Santa Claus Morality

"I think [heaven is] a bad concept to have because then everything you do, you want to do good things in order to get to Heaven. Then everything becomes a selfish act, and I hate that, it creates bad patterns in your mind. I like doing things not as a means to get into Heaven but for the sake of doing it themselves."
Natalie Portman, Actress, Inside the Actors Studio, Episode #11.7 (2004).

"The threat of damnation is designed to be an incentive to right action; but this is a phony morality. Humanists think we should do good for goodness' sake, not for the selfish prospect of reaping individual rewards or avoiding punishment."
Dan Barker, Atheist and Former Pastor, "For Goodness Sake", Freedom From Religion Foundation.

"I believe in goodness for goodness' sake, not because you're getting some reward in the afterlife. If you're being good for an award, then what sort of person are you anyway?"
Bill Maher, Political Satirist, "I'm spreading the anti-gospel", Chicago Sun Times (10/24/04).

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This common objection is meant to be a defeater for the concept of Christian morality, but it really does nothing so much as to demonstrate a deep intuitive knowledge about morality. Claiming that we ought to "be good for goodness' sake" assumes four very important things about the nature of morality.

Morality is Objectively Real

The first thing this claim demonstrates is the belief that good, and by extension, evil, are real things. Indeed, "good" is being held up as some ideal, perhaps even independent of God, which we should strive to pursue for its own pure ontological beauty. For this reason, a moral relativist is not well served by this objection. In his mind, morality is simply behavioral preferences and cultural conventions. Morality is not something "out there," apart from humanity and applicable to all times and places. There is, then, nothing other for the sake of which we might attempt to be good.

If there is no objectively real morality, then we can only be good for our own sakes, that is, for the sake of our own feelings about morality. We might be good for the personal benefits that are achieved by acting in certain ways, but we cannot be good for the sake of an abstract, transient concept. It is not something that we separate from ourselves and put upon a pedestal as though it had an existence apart from us, its maker. You might just as well say we should eat ice cream for the sake of The Favorite Flavor. No, we eat it for the sake of our enjoyment, whatever our favorite happens to be, assuming we even have one.

Even if "good" turns out to be a changing and subjective thing, then the very idea that we should take pains to follow it is itself an objective principle, which would in turn foil moral relativism. If morality is not a real thing with some purpose and value behind it, then what right or meaning is there in a relativist telling us we should bow to the idol of morality? And exactly whose idol should we bow to anyway?

Moral relativism makes it difficult to meaningfully speak in moral terms, but it is the legacy of those who do not allow a God that meddles in human affairs. Consequently, atheists, who employ this objection most often, are admitting far too much in even voicing it, since it requires morality to be tangible and particular to even make sense.

Morality is Personal

The second thing that this claim implies is an understanding that morality has a personal basis. We don't do things "for the sake of" inanimate objects. We do things for the sake of personal beings who we seek to honor, impress, love, protect, appease, etc. It makes sense to say that I should care about hygiene for the sake of my spouse and stay married for the sake of the kids, but it does not make sense to say that I should shower for the sake of the soap and stay married for the sake of the appliances.

To say that we should be good for the sake of goodness is to ascribe a personal nature to morality. But this cannot be done if morality is merely a human, subjective phenomenon. Yet even atheists have a deep sense that we ought to do certain things and that other things simply should not be done. But "should" and "ought" are the language of moral incumbency, which is born of law. And law implies a law giver.

The question is whether we humans are making up these laws ourselves as we go along, or whether the laws have been written for us by someone higher. If by ourselves, then we can only be good for the sake of our own self-interest. But if morality has another author, then we should be good for the sake of that One, not the inanimate thing derived from that One.

The Highest Morality is Selfless

The third thing that this claim demonstrates is the belief that self-serving morality is a parody of true virtue. To say that we should be good for the sake of goodness suggests that we should behave in a way that looks beyond the resulting personal benefits. You aren't thinking about morality in the traditional sense if doing the right thing requires you to first ask, "What's in it for me?"

But if morality is simply a creation of society, then it will surely reflect (at best) the shared self-interests of the individuals which compose that society. And if we are just creatures of nature, then evolution (our supposed creator) is the ultimate master of our moral urges. The problem with this is that evolution is selfish by definition. Its primary focus is the survival and competitive advantage of individual gene carriers. Advantages to broader communities are of concern only insofar as they benefit individual reproducers.

There is really nothing practical about the idea that we should expend our precious resources to care for, and allow reproductive rights to, the unproductive and genetically inferior members of society. The theory of evolution certainly doesn't give cause for such thinking. And there is no sense in the idea that a fit and fertile person should lay down his or her life to save the life of someone else who is weak and impaired. Yet one of the most egregious moral crimes in society is to abuse or neglect the helpless, and one of the noblest acts is to dedicate one's life to their aid. This is self-defeating sentimentalism in a purely material world, but makes perfect sense if there is something higher than self and the survival of the fittest.

Good Works do Not Earn God's Favor

The fourth thing that this claim reveals is the intuitive knowledge that works-based righteousness is a spiritually bankrupt idea. If the Christian God indeed exists, then it would be petty for us to only seek to do good in order to win His favor. The objector is right to see such self-interest as tarnish on all our good works, and just how good would we need to be for a God to whom we owe everything in the first place? Seventy-five percent good? Fifty percent good? Whatever the line, it would mean that both heaven and hell are home to many borderline cases. 'Tis an awfully wide gulf that could separate two souls by one four-letter word.

The irony is that Christianity does not even teach that we win heaven by virtue of our good works. In fact, it may be the only religion that explicitly rejects such an idea. For example, Islam actually teaches that our good deeds must outweigh our bad, and Eastern religions teach that we must work our way to enlightenment through various moral and spiritual practices. By contrast, Christianity teaches that we must put aside our futile thoughts of measuring up to God's perfect standard and throw ourselves upon the mercy of His court. We have but to accept, as spiritual beggars, the provision He has made to cover our sin and win our righteousness in Christ.

Good works come as a result of our love and gratitude toward our creator and redeemer; they are not the cause of our redemption. The Christian ideal is to be good for God's sake, not for the sake of what He can do for us. God is not to be confused with Santa Claus. To think otherwise is to make the mistake that Satan made regarding Job's motivation for righteous living (Job 1:9-11).

Conclusion

The claim that we should "be good for goodness' sake" is problematic at face value for the non-religious and does not even manage to apply to the Christian understanding of God and morality. It assumes a rather more substantial view of morality than atheism has a right to claim; it assumes a higher form of virtue than what evolution would be concerned to impose; and it assumes something about how God ought to view moral effort that Christians have been teaching all along.

Matthew 12:36 says that every idle word will be brought to account in the final judgment. The use of this complaint will surely come back to haunt those who have applied it against Christianity and have not availed themselves of God's mercy, do not think of themselves as being so bad as to deserve hell, and even go so far as to doubt the existence of an Author of morality. The objections of the skeptic often say far too much and contain the seeds of his own destruction.

Radical Objectors of Radical Religion

Newshound Andrew Breitbart is no Christian, by his own admission. In fact, I recently listened to him fill in for the vacationing Dennis Miller, on Miller's own radio show, and I heard him make several very un-Christian statements about his personal moral views. However, he is, in many ways, what I have come to call a "common-sense conservative." That is one who holds certain conservative views, not because they are logically consistent parts of some larger belief system, but because they just seem to be true and right when the politics are dropped (or before they are acquired) and the real-world observations roll in.

As a Christian, I found one of Breitbart's lucid observations particularly refreshing. It was in response to a thoroughly postmodern caller anxious to keep her religiously pluralistic Tao in balance by claiming that radical Islam was no different or worse than radical Christianity, and that it was no more or less common. Here was his rather unsympathetic reply, which also speaks to why he and many secularists like him have parted company with their peers to the left:

If you can tell me that there are Christians in this country that are as radical, or even in the ballpark as radical, as radical Islam, then we're living in two different worlds.

I am not a Christian. I'm not a practicing Christian. As a matter of fact, I was a trained secularist in college. I was trained to hate Christianity. I no longer do, because they kept telling me that Christianity was this extreme religion, and the evangelicals were going to come over the hill, and they were going to create a Taliban. And the second that the Taliban showed up, the second that radical Islam put its flagpole down on America and decreed us evildoers, the Left has been AWOL. It does not even have a language — a lexicon — to deal with the raw evil that is radical Islam. And to talk about Christianity in the same sentence as it causes my head to spin.

As astonishingly ill-conceived as it seems to be, I have often heard this comparison — from Rosie O'Donnell on The View to Thomas Friedman of The New York Times. But let me ask a very basic question:

What comparison do Christians, by the most generous definition of that term and of the most radical form, have to radical Muslims who are numerous enough to form competing armies; who commonly have their entire holy book memorized; who are often students and teachers of recognized religious schools; who assault their enemies with directly applicable scripture verses on their lips; who have deep historical precedence for their actions after the pattern of their own religion's founder; and whose more moderate peers seldom even bother to speak against them?

At what point may we begin calling the radicals "devout" and the moderates "liberal?" Perhaps the confusion is in the idea that "devout" means holy, peaceful, and self-sacrificing rather than one who is earnestly devoted to a belief or cause. The irony is that the former conception of the term is the legacy of our western Judeo-Christian theological tradition.

If we want to make comparisons between two religious systems let's not be narrow and selective in our comparison; let's compare the character of those who are most sincerely and accurately following the teachings and traditions of that religious system. That being said, and with a little historical knowledge of Islam's roots in hand, let us ask ourselves who would be more likely to help pack a truck full of explosives and send it off into the camp of unbelievers: Jesus or Muhammad? What about the Christians of the first hundred years, who spread their message across the Roman Empire through private evangelism under the heavy thumb of the secular and the Jewish authorities, versus the Muslims who had taken much of the old Roman Empire into possession by the sword within 100 years after Muhammad's death?

We can only pray that all of Islam becomes apostate and the more moderate, liberal version of it prevails.

Imagine No Religion

One of the insistent claims of the new atheism is that "the world would be a better place without religion." All the atrocities of history are typically laid at the feet of "religion." Consequently, if there were no religion, there would be no problems. There would be no religious extremists to fly planes into buildings; there would be no religious causes to fight wars over; there would be no heretics to persecute; and there would be no dogma to stand in the way of pleasurable pursuits and scientific progress. In the words of John Lennon, if we imagine there's no religion, "all the people" would be "living life in peace" and "the world will be as one."

A reply to this would begin by questioning whether it is indeed true that all, or even most, of the atrocities of history are religiously motivated. As it turns out, an objective survey of history will turn up quite a number of murderous and oppressive examples that are purely secular in nature. A few that come to mind include the Columbine massacre, the eugenics and racial elitism of Margaret Sanger and company, the killing fields of Pol Pot, the systematic purges of Stalin and Mao Zedong, the sadistic and bloody French Revolution, and probably the bulk of the barbarian invasions and national conquests of the ancient world. Only by a definition so broad as to be meaningless could we attribute these things to "religion."

Perhaps it may be argued that these persons and societies were not properly atheistic, or an appeal might be made to examples of virtuous atheists. To the issue of what constitutes a "proper" atheist, I will speak latter, but here I would point out that the same could be said of religious people. Innumerable examples of selfless devotees could be brought to bear, and religious contributions to society could also be referenced, like hospitals, universities, orphanages, emergency aid organizations, youth programs, and soup kitchens. In my own small town alone there are several dozen relief organizations which are founded, staffed, or provisioned primarily by Christians. And I will gamble that it is the same in your own town.

I would argue that the charitable contributions of religion far outweigh any of its real or alleged abuses by orders of magnitude. This could only be denied by attempting to secularize certain key contributors, but it is not fair to selectively secularize only what is flattering and then turn a blind eye to atheism's culpability in the unflattering. Or perhaps it could be denied by defining certain contributions as something other than "good," but that begs the question as to why atheism's standard of good should prevail in arbitrating this dispute. One cannot simply assert that things like proselytizing, opposing abortion, or defending traditional families are strikes against religion without first demonstrating the fiction of such things and the religion(s) that sponsor them.

The atheist's argument begins with the assumption that there is no truth in religion, but then lodges complaint against actions that may be consistent with that religion in order to condemn the religion itself. This means that if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that the religion is true, then any act consistent with that religion is removed as grounds for complaint, and, conversely, any act inconsistent with it is exempt from complaint.

Of course, what the religion actually teaches about humanity and how it ought to behave may offer grounds to question the religion itself if it is contrary to all reason and experience. However, if there is any truth in religion, then there will surely be some hard teachings involved that are distasteful to human preferences, and we must also deal with the question of how we might, outside of a transcendent standard that religion would provide, judge certain doctrines "bad" or against "right" reason.

When asking whether a behavior is caused by a belief system it must first be determined if that behavior is consistent with the beliefs in question. For a religion like Christianity there is some hope of doing so, since it is founded upon certain doctrines and is in possession of a guidebook — the Bible — to which one might appeal in making a ruling. For this reason a strong case can be made that most of what is commonly credited to Christianity is actually a violation of its fundamental principles. It is not consistent with Christianity; it is antithetical to it. And if something is inconsistent with a thing it is hard to make a case that it is caused by that thing.

I once had an atheist insist to me that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber, was a Christian, as if to blame Christianity for the bombing itself. To answer such a charge it is not necessary to know anything at all about Timothy or his motivations; you must simply ask yourself if it is reasonable to imagine Jesus helping him pack his truck full of explosives. Since the answer is obviously "no," then even if McVeigh thought of himself as a Christian he must have a very different thing in mind when he uses that word — a thing which no classical Christian would care to defend.

If religious wars, inquisitions, and heretic burnings were in fact consistent with Christianity, then we should expect to have seen such things from its very inception and Christians would be repeating the behaviors even to this day rather than apologizing for them. This is exactly why the events referenced as "Christian atrocities" are generally isolated episodes in history and not things that invariably spring up wherever the Gospel is preached. Christianity has within itself exactly what it needs to be self-reforming. But no matter how divine her doctrines, because the visible church is composed of humans (some of which are only arguably "believers"), it is guaranteed to manifest flaws large and small. If the skeptic is looking for proof of God in the perfection of His followers, then the skeptic is presuming something about human nature that Christianity does not teach.

Of course, I have here been defending Christianity as opposed to "religion" in general. However, most of those arguing against religion train their guns primarily on Christianity and only employ things such as Islamic extremism for the sake of the juicy examples it affords. I will not take pains to defend religion at large, though each group surely has its own defenses to offer. I am only obliged to defend what I believe to be true: classical Christianity. If any who consciously differ from that truth consistently commit offenses, then it is not Christianity's burden to bear, and they "prove" the truth of atheism only as much as they prove Christianity, or anything else in opposition to themselves. The sins of the one, or even the majority, do not categorically invalidate all. If this were not so then we must condemn all thought of government because of the abuses of communists and fascists.

In fact, the rejection of religion would be a bit like the rejection of all formal government. Gone would be any objective moral framework, historical narrative and vision, or idea of absolute justice. But what would take its place in a strictly atheistic world? What ethical theory follows from atheism? John Lennon thought we could all "live as one" if we gave up on religion, but given that atheism's only dogma is the rejection of the supernatural it is impossible to say what such a world would yield.

Many atheists would propose something like secular humanism, but that is merely a broad ethical creed that begs for consensus over details, and it is no more objectively binding on its supporters than a New Year's resolution. And even if its followers were all passionately committed to it and everything derived from it, it is not the case that all atheists are on-board with it. Some atheists are nihilist. Some are anarchists. Some are communists. Some are hedonists. Some are quite sympathetic to religion. And some are just psychopaths. The frightening thing about atheism is that while it is difficult enough to say what is consistent with it, it is quite impossible to say what is inconsistent with it.

Unlike with Christianity, there are no grounds on which to even begin a debate over how atheism is to be lived out. So long as there are no gods and souls being appealed to, then it all equally qualifies as atheism. But worse than that, without a transcendent standard of morality, there are no grounds for saying how atheists ought to behave or why they ought to behave in any proposed way. Along with God goes any idea of fixed and binding moral imperatives. Morality simply becomes whatever humans define it to be at any given time and place. Lennon's imaginary world of brotherhood would be spoiled in the determination of which humans have the power to control the definition of the good and true. And the hunger for power is a very human trait. History has taught us at least that much.

