Something to say

Animal art or Neandertal human?

2012-02-23T15:00:00.004+10:30

Dienekes' recent blog entry points our attention to the potential finding of Neandertal art, c. 40000 BC in Spain. This would be the earliest art ever found, and the only Neandertal art. If this is shown to be so, this has major implications for the discussion of human origins.

Image source here

For Christians, and indeed for anyone who wants to assert a sharp division, in every age, between human and animal, Neandertal art poses the problem of whether to say that sophisticated art can be produced by animals, or whether to say that some Neandertals were human. As you can read here in my recent blog post or here in my timeline of Genesis 1-11, I'm in the camp of animal art.

But if this claim referenced by Dienekes turns out to be correct, this is not just a big deal for Christians who believe the Bible. It's a big deal for everyone. I suspect that the majority of the world would assert a sharp division, throughout history, between human and animal. If so, the majority of the world is potentially presented with a tough choice by this data: Animal art, or Neandertal humans. Which way would you jump?

Assorted Links

2012-02-22T16:14:00.000+10:30

1. 42000 year old art (oldest on record) discovered in Andalusia, Spain. Claimed to be the only known art by Neandertals. here

Image source here

2. German finance minister suggested postponing Greek elections and installing a new government without political parties here

3. First century fragment of Mark rumoured to be found here

4. Reasons not to return to the gold standard here

5. Last World War 1 veteran dies here

Human evolution: 10 important points, rarely discussed

2012-02-14T12:37:00.003+10:30

Human evolution is a controversial subject for Bible-believers. Even to broach the subject can be seen as 'distracting from the gospel'. How much more is exploring new lines of thought in this area! Certainly it's more important to focus on Jesus' death and resurrection than on evolution. Yet I think theistic evolution it's worth thinking about. What follows should be taken as tentative. Yet it's also true that my present (tentative, but considered) view on Genesis 1-11 relies on taking certain positions on these issues. I expect most to disagree with me, some passionately. Nevertheless, here are ten thoughts on human evolution, from a Bible believing point of view, most of which I have rarely or never seen discussed in Christian circles.

Image source here:

1. Neandertals interbred with Homo Sapiens

'In 2010 the draft genome for Neandertals was released by Svante Pääbo and colleagues. It was reported that European and Asian populations are between 1-4% Neandertal' I'm quoting from here. If this is accepted at face value, those who see Adam and Eve as the blood ancestors of all humans have to say either (a) that some or all Neandertals were human (and Adam and Eve were ancestors of some or all Neandertals), or (b) that humans mated with Neandertal animals, producing humans. There are substantial challenges in plotting a path here for Bible believers.

2. The image of God could have been passed sideways from Adam to other Homo-sapiens

One possibility for resolving some of the challenges was first suggested to me by Peter Jensen in Doctrine 1 at Moore College: It's the suggestion that the image of God (and 'humanness') passed sideways from Adam (the first human), to other beings. The concept is that these other beings had been 'animals' in the biological form of humans before they received human souls. However, before they were made fully human, they did not have the full functionality and dignity and eternal soul which humans possess. They weren't 'us'. So there is a key distinction made between Homo sapiens and humans. A 'Homo sapien' in this sense is the biological 'shell', which looks human, but is not necessarily so.
So after Adam's creation and sin, millions of Homo sapiens all around the world were simultaneously made human. This includes Homo sapiens in Australia, America etc. Distance was no problem in them receiving humanity, for it wasn't a physical seed which they lacked. They lacked an eternal soul, and God gave them one which was modelled on Adam's.

I know that the distinction between Homo sapiens and humans can sound offensive. But the distinction must be made by anyone who believes both that humans have evolved and also that there is a firm difference between animal and human. Whatever your view on the historical timing of the change from animal to human, you need a label for those before the change (who would have looked very much like Adam), and a different label for those after the change. Note that related distinctions are used in historical theological discussions about 'ensoulment', and ethical debates about 'personhood' This isn't as offensive as it first seems. In fact, it needs to be discussed!

3. Activities which are uniquely human: Marriage

Drawing on the Bible, I want to propose some activities which are uniquely human, which no animal (no matter how advanced) could perform. My purpose is to explore (assuming that the suggestion at point 2 or something like it is correct) what evidence we might bring to bear to answer the question, how long ago did the first humans live? I first propose that marriage is a uniquely human activity. In Genesis 2:22-24, the basis for the one flesh relationship of marriage is that the first woman was taken physically from the first man. It is the manner of Eve's creation which is the foundational reason why any man is able to be united to his wife.Therefore, marriage did not exist before the time when Eve was created. Marriage is uniquely human.

4. Activities which are uniquely human: Promise making

Central to the notion of marriage is the concept of a marriage promise or covenant. (See Malachi 2:14) For this reason, it should be considered very unlikely that pre-humans engaged in covenants or promises of any sort. If pre-human Homo sapiens made promises to eachother, they could make a promise to cleave only to the other sexually, for life. Such a promise would seem so close to a marriage, that one would be forced to admit that marriage is a good name for it. Since marriage is limited to humans, it seems likely that promises should also be limited to humans.

5. Activities which are uniquely human: Law enforcement
Lastly, consider laws. A law is generally enacted together with a promise to enforce it. And so it also seems likely that law enforcement is a uniquely human activity.

6. Advanced activities which animals can potentially achieve: Burying and grieving the dead
On the flip side of this question, it is interesting to consider just how much animals could achieve without being human. Regarding elephants, Bradshaw writes, 'Grieving and mourning rituals make up an integral part of elephant culture. A mother may grieve over her dead child for days after his death, alternately trying to revive the baby and caressing and touching the corpse. Moss and Poole have observed a mother risking her own life for a week to grieve over her stillborn child.' 'After Emily's death, the group performed mourning rituals. Later, when time had dissolved the last vestiges of her massive flesh, her whitened bones lay spare, but not forgotten. For years, the aftershocks of Emily's passing could be observed as the group visited her bones. [...] 'Several years before, I had seen the EBs (EB is an abbreviation for a certain elephant herd) start to bury the carcass of a young female from another family' (Elephants on the Edge 11-12)

7. Advanced activities which animals can potentially achieve: Art
This is less certain and controversial, but here's an interesting piece making the case for animal creativity and art.

8. Advanced activities which animals can potentially achieve: Limited language
There have been the 'rudiments of language' discovered in monkeys. There's a book on how to teach dogs to sign, and there's more to consider here. The Bible records Balaam's ass speaking, yet not becoming human.

9. Advanced activities which animals can potentially achieve: Building structures

Nests, and termite mounds are examples of animals building structres. On 'Man vs Wild', Bear Grylls said that Badgers build bridges over rivers. I haven't found that confirmed anywhere reputable.

10. Estimating the earliest and latest date when the pre human Homo sapiens had become human 30000 BC - 4000 BC

I myself think it's still plausible that a date as late as 4000 BC can be contemplated for when the Homo sapiens around the world became human (I'm assuming that the proposal given in point 2 above is accepted) Indeed, this is my view. Some readers will be aware of my general theory of Genesis 1-11 and my dating of Adam c. 4000 BC here. Such a view requires attributing cave art, significant building structures, graves with grave goods and urbanization to 'animals'. I think points 6-9 above start to show that such activities might be attainable by advanced animals. 4000 B.C is a date so late that I haven't seen anyone else suggest it. Nevertheless, there is no evidence of writing until well after 4000 BC (there's the engraving of symbols, but not writing in full sentences), so there's no evidence of marriage, promises or law enforcement before that time. The most advanced pre-Human Homo sapiens would have been very advanced animals indeed, which gives extra comfort about 4000 BC as a plausible latest date for the arrival of humans. The earliest civilizations (Egyptian and Sumerian) with written records don't arise until well after 4000 BC, so 4000 BC can't be ruled too late on those grounds.

What about an earliest possible date? For those who don't accept that a chronology of Adam can be derived from the Bible, the question of an earliest possible date becomes very interesting. Still assuming the proposal given at point 2, and given the Neandertal data of point 1, what can we say? It seems critical to say that humans only arrived after the last inbreeding with Neandertals. If we say otherwise, we have to deal with the question of whether the offspring of human and animal is human. I think that should be avoided, so I suggest that the earliest date for human arrival is about 30000 years ago, the time when Neandertals died out.

What do you think?

Christian belief - does it need evidence?

2012-02-06T14:58:00.004+10:30

If Christians believe without good evidence, are they doing something wrong? Do typical Christians believe on the basis of evidence anyway? There's a debate around this subject between Alvin Plantinga and James Beilby
Plantinga says that the typical Christian believes in God apart from considerations of evidence and argument (and there's nothing wrong with that). "In the typical case, Christian belief is immediate; it is formed in the basic way. It doesn't proceed by way of an argument from, for example, the reliability of Scripture or the church" (Warranted Christian Belief, 259)

For Plantinga, Christian belief can be divided into two major beliefs: the belief in God, and the belief in the 'great things of the gospel' (i.e. belief in Jesus' divinity, birth, death, resurrection). The belief in God comes through the 'sensus divinitatis' (sense of the divine) which is built into all of us. The belief in the 'great things of the gospel' comes through the Holy Spirit. In both cases, the beliefs can come apart from evidence, there is nothing morally or intellectually inferior about that.

Image source here

Beilby disagrees with Plantinga. He suggests that Christian beliefs typically receive warrant from both immediate and inferential sources (i.e. from direct apprehension, and also from arguments and evidence). He illustrates with the example of C. S. Lewis. Lewis was an agnostic through his late teens and twenties. By age 31, however, Lewis, through extensive research, came to accept the Christian worldview, while still rejecting Christianity. He came to the reluctant conclusion that he was 'nearly certain that it really happened.' - but he still wasn't Christian. Then in a conversation in September 1931, with J. R. R Tolkein, the truth of Christianity struck Lewis in a powerful way, and he turned fully to Christian belief.

Beilby's point is that this September 1931 event was a coming to Christian belief on the basis of both arguments (from evidence), and immediate action (of the Holy Spirit). He adds that Lewis' experience is typical - that many come to Christian belief in such a fashion. And thus Beilby disagrees with Plantinga, saying that the typical Christian comes to belief through both immediate and inferential sources.

(His disagreement with Plantinga is outlined in chapter 6 of the book "Alvin Plantinga")

On whose side should we fall in this debate?

A big obstacle to a good response is that both writers conflate (to some extent) the question of 'belief in God' with the question of 'Christian belief'. We need to handle the two questions very differently. So first, consider belief in God. We should say that in all cases, a person's first belief in God is immediate. This follows logically from Romans 1, and the fact that we have no excuse before God for ignoring him. If belief in God didn't force itself upon us immediately, and with clarity, and from a very early age, then we would have a potential excuse for doubting God's existence ("not enough information God!"). We have no such excuse, so every post-infantile mentally healthy person must come to a belief in God immediately, apart from arguments. This immediate belief in God is then suppressed by many, which explains why there are atheists and agnostics (I've discussed different aspects of these claims in posts here here and here ). So Plantinga is right to say that belief in God is typically immediate.

But Christian belief must be treated differently to this. Saving belief in Jesus is never entirely immediate. It is never entirely without evidence and arguments. This is because the name of Jesus must be proclaimed before someone believes in Jesus. The name of Jesus must be proclaimed before the Holy Spirit works savingly in an adult. Christians need to have heard, minimally, that Jesus was a man who was also God, who died to deal with sin, and who rose again, defeating death, effective for those who trust him. With less information than that, someone can't be a Christian. But even that much information requires testimonial evidence. It requires the preacher to assure the listener that a man named Jesus really did live, and that he really was God, and that he really did die. The effective preacher inevitably conveys history that relies on testimonial evidence.

My two claims are therefore (1) that with the Holy Spirit's help, such a (minimal) proclamation is necessary and sufficient for maximally warranted Christian belief, (2) without such a proclamation, the Holy Spirit will not do His work, since the Holy Spirit only works savingly through the message of Christ.

Point (1) secures the truth that Christians really can and do know (with certainty) that they have eternal life (1 John 5:13). Without the Holy Spirit, a minimal preaching of the gospel would not be enough to yield maximum confidence in the claims about Jesus. Thus we need the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to assure us personally of the certain truth of the message about Jesus. The Holy Spirit can personally apply the Christian truths to the heart of the believer, even when the preaching is poor.

Someone might ask why then we need to preach more than the minimal amount about Jesus for the Holy Spirit to work. The answer is that the Holy Spirit is more likely to work savingly and effectively when the full proclamation and evidence of the Holy Scriptures is preached, in the setting of a well-ordered church. But that's straying from my main focus.

Point (2) secures the truth that the gospel must be preached and heard and understood. The Holy Spirit doesn't work in a saving fashion in the absence of someone hearing the gospel. The Holy Spirit comes necessarily in the news about Jesus. He works in the processes of argument and evidence and speech and understanding regarding the facts about Jesus. So people must hear and understand the news of Jesus before the Holy Spirit will work. This means Plantinga is wrong to say that Christian belief is typically immediate. If it were typically immediate, it would typically come without testimony regarding the history of Jesus. And that's incorrect.

I don't think Plantinga would actually claim that Christian belief comes without the hearing of the gospel, or that the Holy Spirit works apart from the hearing of the gospel. I think Plantinga has neglected the point that the gospel is itself evidence and argument. Thus he has missed the implication that the Holy Spirit necessarily works through evidence and argument.

So in summary, Plantinga is correct regarding belief in God, and Beilby is correct regarding Christian belief. Belief in God always comes initially without arguments and evidence. Belief in Jesus only comes through arguments and evidence.

Assorted Links

2012-02-02T11:52:00.002+10:30

1. European youth unemployment is pictured in this graph. Source is here

2. The three biggest budget deficits of 2011 (out of top 44 economies) were 1. Egypt 10% of GDP 2. Greece 9.5% of GDP 3. Britain 8.8% of GDP. This is troubling for Britain. Source here

3. A Stanford lecturer ran an online course (on Artificial Intelligence) with 160000 students. He then left Stanford to set up his own online University, aiming for 500000 students in his first course (on how to build a search engine). Here

4. The US was forced to defend its Manhattan Project Park to Japan. Here

5. Alvin Plantinga's 'Warranted Christian Belief' is free as an ebook. Here

The spread of nations: 6 important issues, rarely discussed

2012-01-31T18:58:00.000+10:30

The table of nations (Genesis 10) is a unique document of its kind from the ancient world. It outlines many of the descendants of Noah, 'by their clans', 'according to their lines of descent', 'within their nations', and concludes that 'from these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood'. There's nothing else like it, dating from that era.

Picture sourced from here

For those who believe the Bible, it raises all kinds of questions. So let me raise 6 important related issues, which I have rarely (or never) seen discussed.

1. Is Genesis 10 really about the spread of nations, or just the spread of people?

A church history lecturer told me the other day he thought Genesis 10 was just speaking of the spread of people. Taking my Hamilton commentary off the shelf, here's his comment 'The theological value of the Table is that it affirms Israel as part of one world governed by one God' It seems that many people gloss over the importance of understanding the word 'nations' here. It's the standard Hebrew word for nation, (goyim), so why not assume it's making a comment about how the political entity 'nation' came to be? Why not assume it really is about how nations spread?

2. What is a nation?

This is discussed at great length in political science, especially in the term 'nation-state'. But what does the Bible think a nation is? I do think the answer has to do with politics - about how a people think of themselves, and order and 'judge' themselves. We mustn't let the secular text books define what a nation is. We need a biblical theology of nationhood. So what is a nation, biblically speaking?

3. Is it possible that Genesis 10 describes the spread of a political entity through existing populations rather than a mere spread of people into open space?

That seems very likely to me, but I've never seen it suggested. If we take a nation to be somehow political, and to be so in Genesis 10, why wouldn't this be about the spread of a political entity? The idea would be that a certain political formation, or perhaps a kind of national consciousness began in (say) Egypt, and spread as the descendants of Noah fanned outwards.

4. Did the Old World spread nationhood to the New World?

Put another way, is it true that none of the indigenous tribes of the New World were nations (Biblically defined), until the time where they had contact with the Old World? Theologically, this would be derived by saying that it was only when they had contact with the descendants of Noah that they could become nations. Does this conincide with the reality of what happened? It does seem to me that there was a different political kind of entity in Great Britain, France, Spain etc. from the political entities which they discovered and conquered in the New World. (I'm not endorsing the terrible treatment of the New World by the Old). The Australian Aborigines, the Maori, the Indigenous Americans pre colonization - they have the feel to me of 'tribes' and 'clans', but not 'nations'. But this 'feeling' I have is very subjective. I don't know how to define tribe and clan and nation precisely. Still the claim seems plausible to me, although very controversial - that the Old World spread nationhood to the New World. Could it be right?

5. Are there people who are in clans or tribes, but not in nations?

I'm sure the map of the world doesn't accurately reflect the situation as God sees it. I'm sure there are tribes that remain in isolated places on earth that have no genuine political connection to the 'rulers' of their 'country'. We speak of stateless people, but are there stateless tribes and clans? I think that we should speak of clans and tribes who are not in nations. But I don't have a complete Biblical argument for it, plenty of my feeling is just that - a subjective feeling.

6. Does Paul say exactly the same thing in Acts 17:26? "From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth' I think the first phrase is saying exactly the same thing as Genesis 10. But the second phrase adds to it.

Maybe this raises related questions or issues for you. Maybe you've guessed that my questions here arose from my thinking on Genesis 1-11 Feel free to comment, one way or another!

CEO pay again

2012-01-26T13:32:00.001+10:30

The most important job of a board is to choose a new CEO. So here's some advice for boards of large companies undertaking this task:
Make potential CEOs nominate the minimum price for which they'd do the job. And use that information in your final decision on both the winning candidate and their remuneration. The advantages would include:
1. Using a competitive bid process to reduce CEO pay down to reasonable levels.
2. Getting a concrete measure of who wants the job as a vocation, and who wants the job mostly for the money.
3. Eliminating the need to hire a consultant to advise on executive pay levels at comparable firms.

To my mind, this is an area that the ACCC could look at, as well. Why shouldn't a competition watchdog enforce supply side competition on executives of large companies? Average executive pay is egregious enough that a competition watchdog could consider forcing boards to do what I'm suggesting. They could limit their intervention to CEO appointments where minimum pay is more than (say) $3 million. What do you think?

Dreams: Do they have implications for apologetics?

2012-01-20T13:58:00.000+10:30

One of the common approaches of atheists and agnostics is to push down a generally skeptical path - it's to say that we can't be so sure about lots of things, especially of course, about God. And being more skeptical about things in general leads to being skeptical about God in particular.

Source: www.wikihow.com/tell-if-you're-dreaming

The other day in my debate with Michael Long and Ben Wallis, the subject of dreams came up as an example of a reason to be somewhat skeptical about our experiences and beliefs. Michael Long said that we can't even be totally sure that there are other people and other minds in the world, because we could be dreaming. Our confidence that 'this' is not a dream is shakeable, he said - it would be shaken if we suddenly woke up, like in the movie, 'the Matrix'.

In the follow up comments regarding our debate, Michael wrote, "One of the interesting things about dreams is that events that wouldn't make sense in our waking lives DO make sense while we are dreaming. While I SHOULD think it odd that I'm flying or that I have to go back to high school at this point in life, in a dream, those things don't necessarily strike me as odd. Isn't that your experience? Are all of your dreams lucid? Dreaming aside, you could have a stroke or a seizure at any moment which might distort your perception of reality."

These are interesting things about dreams, aren't they? I certainly have those kind of strange experiences in dreams. In a dream just last night, I looked in one mirror, and I could barely recognize myself - wrinkled, with a strange face, and strange, abundant hair (on my head!). In a different mirror, downstairs (where was I, anyway?), I looked normal. And it didn't strike me at the time that I must be dreaming.

In a very different example, in a Biblical story, Peter was awake, being led around by an angel (who helped him escape from jail), but Peter thought he was dreaming, even though he was awake.

So if those things are possible, isn't it possible that I could be dreaming right now? Isn't it possible that the noises of my kids in the next room are just my imagination about my kids (and those annoying sounds are not annoying sounds after all)? And if those things are the rightful subject of some doubt, how can we be sure God exists? Surely then we could therefore say to God on the last day, 'There was too much reason for doubt all kinds of things, God. You didn't make yourself clear enough to me. That's my excuse for not glorifying you and giving you thanks'.

I think one response is to note that there are recognised methods for testing if you are in a dream. So I think that while it is possible that we might be briefly mistaken about whether we are dreaming, we will only be fooled briefly, and not repeatedly, and not sufficiently that we should have any (lasting) doubt when we are awake that we are in fact awake. In Peter's case, it took (presumably) a few minutes for events to clarify that he was not dreaming. In the case of dreaming, if we actively ask the question of ourselves, we can determine if we are dreaming. There may be exceptions if we have some kind of mental dysfunction. But most of us don't have that. We can say that nearly all of us have sufficiently long-lasting mental health that we can know with certainty that there are real people around us, and who they are. Thus dreams are not sufficient to justify doubts in other persons' existence, nor doubts in God's existence. We do know for sure that we're not going to wake up, like they do in the Matrix.

At the end of the day, it's enough to say to the agnostic, 'Come on, you know deep down, with certainty that I am a person, don't you? You know you're not dreaming now, don't you?' And they do. And that's enough of a response to this line of skepticism.

Assorted Links

2012-01-12T13:41:00.001+10:30

1. A definitive report just released on who really killed the Rwandan Hutu President - the impetus that led to the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi people. Reported in the Guardian Here.

2. 49% of the Czech people still approve of their existing laws in favour of the expulsion and confiscation of property of Sudeten Germans who could not prove they did not support the Nazis. Only 17% want these laws repealed. Here.

3. Israel moves to outlaw use of Nazi symbols. Here

4. Government funding for Australian schools quantified by sector, on a per student per year basis. Govt $11591 Catholic $8336 Independent $6991. Here

5. Important discussion about endowments, especially for those who have some role in overseeing any kind of endowment (this is relevant for churches who have significant assets, from which they derive dividends to pay for their activities. (FYI I'm on a board which oversees the management of an endowment for the Adelaide Anglican Diocese)

The Tower of Babel: Summary of the argument that the language scattered was Sumerian

2012-01-09T23:25:00.001+10:30

The facts

1. Many scholars suggest the Tower of Babel (in Genesis 11:1-9) was one of the ancient ziggurats.

2. The language of the earliest builders of those ziggurats was Sumerian.

3 Other languages of later ziggurat builders include Elamite (extinct by end of 4th century BC), and Akkadian (extinct c. 1st century AD).

4. The Sumerian language was scattered quite quickly after the fall of the Ur III dynasty, around 2000 BC. It was extinct by 1800 BC. Georges Roux calls this a 'linguistic revolution'.

5. Sumerian is a language isolate (there is no demonstrable ancestor language, which is common to other languages)

6. Major ziggurats were built in the Ur III dynasty, shortly before the dynasty collapsed (in particular the Great Ziggurat of Ur was built at this time).

7. This date of the fall of Ur III (c. 2000 BC) falls within the lifetime of the Biblical Peleg (2180-1940 BC), when Peleg's dates are calculated according to the old fashioned method (from the genealogies - see my argument and calculation at sons of Adam Appendix if you dare - it's very heavy going).

8. Genesis 10:25 says of Peleg that 'in his time, the land was divided', which is taken by many to refer to the time of the Babel scattering.

9. The most ancient versions of many of the stories in Genesis 1-11 are found in Sumerian language form.

The Great Ziggurat at Ur. Sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ziggurat

The argument

If we want to place the Genesis Tower of Babel language-scattering story in the world we know from history, the facts above point to the conclusion that Sumerian was the language scattered. After all, if we accept the very popular suggestion that the Tower of Babel was a ziggurat, why not go further and say that the language in question was a language of those who built ziggurats? Why not go for the earliest of these languages, especially given that the other possible languages lasted more than a millenium longer (in various forms)? Why not go for the language whose demise has been described by a leading authority as a 'linguistic revolution'? It seems obvious to me. It's not as though there are other kinds of substantial towers in the general area of Babylon that are good candidates to be the Biblical Tower of Babel.

Given we accept that the scattering of the Sumerian language is the event described in Genesis 11:1-9, what else follows? Happily, if we want to accept the old-fashioned dating of Adam c. 4000 B.C. and Peleg c. 2180-1940 BC, the timeline fits. Genesis 10:25 dates the Babel scattering to around 2000 BC, and Sumerian was scattered (together with Sumerian speakers) from roughly 2000 BC. .

I think it also makes sense to go further and suggest that if Sumerian was the language when 'the whole world had one language' (Genesis 11:1), then Adam and Cain and Noah also spoke Sumerian. This can help us explain why the earliest forms of the stories about Adam, Cain, the Flood and the tower of Babel appear in Sumerian: They appear in Sumerian first, because the events happened to people who spoke Sumerian! Additionally, the proposal that these ancients spoke Sumerian is not hindered by the fact that Sumerian is a language isolate.

So why does nobody suggest that Adam, Cain and Noah spoke Sumerian, and that Sumerian was the language scattered at Babel? Presumably because of the trouble that gives you placing Adam and Noah as the blood descendant of all humans, or because of the trouble in arguing that (for example) the Australian Aborigines are descended from those who spoke Sumerian. For evangelicals who don't want to accept a mythical reading of Genesis 1-11, it's necessary to take up a view of the text like mine to avoid those conclusions, and thus avoid the contradictions of known history.

However you want to view the historicity of Adam, Cain and Noah, I commend the view that Sumerian was the language scattered at Babel.

About God

2012-01-07T17:30:00.002+10:30

Just to let you know I appeared on a North American podcast, 'Goodness over God', speaking about he universal knowledge of God - whether we all know God, deep down. I enjoyed myself in what was a friendly debate - Ben and Michael were quite welcoming. That's an American trait I like - I often find Americans to be friendly and welcoming, and this was no exception. The content of the discussion gave me things to think about, too.

You can listen to it here:

I'm now thinking about how to answer these questions:

(1) When we're dreaming, we can be fooled into thinking the dream is real. Why doesn't that mean I should admit some tiny doubt about whether I am in a dream as I type this?

My preliminary answer is to suggest that in a dream, if I ever explicitly ask myself the question 'Is this a dream?', I will come to the correct answer: If I try to rouse myself from out of a dream, I will be able to.

(2) What should we say about intuitions we have that are wrong - I would intuit that special relativity is just a wrong way to think about the world. But that's a wrong intuition. So why not question my intuition that God is there? And should we describe the knowledge of God which we all have as an intuition?

(3) Should we say that the atheist's knowledge of God (deep down) is conscious all the time, intermittently conscious - bubbling up from time to time, or totally unconscious?

'Huge Differences in personality between men and women' - and other reasons to read Dienekes

2012-01-06T10:14:00.000+10:30

I really like Dienekes' anthropology blog. Don't get me wrong, it's not for everyone. It's very hard going, and very technical. I inevitably feel way out of my depth as he discusses the latest in genetic research. But it's very interesting and important stuff. He brings to my attention issues like the likelihood that 2012 will bring a substantial change to the Out of Africa hypothesis, which is important for human origins, and for pondering the meaning of Genesis 1-3. In similar vein, it's good to know that the consensus is that some humans definitely have some Neandertal-sourced DNA in them. Dienekes himself thinks it is still possible that Eurasians, broadly speaking, don't.have Neandertal-sourced DNA. Questions like 'How do you account for the Neandertal genetic admixture in some humans? And how do you account for the evidence that Neandertals interbred with Homo sapiens?' - such questions need to be faced by evangelical Christians. These questions clearly relate to the Bible's opening chapters, and many of my minister mates and Christian friends won't have heard of the research behind the questions. I recommend they skim Dienekes' blog - ministers need to be aware of this stuff, if they want to defend the Bible in an educated way. I think it's a mistake to ignore the advances in mainstream anthropology.

But more than that, occasionally Dienekes puts out an absolute gem, like today's post. He highlights a new study showing 'huge differences in personality between men and women'. It's a corrective to previous studies with poor method, and it underlines what we all know deep down anyway - that there is a difference, a substantial difference, between male and female.

So here's my blog tip for the day - especially if you're a bit of a pointy-head, or a Christian minister, put Dienekes' blog on your reader.

Is CEO pay too high?

2012-01-02T13:04:00.000+10:30

The basis in academia for high CEO payments is what's called 'Agency Theory'. There are studies which show that CEOs will act on average more in shareholders interests (i.e. act properly as shareholders' agents) if they have lots of shares. So boards give managers lots of shares, to align the interests of shareholders and managers.

But here's the rub: Agency theory implies that without the large share payments, CEOs wouldn't do what they 'should' - they would act for themselves instead of for shareholders. So here's an imaginary dialog with Sol Trujio. His leaving Telstra with $93 million all those years ago still seems egregious.

Image from http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-12-21/ Hat tip: David Zilko

Me: Why should we pay you all these shares, Sol?

Sol: "Well, according to agency theory, you are aligning my interests with the shareholders, so we work together".

Me: So Sol, what you're saying is, you can't be trusted to do the right thing unless we give you a huge number of shares. You'll act in your own interests, against shareholders, if you don't get these shares?

Sol: No, I'm not like that. I'm trustworthy - that's just the theory.

Me: Well if you're trustworthy, why don't we pay you a normal salary like normal people? We'll get the same good management, more cheaply.

Sol: Well my pay is in line with CEOs of comparable companies. You have to pay to get my experience.

Me: But Sol, the other companies' CEOs are only paid so much because they can't on average be trusted. That's what agency theory says. They need to be paid to make sure they act in shareholders interests. You're saying you don't need to be paid like that because you can be trusted. So can you be trusted or not? If you can, we needn't pay you all this money. If you can't, why are we hiring you in the first place? [LONG PAUSE] ........ We're all waiting for an answer.

How do I know God?

2011-12-31T00:04:00.000+10:30

The Bible says we all know, (at least deep down), that God is there. Even atheists. That's a striking claim! What is the mechanism by which every person comes to this knowledge?
As the atheist might ask: 'You say I know God, even though I deny it. How do I know him?'

This post is divided into two halves. The first half is easier, for general consumption. The second half is harder - it's for the pointy-heads out there who really like philosophy and theology.

Romans 1:20-21 is the key text 'God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God....'.

Part one (the easier part)

(1) The Romans 1:20-21 text implies that every person makes inferences about God: We all infer that God is eternally powerful, and that he has divine characteristics. The mechanism is as follows: First, we experience what has been made around us and what has been made within us. Second, we infer from these experiences an understanding of God's divinity and eternal power.

(2) We don't make these inferences about God by means of a conscious argument which could be shared. There is no set of words which we use to make this inference, that we could in turn use to persuade someone else about God. Romans 1:20 can't be talking about an argument that we all have, since clearly we don't all have the same argument for God's existence. Since Romans 1:20 describes an understanding of God which we all have, it must come as a direct apprehension from our experience of the world.

(3) The mechanism by which this knowledge of God's divinity and eternal power is acquired is such that it is impossible to resist forming it. Since we are all without excuse before God (Romans 1:20 is part of an argument that we are all without excuse), it follows that we all inescapably understand his eternal power and divine nature.

(4) At the same time as possessing this knowledge of God inescapably, it is possible for us to suppress it, and pretend we don't have it. This is because we all possess more than one mechanism of belief formation: In addition to forming beliefs by direct apprehension from experience (apart from arguments), we can also form beliefs using arguments and reason. So it is possible for us to use (faulty) arguments to reason our way to the conclusion that God does not exist.

(5) It is therefore possible to hold contradictory views about God (and other topics too) simultaneously. We can know that God exists by direct apprehension yet deny that he exists through our faulty reasoning.

(6) Because any reasoning which concludes that there is no God is flawed, it is helpful for people to be shown where their reasoning is faulty, and it is helpful for people to be reminded that they do know deep down that God exists.

(7) It is only when people accept that they know God's power and nature and are therefore without excuse before him for ignoring him, that they see their need for Jesus. Once we accept that we deserve God's punishment, we can accept Jesus' death as punishment for our sins in our place.

Part two (harder going)

(1) One of the inferences which we all make is about God's "divine nature". 'God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen' What is this divine nature which we all understand? According to the dictionaries, the Greek word here does not mean God's very essence, but rather his attributes. To quote the major dictionary BDAG, the word here (theoites) means 'performance that one might properly associate with a divinity', or 'the quality or characteristic(s) pertaining to deity'. Thus Romans is not saying that we infer God's existence or essence from our experience, but rather that we infer something about his attributes and characteristics.

(2) Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we infer God's existence from what he has made. This leaves open the possibility that knowledge of God's existence is not inferred from our experience, but is innate in us. It is possible that we know God's existence before we experience anything at all. Since the Bible is silent on this subject, we should not rule either way on that question.

(3) Romans 1:20 is not grounds for the typical philosophical arguments for God's existence (the ontological, teleological, cosmological or moral arguments). When we try such arguments, we imply that people have an excuse for not believing in God, from the very fact that his existence requires an argument to demonstrate. How much more will they think they have an excuse when they find flaws in our arguments. But as Romans 1:20 says, this is not true. None of us have an excuse for ignoring God. So we should abandon this kind of positive apologetics - the philsophophical arguments for God's existence are not helpful, but in fact undermine the gospel, by making people think they have an excuse for disbelieving God's existence.

(4) In philosophical-speak (especially in Alvin Plantinga's writing), beliefs are divided into 'basic beliefs' and 'non-basic beliefs' Basic beliefs are those which are not held on the basis of still further beliefs. I believe that we all form our first beliefs about God in the basic way.
One way to see this is in Romans 1:20. It says that every person's belief in God's eternal power rests on our perceptions of what has been made. But we don't all infer God's eternal power or divine nature from our belief in our perceptions. We don't all say to ourselves, yes I believe I'm seeing a sunset, and on the basis of that belief I conclude God is powerful. It's not that conscious in most of us. So it can't be what Romans 1:20 means, since Romans 1:20 is describing something that all people do.
What happens in all people is this: we experience our life, and in experiencing things that God has made, the belief wells up in us that God is eternally powerful. I infer things about God directly from my perceptions, not via a belief about my perceptions. Thus my beliefs about God's character, formed in the way Romans 1:20 describe, are formed in the basic way. Additionally, it follows from this that my belief in God's existence is also formed in the basic way. (This is agreeing with Alvin Plantinga, and disagreeing with Keith Mascord)

(5) It is thus possible both to believe in God in the basic way, and to believe he doesn't exist in the basic way, simultaneously: One can reason: 'I don't think I need an argument to believe God does not exist. I think the burden of proof is on the theist to show he exists. Since I've seen no good proof of God, I don't believe in him. I believe he is not there, in the basic way.' At the same time, this same person will have the belief, deep down, inferred from what God has made, that God is eternally powerful. This belief is also formed in the basic way, albeit suppressed. So he both holds God exists and that he doesn't exist, in the basic way.

(6) This strange result is possible, because we form beliefs in different ways, with different mechanisms for belief-formation.

(7) This potential to hold contradictory beliefs, (with both A and not-A able to be held in the basic way), is a challenging complication for anyone who wants to draw up a Christian epistemology. I'm not aware of any philosopher who has attempted to include this in their epistemology. Perhaps it's my lack of reading. Any boffins out there want to point me in the right direction?

'Should I believe the psychic's message from my dead relative?'

2011-12-26T11:24:00.000+10:30

'My friend went to a psychic, and they said it was amazing. The psychic knew real things about my dead relative/friend. They said my dead friend is fine, and says I should not worry, they love me and I should enjoy my life. I feel really comforted by it.' Have you ever had a conversation like this?

What should we think about such mediums, who claim to speak with the dead? What should we make of their ability to get details right about the dead person in question? I was speaking to a friend the other day about a story like this, and I put together a few thoughts.
I thought I'd share them.

Firstly, I do think it is possible to speak with dead people, because the medium at Endor genuinely brought up Samuel's spirit to have a conversation with Saul. I don't think it was a fake Samuel with whom Saul spoke. If you read 1 Samuel 28 I think you'll agree with me, that the Bible depicts this activity as possible. I don't think all mediums are pure hoaxes. I think things like seances can lead to genuine interaction with another 'world', and I believe the stories I've heard of real information coming from the medium or seance or psychic about the dead person that can not be explained by normal means.

Secondly, I should point out that the Bible is quite clear that it is sinful to talk with the dead, or to try to do so. (Isaiah 8:19, Deuteronomy 18:9-14, 1 Chron 10:13-14 for example) I think that demons or evil spirits are the source of the power of genuine mediums (Acts 16:16), and messing with them is a very bad idea. Saul's effort in the Bible in using a medium led him to be killed the next day as God's judgement. That indicates the level of displeasure God has when we try to talk to the dead.

This leads to various questions:

1. What should I make of the message from this 'psychic' or 'medium' or 'seance'. Is it a trustworthy message, if there were details from the dead person's life that were correct?
No, the message is certainly untrustworthy. The only conceivably trustworthy message would be one like the message Saul got - a message of judgement against the act of consulting the medium in the first place.
Notice that in the Bible, when the dead Samuel spoke to Saul, he spoke truth consistent with what Moses and the prophets had said before - he confirmed God's previous message that God had rejected Saul, and he rebuked Saul for using a medium to call up Samuel's spirit. That's one way for us to see that it really was Samuel - he spoke the truth, in line with what God had previously said through Moses and the prophets.
Anything other than that will be misleading. A comment like 'Your dead relative wants you not to worry about death, everything's fine. Don't worry, live your life', or something such - that's not going to be a genuine trustworthy message from the dead. For a genuine unedited message from the dead would surely include a warning to repent, turn to Jesus, and obey his commands to not talk to the dead!

Here's a logic behind why any psychic's message from the dead will be misleading (given that they really are tapping into the world of the dead) First, we can only access the dead through demons or evil spirits. God's against it, so it's only an evil spirit or power that will give us any such access. Second, demons and evil spirits don't want the actual message of the dead getting out. The actual message of any dead person will include the key point, 'Repent while there's still time!' (see Luke 16:19-31). And that's not what the evil spirit wants you to hear, since they are opposed to God and Jesus. So getting an accurate message from the dead is impossible. The evil spirit or demon might throw in some truth, to give the lies they are peddling more credibility. But since you have to use Satanic power to get any message at all, and since Satan doesn't want you getting at the truth, the results are certain to be misleading. You can't trust the psychic's message from your dead relative.

2. While we're on the subject, can Christians be demonized or inhabited by an evil spirit?
No. It's important to mention the key verses that remind us that we can resist demons and all other effects and servants of Satan. If you combine 1 Peter 5:8-10 with James 4:7, you get something like 'Resist Satan, by standing firm in the faith, and he will flee from you.'
But more than that, I believe this story, which I heard from a pastor. An evil spirit, who had entered a church-goer, and manifested to her as some kind of friendly spirit, said to the pastor: 'You can't make me leave this girl. She doesn't really believe that Jesus is stronger than me.' True Christians really believe that Jesus is stronger than the demons and evil spirits. True Christians can resist demons by standing firm in the faith, so that demons will not and can not be possessed by them. But this girl wasn't a real Christian, because she didn't really believe that Jesus is stronger than the demons. If you are worried about whether your Christian friend might actually have an evil spirit, ask them: 'Do you believe Jesus is stronger than the demons?' It's one way to ask if they are really Christian. If they say yes, then they don't have an evil spirit - for they have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will kick out any evil spirits.
It's the same with young children of Christians. If a Christian parent is worried that their child has an evil spirit, ask if they have prayed for the child about it. Ask the parent if they believe Jesus is stronger than all evil spirits. If the answer is yes to both questions, then the child doesn't have a demon or an evil spirit. For God gives parents authority over their own children. And if the parents resist the devil, standing firm in the faith, then the devil and his works and his servants must flee.

3. OK, then: How did the people in the Bible get demonized in the first place? What did they do to get a demon 'in' them?
The Bible doesn't say, but we can say something about this question, since we know both that God is fair, and that people will have no excuse before him on the last day.
My suspicion is that someone who has an evil spirit or a demon will have done something which meant is was just and fair for a demon to enter them. (A good example is trying to channel a dead person, and talk to them)
Think about God's justice: If demons were allowed by God to enter anyone, then people might have a good excuse before God on the last day: 'I didn't serve you like I was supposed to God, because a demon entered me when I was young, through no fault of my own, and controlled my actions from there'.
That sounds to me like a good excuse. But we're told people will have no excuse before God on the last day (e.g. Romans 1:20). So God won't allow demons unfettered access to people without reason. I therefore suspect that before someone is 'demonized', that they did something which meant they deserve to be demonized. That's just one more good reason to stay away from mediums and seances!

4. Why aren't there many demon manifestations in Australia (compared to other parts of the world)?

I'm guessing here, but I suspect it's because up until 50 years ago, we were a more Christian country than we are now. So more people believed that Jesus was stronger than Satan, and they stayed away from mediums and witchdoctors and the like. So demonic activity was repressed thanks to Jesus' work in peoples' hearts. The further we move from Christianity, the more I expect demonic activity to increase. It's no surprise that I'm hearing more about psychics and mediums and seances from people around me, as our community drifts away from Christianity.

Is this subject of much interest out there? Let me know what you're hearing, and if this scratches where you're itching.

Assorted Links

2011-12-20T15:05:00.001+10:30

1. These Korean former 'comfort women' (terrible term for their terrible ordeal) have now protested 1000 times, once a week since 1992, looking for an apology and compensation from the Japanese government. What can you say? For so many reasons, they get the number 1 slot on today's "assorted links"

2. 31% of Harvard grads go into financial services. My view (as an ex-funds manager) is that financial services are not worthy of nearly that percentage of the world's brightest.

3. The Remuneration tribunal (deciding Australian politicians' pay) chose John Egan & Assoc. to do the research - the consultant of choice for companies who recommend egregiously high executive remuneration. Here is one critical comment. Here is my submission to the 2009 Productivity Commission study on Executive remuneration. For politicians, I'd say when you raise the salary excessively (as I think we have done), you attract pollies who are focussed more on the money than on serving the people.

4. I expect it was a slip of the tongue, but I think it's important. The Prime Minister shouldn't say she's running the nation. She's running the government of the nation, not the nation itself. Here.

5. Over half of New Zealanders believe in psychics.

How has Alvin Plantinga aided our belief in God?

2011-12-15T10:26:00.000+10:30

Alvin Plantinga just appeared in a feature in the New York Times here

This is a post responding to a question in the comments by Ben Wallis, on the thread We've been far too skeptical for nearly 400 years. Ben has his own blog here. I think it's an important enough question to receive its own post.

I said to Ben that 'Plantinga's theory of warrant is helpful to me, but not in 'proving God', or 'giving warrant to God', or 'increasing my confidence in God'.

Ben asked, in response, how then Plantinga has aided our belief in God?

Before giving my response, I want to say that the following may be partly inconsistent with my previous comments. I'm not convinced they are inconsistent, but I acknowledge that my thinking has been developing through this conversation. Yes, I've been learning!

So why is Plantinga helpful on the subject of God's existence?

1. While Plantinga doesn't successfully establish positive reasons for belief in God (in my view, this isn't something that needs to be done, nor should it be done), he does undercut numerous poor arguments against God's existence.

Most importantly, if we have been convinced that classical foundationalism is correct (so that all knowledge should be derived from a limited set of basic beliefs - beliefs which are incorrigible, evident to the senses or self-evident) then Plantinga helps by pointing out that there are many beliefs commonly taken as knowledge which cannot be accepted on the basis of such classical foundationalist assumptions. So Plantinga proposes further properly basic beliefs (beliefs which need not be established on the basis of other beliefs). He proposes belief in other minds and belief in God as additional properly basic beliefs .

Important elements of his argument that theistic beliefs may be properly taken in the basic way are the following propositions: Plantinga argues,

(a) that there is such a thing as basic theistic belief

(b) that in practice, most people come to theistic belief in the basic way (i.e. without arguments supporting the belief).

So when the classical foundationalist says that God's existence must be argued for, Plantinga helps us to respond by saying, no - God's existence needn't be argued for.

Incidentally, en route, Plantinga helpfully links his arguments for (a) and (b) to the historical discussion of the sensus divinitatis (sense of the divine), which in turn derives especially from Romans 1. You might have noticed my discussion with Dawson on the sensus divinitatis, over at 'Incinerating Presuppositionalism'

2. Less importantly, here's another potential example of how Plantinga undercuts poor arguments against God's existence:

Plantinga's overall theory of knowledge relies heavily on the concept of our design plan. He shows how this concept is crucial in developing a successful theory of knowledge.

This undercuts an argument that might say: We can have a successful theory of knowledge without God's involvement. Therefore God doesn't exist. I haven't heard such an argument articulated, but I think it could be in the back of some people's minds. So to have this fallacious argument undercut is useful in removing people's doubts about God.

Perhaps a good avenue for further discussion, for Ben or anyone else, is this: What do you make of Plantinga's important claim that belief in God (when it does arise in actual people) normally arises in the basic way. Do you think many people come to belief in God without their belief resting on arguments?

[Later addendum]
I should point out that the above is quite limited. I have only addressed how Plantinga's theory of warrant aids our belief in God, and even that not nearly exhaustively. His contribution is much wider than this, especially in addressing the problem of evil. Again, this is defending theism, rather than commending it - and Plantinga does this very well.

Assorted Links

2011-12-14T15:24:00.000+10:30

1. A 21 year old lady courageously writes personally about self-harm

2. Is Hungary becoming a fascist state? Here, here and here

3. Indian households hold 11% of the world's gold stock. It made me wonder how much of it might be in household idols.

4. On Finnish schooling. Most interesting to me was to learn that the current tide of global education is based on core subjects, competition, standardization, test-based accountability, and control. Except the Finnish disagree, and have lots of people who want to be teachers.

Assorted links

2011-12-08T21:50:00.001+10:30

1. Australian exceptionalism or Australian blessedness? We rate at the top of the world on a bunch of different economic measures. This is a good article to see how great we have it. I'm interested to know if people think it's more our doing or more that we are a tiny percentage of the world population who have received a huge percentage of the world's resources and land.
Sorry about the swearing at the conclusion of the article. It's still worth it.
Here's a graph from the article: Our bottom 10% of income earners have had faster income growth than than other countries top 10% income earners!

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/12/08/australian-exceptionalism/

2. Neandertals were red-headed, and archaic Homo sapiens (yes I changed it from 'humans' on purpose) came in different colours.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/neandertals/pigmentation/pigmentation-project-intro-2011.html

3. Rwandans get access to Visa payments network
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-05/visa-plans-pyramid-of-payments-as-rwanda-starts-from-scratch.html

4. Are North Koreans about to endure mass starvation? This is a detailed analysis of their hefty rice price movements in the last couple of months. Just read the last two paragraphs if you want the conclusion.

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/12/ask-korean-news-blinking-red-light-on.html

5. Will Japan and Russia clone a woolly mammoth?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gqwtkuPqQvgVWpDl7PZqJKYe66yg?docId=CNG.794d1157fe2364fc0e0dcd6a77edbd08.71

We've been far too skeptical for nearly 400 years

2011-12-06T13:03:00.001+10:30

If you are an average citizen of the Western world, you are too skeptical about many key questions of life. And Rene Descartes is a big part of the reason.

Descartes published his' "Discourse on the Method..." in 1637. That work was key in his becoming the 'father' of modern philosophy, and it was his skeptical method which explains his influence. His skepticism can be seen in the famous quotation, "I think, therefore I am". It's a quotation which should be infamous, because it should be obvious that to doubt one's own existence is foolish. Why do I need an argument to show that I exist? I don't! We can apply biblical sentiments about belief in God (in Romans 1:18-32) to such doubts if they are raised. We can say that people know deep down that they are a person, and any philosopher who is doubting or denying this is suppressing a truth that they know well. Any doubters simply need to be rebuked for doubting their own existence.

That said, it is easy to have some sympathy for Descartes' skeptical method. Since there are so many disputes, especially about religion and morality, it is desirable to try and find a way to persuade the doubters towards the truth. So why not use a method which starts by doubting nearly everything, in order to then find proofs to persuade people out of any doubt they might have? There is a logic behind Descartes' approach, which explains its great influence.

But Descartes' is not the right response to the disputes which abound. Rather, the right response is to avoid 'proofs' and 'arguments' on the subjects where people already know the truth deep down. The answer is to direct people to their own hearts, and remind them of what they already know. And it's not just the question of our existence which should be treated in this way. Many other live debates in the philosophy of knowledge should be given such short shrift. For through to today, philosophers discuss how to prove common sense beliefs such as: that our sense perceptions yield true knowledge, that memory beliefs yield true knowledge, that our 'a priori' beliefs (such as 3+4=7) comprise true knowledge, that our belief in other minds is true knowledge, and more. But the reality is that all of these are true knowledge, evident to all, and we should turn aside from the skepticism that has led us to debate them. Descartes' methodological skepticism has taken our philosophy in a very bad direction.

But praise be to God, philosophy seems now to be taking a turn in the right direction. Alvin Plantinga has been very important, pointing out that we don't need proofs of these things. We can just take them as beliefs which are rightly held, without needing to be based on other beliefs - they are 'properly basic beliefs'. It is quite proper, says Plantinga, to accept as basic beliefs, the fact that there are other minds besides ours, that 3+4=7, that I see a computer screen before me, that I exist, and that I had breakfast this morning. Plantinga rightly says this, and he goes further. He says, why stop at these beliefs? Why not also take belief in God as a properly basic belief too? He rightly says that belief in God can indeed be accepted as knowledge, without the need for it to be proven on the basis of other beliefs. He knows this is contentious, but he argues the problem of proving there are other minds is analogous to the problem of proving there is a God. Neither belief can be proven on the basis of other beliefs, but we can properly accept both beliefs nonetheless.

Thanks to Plantinga, many philosophers are now saying that we can can feel intellectually robust in believing in God without any 'proof'.

One of the great things about this is that Plantinga has brought us closer to the Bible in general, and closer to Romans 1:18-32 in particular. In Romans 1, the apostle Paul affirms that we are without excuse if we fail to believe in God. This implies that our understanding of creation (from what has been made) is of such a character, that no argument against his existence ought to be considered. This in turn implies that our deepest knowledge of God is not the result of an argument (which could in turn be argued against), but is the result of a direct apprehension of him, apart from arguments. Put another way, it seems that our being without excuse requires that belief in God is a properly basic belief, exactly what Plantinga has been saying..

Plantinga does get some important things wrong, which I'll come to in another post. But for now, let's appreciate that he has made huge strides in taking the philosophical academy in the right direction. Maybe the tide is finally turning against Descartes' style of skepticism.

Assorted Links

2011-12-01T10:28:00.001+10:30

1. Joseph Stalin's daughter just died

http://hnn.us/articles/stalins-daughter-lana-peters-dies-85

2. Legal aspects of a euro redenomination

This article reinforces my thinking that a nation should have its own currency. Legal contracts regarding currency have to be enforceable by the judicial apparatus of a nation. But which nation will it be for euro contracts, if the euro dissolves into many different currencies?

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/11/21/754711/the-legal-aspects-and-abstractions-of-a-euro-redenomination/

3. On culture in orangutans: Those who know my take on Genesis 1-11 will know that I believe that the most advanced animals are able to achieve huge amounts. So studies like this one head in the direction I expect - increasing the acknowledged potential abilities of animals

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/10/cultured-orangutans.html

4. Here is a discovery of the oldest rock art found in North Africa - at least 15000 years old.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/11/oldest-north-african-rock-art.html

For my take on how advanced non-human animals can become, including potential ability to draw rock art, see this:

https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/home/the-differences-between-the-first-humans-and-last-pre-humans

To fully understand the above article, you'll want to scroll down my timeline for Genesis 1-11 and beyond, here

https://sites.google.com/site/genesis111explored/

Assorted Links

2011-11-28T12:45:00.001+10:30

On the ethics of doctors moving away from their home (poor) countries that trained them. I found this a helpful corrective, especially the warning against treating people as the property of the state
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/doctors-with-borders.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29

A couple of links on the EU crisis 'No fiscal union without a common electorate' sounds right to me
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/is-the-end-near.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/claims-without-evidence.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29

Jerusalem's Western Wall was completed after the reign of Herod.
http://historyoftheancientworld.com/2011/11/jersusalems-western-wall-was-completed-after-the-reign-of-herod-research-finds/

The Art of Persuasion - Moving from the Known to the Unknown

2011-11-24T11:26:00.001+10:30

A few years back a good friend of mine was preaching to a large crowd. It was an 'evangelistic dinner'. Our church had invited lots of friends who weren't Christians to a big dinner with a talk explaining Christianity. And my friend was giving the talk. The food was great. And then my friend got up and gave the talk with his characteristic energy and vibrancy. But something about it didn't work. It took me quite a while to put my finger on what it was.

Afterwards, my friend (who is a good speaker), received substantial negative feedback. He was very disappointed, so we chatted about it. One of the criticisms was the way he'd explained the death of Jesus. He had done it by talking about the Old Testament sacrificial system. His point was that Jesus was punished in our place, when he was killed on the cross. His illustration was that animals in the Old Testament were killed in the temple, in the place of sinful people. So Jesus' death was like the death of those animals. If you understand the death of the animals, you understand Jesus' death. Both deaths were in the place of sinners to achieve forgiveness. Are you with me? Maybe not? If you're struggling, you can probably see where my friend went wrong.

Those of us who've been in Christian circles for ages might not immediately see where my friend went wrong. How could that be a poor approach? He was using the Bible's own illustration for one of the Bible's key concepts! There are great preachers who often use the sacrificial system to explain Jesus death. So what was wrong here? Why was it unhelpful ? This is the reason: my friend had tried to explain an unknown and unaccepted concept (Jesus' death in our place) with another even more unknown and unaccepted concept (The Old Testament sacrificial system).

That's not the way to persuade people. It's not helpful to move from unknown, unaccepted concepts to further unknown, unaccepted concepts. Good persuasion starts instead with concepts people accept, and moves to concepts they don't accept. It starts with concepts people know, and moves to things they don't know. That's winsome persuasion because it starts where people are at. It avoids the rudeness of not caring about who you're speaking with, and what they already believe. It's winsome because it's clear to people what you are saying. It's also winsome because people see you are thinking about what they believe already. From known to unknown - that's the way!

But with that in mind, why in my previous posts have I been saying that the Christian evangelist should assume God's existence when trying to persuade atheists? Isn't that failing to start where they are at? Isn't that starting with the unknown? How can I avoid being rude, if I don't even listen to the fact that they are atheists?

The answer I've been presenting is that the Bible tells us a few things that all people know deep down. Romans 1 tells us that that deep down, all people know God is there. Those who say otherwise 'suppress the truth' about God. Though they deny it, it is nevertheless true that 'what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them' (Romans 1 again). So the best approach is in fact to start with this fact which people already know. The best approach is to point out that they already know of God's existence, though they have been suppressing it. Crucially, the best approach is to point them to their own hearts to see this. Pointing someone to their own heart is not starting with the unknown. What can be more known than someone's own heart?

It will still seem rude. 'You're telling me I'm not really an atheist! How arrogant! How can you correct me about what I believe?' 'How can we debate what my beliefs are?' These responses can all come. I recommend admitting that it is a little rude, and seeing if your atheist friend will grant that God exists 'for the sake of argument'. From there you can talk about Jesus. Be bold on this point, Christian friends! Don't be afraid of the apparent rudeness here - it's just a part of the gospel we believe - that people have no excuse for their unbelief, because they know God is there deep down.

Contrary to first impressions, this approach is one that moves from the known (God) to the unknown (Jesus).

Assorted links

2011-11-21T14:35:00.001+10:30

Tips on reading Jesus' parables
http://www.ligonier.org/blog/interpreting-parables-of-jesus/

Ever wondered where Ophir is, mentioned in the Biblical accounts of Solomon?
http://historyoftheancientworld.com/2011/11/ophir-its-location-unveiled/

The earliest emergence of law is a subject which should generate interest. Ur-Nammu the Sumerian King is credited with the earliest law code, not long before the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi. But what of the Egyptians? This is a recent piece:
http://historyoftheancientworld.com/2011/11/the-concept-of-law-and-justice-in-ancient-egypt-with-specific-reference-to-the-tale-of-the-eloquent-peasant/

Some critiques of utilitarianism (Not from a Christian point of view)
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/simple-and-accessible-summary-of-criticisms-of-utilitarianism.html

And Argentina's economy is in terrible shape
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/hows-the-argentina-recovery-coming-along.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

2011-11-12T19:54:00.001+10:30

There is a classic question which I hear posed from time to time: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Or, to change the angle of the question, do Christians and Muslims know the same God? The question has the feel of an unavoidable landmine. You just know you're going to offend someone if you answer, however you tread. The landmine will explode. And who wants to go there in our modern world? Not many.

Nevertheless, I want to firmly step on the landmine. I'll come at it from a unusual direction. I made the claim in an earlier post that God's existence and nature (among other things) should be presupposed by Christians in debates about Christianity's truth. I also claim that all people know of God's existence and nature deep down, although we suppress this knowledge to varying extents. (See Romans 1:18-32)

This may have raised a critique in some readers' minds: If we are to simply presuppose God's existence in debates about Christianity's truth, then why is it the Christian God who is presupposed? Couldn't one equally presuppose the Muslim God, or the Jewish God, or the Mormon God? Or for that matter, why couldn't we presuppose Baal or Hermes, or any other God in religious history, and claim that he is known deep down by all, but suppressed by some? Isn't the method so arbitrary, that it can be used by any religious teacher from any perspective? Isn't it therefore a worthless method?

My response is this: I'm not saying that we presuppose the Trinitarian understanding of God. I'm not being that precise about the God we are presupposing. I admit that teachers from many religions can use this method, and I'll agree with them - Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Zoroastraians, and more. They can say, 'You know deep down that God exists, but you may be suppressing it', and they'll be right. Anyone who believes in the one eternal, personal creator-God (that does rule out Baal and Hermes!) can use this approach, and think that it supports their cause, because it does.

The reason for such a potentially broad methodological consensus is this: What we know about God from creation alone is limited. God's general revelation (his revelation of himself to all people, generally) is limited to the facts sufficient for us to know we deserve death: We all know he's there, we know his eternity and power, we know sufficient morality to live rightly, and we all know we deserve death because of our failures (Romans 1:18-32 again). It is a lot that we all know. But it's also limited. It's limited enough that Christians, Muslims, Jews, Mormons and many others will agree.

So is it the same God that we all know deep down from creation? Yes. Is this true for both Muslim and Christian? Yes, and many others besides. In a Christian's and a Muslim's, and any person's interactions with God based on general revelation alone, we interact with the same God. So Christians and Muslims know the same God from general revelation, although every Christian and Muslim suppresses that knowledge from time to time, in different ways, and to different extents.

But that does not mean that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. For we worship the one we have in the front of our mind, not the one we have suppressed. Worship is active and cognitive, it is not suppressed. So to say we know the same God deep down, does not imply we worship the same God. Even atheists know God deep down, but they do not worship him! So Christians and Muslims are both aiming to worship the same God - the one whom we know deep down, but that does not mean we in fact worship the same God.

For in the end, Christians worship God in Trinity, while Muslims deny that God is Trinity. Christians consider God to be Trinitarian in his essence, while Muslims deny this. Christians say that it is essential to worship Jesus as God the Son, in order to be saved. Muslims deny this. So we worship different Gods, while knowing the same true God deep down.

For debates about the truth of Christianity with Muslims this means quite a bit. It means the Christian is unlikely to ever need to say a Muslim, 'You know this truth deep down, you're just suppressing it'. For nearly all of the truths of this kind, known from general revelation, are shared in official Christian and Muslim teaching. The focus of discussion will therefore be Special revelation. The focus will be on the truths about Jesus, the history of Israel in the Bible and elsewhere, and the history of Mohammed in the Koran and elsewhere.

May you fare well, if you decide to join me in this field of landmines!

Why are there more female CEOs in Brazil and India?

2011-11-09T09:46:00.000+10:30

There are many more female CEOs in Brazil (14%) and India (11%) than in the US/UK (less than 5%)

http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/24/is-a-woman-in-brazil-better-off-than-a-woman-in-the-u-s/

Top 4 Kids' Bibles

2011-11-05T21:10:00.002+10:30

The topic of which Bibles we should be using with our kids is very important. There are so many different kids' Bibles out there, it can feel impossible in the Book store to go through them all and know you've got the right one. So, with four kids under 9, here are my thoughts:

1. The Beginners' Bible (Timeless Children's Stories), Candle Books, Published by ZonderKidz

We were reading this to our eldest, Luke, when he was 1 or 2 years old.

It works well as a very young kids' Bible. Make sure you get the new edition - it's much better than the old one..

It has the cartoon-like pictures that the smallest kids love. The stories are short, and the approach is to present a large number of them in simple form.

2. The Big Picture Story Bible. by David Helm and Gail Schoonmaker. Published by Crossway.

As soon as possible, get your kids on to this one. It is the best Kids' Bible I've seen, by some margin. The Big Picture Story Bible is great at doing what the title says, showing how the whole Bible is one united story that points to Jesus.

This is vital to teach our kids. If we don't, our kids will end up with lots of unconnected Bible stories, but won't see how they fit together and point to Jesus. The Big Picture Story Bible's approach means that they leave out some favourite stories like Daniel and Jonah. Instead, they include things like the Temple and the exile to Babylon. In truth, the latter two are more important, even if they are less entertaining. Get this Bible if you get nothing else.

3. Read With Me Bible (A Story for Children). Candle Books. Zondervan

This is another Bible with lots of stories. The pictures are more advanced than the Beginners' Bible, and there's more text. There are more stories here than in the Big Picture Story Bible, so you'll be sure to get your favourite one.

4. The Picture Bible (The Timeless Stories of the Bible). Published by David C. Cook

My wife Ally read this into junior High School, and her memory of it was still helping her background knowledge all the way to the start of Bible College. (Not that she was still reading it then!) It's been around a long time, but it's still very good! This Bible is much harder reading than the other three, with much more text. It is really a comic book bible, which in its form reminds me of 'The Phantom' comic strip. What you get here is many more details than any of the other Bibles in this list - nearly 800 pages, and fairly dense at that. This is also good for early teenagers who struggle with making the switch to the full Biblical text. It's very hard to read aloud to kids, because the comic book format doesn't tell you who's talking - you just get a picture of them.

Greece Replaces Military Chiefs

2011-11-03T22:02:00.000+10:30

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8863728/Greek-military-leadership-changes-spark-opposition-outcry.html

Good News on Pakistan-India

2011-11-03T21:59:00.003+10:30

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/the-best-news-of-the-day.html

Should the Christian debater assume the whole Bible to be true when arguing for Christianity? A Critique of Presuppositionalism

2011-11-03T21:08:00.000+10:30

Should the Christian debater assume the whole Bible to be true when arguing for Christianity?
It may surprise some to know that this approach has a major following. It's called presuppositionalism.
Let me tell you what it is, what's good about it, and why it fails in the end.

The presuppositionalist approach to Christian apologetics is to presuppose that the whole of Scripture is true. The approach is to try to show the non-believer that their entire worldview is incoherent. The claim is that the Christian view stands alone as the only viable coherent worldview. In this approach, the Christian never admits that any part of the Scripture could be wrong. He doesn't start from some other presupposition (with which he can agree with his debate partner), and seek to prove from mutually-acceptable forms of evidence that the Scriptures are true. Rather, he argues by showing the coherence of his entire worldview, and the incoherence of the non-believer's entire worldview.

How can he defend this approach of starting with the entire Scripture as his presupposition? He'll say that everyone starts with some presuppositions in their worldview. Everyone has something in their worldview which they do not argue for, which is simply the starting point for all other elements. So, for example, some choose 'reason' as their starting point. They are rationalists. Others choose 'sense perceptions'. They are empiricists. So why can't presuppositionalists choose the content of the Scriptures as their ultimate benchmark and starting point? It's not easy to fault the logic.

Perhaps John Frame is the best defender of this approach alive today. Cornelius Van Til is the classical protagonist for this position

What's good about presuppositionalism? Most importantly, it is a method of apologetics which avoids the trap of implying that the unbeliever has an excuse before God for ignoring Him. This is key. Notice that if we concede that there might not be a God, we've already implied that the Biblical gospel isn't true. Why?
If we admit that it's acceptable to debate whether there is a God, as though He's not plain to everyone, then we also admit that people have an excuse before God at the final judgement for not worshipping him.
Put another way, if we grant that God's existence is sufficiently unclear that it needs long debate, then we also grant that someone could say at the Judgement, 'Not enough information God - you didn't make yourself clear enough. There were great intellects on both sides, so I wasn't sure you were there.'
That in turn would contradict the logic of Romans 1:18-3:20 (especially 1:20), which is saying there is no excuse for anyone before God for our denying Him.

Thus the presuppositionalists are right to tell us to presuppose God's existence in our debates about Christianity's truth.
Another positive about their method is that it brings out the importance of thinking about whole worldviews when debating Christianity.

But presuppositionalism is ultimately fatally flawed. Its key flaw comes in its failure to distinguish rightly between the two different types of truths taught in Scripture, in terms of what should be presupposed. On the one hand, there are those truths which are known deep down by all people, which need no argument to be accepted, and which ought to be acted on by all people, such as belief in God's existence and power (Romans 1:18-20). These truths include God's existence, power and nature, the content of morality sufficient to live rightly, and the fact that we all deserve death. Such truths are known as 'general revelation' - they are known to all directly without argument from what God has made. We all suppress these truths, to various extents, but we still know them deep down. These are the truths which should be presupposed by Christians in debates. On the other hand, there are those truths which can only be known when they are proclaimed or witnessed, such as the Scriptures' historical claims. I am calling these truths 'Special Revelation', although that term is normally used to mean the whole of Scripture. I am using the capitalized form - 'Special Revelation' to denote those parts of the Bible which are not known by general revelation. Special Revelation, so defined, should not be presupposed by Christians in apologetic debates.

Presuppositionalism treats these two types of truths in the same way, just assuming them both, and this is why it fails.

Notice that it seems it should be easy to dismiss the presuppositionalist method. It seems clearly foolish to say, 'I'm going to convince you the Scriptures are true, but in my arguments I'll assume the Scriptures are true.' It seems inappropriately circular as a method. But this method continues to thrive in America especially, and it has not proven easy to point out exactly what is wrong with the approach. I think this is because of the strengths I outlined above.

So I'm saying that the heart of the problem is that the presuppositionalist approach acts as though all Scriptural claims were general revelation, whereas in fact the Scripture makes many claims which are not. The fact is that when Christian claims are contested, the first set of truths should be presupposed anyway (and simply be asserted), while the second set of truths should be argued for.

So for example, when an opponent debater says they will use 'reason' as their first principle and starting point in debate, we should agree with them that reason is indeed a good first principle in debate. For we can rightly say to anyone 'You know deep down that the law of non-contradiction is true', and 'You know deep down that there are certain laws of logic and language that ought to be followed'. These are indeed part of God's general revelation, and since we all know them, they are a good place to start a debate. Indeed, when a skeptic denies such laws of logic, we should tell them, 'You're just suppressing what you know deep down to be true'.

But when the opponent debater says they will assume reason alone as their first principle in debate, and deny God's existence, we can respond as follows: 'Yes, you are right to presuppose the laws of logic, which God has revealed to all, but you're wrong to deny his existence and power, which he has also revealed to all. You know he's there deep down.'

Lastly, when the opponent debater says they will assume reason and God's existence, but will not assume the Christian claims about Jesus, we should choose a different form of response. We should say, 'Yes, those are exactly the right presuppositions. Let me present you the evidence about the history of Jesus life, and what was predicted about him in the Old Testament before he came. You can feel free to argue against my evidence'

In sum, presuppositionalism fails because it is does not see that only the truths of general revelation should be presupposed.

What should the Christian assume in apologetic debate?

2011-11-02T16:55:00.006+10:30

This is the general topic about which I'm thinking at the moment - presuppositions in apologetic discourse. It may turn into an MTh topic.

Here's my working thesis

The right-thinking Christian speaker or writer should presuppose certain factsto be already known by all participants in any debate. Even if some participants deny they know these facts, the truth is that they do know them deep down, but have suppressed them.

These facts whichthe Christian should always presuppose, and which all participants know deep down, include

(1) God’s existence, personhood, eternalpower, and divine nature

(2) The content of moral norms sufficient to live rightlyin any situation

(3) The fact that all people deserve death

Let me say a bit more about this thesis, and focus on point (2): Point (1) is generally acknowledged in Reformed Christian circles. It comes directly from Romans 1:18-20

Point (2) and (3) I don't see discussed anywhere, though I need to look harder.

The ideas in (2) and (3) come from Romans 1:32 "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them."

The list of 'such things' which deserve death in Romans 1:28-31 is very broad - from envy to greed to slander to disobeying parents to inventing ways of doing evil to being heartless, faithless and ruthless and more. And 'they' (all people, in context) know that those who do such things deserve death . This means in turn that 'they' know that the things themselves are wrong.

The best conclusion, it seems to me, from Romans 1:28-32, is that all people know deep down, the entire content of morality sufficient to live rightly. They know this directly from creation, and not as a result of any argument.

This has many applications. Here's one:

In the debate on sexuality, we shouldn't argue from health statistics to moral conclusions. We should simply declare that 'you know deep down that sex should be only expressed within marriage between man and woman. If you look into your heart, you'll see you know that, but you may have been suppressing it.'

Of course, we don't know all truths in the universe deep down. There are many truths we have to be told, or which have to be argued for. For example, we need to be told about the history of Rome, or architecture, or any history at all. We need to be told about Newton's laws. And we need to be told the great saving truths of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. These latter great truths need to be argued for, from history, and from the Old Testament prophets. But that's not my big point here. My big point is that the content of morality is known to us all deep down to all, and we all suppress that content to differing extents.

That's one reason why on the last Day, no one will be able to say to God, 'Sorry, not enough information.'

That's one reason why no one has an excuse before God for our sin.

That's one reason why we all need Jesus.

Anyone care to disagree?

American gun laws and Christianity

2008-06-20T00:23:00.004+09:30

The American gun laws are at odds with the professed Christianity of the U.S. nation. For in the bible, the use of force is the preserve of the state. Individuals are to 'turn the other cheek', while the rulers in authority are the ones who do not 'bear the sword for nothing'. Individuals are not to 'resist the evil person', but the judge may 'turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.' - Hence in Jesus' and Paul's teaching, force may be used by the representatives of the state, but not by individuals on a private basis.
Therefore, in a consistent Christian worldivew, individuals do not need guns, unless they are for use in roles of policeman, or soldier.

So to sell them to every man and his dog is very anti-Christian. Nevertheless, the right wing Republicans who claim to be Christians are the same right wing Republicans who support the NRA. It's a failure to be consistent, and a failure which leads to the horrible death rates from gun crime in the U.S.

The problem with our news-media

2006-03-22T12:43:00.000+10:30

Here's what the purpose of news should be: to serve us. How? by giving us the news which we need to live well. Here's a second way news should serve us: by entertaining us - giving us the information we want in a way we like. There are other ways that news-media should serve us, but let's stick with two.

Both of these methods are crucial for news-media to serve us properly, but they are not of equal importance. The first method is more important: We need to know who is suffering in our world, so we can help them. We need to know who is doing well, so we can rejoice with them. We need to hear the ethical debates in our community so we can consider the merit on each side, and participate. All of these pieces of news are important because they help us to serve others.

But the second method that news-media serves us is also important: Delivering interesting news helps us to listen to important news. Delivering important news in a compelling way helps us to listen. Giving us pure entertainment is also important, to help us recharge - so that we might gear up to serve others again.

This analysis helps us see where our news is going wrong (and where it is going right!) It can go wrong in a number of ways. One wrong turn is to choose the content poorly (e.g. to not have much content that helps us serve). Another is to have too much entertainment and not enough important news. Another is to deliver the content poorly. (e.g. in such a boring way that less people listen). Another is to give unhelpful ethical commentary on the news (Note that all ethical statements are biased according to the worldview of the writer. The question is whether a given ethical statement springs from a good worldview).

At present, our news' problem is that we entertain too much. It is partly driven by the increased push for profit in our media. It means that many important stories are ignored, or given barely any air-time. For example, we hear nearly nothing of the war in the Congo, which has raged for decades.

The outcome? News is so often 'Something which somebody doesn't want you to hear'. You see secrets are entertaining. Conflict is entertaining. It's entertaining to see someone squirm. But it is not a good recipe for helpful news. It doesn't deliver 'Stories which will help you serve others'. And that's a big problem.

Further, the push toward entertainment implies a push away from accuracy. Nearly every article I've read which I've known something about has been incorrect on the details. Because entertainment doesn't care so much about the truth. Speed is more important than accuracy. This should not be the case. It would not be the case if our aim was to serve others with our news delivery. For serving people requires that we know the truth about those people's thoughts, motives, worldview, problems and successes.

I can hear a critique already: Commercial media play the news that people will watch or read. They deliver that which is demanded. So who am I to tell people that they are watching the wrong thing?
Here is my response: People need help to do what they should. We do not default to the good. So in giving people what they want, the media are feeding our 'fallen nature'. They should instead push us to do what we should - push us to serve others. But they don't, because they are aiming to maximise profits.

So what's the solution? It's not easy to see.
I'm only telling you the problem!

The problem is that our news doesn't aim to serve people as much as it should.

Our CEOs are overpaid (or work is for service of the common good, and bonuses should be paid as such)

2006-01-13T18:36:00.000+10:30

I have argued in previous posts that work is for service. Let's now take that further to the issue of CEO pay levels. You see, most of us have a gut feeling that CEOs are massively overpaid, but we can't say why.

Here is the answer: 'work is for service of the common good, and bonuses should be paid as such'. Let me say that again: 'work is for service of the common good, and bonuses should be paid as such'.

You see, CEOs have two forms of pay. The first is a guaranteed wage. The second is a bonus, which depends on their performance during the year. I want to talk about the bonus, and show why it is so often excessive.

The CEO's bonus is tied to the profit performance of the company. If the company increases profit dramatically in a year, the CEO will get a big bonus. If the company decreases profit dramatically in a year, hopefully the CEO will get no bonus.

So the CEO is out there for big profit, so he can get his big bonus. He has at least three strategies to achieve that big profit, which may be itemised as follows - Strategy 1: He may purchase another company, merge it with his, layoff workers, and thus profit. Strategy 2: He may grow the existing company by growing sales, or decreasing expenses. Strategy 3: He may manage his balance sheet better, and run his company better through good use of debt, or good management of inventory and cashflow.

Now some of these strategies serve the company/owners at the expense of others, while some of these strategies serve all of us by making the company genuinely more efficient. CEOs should be paid bonuses for the latter and not for the former. Unfortunately, they presently receive bonuses for profit outcomes which damage the larger community, as well as bonuses for outcomes which serve the common good. Let's see how this works:

Regarding strategy 1: The act of merging similar companies is usually positive for the common good. Purchasing another company and reducing the work force produces the same output at lower cost. This is usually genuine service to us all. (In saying this however, we must consider whether those laid off can find new ways to support themselves and to serve others through a new form of work.)

But the CEO does not contribute much service under this strategy. All he has done is find a company which is similar to his own, and negotiated a price for buying that company, and made a profit in doing so. The point is that all the work in generating this extra profit was done by the present and past workers and owners and creditors of the two companies. Practically none of the work was done by the CEO - he has just seen a possibility of combining the hard work of a stack of different people, and he has arranged for this possibility to become reality. So the CEO does not deserve much, if any bonus for merging companies. He certainly does not deserve the millions that he is likely to be paid in present corporate practice.

