrorists. To think otherwise is to be in the grip of a dogma that flaunts its defiance of common sense. Credo quia absudum est.

Civil liberties have real benefits that are entitled to considerable weight whenever measures to increase public safety are proposed. But in Lord Hoffman's opinion, as in similar pronouncements by American civil libertarians, the effort is to place the existing level of civil liberties beyond pragmatic assessment by according them transcendent value compared to which considerations of physical survival are made to seem petty.

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2004/12/the_religion_of.html

I do not, contrary to some of the comments, either embrace pragmatism as a dogma or (what would be quite inconsistent) consider human life to have absolute value. Remember the old slogan, "Better dead than Red?" If people would prefer to be killed by terrorists than to give up even a tiny smidgeon of their civil liberties (one comment reminds that the grand total of detainees in Lord Hoffman's case was 17 out of an English population of 60 million), I have no argument contra. I just think that almost all Americans would consider that turning back the civil liberties clock to, say, 1960 would be worthwhile if as a result some horrendous terrorist attack was prevented. I am of the same mind. I find it hard to understand the contrary position, but I would not argue against it. I would point out, however, the self-defeating character of civil liberties absolutism. If as a result of such absolutism another major terorrist attacks occurs, civil liberties are pretty sure to go out the window.

I would also argue against those who say that history shows that the threat of terrorism is much less than other threats that we have overcome. That is a misuse of history. History does not contain nuclear bombs the size of oranges, genetically engineered smallpox virus that is vaccine-proof, and an Islamist terrorist (Bin Laden) who visited a cleric in Saudi Arabia to obtain--successfully--the cleric's approval to wage nuclear war against the West.

It is one thing to set civil liberties above life in one's personal utility function; it is another to adopt an ostrich's stance with regard to the present and future threat posed by a technologically sophisticated terrorism.

I was explicit, by the way, in not criticizing the outcome of Lord Hoffman's case. I criticized only his disparagement of the terrorist threat and his astonishing contention that the continued detention of those 17 terrorist suspects has done greater harm to England than the 9/11 attacks did to the United States. He offered this contention as self-evident, citing no evidence that would support it. That kind of dogmatism justifies my speaking of a "religion" of civil liberties.

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/01/response_to_com.html

God, godlessness, and animal pain

The argument from evil, with special reference to animal pain, is an increasingly fashionable objection to the existence of God. Since this is typically deployed against Christian theism, that way of framing the debate creates the misimpression that secular thinkers have a monolithic view of animal rights and–what is more–that this is the default view of animal rights which everyone would normally share, but Christians, are forced by their theological precommitments to deny the obvious.

This is the view of animal pain and animal rights popularized by atheists like William Rowe and Peter Singer. I’m relating the concepts of animal pain and animal rights since, unless you think animals have a right not to suffer pain, animal pain is not a moral issue.

For now I’m not discussing my own position on animal rights. I’m simply wish to draw attention to a tendentious presupposition of the argument. I wish to make the point that secular thinkers do not have a monolithic view of animal rights.

And to that extent, an atheist can’t presume a certain view of animal rights when he is mounting the argument from evil. For this isn’t simply a point of disagreement between believers and unbelievers. Rather, there are deep-seated differences of opinion within the secular camp on this key presupposition.

Take the debate between Peter Singer and Richard Posner. Both men are secularists. But they don’t share the same view of animal rights. Here is some of what Posner has to say:

I do not agree that we have a duty to (the other) animals that arises from their being the equal members of a community composed of all those creatures in the universe that can feel pain, and that it is merely "prejudice" in a disreputable sense akin to racial prejudice or sexism that makes us "discriminate" in favor of our own species. You assume the existence of the universe-wide community of pain and demand reasons why the boundary of our concern should be drawn any more narrowly. I start from the bottom up, with the brute fact that we, like other animals, prefer our own—our own family, the "pack" that we happen to run with (being a social animal), and the larger sodalities constructed on the model of the smaller ones, of which the largest for most of us is our nation. Americans have distinctly less feeling for the pains and pleasures of foreigners than of other Americans and even less for most of the nonhuman animals that we share the world with.

Now you may reply that these are just facts about human nature; that they have no normative significance. But they do. Suppose a dog menaced a human infant and the only way to prevent the dog from biting the infant was to inflict severe pain on the dog—more pain, in fact, than the bite would inflict on the infant. You would have to say, let the dog bite (for "if an animal feels pain, the pain matters as much as it does when a human feels pain," provided the pain is as great). But any normal person (and not merely the infant's parents!), including a philosopher when he is not self-consciously engaged in philosophizing, would say that it would be monstrous to spare the dog, even though to do so would minimize the sum of pain in the world.

I do not feel obliged to defend this reaction; it is a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it. Membership in the human species is not a "morally irrelevant fact," as the race and sex of human beings has come to seem. If the moral irrelevance of humanity is what philosophy teaches, and so we have to choose between philosophy and the intuition that says that membership in the human species is morally relevant, then it is philosophy that will have to go.