Religions that explicitly teach violence aside, from a purely theoretical perspective it only makes sense to think that if one believes in divine justice, from which even death is no escape, then one is more likely to be concerned about his or her own good behavior. If people do bad things in contradiction to a system that teaches otherwise, then it must be the case that something else is driving them. I would suggest that something more subjective is at the bottom of human aggression — something at the very heart of humanity. As one sage has said, human depravity is one of the most empirically verifiable of all the doctrines of Christianity.

If we removed religion, people would simply find alternate grounds for oppression. There would always be substitute causes, movements, and justifications for evil persons to employ in their service. People have an incorrigible need to feel justified in their actions — even hardened criminals will make excuses. Religion is simply one very powerful justification to be leveraged. Removing the "excuse" of religion will not magically make bad people into saints. It would be as reasonable to believe that removing gangster rap and heavy metal will leave us with responsible and well-adjusted teenagers.

Some might argue that Europe has become largely secularized and it is doing just fine. Well, that returns to one's definition of "fine." When the news delivers stories of moral absurdities — stories that could make even an atheist cringe — they often will originate in one of the European bastions of secularism. Some notable examples would be: sex vendors at sporting events, a woman marrying a dolphin, the mainstreaming of pornography, problems of child pornography rings, lesser standards for what qualifies as child pornography, welfare recipients being forced to take available jobs in the sex industry, involuntary euthanasia, porn stars in politics, football (soccer) riots, and the breakdown of the traditional family. (Of course, I am begging the question to think that an atheist will take issue with such things. But for those who merely shrug at my list, it proves my point that it is indeed consistent with atheism; and for those who are troubled by it, it proves my point regarding the diversity of atheism.) Additionally, when it is said that Europe has become secularized it does not necessarily mean that it has become atheistic; it has simply become more diverse and "spiritual" but less inclined toward organized Christianity.

But even if all religious people died tomorrow in some great pluralistic rapture, I would expect that the world would not immediately descend into a pre-modern barbarian chaos. Modern atheists are so fat with the moral capital of their Christian heritage that they could probably live for decades before suffering bankruptcy. And most are either in denial or have quite forgotten that if there is no God anything is permissible. Well, anything that you can get away with at least. In a world without purpose and standards beyond personal happiness, what taboos can stand?

Is it really true that it would be the end of evil if we made an end of religion? As I've argued, it would only be the end of evil in the name of religion and the end of our grounds for naming anything evil. Evil would remain, but would be called by a different name, and it would be celebrated, tolerated, medicated, or carefully regulated — but never judged.

How Can You Know if Your Religion is Right?

I've been playing around on Yahoo! Answers and I thought my answer to the following question might be worth posting here.

Question:

How are you sure that your religion is right? There are many religions that all teach different things, and some people do not practice any religion at all. How can you be sure?

My Answer:

One of the most important criteria is that a religion has to make sense out of the world; it has to fit our observations and deepest intuitions about it. So, if it tells a historical tale, like the Book of Mormon does about the Americas, that had absolutely no archaeological, genetic, or documentary verification, then that would be a big strike against it. Or if it claims that the world is an illusion, like Buddhism, in spite of everything in your experience (and the actual behavior of Buddhists) indicating the contrary, then you'd have a big rational barrier to deal with. Or if, like Christian Science teaches, it insists that there is really no such thing as evil, in spite of all the horrors to be witnessed in the world, then you might conclude that the religion's founder was out of touch with the truth.

Important themes that any belief system must wrestle with are things like origins, purpose, morality, and destiny. A worldview needs to be able to answer questions like, "Where did it all come from?", "What are we?", "Why is there evil and suffering in the world?", "How should I live my life?", "Is there any meaning to life?", and "What should we be striving for?"

Many belief systems either fail to give much of an answer to all of these or they give unsatisfactory ones. For instance, paganism deals quite a bit with the world itself, but isn't much good with explaining where the whole cosmos came from in the first place. Eastern religions don't give much traction for asking the "what are we" question, since there's supposedly not really any individuals to ask it ("we" are part of the One). Many systems cannot make much sense of why humans would find themselves in such a sorry state (i.e., there's no "fall of man" type of doctrine). And the issue of morality is a vague or even meaningless concept for others.

