Lex Communis

There are certainly good arguments for atheism. The problem is that atheists aren't making them.

I've noticed the point that Robert Hutchinson makes in this article. I've watched every atheist/theist debate I can get my hands on, and it's clear that the atheists get routinely pounded on logic and facts that they either can't answer or which they haven't spent the time thinking about. As for what they do focus on the historical sins of religion - their arguments are usually factually shoddy or fallacious.

Likewise, their books are often embarassing in their shallowness, ignorance, pomposity and arrogance. Christopher Hitchens, for example, attempts to take down all of Aquinas' arguments with the claim that Aquinas argued for the ontological proof, which he didn't, shows that Hitchens didn't have the foggiest idea about what he was talking about.

It's enough to convince a person of the truth of Christianity.

Hutchinson writes:

At the time, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins were supposedly going around doing debates, taking on people like author Dinesh D’Souza and the Oxford theologian and former scientist Alister McGrath. The impression I got was that Hitchens was simply demolishing the theists with his rapier-like wit and vast erudition. Also, I have always looked with awe on Oxbridge philosophy – home of such luminaries as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Elisabeth Anscombe and so on – and so I assumed that the UK philosophers would trot out their superior logical skills, decades of logical analysis, and easily smash the dusty old arguments of theism. (Truth be told, however, Fr. Coppleston more than held his own against Lord Russell in their famous 1948 debate on the BBC.)

It turns out that I was utterly deluded. Recently, I’ve begun to systematically record all of the debates on the Existence of God that I can lay my hands on and listen to them at my leisure, usually while driving.

In the process, I made a shocking discovery. It turns out that the atheists are really, really good at insults but are actually quite poor debaters. The atheists insult Christianity, Judaism and religion generally with a nastiness that is almost breathtaking. They belittle. They demean. They insinuate. But the one thing they don’t do is offer intelligent arguments that disprove the existence of God.

In fact, they don’t actually reason at all.

Reasoning, after all, is a systematic questioning of assumptions… a marshaling of evidence… a critical examination of arguments. It is not, primarily, name-calling. When I first started watching these debates, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I assumed the atheists would eventually put forward logical arguments that the Theists would be hard pressed to answer. What I wasn’t prepared for was that the atheists didn’t really marshal salient arguments at all: they merely sneered. The New Atheists are plainly accustomed to standing up in front of large groups of college students, making snide put-downs that get a lot of laughs and applause; and they are quite good at demolishing arguments made by young earth Creationists and snake-handling fundamentalists. But when faced with genuine Christian intellectuals – such as the philosopher William Lane Craig – they fail utterly even to engage the principal arguments being made.

For example, when Craig debated Sam Harris on the topic of moral values – whether you can establish the existence of objective moral values without recourse to God – Craig offered three extremely precise reasons why Harris failed to prove the existence of objective moral values in his then-latest book, The Moral Landscape. He offered a detailed, step by step critique for why Harris’s argument in his book is, at bottom, logically incoherent.

When it came time for Harris to respond, he didn’t. He didn’t respond to a single one of Craig’s logical arguments. Instead, he simply changed the subject – and fell back on his snide one-liner attacks on the Bible and how stupid Christians are.

Craig is a machine, but the overmatch is obvious virtually every single time, whether the Christian is D'Souza or a "lesser name."

Hutchinson's conclusion expresses my sentiment:

It’s true that many atheists are now embarrassed by Dawkins’s refusal to debate Craig. They recognize that such arrogance only underscores the reality that, for all their swagger, the New Atheists are actually bereft of the one thing they claim to have but don’t: rational arguments. For armchair philosophizers such as myself, who follow these debates like beach volleyball at the Olympics, we can only hope that one day the New Atheists will gather their forces and give us all a real argument worth pondering.

These are important arguments; the atheist team ought to "cowboy up" and make a game of it.

This is going to be a blow to the faith of atheists.

Mathematics shows that universe had a beginning no matter what kind of ad hoc rationalizations are asserted.

In recent years, however, cosmologists have begun to study a number of new ideas that have similar properties. Curiously, these ideas are not necessarily at odds with the notion of a Big Bang.

For instance, one idea is that the universe is cyclical with big bangs followed by big crunches followed by big bangs in an infinite cycle.

Another is the notion of eternal inflation in which different parts of the universe expand and contract at different rates. These regions can be thought of as different universes in a giant multiverse.

So although we seem to live in an inflating cosmos, other universes may be very different. And while our universe may look as if it has a beginning, the multiverse need not have a beginning.

Then there is the idea of an emergent universe which exists as a kind of seed for eternity and then suddenly expands.

So these modern cosmologies suggest that the observational evidence of an expanding universe is consistent with a cosmos with no beginning or end. That may be set to change.

Today, Audrey Mithani and Alexander Vilenkin at Tufts University in Massachusetts say that these models are mathematically incompatible with an eternal past. Indeed, their analysis suggests that these three models of the universe must have had a beginning too.

Their argument focuses on the mathematical properties of eternity--a universe with no beginning and no end. Such a universe must contain trajectories that stretch infinitely into the past.

However, Mithani and Vilenkin point to a proof dating from 2003 that these kind of past trajectories cannot be infinite if they are part of a universe that expands in a specific way.

They go on to show that cyclical universes and universes of eternal inflation both expand in this way. So they cannot be eternal in the past and must therefore have had a beginning. "Although inflation may be eternal in the future, it cannot be extended indefinitely to the past," they say.

They treat the emergent model of the universe differently, showing that although it may seem stable from a classical point of view, it is unstable from a quantum mechanical point of view. "A simple emergent universe model...cannot escape quantum collapse," they say.

The conclusion is inescapable. "None of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal," say Mithani and Vilenkin.

Since the observational evidence is that our universe is expanding, then it must also have been born in the past. A profound conclusion (albeit the same one that lead to the idea of the big bang in the first place).

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1204.4658: Did The Universe Have A Beginning?

Responding to Triablogue in detail.

Steve Hays at Triablogue thinks he responded to my arguments on Facebook. He didn’t.

Let’s take a look;

Here’s a Catholic response to my recent post:

Peter Sean Bradley’s original statement [“PSB”] The Triablogue argument is confusing oral tradition with inerrancy.

Steve Hays [“SH”] I didn’t confuse them. Rather, I demonstrated how an oral tradition of the highest pedigree turned out to be unreliable.

First, Hays is begging the question. He most definitely hasn’t shown an “oral tradition.” What John 21 shows is that some people were confused. Is it the case that every time some minority of Christians is confused that their confusion amounts to an “oral tradition”? Hardly.

Second, Hays point appears to be that nothing can be infallible until it’s written down. But nothing was written down until it was written down. And a substantial part of the Bible wasn’t written down until after the death of the Apostles – such as the Gospel of John, which we know was written after the death of the Beloved Disciple because it implies that the Beloved Disciple has died!

So, Hays is, in fact, confusing his notion of inerrancy with oral tradition since he is arguing the unbiblical and idiotic position that nothing was inerrant until it was written down, and that anything said by anyone is an oral tradition, which means that he is arguing that oral traditions were not inerrant, which means that the early church had no inerrant position to select the books of the bible.

Of course, anyone with a bit of reading on the subject knows that the early church judged the reliability of the gospels by their conformity to oral tradition. Gospels beloved of Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman didn't make the cut because they were "fishy." They were "fishy" because people knew from their oral traditions, that these other gospels were saying things that didn't square with what they'd been taught.

This is hardly earth-shaking information. The gospels didn’t descend from Heaven in a baggie, and no one claimed that the angel Gabriel came to them and said recite with respect to the gospels (unlike that other religion.)

PSB:It also ignores the fact that John 21 offers an example of the Church’s teaching authority in action.

SH: Actually, it offers an example of the Bible’s teaching authority in action.

Because, apparently, no one knew that the Beloved Disciple had died – and therefore conclusively disproven the speculation that the Beloved Disciple would live until the parousia – until they read the Gospel of John?

Two comments –

First, how lame is that claim?

Second, evidence, please?

PSB:First, there is nothing in John 21 that says that anyone misquoted or misremembered anything. Jesus actually said, ““If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” in reference to the Beloved Disciple.

Jesus made a statement (21:22) that gave rise to a false rumor (21:23). How did his true statement give rise to a false rumor? I can only think of two possibilities: it was misreported or it was misinterpreted.

SH: “Brothers” actually speculated that John was not to die until the Second Coming.

That’s the false rumor. They attributed to Jesus something he didn’t say. They misquoted him. So John corrects the rumor:

“22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 23 So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?””

Note the relationship between v22 & v23.

This is lame. Hays needs for there to be some kind of “faded memory” because in modernity we all “know” that the problem with oral statements is that people forget things.

So he confuses the issues.

There is no evidence that anyone misremembered and misreported anything. Jesus’ answer was ambiguous. It could have been taken either that the Beloved Disciple would live to see the Second Coming or he wouldn’t. There is not a scintilla of evidence in fact or logic that if the statement had been written down – and perhaps it was for all we know – that people would have gotten it right before the death of the Beloved Disciple.

The problem is that John 22 - 23 is not “perspicuous” in itself and that is a major problem for Protestants of Hays’ bent.