Toward the end of your statement you distinguish between pain and death and you acknowledge that the mental abilities of human beings may make their lives more valuable than those of animals. But this argument too is at war with our deepest intuitions. It implies that the life of a chimpanzee is more valuable than the life of a human being who, because he is profoundly retarded (though not comatose), has less mental ability than the chimpanzee. There are undoubtedly such cases. Indeed, there are people in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease who, though conscious, have less mentation than a dog. But killing such a person would be murder, while it is no crime at all to have a veterinarian kill one's pet dog because it has become incontinent with age. The logic of your position would require treating these killings alike. And if, for example, we could agree that although a normal human being's life is more valuable than a normal chimpanzee's life, it is only 100 times more valuable, you would have to concede than if a person had to choose between killing one human being and 101 chimpanzees, he should kill the human being. Against the deep revulsion that such results engender the concept of a transhuman community of sufferers beats its tinsel wings ineffectually.

http://www.slate.com/id/110101/entry/110129/

You say that some readers of Animal Liberation have been persuaded by the ethical arguments in the book, and not just by the facts and the pictures. But if so, it is probably so only because these readers do not realize the radicalism of the ethical vision that powers your view on animals, an ethical vision that finds greater value in a healthy pig than in a profoundly retarded child, that commands inflicting a lesser pain on a human being to avert a greater pain to a dog, and that, provided only that a chimpanzee has 1 percent of the mental ability of a normal human being, would require the sacrifice of the human being to save 101 chimpanzees. If Animal Liberation had emphasized these implications of your utilitarian philosophy, it would have had many fewer persuaded readers; and likewise if it had sought merely to persuade our rational faculty, and not to stir our empathetic regard for animals.

http://www.slate.com/id/110101/entry/110303/

Riposte

Brennan Hartshorn (affectionately known as BSman) has attempted a response to my post about how resistible grace logically leads Arminians to a position where they must give up resistible grace. Unfortunately, he managed to miss the heart of the argument completely and, to remain complete, seeks to change the subject completely.

So let me put him back on track to the main point yet again, which is this:

If grace is resistible, then we must ask what kind of person would resist it? This question is all the more important given Brennan's strong statement:

The reason we call the grace of God resistible is because it must be actively resisted to not be effectual.

(Bold in original)

So again I ask: What kind of person would reject the grace of God? What kind of person resists the Holy Spirit? Brennan avoids this by changing the question to:

Why do some repent and others not?

But I'm not asking why some repent and others do not. I'm asking, What kind of person would reject the grace of God?

It's a simple answer (one I gave already). But let us look at some examples of other behavior to draw some conclusions:

Suppose that we came upon an individual who is presented with an option. He can either have a bottle of vodka, or a million dollars with the stipulation that if he takes the money he can never have alcohol again in his life. What kind of man would take the bottle of vodka instead of the money? An alcoholic, that's who.

Suppose that we came upon an individual who is presented with a different option. He can either have a free membership to an internet porn site for the rest of his life, or he can have the same million dollars the alcoholic turned down, provided he never visits a porn website for the rest of his life. What kind of man would take the free membership to the porn site? A porn addict, that's who.

So when we come upon the person who is given the best possible gift whatsoever, the grace of God, and he is given an option to either go with the flow or to actively resist that grace, what kind of man would actively resist that grace? Only the most depraved sinner would rather resist that grace than submit to it.

Here's the problem. Brennan agrees that we are all born depraved. He even goes so far as to say that Christians remain depraved (for some reason I don't think he read Romans 6 when I cited it). So the problem that Brennan must address is why depraved people would ever NOT resist the grace of God.

The simple fact of the matter is that for all of Brennan's confession that he believes in depravity, he has not once actually thought through what that depravity entails. His version of depravity is a strange one indeed.

Now since Brennan believes that only some individuals are saved, then if we stipulate that the grace is the same for all men, we must say that some men are simply more depraved than others. But if we are all depraved to begin with, why couldn't God bring us all to the point where we would not make those depraved decisions—especially since He obviously does do just that for those who do believe? The Christian was once depraved, but reached the point where he chose not to resist God. Why can't God do the same for the sinner who is so depraved that he would actively resist God?

I'll let him chew on that. In any case, since Brennan doesn't believe that the grace of God actually changes people, I will provide a few proof texts for that position, along with how the irresistible grace of regeneration most certainly precedes faith.

First, grace was promised to be effective in the new covenant that Jeremiah mentions. We read:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jeremiah 31:33).

Note that God is active here, ensuring that His law is on the hearts of His people. Indeed, the next verse shows that this comes from God, not from other people, for: "no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me." God actively writes the law on the hearts of His people, and it is for that reason that they will be His people.

This is echoed in Ezekiel 36:24-27:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Note the emphasized portion. God will cause His people to walk in His statutes.

Furthermore, we see it emphasized in the New Testament. In my previous post, I mentioned how Christ said that by our fruits we evidence what our nature is. Good fruit cannot be produced by bad trees. In addition to that, we also read:

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:17).

Note that this obedience is "from the heart", which is exactly where God promised He would write His law. And the result is that we "become slaves of righteousness" because God does, indeed, "cause [us] to walk in [His] statutes."

Indeed, our entire salvation is caused by God, as Peter says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5).

God caused us to be born again. Further, we see that this being born of God occurs prior to regeneration faith [updated typo]:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (1 John 5:1).