Atheists don't get off the hook simply by rejecting religion. They've also got to answer these questions. Unfortunately, most of their answers are "don't know," some form of raw speculation, or some kind of subjective construction. For instance, what caused the Big Bang and why the laws of physics are so finely tuned for life is just an invitation to a science fiction discussion for an atheist. And trying to ground an objective ethical system without any transcendent source for moral principles is something that most astute atheistic philosophers have abandoned. And, while not really a logical strike against atheism, answering the question, "What is the meaning of life?", with something like, "There isn't really one; we make up our own meaning," is very unsatisfactory to those who believe that the universal human drive to ask the question suggests that a real answer must exist. You might just as well tell a hungry man that food is a figment of his imagination and that he go satisfy his odd craving with whatever he sees lying around that looks interesting.

The bottom line is that I think Christianity is the best historic, philosophical, scientific, and intuitive fit for the world I find myself to inhabit. The fact that some of what it teaches does not fit my preferences is no strike against it, since I also understand that truth can sometimes be inconvenient and painful, but it generally works out for the best in the long run.

To Judge or Not to Judge

The biblical verse, "judge not, lest ye be judged" (Matthew 7:1), seems to be the most quoted verse these days, perhaps mostly by non-Christians (even the secular world has its "memory verses"). Usually it is thrown at Christians in response to the doctrine of the exclusivity of Christ in salvation, which implies other paths are wrong, or in relation to moral issues. But does this verse suggest that we should judge nothing at all? I think we may understand on both intuitive grounds and Scriptural grounds that the answer is "no".

No one (but a psychopath) would agree that we shouldn't judge a murderer, and I don't think even the most liberal Christian would be comfortable qualifying an atheist as a "Christian," so there is certainly some level of judgment that is warranted. It wouldn't make sense if this verse were prescribing a global ban on judging.

Since the claim is based on an appeal to Scripture to begin with it is only reasonable that we look deeper at Scripture to sort out the issue. Note these sample passages:

"Solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." — Hebrews 5:14

"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction." — 2 Timothy 4:3

"[hold] fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict." — Titus 1:9

"But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil." — 1 Thessalonians 5:21

"Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him." — Luke 17:3

And I could go on and on, in fact, I think I will: I Co 2:15; 6:2-3, Mat 23, Acts 13:10, Lev 19:15-17, Ez 22:2 & 23:36, Is 58:1. All these verses certainly make it clear that we should be discerning about good and evil and about proper theology, even being so bold as to confront those who are in error. So, this leaves us with a question: What is it that we should NOT judge? Here are some passages that may give us some clues:

"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." — Romans 2:1

"Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." — John 7:24

"For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges." — 1 Corinthians 5:12-13

What I see here is that we should not judge hypocritically and ignorantly. Also, there is some sense in which we should avoid judging those outside the church (a point I won't explore here), but it at least first requires us to identify who is indeed "outside" before we can commend them to God, and that is a form of judging.

In any case, the most important thing we can do is to look at Matthew 7:1 in its proper context. Note verses 2 through 5:

"For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

This seems to be saying that the admonition to "judge not" is in the context of hypocrisy. A sample application of this might be someone judging a homosexual for their sexual sin when all the while being engaged in an adulterous relationship. Note, though, that the final conclusion is that if you are able to clean up your own act, you might then be qualified to clearly "see" another's sin and perhaps help them to deal with it.

I see no blanket prohibition on judging in Matthew 7, nor even does there appear to be a categorical prohibition here. It is simply referring to the conditions and prerequisites for a certain kind of judgment. Christians should not allow others to use this passage to bully them into surrendering their discernment and to consider all beliefs and practices of equal value.

The Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant: Does it Work?

Whenever I dialog with religious pluralists, like Wiccans and liberal Christians, the parable of the blind men and the elephant is almost sure to come up. Its intent is to illustrate that each religion (or denomination) may actually contain truth, but perhaps it is merely an incomplete and vague understanding of the whole. It is a clever and even compelling analogy, but it ultimately fails on several counts.

