The Problem of Pious Prevarication

Rational discussion with persons who contradict themselves is impossible; if contradictions are allowed then anything goes.

Prevaricate: verb: to deviate from the truth; to speak falsely or misleadingly; deliberately misstate or create an incorrect impression.

Christian authors, Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan in their book, Did God Really Command Genocide? go to great lengths to exonerate Yahweh from any culpability for the passages in the Old Testament that look suspiciously like genocide. In their first chapter (inaccurately entitled The Problem Clarified) Copan and Flannagan (C&F) explore the argument of atheist philosopher Raymond Bradley, who wrote an essay in 1999 entitled A Moral Argument for Atheism which discusses, what he called, “objective moral truths”. He believes that the Bible clearly reveals incidents where Yahweh violates those objective moral truths.

As might be expected C&F’s objective is to discredit Bradley. In this blog, we will address how Copan and Flannagan, in their attempt to exonerate Yahweh of genocide, are guilty of prevarication. (It always amazes me how theists defend their truth by using prevarication.)

Let’s look first at what Bradley writes.

Objective moral truths.

Here, now, are a few examples of moral principles that I take to be paradigms of objective moral truths:

• P1: It is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.
• P2. It is morally wrong to provide one’s troops with young women captives with the prospect of their being used as sex-slaves.
• P3. It is morally wrong to make people cannibalize their friends and family.
• P4. It is morally wrong to practice human sacrifice, by burning or otherwise.
• P5. It is morally wrong to torture people endlessly for their beliefs.

“On all of these examples, I would like to think, theists and other morally enlightened persons will agree with me. And I would like to think, further, that theists would agree with me in holding that anyone who committed, caused, commanded, or condoned, acts in violation of any of these principles is not only evil but should be regarded with abhorrence.”

God’s violations of our moral principles.

In this section of his essay, Bradley gives specific examples from scripture showing that the God of the bible violates all five of these moral principles. He writes, “But now comes the linch-pin of my moral argument against theism. For, as I shall now show, the theist God–as he supposedly reveals himself in the Jewish and Christian Bibles–either himself commits, commands others to commit, or condones, acts which violate every one of our five principles.”

A logical quandary for theists.

Bradley continues, “These–and countless other–passages from the Bible mean that theists are confronted with a logical quandary which strikes at the very heart of their belief that the God of Scripture is holy. They cannot, without contradiction, believe all four of the statements:

1. Any act that God commits, causes, commands, or condones is morally permissible.
2. The Bible reveals to us many of the acts that God commits, causes, commands, and condones.
3. It is morally impermissible for anyone to commit, cause, command, or condone, acts that violate our moral principles.
4. The Bible tells us that God does in fact commit, cause, command, or condone, acts that violate our moral principles.

The trouble is that these statements form an inconsistent tetrad such that from any three one can validly infer the falsity of the remaining one. Thus, one can coherently assert (1), (2), and (3) only at the cost of giving up (4); assert (2), (3), and (4) only at the cost of giving up (1); and so on.

The problem for a theist is to decide which of these four statements to give up in order to preserve the minimal requirement of truth and rationality and logical consistency.

After all, if someone has contradictory beliefs then their beliefs can’t all be true.

Changing the Narrative

We shall see that C&F, by making subtle, but significant changes to Bradley’s original statements, are able to eliminate any contradictions. Not surprisingly, their subtle (and dishonest) wordsmithing changes everything. Compare Bradley’s original statements (above) with C&F’s (below).

Copan and Flannagan write, “We believe that (Bradley’s) argument should be rephrased as follows:”

1. Any act that God commands us to perform is morally permissible.
2. God is the author of the Bible.
3. It is morally impermissible for anyone to commit acts that violate the Crucial Moral Principle.
4. The author of the Bible commands us to perform acts that violate the Crucial Moral Principle.

Since Bradley is an atheist, I doubt he would approve of the changes C&F make to his second statement. Another change Bradley might object to is C&F’s use of the phrase “the Crucial Moral Principle.”  For the record, Bradley never uses that expression. Plus, an internet search of the phrase produces zero results outside of C&F’s book.

In paragraph one, on page one, of chapter one, C&F switch Bradley’s statement, “It is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter of men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing,” to something more innocuous which they call “the Crucial Moral Principle.” Possibly it’s an attempt to mask the reality of what is really being discussed here: genocide. From this point on, whenever C&F use the innocuous expression “Crucial Moral Principle,” I will replace it with Bradley’s original statement.

C&F continue, “A problem surfaces: if we assume that the human author of Scripture commands us to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing, then this undermines Bradley’s argument. Let’s rework things (again) to show how this is so:”

C&F continue to make even more changes to Bradley’s four statements.

1. Any act that God commands us to preform is morally permissible.
2. God is the (primary) author of the bible.
3. It is morally impermissible for anyone to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.
4. The secondary human author of the bible commands us to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.

Remember, if you will, Bradley’s comments that “They (theists) cannot, without contradiction, believe all four of the statements to be true.” However, with some skilled wordsmithing and a generous helping of prevarication, C&F are able to claim that their newly worded “four truth claims (propositions) are consistent and do not involve any contradiction whatsoever.”

