Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil

This article explores one aspect of the relationship between the Problem of Evil and the Fall of Man. It is based on a reasoning scheme known as 'poisoning the well'. However, as with most reasoning schemes, its application determines whether it is a fallacy or not. Its intent is to weaken the Christian argument that we don't know enough about Gods intentions to say anything about Evil. I intend to show that we can't confidently say we know anything about God.

For the sake of this argument, I will stipulate the premise of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man and the existence of God are true.

If Adam and Eve are related to the problem of evil then we have to accept the whole premise literally, the world is less than 10,000 years old, that evolution didn't occur and that the whole field of science is based on factors that are causing the sound principles of Logic and Inference to fail. That raises questions of uncertainty about the principles of Logic and Inference in general. If we accept the old earth creation then the world could be 4.5 billion years old, and we start getting into deciding which parts of the bible are metaphorical and which are not.

If we presume that humans have free will and choose to sin, then the introduction of personal bias is likely and
- The initial writers of the scripture should be suspect.
- Since we don't have the original text, the reproduction of the scripture should be suspect.
- any intepretations based on those scriptures should be suspect.

If we presume that humans cannot understand the mind of god, then those interpretations should be suspect.
- Teachings coming from someone who interprets the bible should be suspect.

Using this principle the phenomena of doctrinal differences between denominations becomes plausible. However, the principle that we can understand Gods word as it appears in the bible becomes implausible because our nature prevents us from interpreting the 'word' correctly. If we say that we receive guidance from the Holy Spirit, the nature of Human Beings prevents the Guidance from being accepted as it was given. Since the only information we have about the christian god comes from the bible and humans are not capable by nature to intrpret the word, then we cannot really trust what we should take to be metaphorical and what we shouldn't and we cannot confidently say we know anything about the Christian God.

Feelings as a Result of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

When I was a Christian I was convinced that I was getting emotional responses as a result of my 'indwelling spirit'. Eventually, through honest introspection, a lot of it done while praying, I reasoned that it was all natural. In fact, I would say that I probably spent too much time thinking about things during prayer which eventually led to "god" telling me that he was really a Euphemism for Luck. But this morning I got one of those feelings again while listening to a podcast and it reminded me of all those times I got them as a Christian....

This morning I was listening to a Science Magazine podcast and they expressed condolences to the family and friends one of the lead authors on the paper they were doing the story about. He died before it was published. I felt an instant of sadness, like a tingling or shock and misty eyes. I remembered the last time that happened was when I was reading about the WWF wrestler (Benoit) that is the subject of a murder suicide investigation. And before that the Virginia Tech tragedy. Then I remember how misty I got watching the Movie "United 93" and had to wipe the tears off my cheeks. I get misty eyed when I see information about tragedies and instances of sadness that I would describe as feelings of electric shocks. It happens out of happiness when I see acts of heroism on the news. It continues to this day. Sometimes, in other situations, it was not sadness but a feeling like my hair was standing on end. In fact, It just happened to me as I was writing this because I concentrated on it and it happened. It happened to me the first few times I published articles on this blog and was waiting for the fall out. Did any of you ever get yourself "Psyched up" for a game or track meet in High School or College? Remember how it felt? I am convinced, as you should be, that it is not the indwelling of the spirit. It is apparently a biological response to some hardwired morality/altruism/excitement that I have built in. Even former contributor DagoodS has those moments. He details one here on his blog.

So, Christians, what is it that convinces you of your spirit indwelling?

The Role of Persuasion in the Question of the Holy Spirit

This article takes one of the examples in the "Reasonable Doubts about the Holy Spirit" article and explores it further to show that there is no possible way for a person to come to an informed belief based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the alleged interference of Satan or the stubbornness of Humans and that the beliefs that we form about ambiguous subjects are results of factors of persuasion in our environment.

2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

In this situation at least three premises present themselves to Tom before he forms a belief one way or the other.
1. The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today.
2. The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Maybe some are valid and some are not.

Stipulating for the sake of argument that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit were ONLY valid at the time of the Apostles I'll assign some claims to some entities.
1. Satan says that The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today
2. The Holy Spirit says that The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Tom comes up with a compromise that some are valid and some are not.