First, if we are all stuck with only our piece of the truth due to our "blindness," then who is it that has managed to see the whole elephant to know that we each only have a piece? The author of this parable seems to think he has seen the big picture, but that everyone else is bound to their provincial views. But if one can escape their own "blindness," then so can we all. And if no one can, then neither can he, and he is merely speculating that the true and complete thing is an elephant. Those who offer up this parable are usually reacting to the supposed arrogance of persons who claim to have a "monopoly on the truth." Unfortunately, they themselves are exhibiting arrogance in the implication of this parable, which is that they know the elephant to be something more than what those narrow, dogmatic religionists believe it to be.

Second, the parable works only within its own context, but not as a true analogy of what is actually going on in the world of religious claims. It is true that each blind man had a piece of the truth, and that piece was true in isolation, e.g., the tail really was like a rope. However, in the case of religious claims, the various parties are making diverse observations about the same part of the elephant. Some are saying the tail is like a rope and others that it is like a cantaloupe, and therein lies the problem. For example, some are saying that when you die there is no judgment, others that when you die there is a judgment, and yet others that when you die you are reincarnated. Any one may be wrong, but it's not simply a matter of each seeing a different part of the whole. The analogy of the elephant parable could only hope to succeed if each religion were making unique, non-overlapping claims about spiritual matters, but that is not the case.

Third, Christians believe that the "elephant" has actually spoken and thus has allowed us to get past the shortcomings that our "blindness" might impose. If God has indeed spoken, then this settles the matter and we can consequently reject any alternative impressions or speculations to the contrary. Of course, it is true that several religions have their own speaking "elephant," but this doesn't help to salvage the parable. It only means that the real point is to determine which of the contradictory revelations, if any, is more consistent with the beast we find ourselves groping at (this would consist of the natural world, history, philosophy, and human nature). I propose that the Christian Scriptures succeed in doing so and stand head-and-shoulders above all other contenders.

Gospel Contradictions?

It is both a blessing and a burden to us that we have 4 separate and recognized accounts of the life of Jesus – the Gospels. This is a blessing in that we have all the more detail of the single most important event in history (and collaboration for its historicity), and a burden because critics have something against which to compare the testimony for consistency and credibility.

Inerrant or not, 4 separate accounts of any event will necessarily differ in perspective, detail, and intent. This is no different with the Gospels, which were written for different audiences and for different purposes. For example, Matthew seems to be targeting the Jewish community, while Mark is aimed at the Gentiles. Such unique perspectives will naturally lead to variations that can easily be perceived as discrepancies by casual (or hostile) observers.

Contributing to this confusion are such things as the arrangement of events sometimes being topical vs. sequential, different persons, dialog, or details being emphasized, and the original documents being composed in Greek vs. Hebrew or Aramaic, which can result in cultural variations in names and measures. Additionally, the claim is not that any one translation is inerrant, but it is the originally authored manuscripts (the "autographs") that are being esteemed. While we do not have these in our possession, we do have a large enough and ancient enough body of descendant materials that we have reason for great confidence in our modern translations. For more information on this, see this article: "Are the Biblical Documents Reliable?"

While it is well beyond the scope of this article to address all the related Gospel difficulties, let's look at a sampling in order to demonstrate how some of these may be answered.

1) The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke differ, particularly in the later lineage. Matthew seems to start from Joseph and go back through his father, Jacob, while Luke also appears to trace through Joseph yet names Heli as the next ancestor. How can this be? The answer is plain when we understand Luke to be actually tracing the ancestry through Mary (who provides the true, human bloodline). This is both hinted at by Luke's comment, "[Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph", and explicit in the fact that the Jerusalem Talmud records that Mary was the daughter of Heli. This can even further be reconciled when we understand that Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli. Luke could rightfully call Joseph the "son of Heli" because this was in compliance with use of the word "son" at that time.

2) Mark states that Jesus was crucified at the "third" hour on Good Friday, and John indicates that the trial of Jesus was still going on at the "sixth" hour, indicating that the time of His crucifixion was later still. There are a several responses to this, but the most probable is as follows.