What solved the interpretation problem was that the Beloved Disciple died. Now, safely after that extra-biblical fact, Hays can play Monday-morning Quarterback and say that anyone without the benefit of his hindsight clearly got it wrong, but who, other than someone with sola scriptura glasses on, who thinks that the Church had no certain knowledge until someone came along and wrote things down, thinks for a moment that his position is credible?

PSB: Where in that is there anything involving “faded” memories or erroneous memories of events? There simply isn’t.

SH: I already explained that. Why is Bradley unable to follow a simple lucid argument. I drew attention to Jn 14:26 (“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you”).

Answer – because this isn’t a lucid argument. It’s based on all kinds of lame presuppositions that are contrary to fact and logic.

For example, Hays assumes that the speculation about the Beloved Disciple was an “oral tradition” – there’s no evidence that it was.

Hays assumes that the speculation about the Beloved Disciple was a teaching under the guidance of the Holy Spirit – it wasn’t.

Is there any evidence of any bishop or apostle teaching the speculation about the Beloved Disciple – nope.

But Hays goes right on begging the question, setting up strawmen and making jumps in reasoning.

SH: Why would Jesus send the Holy Spirit to bring to remind them of everything he said if unaided memory was sufficient? Why can’t Bradley draw an elementary inference like that?

So, if we unpack this, we are to understand that the Holy Spirit only works through writing?????

Is that the “elementary inference”?

If it is, where is that in the Bible?

Let me submit that the way this passage has normally been understood outside of the fever swamp of SS – sola scriptura – is that the Holy Spirit works by teaching of the church, which is often an oral process.

PSB: Second, the Triablogue account engages in a bad bit of historical anachronism. Namely, because we now know that the speculation about John remaining alive until the Parousia is now known to be false, the writer retrojects our present knowledge to the past when John was alive and no one knew that the speculation was wrong! The speculation could have been correct, after all. So, the Triablogue critique that seems to assume that the speculation was lame or insipid or clearly wrong is nonsense.

SH; i) It’s not clear what Bradley is alluding to. Is he saying the narrator retrojects our present knowledge into the past? Is he saying the narrator is guilty of a historical anachronism?

Well, I guess the clue is that I actually say the “Triablogue account engages in a bad bit of historical anachronism.”

For a guy who is uber-critical of other people’s reading ability….well, camels and gnats.

SH: In the nature of the case, John is writing after the rumor spread, to dispel a false rumor that was circulating in the early church. But that’s not anachronistic.

Now it all becomes clear. Hays thinks that Chapter 21 of the Gospel of John circulated during the life of the Beloved Disciple.

But it didn’t. Biblical scholars generally acknowledge that the last chapter – Chapter 21 – is in the nature of an “appendix” added after the death of the Beloved Disciple. For example, it seems that Tertullian had a copy of the Gospel of John without Chapter 21, but he was aware of the speculation by some – not all – not by any teaching authority – that the Beloved Disciple would see the Second Coming.

SH: Is Bradley saying the Johannine account is unhistorical? That this is an etiological fable, a just-so story? If so, attacking the credibility of the Bible is an odd way to defend the credibility of oral tradition, or the church of Rome. For one thing, Jn 21 is the source of a standard papal prooftext (vv15-17). But even if (arguendo) we grant the Catholic interpretation, if Jn 21 is a fictitious backstory, if Jesus never said that, then so much for the traditional Petrine text.

Nope. I’m saying that the text concerning the death of the Beloved Disciple was added after the death of the Beloved Disciple when the meaning of Christ’s non-perspicuous statement was clear.

And, of course, I’m in good company for holding that position.

SH: ii) Or by “the writer,” does he mean me? But I’m not adding anything to Jn 21. I’m merely drawing some obvious logical inferences. My arguing is only “anachronistic” if Jn 21 is anachronistic.

No, Hays is completely anachronistic because he shows no awareness of how oral tradition worked in the First Century or what oral tradition means and he seems fully wedded to the modern belief that if something isn’t written down, it is immediately suspected as being inaccurate. This is simply not how people in the First Century thought. Again, I recommend Bauckham’s book.

PSB: We can compare the speculation about the Beloved Disciple to the various rumors that whip up excitement among certain sects of Protestants. For example, will there be a “rapture”? No one thought there would be until around 1850. Does that mean that speculation about the rapture is “wrong”? Probably, but we really won’t know until it doesn’t happen. Is that an example of the “failing of oral tradition”? Not hardly.

SH: i) Actually, the notion of a rapture goes back to 1 Thes 4:17. Of course, how that event should be understood is a different question.

Actually, the Rapture was first invented by John Darby in 1830.

No serious student of history disputes this.

Prior to Darby, no one reading the Bible had the barest idea that someone would create the doctrine of the Rapture.

Of course, I don’t expect Hays to acknowledge this. I have seen too many times, sola scriptura literalists laugh at people in the past for getting things wrong but showing keen confidence that their belief in a “young earth” or “the Rapture” is “just reading the text.”

SH: ii) Apropos (i), that’s not based on oral tradition. That’s a misinterpretation of Scripture.

Kudos!!! My point exactly. Just like the speculation about the Beloved Disciple was not an oral tradition of the Church, it was a misinterpretation of the oral tradition which is that Jesus had said if he willed the Beloved Disciple, etc.

PSB: Third, John died without the return of Christ. That left the question of how to explain Jesus’ accurately remembered statement with the reasonable bit of theological speculation. When similar things happen with Protestants, entire new churches are started. (See e.g., the Seventh Day Adventists.)

SH: That’s one explanation for Jn 21. Another explanation is that Peter’s death, rather than John’s death, occasioned this postscript.

First prize for missing the point about how disputes over such things in Protestantism lead to schisms, which didn’t happen in the First Century because - hint - they weren't Sola Scriptura Protestants.

SH: Moreover, even if John's impending death were in view, that doesn't mean John can't correct the rumor before he dies.

Well, that’s game, set and match for me. If the apostle John corrected the rumor, then that’s the teaching, which makes it the tradition. And if he did it orally, then that’s the “oral tradition.”

And are we supposed to believe (a) that John never corrected the rumor orally? And (b) that if John had corrected the rumor orally that the rumor would have remained in circulation?

Hays seems to think that all of Christianity was sitting around, doing not much, just waiting for the written texts so it could know what it believed.

PSB: In Catholicism, in contrast, there is a teaching magisterium aided by the Holy Spirit to…you know…teach!

SH: That assumes what he needs to prove.

And that is a non-response, particularly since Hays’ thesis is that the Gospel of John was a, you know, “teaching moment” with respect to the issue of whether the Beloved Disciple would live to see the Second Coming.

It’s amazing how oblivious and contradictory, these wooden literalists are.

PSB: That means that the Church can explain authoritatively that Jesus hadn’t meant that John would live to the Parousia.

SH: We didn’t get that from “the Church” or the Magisterium. Rather, we got that from the text of Scripture (i.e. Jn 21).

So, we are back to “the gospels descended from heaven in a baggy” theory of the origins of the Bible.

Are these people serious?

Of course, the Gospel of John came from the Church as part of the teachings of the Church. What else was it? To a modern Protestant, it might seem perfectly logical that a Christian could decide to write a theological account in glorious isolation, but things didn't work that way back in the First Century. All scholars agree that the author of John was part of a Christian community, and that Christian community was a part of the universal church.

And where is it written in the Bible that “the Church may not teach by having things written down”?

These people are so unbiblical.

PSB: Of course, if it was a modern Protestant church, there would have been a dozen different interpretations leading to a dozen different new churches.

SH:One erroneous interpretation isn’t preferable to several erroneous interpretations. Contrasting an erroneous Catholic interpretation to one or more erroneous Protestant interpretations is not an argument for Catholicism.

Except the Church was right about the Beloved Disciple. So score one for Catholicism.

And nice response to the Great Disappointment and the rise of the SDA church when the world didn’t end as scheduled, again.

Apart from begging the question and ignoring the truth of what I’ve written, Hays’ statement has no value.

PSB: Finally, consider how silly this argument is. All of this occurred before the Gospel of John was written!
And, yet, they got it right!
Without a written text!

SH: i) Who got what right? The “brothers’ didn’t get it right. They got it wrong.

“They” who "got it right" are obviously the Church, i.e., the bishops and the apostles and the author and editors of John.

They are not a minority - the "Brothers" - who hare after a rumor like a bunch of rapture-loving pre-mill/post-mill enthusiasts.

SH: The narrator got it right. And the narrator wrote it down.

The apostle, who then taught through the church? Absolutely. Hays’ point would be…?

SH: ii) What does Bradley mean when he says “all this occurred before the Gospel of John was written?” The event recorded in Jn 21 took place before the Gospel was written. And the rumor took place before the Gospel was written.

Got to love the big, thick sola scriptura glasses. Yup, if it ain’t in the Bible it just never happened.

Yes, the rumor took place before the Gospel was written. And the disproof of the rumor took place before the Gospel was written because John died before the appendix was written because it’s kind of hard to positively disprove that you are going to live until the Second Coming until you’ve died first.

Seriously, flip this around. Are we to believe that John instructed people that he wasn’t going to live until the Second Coming? Not likely since no one “knows the hour” of the Second Coming.

Prior to John’s death, speculation was permissible and no one knew the answer! After his death, people know the answer and it’s important to squelch speculation. That common sense insight is entirely consistent with the fact that Tertullian had a copy of the Gospel of John without chapter 21, verse 22- 23.

SH: But “getting it right” didn’t take place without a written text. For the text is the medium by which John corrects the erroneous rumor. John doesn’t first correct the rumor by word-of-mouth, then later write down what he said. No, this is the occasion when he corrects the rumor. Through this very chapter.

Well, if Hays’ say so…

Did Hays get this knowledge from the angel Gabriel like Mohammed got the Koran?

Because that is not what most serious bible scholars believe.

PSB: We know that this happened before the writing of the Gospel of John, by the way, because the Gospel of John is talking about how the Beloved Disciple didn’t live to see the Second Coming…

SH: Notice how Bradley is turning the prospective viewpoint of the narrative description into a retrospective viewpoint. But the text never says the Beloved Disciple didn’t live to see the Second Coming. The text isn’t cast in the past tense. It transcribes a conversation about the future, not the past. About what will or won’t happen, not what has already taken place.

Notice how Hays’ isn’t responding to the point.

And he’s wrong. The context is about a past event, namely it is recounting the story that Jesus told prior to the writing of it in the Gospel of John.

Read the whole verse:

22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”

24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.

Notice that last part about “we know that his testimony is true.” One of the reasons that scholars believe that verse 22 – 24 is a post-mortem, post-script is that it changes the narrative voice to a “we” that is apparently doing the writing of what “he” said.

PSB: …and how this misunderstood but accurately remembered oral saying of Jesus…

SH: It’s just the opposite of an “accurately remembered oral saying of Jesus.” Rather, it corrects an inaccurately rumored statement.

God bless the wooden literalists. Let’s agree that the “inaccurately rumored statement was based on an “accurately remembered oral statement.”

But so what? Are we to believe that if the "accurately remembered oral statement" had been written down, then there would have been no "inaccurately rumored statement"?

That’s the burden of Hays’ argument, and he has offered no data and no logic to prove his point.

In fact, he has shown the opposite in his defense of the biblical basis of the Rapture while not knowing/forgetting/participating in an “inaccurately rumored statement” that the Rapture is biblical.

PSB: …an oral tradition that would not have been recorded in writing but for the fact that the Beloved Disciple had inconveniently died before the Gospel of John was written – was floating around “Christendom.”

SH: i) Bradley is systematically confusing the dominical statement in v22 with the rumored statement in v23. V23 is a distortion of v22.

No, I’m making the point that one can move from an ambiguous statement to an inference about what the statement means, just as Hays does with the Rapture, except there is no ambiguity concerning the Rapture.

Again, God bless the wooden literalists. Hays doesn’t seem to have any understanding that the point of a statement is to communicate meaning. The “dominical statement” could have been a rhetorical statement – it looks like a rhetorical statement – and if that was the case, then the answer to the Jesus’ question is “John will see the Second Coming.” Even if John pointed out that the statement was a question, not an answer, it can still be interpreted as meaning that John will see the Second Coming. What showed that the statement was a real as opposed to a rhetorical question was John’s death.

Hays’ is doing something very typical for wooden literalists; he is begging the question by assuming that everyone knew from the beginning what he knows now. If that approach is convincing to you, then that’s because you already accept his position.

SH: ii) Bradley is also assuming that Jn 21 is a posthumous addition by a different hand than the narrator of Jn 1-20. That’s hardly the traditional Roman Catholic position. Rather, that’s the modernist position.

Well, gosh, it sounds like Hays’ is up to speed on modern Catholic scriptural studies. Yes, that’s right, I’ve read Raymond Brown’s “The Community of the Beloved Disciple;” Brown was both consistent with mainstream bible studies and a member of the Pontifical Bible Commission. So, he was hardly a crazy “modernist.”

But notice that rather than arguing for his position, Hays just assumes it to be true.

SH iii) He also ignores arguments to the contrary.

Given that Hays has yet to make an argument not based on begging assumptions and jumping to conclusions, it’s hard not to ignore his arguments.

: PSB: My big objection with this article is obviously its anachronism. It somehow assumes that there was a written Gospel of John to act as some kind of check on things – as if everyone was confused until some author wrote down the Gospel of John and then – poof! – all doubt was cleared up.

SH: And why do I assume that? Because that’s right there in the text of Jn 21! That’s one of the functions of Jn 21.

Again, more misdirection on Hays’ part. His argument is that no one could be sure of Church teachings until it was written down. The idea that people sat around for 70 years just waiting for the Gospel of John is lame.

John was teaching orally long before the Gospel of John was written.

If Hays’ disbelieves that, he can prove his claim.

SH:It’s striking to see how Bradley’s unconditional allegiance to his denomination blinds him to what’s staring him right in the face. Jn 21 is a text. I’m quoting from a text. Jn 21 explicitly “acts as a check on” the false rumor in question. It’s written, in part, to “clear up” that misconception. This isn’t something I made up. This isn’t something I’m projecting onto the text. You can see it for yourself.

Throw the flag on ad hominem, begging the question and non-responsive.

PSB: As if for the first 60 years of Christian history, Christians were just sitting on their thumbs waiting for a inspired writing because if it’s written it must be true, but if it’s just an oral statement it can’t be trusted.

SH: Notice how Bradley is utterly impervious to the explicit counterevidence.

Notice how Hays has no evidence, except for assuming his conclusions?

SH: Incidentally, I’m inclined to date John’s Gospel to the 60s, not the 90s. But however we date it, we can’t disregard the data in Jn 21 because it doesn’t comport with our preconceived theory of “the Church.

I tend to favor an early dating of John, as does, I believe, Pope Benedict XVI.

But whether it was 30 years or 60 years, John was still teaching orally during that time.

PSB: Think about that last, and you see “chronological snobbery.” Protestantism develops after the printing press and so incorporates a human tradition that could only have developed after the invention of the printing press – namely that writing is trustworthy and oral tradition is not.

SH: Notice how he disregards my qualified statement about testimonial evidence.

Notice how Hays is beginning to dimly become aware of the fact that he’s sawing off the branch on which the Bible is sitting?

Testimonial evidence is good, per Hays. Oral tradition is bad per Hays.

But out there waiting is Bart Ehrman was says that all of the written bible is nothing but garbled oral statements that were written down. What is Hays to do now?

PSB: That, however, is a perspective that the First Century Christians would never had recognized. See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802831621


SH: Several problems:

i) Catholic culture is not an oral culture. Catholic culture is profoundly textual. Catholic teaching is disseminated through the written word as well as the spoken word. Patristic writings. Conciliar documents. Lectionaries. Catechisms. The Vulgate. Canon law. Papal bulls, encyclicals, &. Monks transcribing texts. All this antedates the printing press by many centuries.

Catholicism doesn’t operate like Alex Haley’s Roots, where bards pass along oral lore from one generation to the next by telling stories. So Protestant textuality is no more anachronistic than Catholic textuality.

And this is totally irrelevant.

I wasn’t talking about modern Catholicism. I was talking about the First Century.

SH: ii) Why does Bradley think (or rather, not think) we have a New Testament–or an Old Testament? Why does he think (or rather, not think) we have Bible writers who committing things to writing for posterity? Why does he think (or rather, not think) we have Scripture in the first place? A written record? A documentary account?

I think that we have a written text for the purpose of preserving the testimony of those who were eyewitnesses.

My point was that according to Bauckham, the preference of First Century people was “to get it from the horse’s mouth” so that they could judge the credibility of the eyewitness. Bauckham documents that in antiquity, people preferred oral reports to written reports. Our preference is the opposite.

That, incidentally, is another reason that Hays’ argument that people weren’t able to disabuse themselves of rumors until it was put down in writing is wrong.

It is also another reason for thinking that the appendix of Chapter 21 was written after John’s death. The preference would have been to have oral testimony, and only when people became concerned about losing that oral testimony did they write down or have John write down his testimony. Prior to the death or approaching death of John, people in antiquity wouldn’t have preferred writing to oral testimony.

That’s why Hays’ account is anachronistic.

There's nothing quite like watching an Anti-Catholic Apologist saw off the branch he's sitting on.

On Facebook, someone asked the following:

This seems like definitive scriptural proof that we cannot necessarily have confidence in even the earliest oral traditions. How would a Catholic respond to this

The link is to this Triablogue post:

21 After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together...20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 23 So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (Jn 21:1-2,20-23).

One argument which Catholic epologists commonly deploy is the claim that you can’t find Protestant distinctives in the early church. Protestant distinctives are theological innovations.

This argument takes two forms: (a) the claim that a Protestant distinctive (e.g. sola fide) isn’t mentioned in the church fathers, or (b) the claim that Protestant theology contradicts the church fathers (e.g. the real presence). (a) is an argument from silence (i.e. absence of evidence), whereas (b) appeals to (alleged) counterevidence.

This argument is generally bolstered by the attendant claim that patristic testimony, especially from the apostolic fathers, is presumptively apostolic. The apostolic fathers reputedly knew the apostles. Hence, they are transmitting apostolic doctrine.

There are several steps to this argument. Key assumptions. For instance, how many of the apostolic fathers actually knew the apostles? If so, which apostles did they know? How old were the apostolic fathers when they allegedly heard the apostles? How often did they hear them?

In addition, the appeal to patristic attestation is double-edged. Newman introduced the theory of development to account for innovations in Catholic dogma.

But let’s address the argument head-on. In Jn 21:23 we have an agraphon: an oral tradition of something Jesus said.

We can also narrow down the source to one of the seven disciples present when Jesus spoke. This was then handed down by word-of-mouth.

[BTW, this is a mark of authenticity. If John’s Gospel was fictitious, why would the narrator invent 7 disciples for this post-Easter scene, rather than the 11 remaining disciples (prescinding Judas)? This is the sort of incidental detail that we’d expect from the narrator if he were an eyewitness, reporting what he saw.]

Yet what Jesus originally said quickly became garbled in transmission. It became a false rumor about the Parousia.

That doesn’t necessarily mean one of the seven disciples misreported what Jesus said. Rather, that what he reported was misinterpreted.

John therefore adds this editorial postscript to correct that distortion. John quotes Jesus, then carefully parses his statement.

But if we didn’t have that canonical corrective, if we were at the mercy of oral tradition, then the rumor would assume the status of venerable apostolic tradition. An erroneous tradition.

And not a mistake about some side issue, but something as fundamental as the return of Christ.

This doesn’t mean testimonial evidence is inherently suspect. We generally remember events better than words. And we generally remember the gist of what was said better than the verbatim wording.

The fourth Gospel itself doesn’t rely on the vicissitudes of unaided memory. Inspiration is necessary to refresh fading memories (Jn 14:26).

My response - on Facebook:

The Triablogue argument is confusing oral tradition with inerrancy. It also ignores the fact that John 21 offers an example of the Church’s teaching authority in action.

First, there is nothing in John 21 that says that anyone misquoted or misremembered anything. Jesus actually said, ““If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” in reference to the Beloved Disciple. “Brothers” actually speculated that John was not to die until the Second Coming.

Where in that is there anything involving “faded” memories or erroneous memories of events?

There simply isn’t.

Second, the Triablogue account engages in a bad bit of historical anachronism. Namely, because we now know that the speculation about John remaining alive until the Parousia is now known to be false, the writer retrojects our present knowledge to the past when John was alive and no one knew that the speculation was wrong! The speculation could have been correct, after all. So, the Triablogue critique that seems to assume that the speculation was lame or insipid or clearly wrong is nonsense.

We can compare the speculation about the Beloved Disciple to the various rumors that whip up excitement among certain sects of Protestants. For example, will there be a “rapture”? No one thought there would be until around 1850. Does that mean that speculation about the rapture is “wrong”? Probably, but we really won’t know until it doesn’t happen. Is that an example of the “failing of oral tradition”? Not hardly.

Third, John died without the return of Christ. That left the question of how to explain Jesus’ accurately remembered statement with the reasonable bit of theological speculation. When similar things happen with Protestants, entire new churches are started. (See e.g., the Seventh Day Adventists.)

In Catholicism, in contrast, there is a teaching magisterium aided by the Holy Spirit to…you know…teach! That means that the Church can explain authoritatively that Jesus hadn’t meant that John would live to the Parousia. Of course, if it was a modern Protestant church, there would have been a dozen different interpretations leading to a dozen different new churches.

Finally, consider how silly this argument is. All of this occurred before the Gospel of John was written!

And, yet, they got it right!

Without a written text!

We know that this happened before the writing of the Gospel of John, by the way, because the Gospel of John is talking about how the Beloved Disciple didn’t live to see the Second Coming and how this misunderstood but accurately remembered oral saying of Jesus – an oral tradition that would not have been recorded in writing but for the fact that the Beloved Disciple had inconveniently died before the Gospel of John was written – was floating around “Christendom.”

My big objection with this article is obviously its anachronism. It somehow assumes that there was a written Gospel of John to act as some kind of check on things – as if everyone was confused until some author wrote down the Gospel of John and then – poof! – all doubt was cleared up.

As if for the first 60 years of Christian history, Christians were just sitting on their thumbs waiting for a inspired writing because if it’s written it must be true, but if it’s just an oral statement it can’t be trusted.

Think about that last, and you see “chronological snobbery.” Protestantism develops after the printing press and so incorporates a human tradition that could only have developed after the invention of the printing press – namely that writing is trustworthy and oral tradition is not. That, however, is a perspective that the First Century Christians would never had recognized. See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony.

The Facebook guy apparently relayed it to Triablogue:

Thanks Peter; unfortunately that response fails pretty badly as Steve points out here:

Here's the Triablogue response:

Here’s a Catholic response to my recent post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/04/agrapha.html


Peter Sean Bradley The Triablogue argument is confusing oral tradition with inerrancy.


No, I didn’t confuse them. Rather, I demonstrated how an oral tradition of the highest pedigree turned out to be unreliable.

It also ignores the fact that John 21 offers an example of the Church’s teaching authority in action.


Actually, it offers an example of the Bible’s teaching authority in action.

First, there is nothing in John 21 that says that anyone misquoted or misremembered anything. Jesus actually said, ““If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” in reference to the Beloved Disciple.


Jesus made a statement (21:22) that gave rise to a false rumor (21:23). How did his true statement give rise to a false rumor? I can only think of two possibilities: it was misreported or it was misinterpreted.

“Brothers” actually speculated that John was not to die until the Second Coming.


That’s the false rumor. They attributed to Jesus something he didn’t say. They misquoted him. So John corrects the rumor:

“22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 23 So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?””


Note the relationship between v22 & v23.


Where in that is there anything involving “faded” memories or erroneous memories of events? There simply isn’t.


I already explained that. Why is Bradley unable to follow a simple lucid argument. I drew attention to Jn 14:26 (“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you”).

Why would Jesus send the Holy Spirit to bring to remind them of everything he said if unaided memory was sufficient? Why can’t Bradley draw an elementary inference like that?

Second, the Triablogue account engages in a bad bit of historical anachronism. Namely, because we now know that the speculation about John remaining alive until the Parousia is now known to be false, the writer retrojects our present knowledge to the past when John was alive and no one knew that the speculation was wrong! The speculation could have been correct, after all. So, the Triablogue critique that seems to assume that the speculation was lame or insipid or clearly wrong is nonsense.


i) It’s not clear what Bradley is alluding to. Is he saying the narrator retrojects our present knowledge into the past? Is he saying the narrator is guilty of a historical anachronism?

In the nature of the case, John is writing after the rumor spread, to dispel a false rumor that was circulating in the early church. But that’s not anachronistic.

Is Bradley saying the Johannine account is unhistorical? That this is an etiological fable, a just-so story? If so, attacking the credibility of the Bible is an odd way to defend the credibility of oral tradition, or the church of Rome. For one thing, Jn 21 is the source of a standard papal prooftext (vv15-17). But even if (arguendo) we grant the Catholic interpretation, if Jn 21 is a fictitious backstory, if Jesus never said that, then so much for the traditional Petrine text.

ii) Or by “the writer,” does he mean me? But I’m not adding anything to Jn 21. I’m merely drawing some obvious logical inferences. My arguing is only “anachronistic” if Jn 21 is anachronistic.

We can compare the speculation about the Beloved Disciple to the various rumors that whip up excitement among certain sects of Protestants. For example, will there be a “rapture”? No one thought there would be until around 1850. Does that mean that speculation about the rapture is “wrong”? Probably, but we really won’t know until it doesn’t happen. Is that an example of the “failing of oral tradition”? Not hardly.


i) Actually, the notion of a rapture goes back to 1 Thes 4:17. Of course, how that event should be understood is a different question.

ii) Apropos (i), that’s not based on oral tradition. That’s a misinterpretation of Scripture.

Third, John died without the return of Christ. That left the question of how to explain Jesus’ accurately remembered statement with the reasonable bit of theological speculation. When similar things happen with Protestants, entire new churches are started. (See e.g., the Seventh Day Adventists.)


That’s one explanation for Jn 21. Another explanation is that Peter’s death, rather than John’s death, occasioned this postscript.

Moreover, even if John's impending death were in view, that doesn't mean John can't correct the rumor before he dies.


In Catholicism, in contrast, there is a teaching magisterium aided by the Holy Spirit to…you know…teach!


That assumes what he needs to prove.

That means that the Church can explain authoritatively that Jesus hadn’t meant that John would live to the Parousia.


We didn’t get that from “the Church” or the Magisterium. Rather, we got that from the text of Scripture (i.e. Jn 21).

Of course, if it was a modern Protestant church, there would have been a dozen different interpretations leading to a dozen different new churches.


One erroneous interpretation isn’t preferable to several erroneous interpretations. Contrasting an erroneous Catholic interpretation to one or more erroneous Protestant interpretations is not an argument for Catholicism.

Finally, consider how silly this argument is. All of this occurred before the Gospel of John was written!
And, yet, they got it right!
Without a written text!


i) Who got what right? The “brothers’ didn’t get it right. They got it wrong.

The narrator got it right. And the narrator wrote it down.

ii) What does Bradley mean when he says “all this occurred before the Gospel of John was written?” The event recorded in Jn 21 took place before the Gospel was written. And the rumor took place before the Gospel was written.

But “getting it right” didn’t take place without a written text. For the text is the medium by which John corrects the erroneous rumor. John doesn’t first correct the rumor by word-of-mouth, then later write down what he said. No, this is the occasion when he corrects the rumor. Through this very chapter.

We know that this happened before the writing of the Gospel of John, by the way, because the Gospel of John is talking about how the Beloved Disciple didn’t live to see the Second Coming…


Notice how Bradley is turning the prospective viewpoint of the narrative description into a retrospective viewpoint. But the text never says the Beloved Disciple didn’t live to see the Second Coming. The text isn’t cast in the past tense. It transcribes a conversation about the future, not the past. About what will or won’t happen, not what has already taken place.

…and how this misunderstood but accurately remembered oral saying of Jesus…


It’s just the opposite of an “accurately remembered oral saying of Jesus.” Rather, it corrects an inaccurately rumored statement.

…an oral tradition that would not have been recorded in writing but for the fact that the Beloved Disciple had inconveniently died before the Gospel of John was written – was floating around “Christendom.”


i) Bradley is systematically confusing the dominical statement in v22 with the rumored statement in v23. V23 is a distortion of v22.

ii) Bradley is also assuming that Jn 21 is a posthumous addition by a different hand than the narrator of Jn 1-20. That’s hardly the traditional Roman Catholic position. Rather, that’s the modernist position.

iii) He also ignores arguments to the contrary.

My big objection with this article is obviously its anachronism. It somehow assumes that there was a written Gospel of John to act as some kind of check on things – as if everyone was confused until some author wrote down the Gospel of John and then – poof! – all doubt was cleared up.


And why do I assume that? Because that’s right there in the text of Jn 21! That’s one of the functions of Jn 21.

It’s striking to see how Bradley’s unconditional allegiance to his denomination blinds him to what’s staring him right in the face. Jn 21 is a text. I’m quoting from a text. Jn 21 explicitly “acts as a check on” the false rumor in question. It’s written, in part, to “clear up” that misconception. This isn’t something I made up. This isn’t something I’m projecting onto the text. You can see it for yourself.

As if for the first 60 years of Christian history, Christians were just sitting on their thumbs waiting for a inspired writing because if it’s written it must be true, but if it’s just an oral statement it can’t be trusted.


Notice how Bradley is utterly impervious to the explicit counterevidence.

Incidentally, I’m inclined to date John’s Gospel to the 60s, not the 90s. But however we date it, we can’t disregard the data in Jn 21 because it doesn’t comport with our preconceived theory of “the Church.

Think about that last, and you see “chronological snobbery.” Protestantism develops after the printing press and so incorporates a human tradition that could only have developed after the invention of the printing press – namely that writing is trustworthy and oral tradition is not.


Notice how he disregards my qualified statement about testimonial evidence.

That, however, is a perspective that the First Century Christians would never had recognized. See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802831621


Several problems:

i) Catholic culture is not an oral culture. Catholic culture is profoundly textual. Catholic teaching is disseminated through the written word as well as the spoken word. Patristic writings. Conciliar documents. Lectionaries. Catechisms. The Vulgate. Canon law. Papal bulls, encyclicals, &. Monks transcribing texts. All this antedates the printing press by many centuries.

Catholicism doesn’t operate like Alex Haley’s Roots, where bards pass along oral lore from one generation to the next by telling stories. So Protestant textuality is no more anachronistic than Catholic textuality.

ii) Why does Bradley think (or rather, not think) we have a New Testament–or an Old Testament? Why does he think (or rather, not think) we have Bible writers who committing things to writing for posterity? Why does he think (or rather, not think) we have Scripture in the first place? A written record? A documentary account?

Interesting how apart from picking nits and mischaracterizing what I wrote, Steve Hays of Triablogue doesn't address my actual points.

My response back to Facebook guy:

Bnonn Tennant. If you think that a response filled with begging the question, non sequiturs, ad hominem and strawmen arguments is persuasive, there is not much I can do.

Let's deal with a few of Triablogue’s question begging approaches to the issue - Where is there evidence that Jesus’ statement was misreported? Answer: There is no evidence for that. Triablogue insinuates that Jesus’ statement was misreported, but that is not what the text says. The text says that people were basing their speculation on what Jesus said.

First, is there evidence that the statement was misunderstood? Not necessarily. What Jesus actually said could be answered “Yes, the Beloved Disciple will see the Second Coming” or “No, the Beloved Disciple will not see the Second Coming.” The error – which people to this day fall into, including Protestants with “Rapture Hysteria” and huge arguments about “pre-mill” and “post-mill” – is ascribing too much certainty to texts that are not all that certain.

Second, would the statement have been any less misunderstood if it had been in writing between circa 33 AD and circa 90 AD? There's no evidence that it would have been. In fact, again, looking at Protestantism – as much as it may shock – shock! – Triablogue to do so, we see all kinds of errors of this kind even though Protestantism claims to have a definite text. Baptists, Calvinists and Lutherans damn each other to Hell based on their different positions on the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. Why so much dispute if Triablogue is right that the problem arises only when there is an oral tradition?

Third, with respect to strawmen arguments, Triablogue’s approach to oral tradition is …what’s the word…ah, yes.. “moronic.” Is Triablogue really asserting that any speculation by anyone constitutes “oral tradition”? Is he claiming that Catholics teach that the magisterial teaching authority steps in immediately whenever anyone says something wrong somewhere?

If Triablogue does, then he should never read or listen to Bart Ehrman who believes that the Holy Spirit should have prevented copying errors when the scriptures were being copied.

Bart Ehrman’s position is lame, but for the same reason so is Triablogue’s position.

Fourth, his ahistorical position that the Gospel of John corrected the misinformation among those who believed that the Beloved Disciple was going to live to see the Second Coming is knee-slappingly funny in its polemical approach. How does he know this? Obviously, he cannot. Clearly, however, since the Beloved Disciple died before the Gospel of John was written – because the Gospel of John mentions the conundrum – the church had worked out the true meaning of Jesus’ accurately reported words before the Gospel of John was written.

But let’s say that the Gospel of John had been written before the Beloved Disciple had died, does Triablogue really believe that the statement “if he tarries till I come what is it to you?” would never have been interpreted as possibly meaning that the Beloved Disciple was to live until the Second Coming?

Incidentally, many religious faiths have traditions of secret or hidden witnesses tarrying until the return of the founder – the Mormons have the “Three Nephilim” and the Shi’ites have the “hidden Imam.” For that matter, English folklore has Arthur hidden away to return at the right hour. Consider also the “Wandering Jew.”

Christianity does not have a tradition about how the Beloved Disciple is still living to this day in hiding waiting for the parousia. Why not? Answer: because there was a teaching authority that taught rightly. That teaching authority has to be a living teaching authority – go back to my question about what would have happened if the Gospel of John had been written before the Beloved Disciple had died. If Protestantism had existed at that point, what would it have said that wasn’t a “development of doctrine” or was an authoritative statement from “scripture alone.”

Fifth, the most blindingly stunning problem in the Triablogue post is that it doesn’t seem to understand that for the first three generations of Christianity, apart from some letters of Paul, all of Christianity was Oral Tradition. The gospels were chosen because they fit that oral tradition; if they hadn’t they would have been gospels. That’s why the “gospels” that weren’t chosen aren’t canonical.

Like a lot of Protestants, Triablogue wants to ignore everything that doesn’t look like a Baptist church meeting – “Protestant Blinders” we might call it. Christians didn’t have the Bible until the Second Century! Yet, apparently, they were sufficiently competent to pick the right books without having a written text to turn to!

Like evolutionists, who have to bob and weave about how life transitioned from non-life to life capable of evolution, scripture-reading Protestants have to bob and weave about where the Bible came from. This is, of course, a key problem of Protestant epistemology and ontology and they generally just assume the canon into existence. That’s what Triablogue is doing.

A real problem is that Triablogue is sawing the branch he’s sitting on. By arguing that oral tradition is incompetent and wrong, how do we know that the Bible is right or that we have the right Bible? Because Triablogue says so? Good luck with that. Because the Bible says so? Well, the Koran makes the same claim.

The answer is that we trust the Bible because we trust the Church that saw the Resurrected Jesus. (See Augustine, Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus 5:6 “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.”)

Again, I recommend that you read the Bauckham book. It’s written by an Evangelical, so it is “ritually clean.” Spend more time on honest scholarship, and less reading polemical anti-Catholics – in other words, keep an open mind – would be my suggestion.

I will not respond to a “fisking.” I will respond to a coherent argument that sets forth evidence and arguments.

Amazon Review - Why It Doesn't Matter What You Believe If It's Not True: Is There Absolute Truth? [Paperback]
Stephen McAndrew (Author)

The author sent this book to me to review. Here is my review. As always a "helpful" vote would be appreciated.

Stephen McAndrew's "Why it Doesn't Matter What You Believe if It's Not True" is a well-written, highly-informative, tightly-argued examination of the questions, "Are there good grounds to believe that there is an absolute moral truth?" and "Why do people think that moral truths are 'relative'?"

McAndrew structures his as a fairly slim (approximately 90 pages with end-notes) and highly accessible argument in favor of the proposition that moral truths are "real" and not simply things that exist by agreement, stipulation or fancy. McAndrew clearly states his propositions and, in a very lawyer-like manner, marshals the proofs for his thesis. Unlike a great many lawyers, however, he is gifted with a habit of graceful prose that made reading his book enjoyable.

McAndrew's basic argument is not going to be very surprising to those who are acquainted with the usual debates about the ontological status of moral truth. McAndrew's book, however, is worth reading for the perspective he brings on the argument, particularly his recounting of intellectual history. McAndrew locates the origin of the attitude that moral truths are only contingent in the Empiricist philosophical tradition. The Empiricists denied that anything could be known - or knowable - except that information that was derived from sense experience. This view led to a crisis in Empiricism, where Empiricist philosophers found themselves denying common sense knowledge such as the fact that things continue to exist even after we no longer see them. The Empiricist tendency led to Logical Positivism, whose practitioners stipulated out of human consideration anything that could not be measured, tested or falsified.

The culmination of what McAndrew views as a dysfunctional philosophy was Ludwig Wittgenstein. According to McAndrew, the later Wittgenstein sought to "solve" all philosophical problems by arguing for the proposition that the reality experienced by human beings was found in the language established by the community and communicated to the individual by modeling and reinforcement. It seems that Wittgenstein's view was pretty comprehensive; Wittgenstein argued that pain was only "painful" in that human beings had been taught by modeling and reinforcement of behavior that certain kinds of behavior would be rewarded if such behavior "appropriately" followed certain stimuli. So, children who stumbled and fell and cried would be comforted; hence, the children learned "pain."

Wittgenstein's argument stemmed from his "private language argument." To wit, the purpose of language is to communicate publicly, which means that no one has a reason for having a "private language," which means that everything we communicate publicly has to be a community activity. According to McAndrew this insight supported and resonated with the idea of moral relativity. Thus, if "pain" is "pain" because of a community definition, then morality - which is another public activity - would also be a product of community definition.

McAndrew succinctly and quickly establishes that this approach is self-defeating by appealing to the argument that even relativists make a truth claim that is not contingent on a community definition of what counts as "truth." Simply put, if there's no "there" there - if there is no truth in that truth claim - then it isn't worth even the time spent breathing out the nonsense syllables that make up "Wittgenstein's" claim.

McAndrew also follows another line of reasoning by appealing to the "human rights urge." McAndrew points out that human rights are widely accepted as a point of established fact in international law. Most people today accept the idea of human rights as something that cannot be questioned. But if such rights are only contingent and accidental, then they don't really exist in the way that even secular modernists - particularly secular modernists - claim they exist. This puts even secular modernists into the bind of giving up one the most cherished programs of their project, and lapsing into nihilism, or conceding what they know already, i.e. that there is a moral truth.

This is a very nice argument.

McAndrew also offers some insights into why the relativist project exists. His arguments here were thought provoking. After reading this part of his book, I came away wondering at the strange cognitive dissonance that pervades modern society. For example, we don't accept the claim that truth is relative to the community when it comes to science. No one will get much mileage claiming that "global warming" is true for Europeans but not true for China. But when it comes to moral truths, suddenly there is no truth.

Except, perhaps, for those truths enshrined by secular modernists in the U.N. Charter of Human Rights.

I found McAndrew's book to be well-worth reading. I recommend it without reservations.

The Use of Forgeries in Protestantism.

One of the evergreen tropes of Protestantism is the "Donation of Constantine." I've been in a few internet debates where all of sudden my Protestant interlocutor will utter something along the lines of "What about the Donation of Constantine?" and then scurry off as if some telling blow had been landed.  My reaction is along the lines of "eh?" or "what?" or "how is that relevant to the price of tea in China?" 

As a lifelong Catholic, I know about the "Donation of Constantine" as an interesting bit of history.  The Donation of Constantine was fabricated in approximately the 8th Century, probably in France, and probably for the purpose of bolstering the Carolingian claim against the Emperor in Constantinople. The Donation of Constantine was picked up in the 12th Century by papal apologists who used it as a way of supporting the already on-going "papal revolution," which was a fait accompli by way of the reform of canon law, not because of fabricated documents from the 8th Century. (See Harold Berman's Law and Revolution.)

Did the papacy use forgeries? Absolutely, but the papacy did not forge the documents and was taken in by them as much as anyone else.  An interesting fact is that the Lorenzo Valla, who famously unmasked the Donation of Constantine as a forgery, subsequently became an apostolic secretary and a favorite of Pope Callixtus.  It seems that Valla's historical revisionism did not entirely poison his career with the Vatican, although he did have some rocky moments.

Similarly, St. Thomas Aquinas was apparently taken in by the "False Decretals of Isidore," although presumably at the time they were merely the "Decretals of Isidore," in his "Against the Errors of the Greeks."  The Decretals was a series of purported quotations from Eastern Church Fathers that were also created in the 8th Century as part of the project of ramping up Western prestige against the powerful Eastern emperor.  However, the fact that the Decretals was itself a forgery, many of the quotes contained in it were authentic, and Aquinas could have sustained his argument by using other quotes from Eastern Fathers.  An example of the former is found in Section 33, where he quotes Chrysostom as saying that "he allocated James a determined territory, but he appointed Peter master and teacher of the whole world." Although this was taken from the Decretals, which was a forgery, in fact, Chrysostem did say in his Homily on John that "And if any should say, "how then did James receive the chair at Jerusalem? I would make this reply that He appointed Peter teacher, not of the chair, but of the world."  An example of the latter is provided by James Likoudis.

So, the significance of these forgeries seems to be overstated, albeit it seems to have a particulalry strong resonance in the mind of some Protestants for whom it is the dispositive evidence of "perfidious Rome."

Mind you, this is all new to me.  I wouldn't have spent time learning this stuff except for the fact that it was brought up on a fever-swamp anti-catholic site on Facebook.  Although I pointed out the above, the stated views of the residents - particularly one individual named Dominic Macelli - was that none of this mattered because a forgery is a forgery.

The conversation turned to the issue of the Deuterocanonical texts.  As part of this discussion, Macelli quoted the following:

“St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries...For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon).

That looks like a particularly impressive bit of evidence: the Catholic Encyclopedia appears to be saying that there was no defined canon until Trent in the 16 Century.

But it smelled funny because based on my extensive historical reading it was so wrong.

And there were problems with the quote. First, it is entirely inconsistent with the historical evidence. Second,  I couldn't find it in the Catholic Encyclopedia on the New Advent site.

I pressed Macelli for his source.  He had consistently taken the position that he would not provide jumplinks for his sources because he was afraid of his interlocutors reading his sources and pointing out his errors. Apparently, people were supposed to take his quotes on "faith alone."  After pressing him, he pointed nebulously to a message board.


"New Catholic Encyclopedia" article on "Canon, Biblical," p. 26.

Another strange thing was that this quote could only be found on anti-catholic sites.


It turns out that there is a "New Catholic Encyclopedia," which is nowhere to be found online.

So, I went to the local library and looked for the quote, and found out that the anti-catholic apologists had done a "False Decretal of Isidore" number and provided a forged and fabricated quote.  



Here is what the relevant passages actually say:

"St. Jerome (A.D. 340 - 420) distinguished between "canonical books" and "ecclesiastical books." The latter, he judged, were circulated by the Church as good "spiritual reading," but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture.  St. Augustine, however, did not recognize this distinction.  He accepted all the books in the LXX as of equal value, noting that those designated as apocryphal by Jerome were either unknown or obscure origin. Augustine's point of view prevailed and the deuterocanonical books remained in the Vulgate, the Latin version, that received official standing at the Council of Trent.

The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries, although the tendency to accept the disputed books was becoming all the time more general.  In spite of this trend, some, e.g., John Damascene, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicholas of lyra and Tostado, continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books.  St. THOMAS AQUINAS has for a long time been listed as a dissenter because of his supposed doubts about Wisdom and Sirach, but P. Synave has argued convincingly to clear him of this imputation (Revue biblique 212 (1924) 522 - 533). The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent."

Obviously, this text is far different from the fabricated quote being circulated on such anti-catholic sites as "Just for Catholics."  I would, however, dissent from the New Catholic Encyclopedia's insinuation as to the level of uncertainty.  The deuterocanonical works had been used in the liturgy for over a thousand years by the time of Trent.  In De Libero Arbitrio (Discussion of Free Will), Erasmus directs Luther to the text from the Wisdom of Sirach (aka Ecclesiasticus) 15:14 - 18 that:

"God created man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added his commands and precepts: if you will keep the commandments, and keep acceptable faith forever, they will keep you. He set water and fire before you; stretch out your hand to whatever you desire.  Before man are life and death, good and evil; whatever he pleases shall be given him."

Erasmus follows up his quote from Sirach/Ecclesiasticus with the following:

"I do not suppose that anyone will plead here against the authority of this work that it was not originally in the Hebrew canon (as Jerome points out), seeing that the Church of Christ has unanimously received it into its canon, and I see no reason why the Hebrews should have thought this book ought to be excluded from the canon, given that they accept the Proverbs of Solomon and the Amatory Song."