Voilà!

This is really interesting Let’s take a closer look at their 4^th statement.

“The secondary human author of the bible commands us to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.”

This is an obvious attempt by C&F to let Yahweh off the hook for commanding the deliberate and merciless slaughtering of men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing. By blaming the human author, whose hand actually penned the words, C&F can now redirect the blame (unsuccessfully, I might add) from Yahweh to some anonymous human author.

Just exactly who is the secondary human author of the bible that they speak of? And how does that human author “command” and who exactly is meant by “us,” when C&F say, “commands us”? Did the human author command the deliberate and merciless slaughter of men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing? If so, and Yahweh didn’t intervene to prevent it, wouldn’t that make Yahweh just as guilty?

C&F continue to defend their statement by continuing their prevarication. They write,

To get a contradiction, we have to add a further premise: God’s role as primary author entails that whatever the secondary human author of the Bible affirms or commands, God likewise affirms or commands. But this argument therefore must assume a particular understanding of the relationship between divine and human authors of Scripture so that whatever the human author says or affirms is identical with what God says or affirms. Human biblical writers were not God’s typewriters nor were their words being dictated by God.

This statement directly contradicts the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which says,

“…although the human writers’ personalities were expressed in what they wrote, the words were divinely constituted. Thus, what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His authority, for He is its ultimate Author, having given it through the minds and words of chosen and prepared men who in freedom and faithfulness ‘spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit’. Holy Scripture must be acknowledged as the Word of God by virtue of its divine origin.”

However, as we see in chapter one, C&F disagree. They write,

“But this understanding of the relationship between divine and human authors is implausible. It would be silly to say that whatever the human author says or affirms is identical to what God says or affirms.”

It would seem that C&F are calling the authors of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy silly. But the Chicago statement is very clear when they concluded that, “what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His authority, for He is its ultimate Author.” Therefore, if the human writer commands genocide, then God commands genocide. Therefore, it is dishonest to switch the culpability from God to a human writer.

If we take another look at Bradley’s four statements, you’ll notice that he never mentions biblical authorship: neither human nor divine. He simply writes “The Bible reveals to us many of the acts that God commits, causes, commands, and condones.” That statement is completely true and needs no clarification of authorship. As we have already seen, C&F disregard Bradley’s original four statements and deceptively switch the narrative to authorship which, by the way, better serves their purpose.

Bradley, who wrote his essay decades before C&F published their book, accurately described what I discovered and experienced while reading it. He wrote,

“I shall, however, have to deal with the counterarguments of those who defend God and the Scriptures against criticisms like mine. Theistic apologists have two main strategies.

1. Try to show that the Bible either doesn’t really say what I claim it says or that it doesn’t mean what it says.
2. Try to show that our moral principles are either inapplicable to the situations described or that they present exceptions which would absolve God of violating them.”

It’s not surprising then, that C&F have incorporated both of those strategies. Bradley ends his discussion with this statement.

Rational discussion with persons who contradict themselves is impossible; if contradictions are allowed then anything goes.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Copan and Flannagan’s book is filled, cover to cover, with prevarications similar to the ones found in chapter one. Had I read more carefully, when I first picked up their book, I would have recognized the deceptions in chapter one, and probably would have decided to not waste my time on such a book.

End note: For what it’s worth.

“But which of the four statements will our theist deny?” Bradley.

Christian author Charlie Trimm attempts to answer that question in his book, entitled The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide and Biblical Interpretation.

Similar to Bradley, Trimm also proposes four different statements that he says cannot all be true. (Sound familiar?) The following are Trimm’s four statements.

1. God is good and compassionate.
2. The Old Testament is a faithful record of God’s dealings with humanity and favorably portrays YHWH’s actions.
3. The Old Testament describes events that are similar to genocide.
4. Mass killings are always evil.

Both Bradley and Trimm say the same thing about their four statements. Bradley writes, “One cannot believe all four of the statements to be true without contradiction.” Trimm writes that all four of his propositions “cannot be true at the same time because of the contradictions between them.”

The rest of Trimm’s book is devoted to addressing the consequences of rejecting each of the propositions. For example, one chapter is devoted to the notion that someone might choose to reject the proposition that God is good and compassionate. Another chapter deals with believers who question the reliability of the Old Testament. It’s clear that he is answering Bradley’s question, however Trimm does not reference Bradley anywhere in his book. So, my question is, WHY NOT?

In a footnote citing his four proposed statements, Trimm cites four theists who he says, “have framed the problem with similar questions.” Without exception, all of those noted authors wrote their essays decades after Bradley’s four statements first appeared in his essay in 1999.

Given the obvious similarities in their ideas, I find Trimm’s failure to mention Bradley a bit curious. He cites Copan 10 times, so it’s obvious that he has read Copan and Flannagan’s book, where Bradley is introduced on page one of chapter one. Given the fact that Trimm’s book is very well organized and well documented, I doubt that it was an oversite on his part. My conclusion, therefore, is that Trimm purposefully left out any reference to Bradley. Think about it! What christian writer would want to expose their readers to an essay entitled, A Moral Argument for Atheism? It might be just too dangerous for some believers. Better safe, than sorry, I guess!

 

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum