The Argument from reasonable Non-Belief (ANB)

Introduction I wish that con had actually spent the time to explain, source and justify his arguments. All that we have seen thus far is a denial of certain propositions with little or no input from con. The fact that con makes so many of these blanket statements, coupled with mysterious and radical notions of the history of Christianity and so forth really do give me cause to doubt that con has really got to grips with the argument at all. Con’s affirmative case Romans - If Con thinks Paul (the author of Romans) believed in salvation for anyone other than Christians, then he is guilty of serious historical revisionism: “Augustine of Hippo developed Paul’s idea that salvation was based on faith and not Works of the Law. “ (1) Paul famously mourned the fate of the Jews who did not accept Christ, dreading their judgement. To actually assert however that Paul believed in salvation for unbelievers borders on delusional. Of course, even the passage he gave supports P1. When Paul refers to “the Law”, part of this is the belief in Jesus for salvation, and this is very plain within both the context of Paul’s entire teaching and Roman itself. For example, Paul writes in Romans 1:18-1;32: “For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteous; . . .” (2) Much of Paul’s teaching make sense only in light of such a view, and to use assert that he believed the complete opposite later in Romans is characteristic of just a basic denial of Christian history. Furthermore, Paul actually supports P1 in the same passage as above by saying that God’s existence was “manifest” and could be “clearly seen”, thus saying that no-one was reasonable to doubt either in Jesus’ resurrection or especially in God, and that reasonable non-belief did not exist. As con already accepts the existence of reasonable non-belief, he must deal with this contradiction different than Paul - yet the teachings of Paul only serve to establish P1 and thus the argument. Isaiah - “This verse shows God’s willingness to reveal himself.” Which is EXACTLY why non-belief is a problem. If God is able and willing, why has He not shown Himself and why does there remain reasonable non-belief. The fact that Con thinks this to be point in his favour suggests he totally fails to comprehend the argument. It may have been relevant for P2 to bring up this passage, but again, con already accepts this and all this quote does is provide evidence of his own inner inconsistency. Psalm 14:1 - The fact that the message is repeated over and over (Psalm 10:4, Psalm 53:1, Psalm 74:18, etc) in just these Psalms, the meaning is clear, But even if we adopt con’s (unjustified) case, all this does is emphasise the point of P1 - that reasonable non-belief would not exist anyway because of its negative implications. Defending P1 Con’s response to 3 passages here is really puzzling. He essentially denies that the passages mean what they say on the basis of their implication (mainly, what happens to those who haven’t heard, or been baptised, etc). But this is exactly consistent with the ANB. Con here is supposed to be accounting for why reasonable non-belief does in fact exist or deny that it does. Instead, he simply asserts that these passages are wrong because he realises their implications - that they affirm if the Christian God exists, we have good reason to thin that reasonable belief in Christianity does not exist (P1). Thus he asserts that these passages are simply “wrong” - with no explanation. All the problems he sights actually reinforce the view that reasonable non-belief has not been accounted for, and the only account on offer is that provided by the ANB. The fact is that there are many, many other passages which indicate the consequences of non-belief according to the bible (John 3:16 to Luke 12:46 & more) and it seems we have far more than we need to justify P1. If con wishes to continue on pouring scorn on these passages, perhaps we should remind ourselves of what he seemed to believe before this debate: “If you oppose the Bible, then you’re not a Christian” (3). Knowing God - This response just baffled me: “you can have a loving relationship with God without knowing God.” Really? One of the first thing one notices about happily married couples is that they recognise each other’s existence! This response is just bizarre and again makes me ask, what is the point of Christianity? Again, even accepting the possibility of this ridiculous notion, con would have to argue that there would be NO difference between knowing God and believing or disbelieving, and the mere possibility that billions more people would be enlightened that God exists would surely be a plausible benefit, on both a personal and a societal level. Again, if there is ANY benefit, we have reason to affirm P1. If there is NO benefit to Christianity then what's so great about Christianity? Properly basic knowledge & Free-will - Firstly, con’s assertion is that the denial of properly basic knowledge can be reasonable. Does he think that the denial of other minds for example, can be reasonably sustained, or any other properly basic thing can be rationally denied? Secondly, he says that properly basic belief “is grace and not everyone receives grace”. Despite claiming in his first post that we all have an equal chance at salvation, now this seems not to be the case. Also, denying that everyone has basic knowledge of God, yet affirming that we all “instinctively know of God’s Law” is another contradiction, and affirming that some people have this knowledge, while saying that one “needs faith to believe or there’s no free-will” is plain doublethink. If knowledge negates free-will, not only do Plantinga et. al have diminished free-will while also having grace, but one would assume that a being with maximal knowledge (God) would have minimal free-will. So let’s here it, does God have free-will, being the most knowledgeable creature imaginable? Conclusion Con seems to think that by emptying much of the content from Christianity, one can avoid the ANB, and to a certain extent he is right. It’s just that what is ends is up with is a horribly confused idea antagonistic to the text of the Bible and one which when it has content is usually contradicting itself. In fact, in many ways the attempt to solve ANB has been just as damaging as the argument itself. Con’s airbrushing of the Bible would not be so bad if he used solid justification and the occasional source (or at least one source) to back his wild claims, but he does no such thing. There are many ways one can deny P1, and although none of these are compelling to me, at least they have some relation to the real world and are internally consistent. Con’s case seems contrived at times, outrageous, radical and plain silly at others. So even against this poorly constructed, internally inconsistent, concocted and contrived mish-mash of Christianity, the ANB is still problematic. Sources (1) http://en.wikipedia.org... (2) http://www.sermoncentral.com... (3) http://www.debate.org...