Note that the tense of the word "born" is past tense (perfect), which denotes a completed action, contrasting that with the "believes" which is an ongoing present action. Thus, it is not too far of a stretch to suggest the verse implies "Everyone who currently believes that Jesus is the Christ has already been born of God." (More on this in a bit.)

About this second birth John tells us (John 3:5-7):

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'"

Further, we read:

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:5-7).

Paul obviously links the "rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" to "washing," a reference to John 3's statement that one must be "born of water and the Spirit", which is itself a reference to the previously quoted Ezekiel 36 "I will sprinkle clean water on you" etc.

Thus, the regeneration of the Holy Spirit is a past action that precedes the ongoing present action of faith.

Lest someone think I'm hanging too much of the tenses of 1 John 5:1, consider a few other times the word "born" is used in the perfect tense. Namely:

“If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him” (1 John 2:29). “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9).

Since Brennan is not a Roman Catholic, I can be confident that he would agree that we do not have to cease practicing sin before we can be saved, nor that we must do righteous acts before we can be saved, for that would be to say our salvation is by works. Yet if you look at this construct, it is exactly the same as 1 John 5:1! Namely, "born" is in the perfect tense, and the rest of the actions are present and on-going. 1 John 2:29 has the present practices righteousness; 1 John 3:9 has the present keep on sinning. These are ongoing actions, exactly equivalent to the structure of "believes" in 1 John 5:1. So Brennan should accept that 1 John 5:1 explicitly teaches regeneration precedes faith, or else convert to Roman Catholicism.

A few further passages should suffice. 1 Corinthians 12:3 states "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." Yet this same Paul also wrote: "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). That means that the Holy Spirit must enable one to say "Jesus is Lord" before salvation occurs; yet the Holy Spirit only comes at regeneration. "That which is born of Spirit is spirit."

Indeed, it is impossible for someone to come to God without the Spirit because:

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

More could be said, but it is late and I have work in the morning.

"Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!" Psalm 65:4

The Obligatory "Triablogue is Full of Big Meanies" Post

Given the amazingly poor lack of comprehension displayed by many a commenter, it has become apparent that there are a lot of people who are reading Triablogue for the first time, and some of them just happen to have the same names as people who’ve been here for a long time. How else can we explain the fact that we’ve repeatedly made arguments in the past against positions they continue to hold as if said position has never been refuted?

Be that as it may, I feel it but my public duty this time to write the obligatory “Triablogue Is Full of Big Meanies” post for the new initiates to this blog. If there is one thing that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, New Agers, 9/11 Truthers, agnostics, Wiccans, atheists, and Arminians agree upon, it is that T-Bloggers are nothing but a bunch of Big Meanies.

This must be true, because every interaction that we’ve ever had with anyone holding those various heretic positions has eventually come down to “You don’t show the love of Christ” claims. While it is well known that the reason for this is because there remain no actual arguments against our positions on these matters, it is apparently believed by some that screaming like a harpy or crying in the corner that your opponent is a Big Meanie will somehow shame those who’ve behaved justly and correctly into some kind of compassionate, tender hearted pat on the shoulder and a “there, there, the sun will come up in the morning” round of self-help blather. I am here to break the unfortunate news that all such behavior gets is a run-on sentence describing it.

I remain dumbstruck, however, that people who come into the T-blog arena like a cocky junior high hockey team facing the satanic Red Wings are somehow shocked to discover that they’re involved in a full contact sport. It does little good to complain that T-bloggers are a bunch of Big Meanies when you’ve spent the past week offering brilliant arguments like “Only a delusion could cause someone to think that” and responding with the nuclear “Nope, actually it's not. So sorry” defense. Nor does it help you plead your case when your wit consists of: “How many logical fallacies can we count in these responses? Let's see, one, two, three........” And: “Wah wah waaaaah.”

And when you label someone’s statement as “dumbness” and then are aghast to be told “the only reason I'm not deleting [your post] now is so that all can see how stupid you are and that I did not invent your idiotic quotation” one really must question why your parents ever let you out of their basement.

Ironically, however, it is not these people who generally take up the Whining Like A Sissy Girl Mantle. No, it is their enablers. Some of whom will even claim to be on the side of the T-Bloggers. “I believe what you do,” they say, “but I think you’re a Big Meanie.” This is done to score them cred points with the opposition. I imagine the behind-the-scenes commentary goes something like this: “You called them stupid and said their mama’s dressed ‘em funny, and they said if you kept it up they’d delete your posts?! HOW DARE THOSE EVIL T-BLOGGERS PICK ON INNOCENT PEOPLE SUCH AS YOU! I mean, I asked John Calvin in my heart, just like they did, BUT THIS IS TOO FAR!”

They then ask The Question™. The Question that can only ever be asked of the T-Bloggers. “How does this show the love of Christ?” Some even go so far as to say, “Why, I’ve never seen Christians behave in this manner toward each other!”

This shows a dangerous level of naivety, one that proves said person has never been to AWANA. Nor, apparently, have they ever read the term Filioque.

Sigh.

Yes. It is true. We are all a bunch of Big Meanies. If you tread into these dangerous Triablogian waters, you are at least now forewarned. Here there be Big Meanies. Big Brained Big Meanies, but Big Meanines nevertheless.

Now give me a lawn so I can yell at you to get off it.

The Administration's Health Care Plan

From Richard Posner.

On Why Those Who Hold to Resistible Grace Must Hold to a Strong Form of Depravity

Even when Arminians pretend that they believe in Total Depravity, this doesn’t cash out the way it does in Calvinism. Calvinistic views are quite simple: because man is depraved, then it is only the grace of God that can change the sinner to a believer, and when that happens man is truly changed and thus he responds automatically in faith. Because God initiates this on whom He will, and because the change is effectual, those who receive this regenerating grace are guaranteed salvation.

The Arminian view is quite different, of course. Even those who hold to depravity do not hold to God’s grace being effectual grace, for such grace can still be resisted by the sinner. Thus, an Arminian who believes in depravity is left with the following system: Because man is depraved, then it is only the grace of God that can enabled a sinner to potentially believe in God, and God does this for everyone (or at least all those who have the opportunity to hear the Gospel). Arminians who do not believe in depravity have nearly the same system: man can potentially believe in God, and God does this everyone, etc.

I want to focus a bit on the concept of irresistible grace. First, it should be noted that the grace referred to as irresistible is only the regenerating grace of God; it is not everything that God graciously gives to people (elect or reprobate). Thus, when Calvinists speaks of irresistible grace, it is only saying that the regenerating power of God is effectual and must succeed at what it does: namely, bringing spiritual life to the dead sinner.

It should be obvious that this concept of grace cannot be the same concept of grace that an Arminian believes can be resisted, for in a sense it is little more than God “flipping a life-switch”*—something that happens instantaneously, and has an immediate change. Just as flipping a light switch, for all intents and purposes, instantly causes a light to go on, so God flipping a life-switch immediately causes the dead person to be regenerated.

[* I think I must trademark “life-switch” before Joel Osteen steals it.]

In any case, it is obviously impossible to resist being converted from death to life. It’s an action that happens without your input. Once you were dead, then you were alive. To paraphrase Steven Wright in reverse: Everyone’s regenerated instantly. You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re alive!

The key is, of course, that the living soul is radically different from the dead soul. They do not operate the same way. The dead soul is set on death and cannot submit to God’s will (Romans 8:5-8). The living soul, however, is the slave of Christ (Romans 6, especially verses 11-14). In short, being regenerated in Christ is to be dead to sin.

The Arminian view is not like this. In the Arminian view (those who believe in depravity, at least), God in essence sets man’s will to “neutral.” While man was once depraved, God sets him in a position where he can either choose to do good or evil. (Those who don’t hold to depravity believe this is where man is by default.) The Arminian seems to think that he avoids all the emotional problems associated with God’s sovereignty by allowing man to take some kind of role here. Therefore, the Arminian believes that if someone rejects God, it spares God blame (and this brings the Arminian emotional comfort).

But ask a simple question here. What kind of person would reject the grace of God? What kind of person resists the Holy Spirit?

We know that the righteous person submits to the will of God. We know that the mind that is enslaved to sin is hostile to the will of God and cannot submit to the will of God. Therefore, if someone cannot submit to God’s grace, is that not itself an indication that the person is depraved? In other words, if we resist God’s grace, it can only be because we are depraved!

The reason is because our choices do not determine our nature, but rather our nature determines our choices. This is important, and seen in such passages as Luke 7:16-20.

Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

The fruit (that is, what people do) is dependent upon the nature of the tree (that is, what people are). The key is this: “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit.” Likewise, a diseased tree cannot bear good fruit. The fruit shows us whether or not the tree is healthy or diseased, even if the two trees look identical.

Thus, who does not resist God’s grace? The healthy tree. Who does resist God’s grace? The diseased tree.

But this bears a great problem for the Arminian. If a man chooses to believe in God, then it is because he is already a healthy tree—God’s grace has been irresistible, for the sinner went from spiritual death to spiritual life! But if he chooses to reject God, then it is because he remains a diseased tree—he hasn’t had his depravity removed at all! A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, so either God’s grace was effectual or it was not and the man is still depraved.

The only way around this would be to claim that there must be a tree that exists in a state that is neither healthy nor diseased, a concept utterly foreign to the Scriptures. Indeed, Christ says plainly: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Luke 11:23).

Assuming everything from an Arminian perspective, we’re left with:

1. Those who resist grace are depraved.
2. There are those who resist grace.
3. Therefore, there are those who are depraved.

4. Those who do not resist grace are not depraved.
5. There are those who do not resist grace.
6. Therefore, there are those who are not depraved.

7. Grace changes people from depraved to non-depraved.
8. Grace can be resisted.
9. Grace is given to all.
10. But those who resist grace are depraved (1)
11. Therefore, if grace is resisted, then at least one of (7), (8), or (9) must be false.

So I merely ask our Arminian commenters (even BSman, if he wants to answer this specific question can comment): which of those options (7), (8), or (9) is wrong?

The consistency of an Arminian: BSMANgreeneggsandHAM

On Dan's blog Bossmanham complains about me this way:

I also love how Paul is declaring himself the winner of your debates. What's truly funny is he actually believes that since he is declaring himself the winner, he actually is the winner. I am actually laughing out loud right now.