So How does Tom decide between any of these claims. He is no expert. He stands alone with these thoughts. He can find scripture to support arguments for and against, but his cultural belief in fair play give him the idea that both may be right in certain circumstances. Usually when you have to make a decision or decide what you think about something, it is based on evidence and logical inference. This is true in the day to day interactions in the world. One can see evidence of certain things and one can see if it fits with what the claims are and one can make an informed decision. He knows people that speak in tongues, but he also has a feeling that it may be just a show for attention. However in this case, the evidence is in the Bible, and it seems to be ambiguous on the issue. Usually when one is faced with making a decision and one isn't qualified to make an informed decision, one has to rely on experts.

So now who is an expert? If both arguments have support in the Bible, then how does anyone, even an expert make an informed decision? If they make the decision on a feeling, then how does anyone know where the feeling came from? Holy Spirit, Satan, or the self? If both parties ascribing to different side of the issue make their decision on a feeling that they describe as the Holy Spirit, who can argue? How do they know it was the Holy Spirit? Does this "Holy Spirit Feeling" ever manifest itself in situations where you wouldn't expect any "Holy Spirit Guidance", like at the mall for example? This is where good old fashioned Persuasion and Rhetoric comes into play when you don't have enough information to make a decision about an issue that is ambiguous.

Some factors of Persuasion are in the incomplete list that follows.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
- People fill in the gaps in information naturally, stories, blind spot in the eye, movies, music etc
- People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.
- People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery.

When there are good arguments on both sides and you don't have any evidence to make an inference based on Logic, then you always have your friends, family, church and culture to give you a feeling about the truth of an issue. This is the how the industry of marketing and advertising work as well as politics.

Does anyone just pick a church at random and make it their church home? No, they shop around, and visit other churches till they find one that 'feels' right. Why does it feel right? The Holy Spirit, Satan or self? How do they know? They decide from the factors listed above. The decide based on the influences in their environment.

To say that one follows the Holy Spirit based on a feeling is a case of special pleading. There is no way to validate it even for the person having the feeling. Therefore, the teachings in the Bible that are ambiguous, logically must not be important and can be disregarded until they can be substantiated in principle and evidence.

REFERENCES

- Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
- Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
- Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
- Cialdini's Six weapons of influence
- Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.
- Why Do Christians Believe?
- From an Atheists Perspective
- ChangingMinds.org

Persuasion Videos from Debate Central.
- Speaking to Persuade
- Objects of Persusion
- Theories of Persuasion
- Strategies of Persuasion

Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit

This article is an exploration of some stated and less disputed characteristics of the Holy Spirit. I purposely tried to avoid claims about the Holy Spirit that were disputed between denominations and Churches. I use these relatively undisputed claims as my core premises to construct the argument in favor of the Holy Spirit in order to express doubt about it. By using commonly accepted claims about the Holy Spirit, and my experience as a former Christian I hope to avoid the charge of misrepresentation or "straw man".

P1a. The Holy Spirit is God
P1b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.
P2. The Holy Spirit informs the Unbeliever as to the truth of Jesus when being told about it.
P3a. The Holy Spirit is in every Christian
P3b. Every Christian Accepts Christ
P3c. Every Christian should be favorable to Holy Spirit Influence.
P4. The Holy Spirit helped write the scripture
P5. The Holy Spirit helps interpret the scripture
P6. The Holy Spirit gives understanding (informs).

Conclusion: The Holy Spirit is effectively God, it wrote about itself, it lives in every Christian giving guidance about what it helped write about itself therefore there should be no disagreement on any characteristic of the Holy Spirit or interpretation of Scripture.

Many of the claims about the Holy Spirit are not falsifiable, but premises P5 and P6 are. For example, some early pre-Nicean Christian Church leaders rejected the Trinity. They were closest to the source, which infers that if the principles regarding the Holy Spirit were valid, then they of all people would know if it was a proper way to describe God or not. Yet the validity of the Trinity as a proper description of God seems to be in doubt by some denominations. Additionally some other characteristics of God aka The Holy Spirit seem to be in doubt. Some Christians say the Holy Spirit is a female entity, and some say it is male. Some say it is a person and some say it isn't.

Why can't all Christians agree on any of this if they are all getting guidance from the Holy Spirit? But quite counter-intuitively one Christian in one church has their point of view and another Christian in another church has a different point of view. They both believe they have the Holy Spirit inside and are getting guidance (informed). But what is the manifestation of this guidance? Is it a feeling, or verbal thoughts, or images or something else? Its obviously something personal and individual.