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) used a different method to number the hours of the day than John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke used the traditional Hebrew system, in which the hours of the day were numbered from sunrise (approximately 6:00 AM), which places the crucifixion at about 9:00 AM, or the third hour by this system. John, did not employ the Hebrew system, he used the Roman civil day. The Roman system defined a day from midnight to midnight, as we do today. Pliny the Elder (in Natural History 2.77) and Macrobius (Saturnalia 1.3) provide historical confirmation of this fact. Therefore, using the Roman system, which was used by John, the trial of Jesus ended around the sixth hour (6:00 AM), which was the first hour of the Hebrew system used by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Between this time and the time of crucifixion, Jesus was flogged, mocked, and beaten by the Roman soldiers in the Praetorium (Mark 15:16-20). The crucifixion itself occurred at the third hour in the Hebrew system, which is the ninth in the Roman system, or 9:00 AM to us.

Why did John use a different numbering system? The Gospel of John was written after the other three (as late as 90 AD) while he resided in Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia. John, by this time, was probably most comfortable with the Roman system. John used the Roman system in John 21:19: "On the evening of that first day of the week." This was Sunday evening, which in the Hebrew system was actually the second day, because each day began at sunset.

Now, while I am not suggesting the need to surrender inerrancy, as an interesting thought experiment let's assume for the moment that the Gospels do contain irreconcilable discrepancies. What conclusions might be drawn from this?

Many skeptics seem to argue as though the existence of contradictions invalidates the Scriptures as a whole. But this conclusion doesn't follow; at best, all this would do is defeat our common understanding of Biblical inerrancy. Isolated errors would not automatically turn the essential claims of Christianity into mythology.

At minimum, we can view the Gospels as a case of 4 independent testimonies, much like we do with witnesses at the scene of a crime. Accounts may vary in detail, but the general events are easily discerned if the testimonies are genuine. For example, the precise time, colors of clothing, or exact sequence of events may vary, but the crucial details may be gleaned, such as that it was Tuesday, the location was the library, Mr. White was the aggressor, and a knife was used. It is in the foundational details that variation is lethal to the credibility of a witness. Now, if witness B says the murder was on Monday, that Mr. Green was the aggressor, and the weapon was a pipe, then we know that somebody, or possibly all parties, are not giving credible testimony.

Even if it could be proved that there were irreconcilable contradictions in Scripture, we still have to account for the vast consistencies. It should be noted that none of the passages in question happen to relate to anything such as claims that Jesus was just a man, or did not do miracles, or did not rise from the dead, or exhibited questionable moral character – nothing that affects any of the fundamental doctrines of classical Christianity. It is presumptuous to simply dismiss the uniform portrait of Jesus and his earthly ministry that is painted by the four distinct brushes of the Gospels.

Many of those who attack Scripture also advocate the idea that it is just mythology or deception authored by the early church, and that these founding fathers made a practice of enhancing, expanding, or adapting the manuscripts as needed. But if this were the case then we'd expect all these "issues" to be long since worked out of the text. Surely those so intimate with the Scriptures would not perpetually overlook such "obvious" discrepancies. The existence of these "issues" surely tells us something about the early church's unwillingness to meddle with these texts.

We should also not be so naïve as to imagine that the lack of inconsistencies would be taken as proof for the events in the Gospels. In fact, it would surely be looked on as evidence of complicity. As it turns out, discrepancies (or at least notable differences) disaffirm collusion; it is what one would expect to find in independent testimonies. In the criminal justice system, witness testimonies that parallel too closely are held in suspicion, while radical divergence is a sign of fraud. There must be an appropriate balance between independence and collaboration. Could it be that God's sovereign hand is found even in a permissive use of diversity?

In the end, it is probably fruitless to attempt to defend inerrancy against those who do not even take Scripture to be generally reliable. While there is certainly much to say in defense of inerrancy, it is more productive to begin the dialog with such things as the historical, textual, archaeological, and prophetic evidences for the overall veracity of the Bible. It is only when one is first surrendered to the authority of Scripture that one would be genuinely inclined to entertain explanations for the alleged discrepancies.

For anyone truly interested in hearing out the various Christian responses, ample resources are available to address all of the scriptural difficulties. Some of the more approachable treatments include the following.

• Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, by Gleason Archer
• The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, by Craig Blomberg
• When Critics Ask, by Norm Geisler
• Hard Sayings of the Bible, by Walter Kaiser & F.F. Bruce