On T-blog, in the comments section of Peter's post he says this:

I'm the only one producing logically cohesive arguments. Very Christian of you BTW, Petey.

You couldn't script better stuff than this.

Choose The Best: More on a failed Arminian argument

Hot on the heals of of me presenting Dan these defeaters:

1. Some of the top libertarian action theorists in the world disagree with him.

2. The empirical evidence suggests that not all "common men" are libertarians.

3. About a dozen of the most respected dictionaries define "choose" in terms wholly compatible (!) with compatibilism.

4. Dan's ad hoc definition of "common men" (i.e., all the members of Israel and the Church from all time) allows some of the world's most uncommon men to be "common men".

5. Dan's position implies that one needs to be a libertarian in order to be saved---so much for the uber love of Arminianism!

I now bring Dan another defeater.

2 Kings 10:

1 Now there were in Samaria seventy sons of the house of Ahab. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria: to the officials of Jezreel, [a] to the elders and to the guardians of Ahab's children. He said, 2 "As soon as this letter reaches you, since your master's sons are with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons, 3 choose the best and most worthy of your master's sons and set him on his father's throne. Then fight for your master's house."


Notice the very common conception of "choosing the best." The best, by definition(!), implies no other alternative. So, out of the mass of 70 sons, the guardians were to choose the best and most worthy. Say they lined the group up, 1 - 70, and chose number 10. To the question "was it a live option for you to pick number 22?" is the answer, "No." Why not? Well, he wasn't the best. "The best" implies one out of a group, with the rest not being live options as they are the second, third, fourth, and so on "best." So, 1 - 9 and 11-70 were not live options. But the Bible calls this a choice. In fact, the understanding used here is consistent with the majority of dictionaries out there: select one or more from out of a larger number.

I would also go as far as to say that out of the 70 there was at least one who was obviously not the best or most worthy. Maybe he was ugly, weak, had a bad leg, dumb, and just smelled bad too. So, he was obviously not "the best" yet he was inculded among the choices, or ones to choose from! On Dan's assumptiuons he would have to be a possible "best," but the problem is that he obviously wans't!

Oh, and I also note the Arminian "yes men" at Dan's blog complaining that I have admitted that my arguments defeat Dan (I guess they'd rather have me admit that Dan's arguments beat mine?). They complain about this but have not bothered to defend Dan's argument. If any of them think they can respond to my arguments, let them use this combox. Here's the resolution:

[R] Dan says that "the dictionary" defines "choose" with "possible alternative" as an essential element to it. This point is CRITICAL to Dan's argument going through. I cite numerous well-respected dictionaries which say otherwise. How did I not destroy Dan's (bad) argument?

Got a defense for Dan?

Perseverance and Assurance

From Tom Schreiner (PDF).

"Honor Thy Father" for Grownups

"Or, how not to be a deadbeat son or daughter."

Steve well notes: "One small caveat with the article: 'passing on' is not just a euphemism. It's a Christian testimony to the afterlife."

HT: Justin Taylor.

Just a Few of the Trivially Easy Ways by Which God Could Get People to Believe in Him without Violating Their Precious Free Will®

The following couplet is brought to you by Pelagian-Off. When you’re drifting toward the shore of Pelagia, shove off™.


If there is one thing which I insist must be,
It is that God needs be smarter than me.

God has an image problem. When you look for Him, you can’t see Him. Yes, we know that He’s everywhere, but He’s invisible. In this regard, He’s almost, but not quiet, completely unlike Barry’s role in GM.

But I digress.

If our recent spate of Arminian commenters are to be believed, God wants to save everyone. I mean, He really, really, really wants to save every single man, woman, and child (even Britney!) who has ever walked the face of the planet, be it past, present, or even future. How much does He really, really, really want to do this? Spread your arms wide. See how far they go? God’s want goes farther.

But God happens to be invisible. What is an invisible being to do? I mean, if you were invisible, how would you convince people (other than the IRS, who would tax you even if you didn’t exist) that you exist? This could be troubling. Especially if you can’t touch other people either, or say their name, or interact with objects. You’d be like Sam from Ghost, and who wants that?

But what if you were omnipotent? Why, then not only could you touch people, interact with objects, talk to them…why, you could even make yourself visible!

Today when I went out and picked up my lunch, I was fully convinced the woman at the counter existed. I believed she exists because I saw her there. And my having seen her didn’t violate my Free Will® in any manner, did it? Nope. Not at all.

So really all God would have to do to convince people that He exists is: show up.

You know, when two pagans are making out in the backseat of a car, God could suddenly pop up in the driver’s seat and say, “You kids know you shouldn’t be doing that. By the way, I exist.” I’m fairly certain that would scare the hell out of them. They might even become Methodists.

Come down this path with me now. See that giant white orb in the night sky? There aren’t very many people who look at the moon and say, “That doesn’t exist.” Those who do say that vote multiple times in every election, and are rightly shunned by the rest of society. But they’re a minority. You have to admit, the vast majority of people believe the moon is real (some even believe people walked on it once).