You who are Christian, how does the Holy Spirit manifests its guidance to you? The next time you are in a disagreement with another Christian over some aspect of scripture, do a little introspection and have some humility. First, recognize that you may be wrong. Second, if you don't come to agree with the other person, do some introspection. Look for its manifestation and see if you are getting any guidance from the Holy Spirit. See if you can distinguish what your thoughts are from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you can distinguish, and you are certain you're expressing the point of view of the Holy Spirit, then the person you are having the discussion with should agree with you if they are a true Christian and have the Spirit indwelling. If you can't distinguish then, ask yourself, is this person getting guidance from the Holy Spirit and if so how do they distinguish? Maybe you should ask them, how the guidance of the Holy Spirit manifests itself to them because if they can distinguish their thoughts from the Holy Spirit, then you need to adopt their way of thinking right away. If they can't and you can't either, then maybe you should stop worrying about the initial disagreement and start worrying about why neither one of you are getting guidance from the Holy Spirit. If you are convinced you are getting guidance, and they are too, then you are at an impasse, and logically this should not be possible. One of you must be wrong about receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit. But why would you think you were getting guidance if you weren't? In any case you'll need to get another opinion, but how do you ultimately know who's interpretation of scripture is correct and who's isn't. Hopefully the Holy Spirit will let you know who you can trust. However that doesn't seem to be the case in some churches. Churches that have had Pastors such as Ted Haggard, or a community in Uganda, Africa are sorely missing that type of guidance.

If the Holy Spirit informs, and a true Christian has it living inside and it lives inside because the person should be favorable to its influence then how can there possibly be Christian on Christian crime? I Bet William Tyndale, who created the first English translation of the Bible and was subsequently charged with heresy was wondering something similar as he was praying "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes" shortly before being strangled and burned. If a person can't tell when the holy spirit is giving them guidance, what good is it? How is it supposed to work?

During my research for this article (hardly any of them scholarly or academic sources) I noticed that some web sites talked about the lack of good commentary on the Holy Spirit and one speculated that it was probably because people were afraid of Blasphemy against it. In my opinion, the lack of commentary is because they are afraid to take a position on it out of fear of criticism. Most of them just quoted scripture and never provided any mechanism for how it worked but did provide a lot of ambiguous Emotional Persuasion Dialogue aka Rhetoric with no way to validate it. This is an indication that it is not very well understood which is not what you'd expect if the principles written about it are true.

The following are some situations I created using the principles of the Holy Spirit to explore their implications. I purposely worded them redundantly so the impact of the argument would not get lost. In each case the presumption is that the Holy Spirit informs or gives guidance to facilitate a decision to accept or reject.

How it should happen.
1. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and lives happily ever after.

How it should not happen.

Tom Believes the Gifts Were Only Valid For The Apostles:
2a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only valid for the Apostles. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit are NOT only valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on that discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Believes the Gifts Are Valid For Everyone Today:
2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it? This argument is discussed in detail here

Tom Becomes an Apostate:
3a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind. He makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought was rational. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He becomes an apostate later in life, living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, then if the Holy Spirit was giving him guidance and it didn't make sense to him then is he culpable when he rejects Christianity on those grounds? On the other hand how do you love something you have doubts about? If he grudgingly keeps professing his faith, gods not going to be fooled and he's as good as an apostate.

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Hangs Onto His Belief Despite Doubts:
3b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind and he makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought made sense. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He wrestles with these questions for the rest of his life professing his faith and NOT living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, how is it that the Holy Spirit didn't intervene on behalf of itself to the point that he would not have to make a choice to disregard conflicting information that he honestly believed was valid? Here is a link to a DC article called "Christians Who Struggle With Serious Doubts" that talks about this.

Tom Doesn't Accept Jesus At First Contact
4. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. But he doesn't because he is not convinced. What could be going on in inside Tom to cause that to happen? Doesn't Tom realize that the Holy Spirit is working on him to influence him to believe? How is Tom supposed to recognize the fact the he is being informed by the Holy Spirit? Is Tom consciously disregarding information that is informing him from the Holy Spirit? Can Tom distinguish between what are his thoughts and what is the guidance and understanding of the Holy Spirit?

Tom Accepts Jesus But Doesn't Become A True Christian:
5. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Evan is in the Catholic Church, or Protestant, or Church of God, or Jehovah's Witness or Church of Latter Day Saints. Tom likes what he hears and accepts Christ. But the other Churches out there are saying that those churches aren't made up of real Christians, kind of like the Pope did on July 10, 2007. So if these are not real Christians, why didn't the Holy Spirit pick up on this and over time put Tom in a position to have to make a conscious decision to disregard information about itself that he new was valid and accept information that he did not know was valid? There was no informed decision possible.