(See Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 76, p. 21 - 22.)

In short, Erasmus - one of the leading scholars of Hebrew, Greek and Latin of his age - was aware of Jerome's dissent as a kind of intellectual abstraction, which did not bear a great deal of weight in the face of the actual practice, which was that Christians had been reading Sirach/Ecclesiasticus as part of the divine liturgy throughout Christian history!

In any event, the irony of the situation is that anti-catholic apologists who condemn the Catholic Church on account of the Donation of Constantine seem to have no problem using fabricated documents of their own.

The final irony was that after I pointed out that Dominick Macelli was probably using a fabricated quote, I was ejected from the Facebook group.

Lorenzo Valla received better treatment.

Crazy idea - life on Earth is possible because the laws of physics are not universal within the universe.

It sounds like Vernor Vinge's "Zone of Thought" idea.



Here is the scientist with the - what he admits - controversial idea.

A radical discovery by my colleagues and I – reported this week in Physical Review Letters – could help explain why it was possible for life (at least as we know it) to develop on Earth, but not in other parts of the universe.


It suggests one of the fundamental laws of physics, electomagnetism, is not constant throughout the universe and may change depending on where you are.

Big claims? Yes, they are. The discovery we have made is radical. Onlookers are skeptical and it may take years to show whether we are right or wrong.

And, yes, who am I to speak?

I lead a research group at the University of New South Wales focusing on one very specific question: have the laws of physics always been as we know them today on Earth, or were they different in the early universe. My work sits at the boundary between fundamental physics and astronomy.

In general terms, I investigate what the universe was like when it was very young and how it has evolved over the 14 billion years since it spontaneously appeared.

Light fantastic

When my colleagues and I looked at the spectra of gas clouds in the early universe and compare with the same elements measured in laboratories on Earth, we saw very slight but significant differences.

A simple analogy might help explain this:


Consider a barcode on an every-day item on a supermarket shelf.

The relative positions of the strips in the barcode form a unique identifier to the item in question. Similarly, in the spectra of distant gas clouds, we see distinct lines caused by various elements such as magnesium, iron, aluminium, nickel, chromium, zinc and many others.

We can visualise the spectrum of this gas just as we do with the barcode, where the relative positions of the lines uniquely identify the elements present.

These relative positions in the distant cloud of gas can be measured with impressive precision and what we have found is amazing: the unique patterns of lines for the same elements seen in laboratory measurements today are slightly different to that seen in distant galaxy halos.

In fact, when we make measurements of this sort, it turns out we are actually measuring electromagnetism, the force that binds electrons and nuclei together in atoms. This is because relative positions of the lines in the spectrum are determined by the strength of the electromagnetic force.

We only know of four forces in nature: electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak forces acting within atomic nuclei themselves. And at least one of them, in other regions of the universe, now appears to be different from that on Earth.

But the story gets stranger still.

My colleagues and I have looked out into the universe all over the sky, probing physics in 300 different places. We’ve found the strength of electromagnetism changes gradually from one “side” of the universe to another – a slow spatial gradient in physics.


The implications for science are profound. All “textbook” physics rests on the assumption of constancy of the laws of physics. One example is Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which embodies this assumption in something called the “Equivalence Principle”.

If my colleagues and I are right, this may now need to be demoted to the “Equivalence Approximation”. The fundamental equations of cosmology may need altering, with important re-interpretations for a multitude of experimental data, potentially even including the seemingly mysterious “dark energy”, which is currently thought to provide 70% of the energy content of the universe, even though its nature is entirely unknown.

And:

Fine-tuning


Another interesting consequence concerns the so-called “fine-tuning“ problem. For decades, scientists have puzzled over the fact that the laws of physics seem to be mysteriously tuned to favour our existence.

No explanation at the fundamental level exists. The “hand of God” is preferred by some as the explanation for fine-tuning. Others prefer the “Anthropic Principle”: we shouldn’t be surprised to find the universe is apparently finely-tuned for our presence in it, otherwise we wouldn’t be here to discuss the matter in the first place.

Our observed values of the laws of physics are then put down to mere chance.

But if the laws of physics gradually change from one region of the universe to another, it may simply be that we happen to reside in that part of the universe where the local “by-laws” are perfect for life as we know it.

Elsewhere, that may not be the case and the universe may be radically different, with a different periodic table, different chemistry and biology, or even no biology at all.

And since we see only a very small change in the strength of electromagnetism over cosmological scales, that change may continue unabated for a spatial eternity. In other words, space is infinite. This is my preferred interpretation.

As I said at the start of this article, no-one believes us yet, and we are in for a long battle. Some days I doubt I shall be living when the proof comes in.

So, what the theory has going for it is that it denies "fine tuning."

A dialogue about Theophanies.

["AJ" is in italics.]

“John 5:37 & John 6:46 make it clear that the only logical person in the trinity who could have been the Angel of the Lord is the Son. No man has seen the Father and the Scriptures never speak of the Holy Spirit being incarnated. 2 Corinthians 4:4 and Colossians 1:15 go on to state that Christ is the image of the invisible God. While the Father and the Holy Spirit are not seen, Christ is the expressed image of God meant to be seen. No, these verses do not rule out angel(s) but they do rule out the Father and the Holy Spirit as being the Angel of the Lord.”

I think with your first paragraph, you are starting to show why it is a good idea to consult the Fathers, because you are starting to make some theological missteps.

First, it is not necessarily the case that the Holy Spirit has never been “incarnated.” In the Baptism of the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descends upon Christ in the form of a dove. (Luke 3:22). That is certainly one time when the Holy Spirit took a visible form. Moreover, according to Aquinas, that was not a mere “vision”; rather, the Holy Spirit was embodied in the form of a dove.

I answer that, As stated above (Question 5, Article 1), it was unbecoming that the Son of God, who is the Truth of the Father, should make use of anything unreal; wherefore He took, not an imaginary, but a real body. And since the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Truth, as appears from John 16:13, therefore He too made a real dove in which to appear, though He did not assume it into unity of person. Wherefore, after the words quoted above, Augustine adds: "Just as it behooved the Son of God not to deceive men, so it behooved the Holy Ghost not to deceive. But it was easy for Almighty God, who created all creatures out of nothing, to frame the body of a real dove without the help of other doves, just as it was easy for Him to form a true body in Mary's womb without the seed of a man: since the corporeal creature obeys its Lord's command and will, both in the mother's womb in forming a man, and in the world itself in forming a dove."

And you should admit that that is a pretty surprising – and pretty cool – position to take. I know I was surprised by the bravado of this statement when I first read it. I believe that this position is intended to be anti-gnostic; namely, if the Holy Spirit was embodied in the form of a dove, how much stronger is the Christian claim that Christ was really incarnated.

Perhaps reasonable minds can differ on this point, but it’s going to be hard for you to argue for the idea that there is no dispute as to whether the Holy Spirit was ever embodied

Second, and I think more important, is that your argument devalues the Incarnation. Until the Incarnation, Jesus was never “incarnated.” If he was embodied or corporeal, that would seem to detract from the uniqueness of the Incarnation in salvation history in some, perhaps minor, way. A fortiori, according to your argument, the Holy Spirit was not embodied prior to the Incarnation.

Now, perhaps you can distinguish these prior “embodiments” from the Incarnation, but once you start down that road, you are beginning to whittle away at the most important of Christian doctrines, namely the Incarnation. We can see this in the fact that you describe the Old Testament epiphanies as “incarnations,” which shows that there is a tendency to confuse them with the Incarnation, and that can only detract from the exalted status of the Incarnation.

Third, you say that no man has seen the Father, which is absolutely true. No one, for that matter, has ever seen the Holy Spirit or the Son in their divine nature, because the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all spiritual beings and human beingscannot see spiritual beings with our natural senses. Our eyes are able to perceive only corporeal reality; not spiritual essences. For us to see the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit with our eyes would require that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit take on a material form. However, what we would be seeing would not be the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit, but a form which is NOT the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit because such material form – such as the dove – has parts and is changeable. Here is Augustine describing the issue:

It has been established by all rational probability as far as man—or rather as far as I—can work it out, and by firm authority as far as the divine words of scripture have declared it, that whenever God was said to appear to our ancestors before our savior’s incarnation, the voices heard and the physical manifestation seen were the work of angels. They either spoke and did things themselves, representing God’s person, just as we have shown that the prophets used to do, or they took created materials distinct from themselves and used them to present us with symbolic representations of God; and this too is a kind of communication which the prophets made use of, as many cases in scripture show. But now, when the Lord was born of the virgin, and when the Holy Spirit came down in bodily form like a dove, or in visible fiery tongues and a sound from heaven on the day of Pentecost after the Lord’s ascension, what appeared to the bodily senses of mortals was not the very substance of the Word of God in which he is equal to the Father and co-eternal, nor the very substance of the Spirit of the Father and the Son in which he is co-equal and co-eternal with them both, but something created which could be formed and come into being in those ways. So it remains for us to see what the difference is between those Old Testament demonstrations and these proper manifestations of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, even though these too were achieved through the visible creation.