Yeah, I suppose it is possible that someone could see God standing there and still think, “He’s no better than Aunt Wilma, who at least bakes apple pie for Thanksgiving.” But if you said that, couldn’t God bake you an apple pie in response? I mean, what’s stopping Him? And maybe you’d say: “I would like you better if you were four feet tall and green.” What’s to stop God from doing that for you? Whatever you needed God to look like (a giant puppy dog with a rainbow collar and sparkles on his nose) God could be just that! He’s got da power.

Come along further then. How many of you have ever looked at a vending machine and said, “I don’t believe that piece of junk will give me my selection if I put money in it” and then, when you put money in it, you got your selection after all? Would you then say, “I don’t believe that piece of junk will give me my selection if I put money in it” the next time you see it? Perhaps. But suppose you do this a thousand times (because you’re really hungry, see also: rich), and it always gave you your selection. Would you not agree that the machine is reliable and you can trust in it?

Why can’t God do that with atheists? If an atheist says, “God, I want you to jump through hoop A and then I’ll believe” why couldn’t God jump through hoop A? And if the atheist adds more hoops, it’s not like God will get tired (Omnipotence, baby!). And if He can’t acquiesce for logical reasons (suppose the atheist says, “God, if you exist, I want you to raise John McCain from the dead”) He could at least give the reason (“McCain is already undead”).

Now I may be confused, but it seems to me that more people would believe in God if they could see Him and He responded to them then currently believe in Him now when they can’t see Him and He doesn’t seem to respond to them. And the simple action of seeing what’s in front of your eyes is not a violation of Free Will®. Appearing would be a trivially simple task for an omnipotent being, wouldn’t it?

Naturally, in the past I’ve made similar arguments. One response I got was that God’s showing up wouldn’t make any difference. That’s because apparently every time someone shows up we are supposed to automatically assume we are hallucinating.

But the objection continued that it was due to sin that it wouldn’t make any difference. But I thought there was this thing called peeved prevailing prevenient grace, which is kinda like an insurance policy from Progressive: namely, if you have insurance, you can drive your dad’s Yugo. PG is like that, only you get to pick if God will drive or if t3h debil wit t3h houndz of hellx0r will. Which makes me wonder…if PG works, then why would God’s appearing or not appearing have any relevance to what driver you pick to haul down the Interstate is 17.3 mph? I mean, when the insurance agent shows up and says, “You can fill out this card and drive” you don’t say, “You don’t exist” in response.

Oh you do. In that case, I have a voter registration card I need you to fill out. No, no. You can have several.

Some Clean Up

Since I rendered Dan the Arminian's argument from the dictionary dead, all that's left is to mop up the mess left by the twitching corpse of an argument. The post Dan is responding to (not my latest, it's this one) commits him to so many radical and ridiculous positions that, even though I have defeated his argument, these moves he's forced to make to answer me are so wild that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to point them out. Here's four points Dan tries to make, along with some responses:

1. Dan's first point is to say that he's appealing to the perspicuity of Scripture. He then intimates that I have some problem with this doctrine, which I don't. However, putting aside the side issues he brings up, here's one ridiculous inference of his argument:

Dan claims that perspicuity applies to the essentials of saving faith. Okay, granted at some level---though it's expressed poorly and vaguely, I understand the general point Dan is struggling to make. But here's a problem: Why are there so many Calvinists and Arminians (or, universalists, &c)!? Though they all agree, at a general level, that we are saved by Christ alone, through faith alone, how this is worked out is very different among the various traditions.

But there's an even bigger problem, Dan says that, "The bible message, especially the essentials of the faith, is understandable by common men using their normal means of understanding terms." Okay, let's say I grant this, how does this translate to the idea that "all common men" will understand the term "choose", in the phrase "choose life", in a libertarian sense? Is Dan imposing a work on salvation? I can't be saved unless I believe that "choose" is to be meant libertarianly, just like I must believe that "Jesus" is to be meant as "the God-man who resurrected for our justification?" Or can I believe in the Mormon Jesus? If I must believe that "choose" commits me to libertarianism, then Dan implies that no Calvinists are saved! If Dan admits that Calvinists can be saved with a different understanding of "choose" than Dan has, but not a different understanding of Jesus, then he fails to make his point.

2. Dan finally tells us what he means by "common man." He writes: "For my purpose, 'common man' is in terms of a whole assembly. The bible was frequently addressed to all of Israel, all of the church.... and that for over a thousand years."

Besides the fact that using an Arminian understanding of "all", Dan thinks the infants in the OT assembly were libertarians(!), this now makes his argument even more ridiculous (miracles are possible!). There are, and have been, thousands of compatibilist "common men" on this understanding. Therefore, Dan's argument can't go through since some "common men" understand "choose" in non-libertarian terms. This is all the empirical evidence Dan needs to debunk his claim that "all common men" are libertarians! Dan knows that there are men in the church (i.e., the collection of common men) who are compatibilits, therefore Dan knows that not all common men are libertarians! So, now we have Dan's implicit admission that he's made empirically false claims, as well as my last post where I show that many respected dictionaries define "choose" in ways congenial to Calvinism. Dan is beating his own argument, I hardly have to do anything.