Another aspect of a corporate merger for which the CEO does not deserve a big bonus is the price negotiation. You see, negotiating a good price for an acquisition does not serve the common good very greatly. The more one party gains on the price for the acquisition, the more the other party loses. Bargaining on sale price is a zero sum game. Price haggling therefore does little to serve the common good. Since bonuses should be paid according to service of the common good, the CEO deserves very little for good price negotiation. Again, this goes against cuurent market practice.

Regarding strategy 2: CEOs might deserve bonuses if they have helped to increase sales. But it depends how they have done it. Increasing sales serves the common good if sales are increased through efficiency gains. These gains may lead to selling a better product, to better service, or to cheaper pricing, all of which should increase sales. CEOs should be rewarded for their contribution to such efficiency gains (as also should the owners and the workers who contribute to these gains, in proportion to their contribution). However, increasing sales through gaining a monopoly, or through cartel pricing does not serve the common good, and so the CEO should not be remunerated for it. (The exception is if the CEO came up with the innovation which justly produced the monopoly). By implication, CEOs of monopoly businesses should not receive big bonuses just because they happen to be CEO of a monopoly business. CEOs should not receive bonuses unless they have contributed to efficiencies which serve the common good.

Similarly, driving down expenses may come through CEO innovation, for which the CEO might justly receive a bonus payment. Sometimes workers are being lazy, and it is right that the CEO should be paid for forcing them to work harder. However, forcing the workers to work excessive hours for no extra reward does not serve the common good, and should not lead to extra CEO bonuses.

Regarding item 3: If the CEO takes longer to pay creditors, this action does not serve the common good. Neither does hassling debtors to pay more quickly. Prudent management of debtors is approriate, but aggressively chasing debtors while delaying outgo payments is raw self-interest, and does not deserve praise nor bonus payments.

In conclusion, this post aims to show the practical implications of the idea that 'work is for service of the common good, and bonuses should be paid as such' - Note that I do not believe all CEOs are overpaid. I'm all for genuine innovation being well rewarded. You IBM execs, all praise to your development and distribution of the PC. You have served us all massively - spend your bonuses with a clear conscience!!!

Any board member out there, take careful note! You corporate board members are responsible for the present mess, because you choose the bonus levels of our CEOs. The problem begins there, and trickles down through the upper tiers of management.

The big point again: 'work is for service of the common good, and bonuses should be paid as such'

'Is it good for the economy'? or 'Does it serve us'?

2006-01-11T20:02:00.001+10:30

I spoke with a relative of mine the other day. Let's call him 'Ron'. He dusts crops. In summer, if it rains, the weeds grow, and the farmers employ 'Ron' to spray and kill the weeds. If it is dry, he gets no work.
I said to him - 'Last summer I was hoping for rain so that you'd get more work. But this summer I've changed my mind. I'm hoping for no rain, because it's better for the common good.' Ron disagreed. He said, 'No - we want rain, more work is good for the economy'.

His response reflects an error in our nation's thinking. We think that the increase in our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a good indicator of how well things are going for us. We are wrong. If there is a war, our GDP will go up as we produce arms, but things are going badly. If there is more efficient and prolific gambling, prostitution and drug use, our GDP may go up, but things have gotten worse. If there are more court cases due to divorce proceedings, GDP may go up but things have gotten worse. Here's the point: if it is good for the economy it may be bad for us.

Instead of asking whether it is good for the economy, we should ask whether it serves us. Does rain in summer serve us? No, the rain means we need more effort to harvest our crops. That extra effort (i.e. Ron's effort) would be better spent serving us in other ways. Does war serve us? A war may be justifiable, but its impact on GDP is irrelevant to the question. Does increase in gambling, prostitution, or drug use serve us? I say no, despite any positive impact on GDP.

Again, the idea of work as service helps us think clearly about the world we live in. The question 'does it serve us?' is better than the question 'is it good for the economy?'.

Greed is not good (or a major political suggestion)

2006-01-04T19:17:00.000+10:30

In Australia, we have had many privatisations and demutualisations in the last twenty years. The changes in corporate structure were made for good reasons. The problem was that the sleepy government organizations and mutuals were too ineffecient. Workers could be lazy, because their jobs were secure, and there was no great incentive to work hard. The workers weren't serving others, but serving themselves - by being lazy.

So the corporate structures were changed, and these changes worked. Corporations now work for the profit of owners, and this profit is shared with workers. This potential for profit has driven managers to squeeze out inefficiencies with a view to their own gain. So the problem of laziness is no longer the problem in corporate Australia. We have a different problem.

You see, what has not changed is the inclination of the workers and managers to serve themselves rather than others. The difference is that workers are now driven by greed. Rather than laziness, the Australian form of self-service is the chase after the dollar. More and more, the work-practice of our labour force expresses their belief that greed is good. This is a problem, because work is not meant to be about greed, it is meant to be for service.

If we agree that greed is not good, can we cure this plague? We can't cure the heart of greed by adding more rules - but can we do something at a structural level? Socialism and communism manifestly fail, partly because communism involves reverting to the old government owned and run corporate structures. If we reverted to these, laziness would again triumph as the expression of workers' self-interest. So what can we do to tame our current spiral into materialism? One answer is that our hearts need changing, so that we want to serve others. That is the primary answer. But our hearts will never be changed completely - there will always be the tendency for people to serve themselves rather than others. So what structural change might we make to help us defeat the greed-is-good brigade?

I want to make a suggestion. It is a little detailed, so strap in. But it is a test for you, the reader. The test is this: If you reject my suggestion as bad, do you reject it because you really think that greed is good? If that is your reason, then in my opinion, you have failed this test.

So why not structure society so that more work is others-centred: The maximum take home pay in any year is set at about $50000 per person (adjusted for family size, marital status etc.). Any extra that you earn is set aside into a 'superannuation-style' account (owned by you, but not accessible until a later date). This account may be used in certain circumstances: It can be used by the owner whenever yearly earnings drop below $50000. The owner may use the account to top up that year's earnings to the maximum $50000 figure. The account may also be used as a deposit on a house (up to say $150000 can be used in this way over a lifetime). It may be used to donate funds to causes deemed not in the direct interest of the owner. The owner chooses where these donations go. These donations would be vetted by a randomly selected person from the community. These 'checkers' will confirm that the donation is indeed others-centred.

This system works against both the evils I have mentioned above. We retain the capitalism where corporate structures allow people to push hard for personal profit. This leaves the incentive for people to work hard: If someone wants to earn their lifetime of wage income in five years, they can try. So those looking to provide for themselves will still be motivated to work hard. The same goes for those aiming to make money for the benefit of others - they can make bundles and give it all away. So the 'left-wing' evils of sleepy mutuals and government organizations are avoided.

On the other hand, citizens can no longer work to spend millions on their own pleasures. This will not be possible. So those at the top of our corporations will have severely restricted ability to sacrifice others for their own benefit. The 'right-wing' evils of money-hungry stop-at-nothing tyrant bosses will be avoided. And so the problems of today will be mitigated (although not removed)

The details need to be worked out, but the point is simple: our work would become biased towards others-centred service.

Note that it would still be possible to be paid a million dollars a year. Those who want to earn such large sums and give the money away will stay in our country. Those who want to spend it all on themselves will leave. I think we'll do better without them.

Note that this is not rejection of capitalism. We would still have private ownership, free markets, and laissez faireism - the defining features of capitalism.

I'd love readers to post problems with this political structure, and to make it better. However, I finish with my original challenge: do you reject this system because you believe greed is good? If you do, you fail my test. For greed is not good, it is killing our country (and it's killing yours too.)

Corporal punishment and Capital punishment

2006-01-01T15:04:00.000+10:30

I'm not strongly for or against capital punishment. But I want to take issue with one argument in the debate. Here is 'old faithful' that I hear often: 'The death penalty punishes a murder with another murder. So it's as bad as the crime itself.' The same style of argument works for corporal punishment: My son just hit my daughter. But if I punish him with a smack, my crime is as bad as my son's.

Now think closely and these arguments self-destruct. Take the same logic and apply it to other situations: If we must avoid punishments which are as bad as the crime (my opponent's position), then we must avoid locking up slave traders, since that would be to lock up those who lock people up. We must avoid smacking unruly children, since that would be to hit my son for hitting his sister. Yet to most of us these conclusions are plainly silly. We know that slave-traders should be locked up, and many of us still believe that there is a place for smacking our children.
So how do we lock up slave traders and smack wayward children without becoming hypocrites? We must think differently.

We must see the difference between those who may justly punish offenders and those who may not. Those with proper authority include our judiciary and our parents. They may execute acts of punishment which are criminal in any other context. They may lock people up. They may smack. In fact they must execute such punishments for the common good. No one else may do this, but they must.

So back to 'old faithful' above. We must not push our rhetoric to the point where capital punishment becomes murder, no matter how much we are against the death penalty. If we overstep this line, we will find that much of our valid discipline and judicial sentencing are immoral and hypocritical.

Work is about service (or IBM versus Macquarie)

2005-12-24T13:40:00.000+10:30

What is work for? It is for service. That's the point I want to make in this post. Work is for service.
The measure of a person's work is not just in dollars. The measure of a company's performance is not just in dollars (contrary to the corporate view). You can measure some of the value of work in dollars. But not all. Here's my big point again: you can measure the entire value of work by the service provided.

I love IBM because they have served others more than they have served themselves. Way over here in Australia, computers keep on making my life easier. I can type this blog, I can pay bills on my PC, I can keep up with friends. What's more, because of the efficiency of computers, everything is cheaper. My insurance is cheaper, my food is cheaper, my airfares are cheaper.... All because companies use computers to do what they do more cheaply.And IBM have done heaps from the very start to make and sell computers. So I don't mind so much if IBM managers and workers pay themselves heaps from their profits, if they dodge tax, if they spend all their cash on big yachts. They've still helped us all, and may God bless them!!! Their work has been good because they have served us more than they have served themselves.

But I'm down on Macquarie Bank because they don't serve others as much as they serve themselves. Macquarie is an Aussie company. They aim to buy monopolies then ramp up the prices, so they profit. Take the Sydney Airport. They bought it from the Australian Government. Now they are charging the airlines stacks more to use that airport. If they make a big profit (which it looks like they will), Australians are net out of pocket - we have lost more than what we were paid. That would be fine if Macquarie had served us in exchange for their profit. But what service have they provided? They've made the airport a little more efficient. The airport is now more user-pays. Now do we think that service is worth the managers being paid millions of dollars? Have they served us that much? No way!
So? Those Macquarie millionaires better be sponsoring children in the third world like nobody's business. They better not be dodging tax through property investment. They better not be spending all that cash on big yachts and other pleasures. If they are, those managers are leeches in our land. They're not serving us, they're serving themselves. They are not good workers. Despite the millions they've made, they are bad workers.

The corporate world doesn't agree, of course. This is their problem: they don't believe that work is about service.