Where are the real Christians? In what church?
* The Catholic Church? or any of the other versions of Catholicism?
* Protestant Evangelicals? or any of the many other protestant churches?
* Jehovah's Witnesses?
* Latter Day Saints?
* Church of God?

Since it seems apparent that the Holy Spirit does not help interpret scripture or give understanding, Reasonable Doubt about the Holy Spirit is justified.

For effect I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia and after that, the staggering number of theological disputes between them.

List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism

With help from John, Prup, and an Ed Babinski article, here are a list of some disputed topics. I wanted to list as many items as possible to give a graphic representation of how unreliable the principles of the Holy Spirit are.

- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

What Would You Do With $800,000.00 or 55,000 People for 12 Hours?

On July 7, 2007 55,000 people at a cost of $800,000.00 got together in Nashville for twelve hours of swaying, praying and fasting to influence God or other people or maybe it was just a pep talk to turn the country around. It was intentionally held on 7/7/07 because “Biblically, the number seven is the Lord's number," said Scott MacLeod, who helped organize The Call and is founder of Provision International, an inner-city ministry in Nashville. “All through the Bible, there are a series of sevens. So, when you get three sevens to line up at once, you know something's up.”

Can’t argue with logic like that. God knows there is more potential energy in those prayers than the combined effort of 110,000 hands laying on tools or brainstorming on different ways you could use $800,000.00 or 55,000 people to do something useful.

You Don't Need Faith to Believe The Principle of Evolution

Rev. 1. Added link to Evolution 101 podcast.
This is a recent comment in one of the previous articles. It is a frequently offered claim that I want to take a moment to address as an article instead of a comment.
"....when one considers the amount of atheist faith required to believe the scientific theories regarding evolution in light of the absence of any eyewitness, the sort of Christian faith regarding inspired writings shouldn't be all that bizarre....."

People don't need faith to believe the principle of evolution. Scientists are doing experiments using it in labs and observing it in real time in nature. Heres a link to TalkOrigins.org to explore it a little further. Our friend Benny highly recommends this site.

When you have a principle about how something works, you don't need faith, just logic and reasoning to make the inference that allows you to make reliable predictions about the outcome.

For example, I am sure you don't need faith to know that if you leave the bag in your cereal box open the cereal will get stale do you? No, because you know, in principle, that leaving the bag open will facilitate its going stale. In the case where you have a friend make a bowl of cereal for you and you find that it is stale, you can reasonably presume, based on principle, that the bag was left open. Furthermore, you don't need to believe god made them go stale because you know there is a natural mechanism that causes it. And you don't need to be able to describe in detail how the mechanism works to understand it, you just need to know the principle. In this way you can happily go about knowing this principle and using it to make decisions about other things like applying it to your triscuits or a birthday cake. It also helps you to understand with little extra information why you may find a little package of dessicant in something that is vulnerable to damage from moisture and you may even go so far as to properly infer that it is vulnerable to damage from moisture without anyone telling you. In this way you acquire knowledge and build on it to make decisions and acquire more knowledge. As you make inferences you need to watch to see if your inferences are correct, if they are then you can repeat the process of using them to make decisions and acquire more knowledge.

In my view this is just common sense, and basically, the scientific method is just common sense formalized.

If you use common sense on the Bible and try to make predictions or gain knowledge using the principles about God in the bible, or about the state of the world back in the day, there is a lot of room for doubt. If you don't believe it, just ask any theologian.

Recommended Resources
* Evolution 101 podcast, or you can find it in iTunes.

"Floods are judgement on society, say bishops"

This is shockingly ignorant.
This is a summary of a news article in the Telegraph. According to some senior Church of England bishops, recent storms and flooding that have left thousands homeless are due to “Gods Judgment”, whatever that is. He doesn’t come right out and say that God sent the storms to ravage innocent victims but he does say that he expresses his sympathy and that a problem with “environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate". He asserts that moral decadence and lack of respect for the planet are the catalyst for the cause. He claims that western civilization is ignoring the teachings of the bible, cites homosexual friendly legislation as one example and describes “the Beast” in the bible as institutional power, a euphemism for Government, that sets itself up to control people and their morals.

Praise the Lord and bring on the Theocracy.