But it gets worse. Previously Dan wrote, "The Bible was written by and to the common man, not the semi-comnpatibilist." Okay, let's follow Dan's reasoning out: If the Bible was written to common men, and common men are just the members of the church, and common men are all libertarians, then no non-libertarian is a member of the church! Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Edwards, Helm, Hays, Manata, John Smith at the local OPC, are all outside of the church!

3. Dan offers a lengthy quote by Justin Martyr in which he thinks it refutes "fatalism." Three problems:

(i) If true, so what? Martyr isn't God.

(ii) Martyr doesn't talk about the relevant "fatalism" that is appealed to in the literature, i.e., accidental necessity, so his point is totally irrelevant.

(iii) It's not even clear how Martyr "refutes" fatalism and how it applies to Calvinism since I don't see anything of Calvinism being attacked by Martyr (and again, even if Martyr could be cleaned up and made more rigorous and precise by Dan, then see (i)).

4. Dan makes some throw-away comment about Stoics and determinism (ignoring the larger point which is that I argued that some "common men" have understood things deterministically, which undercuts his argument, he chose(!) not to respond to this point), I'd suggest he familiarize himself with the relevant literature, he can start here (and I never made a claim about "all", and I don't defend stoic determinism either, that's not the point).

It just keeps getting more and more weird and sad and embarrassing for Dan.

I am the Bread of Life

1.I was recently debating a Catholic on the correct interpretation of Jn 6. I stressed certain objections to the Eucharistic interpretation. One objection I accentuated was the fact that, in context, this interpretation is clearly anachronistic.

Now, my emphasis on this particular objection shouldn’t be taken to mean that’s the only major objection to the Eucharistic interpretation. But since Catholicism in general is guilty of foisting anachronistic interpretations on to Scripture, it’s worth devoting some time to this particular issue. And using Jn 6 is a good test-case. To clarify what’s wrong with anachronistic interpretations. That’s applicable to other Catholic prooftexts.

2.There are liberal commentators who admit that a Eucharistic reference in Jn 6 is anachronistic. But they don’t have a problem with that. From their viewpoint, this is a case in which the author of the Fourth Gospel, whom they don’t identify with the Apostle John, was historicizing a later doctrinal development. The author was backdating a later doctrinal development. On this view, the author began with a later doctrinal development, then invented a fictitious back-story to give it the illusion of dominical authorization. He made up a little story about the Eucharist, then put that on the lips of Jesus.

Since, on this view, the events in Jn 6 never happened, and since on this view, Jesus never spoke these words, there’s nothing wrong with a blatantly anachronistic reference to the Lord’s Supper–for Jn 6 isn’t a historical depiction in the first place.

The liberal interpretation at least as the virtue of being self-consistent–given its operation assumptions. And this is not a problem for Catholic commentators, since contemporary Catholic Bible scholars tend to be liberal. For them, Jn 6 is a record of the narrator’s theology, not a record of Jesus’ theology. The narrator is not a mouthpiece for Jesus; rather, Jesus is a mouthpiece for the narrator. From their standpoint, this is a speech spoken by no one to no one at no time and no place. Rather, it’s a fictitious speech, put in the mouth of a fictitious speaker, speaking to a fictitious audience, at a fictitious time and place.

But for Christians who think that Jn 6 describes a real world situation, we need to provide a realistic interpretation which matches the time, place, and audience.

3.Jason Engwer has raised another objection. In Jn 6, the Bread of Life discourse is preceded by the feeding of the 5000. That’s the lead in to the discourse. Indeed, at both a literary and chronological level, the prior event is a deliberate set up for what follows.

The feeding of the 5000 is a literal meal. Yet Jesus uses that event as a springboard to point out the spiritual inefficacy of physical consumption. And this is despite the fact that the feeding of the 5000 is no ordinary meal. It’s a miracle–just like the manna from heaven.

Jason then points out that Jesus is drawing a contrast between two different meals. But if both meals are literal, physical meals, then that destroys the intended contrast. What we have, instead, is a contrast between a literal meal and a figurative meal.

4.Finally, there are detailed exegetical objections to the Eucharistic interpretation by Johannine commentators like Craig Keener, D. A. Carson, and Herman Ridderbos.

Mutant-X Arminians

One of the most telling signs of the fallacious nature of Calvinist apologetics in general is its heavy reliance upon caricatures and misrepresentation of the beliefs of other Christians. There are few things more frustrating than trying to explain a concept to someone who simply takes one aspect of what is being said, and runs with it in a half-baked attempt to disprove it, heedless of any details or qualifications, yet this very tactic is something of a staple among Calvinism’s more vocal proponents.

I’ve posted before on a proper Christian description of libertarian free will, as have numerous other writers. Of note is the fact that libertarian free will, in the context of orthodox Christian theology, allows one to freely choose within a range of available options. Therefore depending upon individual contexts, the possible choices may be limited, and some options may not be possible.

Nonetheless, no matter how often or how clearly it’s repeated, many Calvinist writers either aren’t grasping the concept, or just continue to dishonestly distort it. One of the usual tactics is to frame libertarian free will as some imaginary power that lets one do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with no restraint whatsoever.

http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/the-fallacies-of-calvinist-apologetics-–-fallacy-4-free-will-is-the-power-to-do-anything/

There are several problems with this contention:

1.There’s a potential discrepancy between what people say or think, and the logical consequences of what they say or think. This is not an issue of what Arminians say they believe. Rather, this is an issue of what their position logically commits them to.