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (p. 146). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

Here is what Augustine has to say about the appearance of God to Moses on Mt. Sinai, when God showed Moses his “back”:

However all this may be, some such interpretation of the story about Moses is required;57 for we must not allow ourselves to be so befogged by literal-minded materialism that we imagine the Lord’s face to be invisible and his back visible. Both of course were visible in the form of a servant; in the form of God—away with the possibility of such thoughts! Away with the idea that the Word of God and the Wisdom of God has a face on one side and a back on the other, like the human body, or that it undergoes any local movement or periodic change in appearance whatever!

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (pp. 123-124). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

This underscores a fundamental theological issue. For orthodox Christians – unlike Mormons – God is not embodied. God is a spirit. When people saw the epiphanies they were not seeing God; they were seeing a created being used by God.

If we start confusing that, we find ourselves heading, perhaps, in the direction of Mormonism. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that apart from the fact that we aren’t Mormons.)

I contend that Galatians 4:4 does not rule out OT christophanies. Colossians 1:16-17 makes it clear that Christ did have an active role in the world before being incarnated in the flesh. I would say that He was sent in the flesh at the fullness of time, which I believe is what Galatians 4:4 is getting at when stating that He was “made of a woman”, and not that it was his first appearance in the world.

Your interpretation is not implausible, but here is the counter:

How then before the fullness of time (Gal 4:4), which was the right time for him to be sent, how could he be seen by the fathers before he was sent, when various angelic demonstrations were shown them, especially considering that he could not even be seen, as he is in his equality with the Father, even after he had been sent? Why, otherwise, should he say to Philip, who of course saw him in the flesh just as those who crucified him did, Am I with you all this time and you do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father (Jn 14:9).84 Does this not mean that he both could and could not be seen? He could be seen as made and sent; he could not be seen as the one through whom all things were made (Jn 1:3). Or what about his saying, He that has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and shall manifest myself to him (Jn 14:21)? But there he was, manifest before their eyes; surely then it can only mean that he was offering the flesh which the Word had been made85 in the fullness of time86 as the object to receive our faith; but that the Word itself, through whom all things had been made (Jn 1:3), was being kept for the contemplation in eternity of minds now purified through faith.

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (p. 179). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

Here is the point – even after the Incarnation, there is a sense in which the Son is not totally present for his followers to see. That missing part would be his divine nature. So, the Son was “sent” to the same extent that he was “made of woman,” which implies that he was not sent before he was made of woman. (Let me point out that I think Augustine eventually decides that the term “sent” actually means “procession,” but I’m not unraveling that right now.)

Hence, no Christophanies.

I believe Justin Martyr addresses this well in his First Apology (Ch.63)

“Now the Word of God is His Son, as we have before said. And He is called Angel and Apostle; for He declares whatever we ought to know, and is sent forth to declare whatever is revealed; as our Lord Himself says, He that hears Me, hears Him that sent Me. Luke 10:16 From the writings of Moses also this will be manifest; for thus it is written in them, And the Angel of God spoke to Moses, in a flame of fire out of the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of your fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth My people. Exodus 3:6 And if you wish to learn what follows, you can do so from the same writings; for it is impossible to relate the whole here. But so much is written for the sake of proving that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels; but now, by the will of God, having become man for the human race, He endured all the sufferings which the devils instigated the senseless Jews to inflict upon Him; who, though they have it expressly affirmed in the writings of Moses, And the angel of God spoke to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, yet maintain that He who said this was the Father and Creator of the universe”

Further…. “ For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe in Him, He endured both to be set at nought and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death.”

Justin Martyr rules out the Father as being He that spoke to Moses. He also states the Christ appeared in the likeness of an angel in the OT. Justin goes on to state that Christ appeared in various forms (fire, likeness of angels, and finally as a man). In essence, the form in which He appeared is irrelevant to the fact that He appeared physically in the OT as well as the NT.

Here is my difficulty with giving Justin Martyr a greater persuasive authority than Augustine. Justin wrote before the Council of Nicea, i.e., before the time that the consubstantial nature of the Son and the Father was defined as de fide for orthodox faith. Justin had a confused understanding of the relationship of the Father and the Son, and even went so far as to describe the Father and the Son as different “gods.” This doesn’t mean that Justin was a polytheist or heretic, but it does mean that he didn’t think through the issue of the relationship of the Father and the Son and what it meant for the equality of the persons to have the Father sending the Son as if the Son were inferior.

The point is that if you jump on Justin’s point of view, you may run the risk of gradually lapsing into Arianism, adoptionism, Mormonism or subordinationism.

Also, did Justin deal with the objections raised by Augustine? I don’t know, but knowing that would be important in trying to come to some conclusion vis a vis Justin and Augustine’s views.

“Proskynesis” is the Greek word for worship used in many of the verses involving the Angel of the Lord and worship in the LXX. The original Hebrew is Shachah.

#7812, Shachah (Strong’s definition)
bow self down, crouch, fall down flat, humbly beseech, do reverence, worship A primitive root; to depress, i.e. Prostrate (especially reflexive, in homage to royalty or God) -- bow (self) down, crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship.

"Shachah" is applied to the worship of God many times. Yes, “shachah” can also be applied in certain instances as making obeisance to person(s) other than God, but we still must answer the question of why the Angel of the Lord accepted worship. I would say that Judges 13 is an example of this.

Manoah assumed the Angel of the Lord was a man in Judges 13:16 (based on Judges 13:8-15). The Angel of the LORD equivocates in the same verse (Jesus makes a similar type of equivocation in Matthew 19:17). Later we see the Angel of the Lord ascending in the flame of the alter and then Manoah (and wife) falling on his face to the ground (Judges 13:20). Manoah then states that it was the Lord who accepted the offering (Judges 13:23). Fire is symbolic of the presence of God in many instances (example: Exodus 40:38). The fact that the Angel of the Lord ascended in this flame leads me to believe that He was accepting the offering and thus accepting worship.

Again, it depends on what we mean by “worship.” In various languages, “worship” covers both worship of the divine and humbling oneself before a social superior. Think of how some English judges are called “Your Worship” or how different cultures have people kneel or genuflect in the presence of royalty.

We also have the example of Lot “worshipping” what are clearly angels. If we say that Lot is showing deep reverence in that case, then it is inconsistent to say that Manoah and his wife were not showing a similar reverence to an angel in their case.

I also think it is significant that the angel tells them his name is “wonderful” or “abundant.” Is that a name of God? I don’t think so.

Also, I notice that it is Manue who says that they have seen God. The fact that Manue says it doesn’t make him inerrant. In fact, we know he is in error because he says that he and his wife will surely die, and she sensibly points out that that is not likely. She’s right; he’s not.

Various arguable OT epiphanies do involve fire – the burning bush, the pillar of fire – but this is getting the cart before the horse. It isn’t clear that those epiphanies definitely involve the appearance of God, rather than an angel. So, arguing from fire to God is begging the question.

Angels, however, do not accept worship. I base this assertion on Revelation 19:10 and Revelation 22:8-9.

Let’s look at Revelations 22:8-9

And I, John, who have heard and seen these things. And after I had heard and seen, I fell down to adore before the feet of the angel, who shewed me these things. ap.22.9 And he said to me: See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them that keep the words of the prophecy of this book. Adore God.

God-inspired (2010-01-10). Kindle Catholic Bible (D-R) (best navigation with Direct Verse Jump) (Kindle Locations 50006-50008). OSNOVA. Kindle Edition.

And Revelations 19:10:

And I fell down before his feet, to adore him. And he saith to me: See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren, who have the testimony of Jesus. Adore God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

God-inspired (2010-01-10). Kindle Catholic Bible (D-R) (best navigation with Direct Verse Jump) (Kindle Locations 49912-49913). OSNOVA. Kindle Edition.

I think that the significance in these passages is that the angels are telling John not to show “proskynesis” because he is their equal because he is a fellow servant of God through being baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. The useful comparison is with the example of Lot in Genesis where the angels permit Lot to “worship” them. Here is Augustine on that passage:

22. There is the point, though, that Lot would not have worshiped with his face to the ground if he had not recognized them as angels of God. So why does he offer them board and lodging as though they were in need of such human treatment?

Saint Augustine of Hippo; John E. Rotelle; Edmund Hill (2011-01-23). The Trinity (The Works of Saint Augustine) (p. 116). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, “worship” meaning showing the appropriate respect for a superior. Angels are ordinarily superior to men – they see God face to face, they are spiritual, they are of awesome power, etc. So, the significance of the John’s action is not that he starts to “worship” them – i.e., engage in proskynesis – but that the angel tells him that John is now an equal to the angel in Christ.

That, of course, is entirely consistent with the meaning of the Incarnation which redeemed the human body, will and soul.

On the whole, I think I find Augustine’s perspective more fitting because it exalts the importance and uniqueness of the Incarnation, which is the core Christian doctrine, and is more consistent with other Christian teachings, such as the spiritual nature of God. Augustine’s teachings are also consistent with scriptural passages, which are clearly ambiguous.

That is not to say that these "theophanies" were not Christophanies – that is within the permissible range of opinion – but if I had to choose, I think I’d go with Augustine’s opinion.