2.Arminians believe in libertarian freedom, defined as the freedom to do otherwise (or choose otherwise).

But one problem with this belief is the total absence of any empirical evidence to substantiate their belief. For we only make one choice at a time.

Arminians think freedom of choice entails the freedom to choose between two or more options. But we have no experience in choosing each option. Therefore, we have no evidence that the options we didn’t choose were ever in play.

3.Since there’s no empirical evidence for their position, Arminians must fall back on intuition. They infer that if I can contemplate different hypothetical alternatives, and decide on one course of action rather than another, then this, of itself, is evidence of the freedom to do otherwise.

But there’s a problem with that inference. The inference would only be valid if there were a one-to-one correspondence between conceivable choices and actionable choices.

Yet many things are conceivable which are not realistic. I can imagine what it’s like to be Superman. But that’s not a live possibility–much to the chagrin of every five-year-old boy.

4.Then there’s a further problem. Arminians gloss the freedom to do otherwise in terms of alternate possibilities.

But if we have the freedom to choose between alternate possibilities, and realize one possibility or another, then what, if anything, would be the upper limit on that freedom?

What’s actual doesn’t circumscribe what’s possible, for the actual has reference to the past and the present. For Arminians, the past is unalterable, but the future is wide open. The future is the realm of possibilities.

The future imposes no limit on what we can do in the future, for the future is the result of our choices. We realize the future by our choices. There is no future apart from our choices. We create the future by the choices we make.

Therefore, the only restriction on the freedom to do otherwise would be what’s logically possible or logically compossible. There is no concrete restriction on our field of action.

We can’t do something that’s logically impossible or incompossible, but as long as we don’t choose a logically contradictory state of affairs, then we should be able to make anything happen. Wish it into being. There are no natural impediments to our field of action beyond logical coherence.

But, of course, real life doesn’t corroborate that claim.

5.To briefly take stock: there is no empirical evidence for Arminian freedom. And there is no intuitive evidence for Arminian freedom. The complete lack of evidence would, itself, be sufficient to deny Arminian freedom.

But beyond the lack of evidence there is also evidence to the contrary. So the Arminian presupposition suffers from both an absence of any positive evidence as well as positive counterevidence.

6.At best, the Arminian can only harmonize his position with the lack of evidence and contrary evidence by postulating that God imposes an arbitrary restriction on our freedom of opportunity. Our freedom of action is not constrained by any inherent lack of power on our part, but by God suppressing our latent abilities.

According to Arminian theology, a human being is like the Dark Phoenix, when left to its own devices. God must install a series of psychic circuit breakers to contain the Phoenix Force and thereby prevent the psionic powers of the Class-5 mutant from running amok.

Appearances are deceptive

“It should also be noted how dependent Luther is here on the philosophical outlook of Ockhamism, despite all the protestations against scholasticism and philosophy. For Ockham there was no intelligible species in cognition as on the preceding epistemological models. On those models, the form or intelligible species of an object was actually grasped by the mind so that the mind took on or became the form or essence of an object. This incidentally was garnered from Aristotle who thought that the liquid in the eye was clear or translucent to take on all colors and so in a similar way the mind itself is formless. Knowledge was a two-place relation where the knower directly grasps the nature of the object even if there is a great difference in the sensible species or sensible qualities. Not all doors look alike, but they have the same form, which is communicated to and grasped by the mind. For Ockhamists though, there was no intelligible species and knowledge became a three place relation with the knower, the representation and the object. To make matters worse, the causal power of an object was insufficient to necessarily preserve the connection between the representation of itself and the object so that it was now possible that a representation or image could be caused to exist by something else other than that it was an image of. So an image of a palm tree could be produced in you without there being any palm tree present but instead caused in you by say God or the devil. An image then becomes causally diminished such that it can represent something totally opposed to it.”

http://energeticprocession.com/2009/07/03/hes-got-issues/

This description reminds me of transubstantiation. Indeed, it’s applicable to any version of the real presence.

Sacramental realists quote passages like “This is my body,” “This is my blood,” and “I am the bread” to prove the real presence.

One of the problems, though, is that if you take their prooftexts at face value, then their prooftexts prove too much. For it immediately generates a discrepancy between appearance and reality. There is the outward appearance of bread and wine, but the underlying reality of Christ’s body and blood. What you see is not what you get.

The doctrine of the real presence sets up a three-place relation between the communicant, the wafer, and the Host. The wafer is the representation. But there’s no intrinsic connection between the representation and the Host.

To the contrary, sacramental realism has to detach the secondary qualities of bread and wine from their primary qualities, detach the secondary qualities of a body and blood from their primary qualities, then attach the secondary qualities of bread and wine to the primary qualities of a body and blood.

Once you treat secondary qualities as detachable from primary qualities, then mix and match them, the underlying reality could be anything at all. It would be wholly undetectable. The secondary qualities would afford no indication of what you were actually encountering. Seems to me that any version of the real presence is subject to this consequence.