Alberto Giubilini of Monash University and Francesca Minerva of the University of Melbourne have recently written a paper that argues for what they call after-birth abortion.[1] The authors believe that babies born are human beings, but are only potential persons and that some lives are not worth living.
In apologetic discussions, we often talk about the question of the origin of life. Origins questions are interesting to discuss, but when we talk about origins, it’s important not to just limit ourselves to the origins of life. There are times we can talk about the origins of arguments.
For instance, let’s say that you consider investing in a company on the stock market. You talk to someone who is interested in the stock market and he tells you that you should invest in that company. Later on, you tell another friend about this and he says, “Well of course he’s going to tell you to invest in that company! He owns more stock in it than anyone else! The more you buy, the more he benefits!”
So should our country elect Candidate A as president or Candidate B as president? Can we picture someone saying, “I wasn’t so sure, but then I heard Angelina Jolie give a great talk on why candidate B is amazing and if she endorses him, then he has my vote.” Sadly in America, that is easy to imagine. When candidates want to be elected, they can often have celebrities come and speak on their behalf.
That’s where the appeal to authority comes in. This logical fallacy doesn’t say that the claim is wrong because the person appealed to is not an authority. The idea is that if we are unsure about the claim, we shouldn’t place stock in someone speaking that is not an authority.
Some arguments are difficult to deal with. Some are so difficult we don’t want to deal with them. Instead, it’s easier to deal with a simpler version of the argument that we have set up in its place, thinking that we have thus dealt with the original argument.
This frequently happens in politics. Suppose a candidate says he wants to do away with the Department of Education. The reply is “Candidate Smith is against the education of our children.” Whether Smith is right or wrong in this case, hardly anyone could think a serious candidate running for office would say, “I don’t want our children to be educated.” What we should ask is, “What does Smith really mean when he says he wants to eliminate the Department of Education?”
What would happen if there were no driving laws? What if people could just drive however they wanted? What if stop signs and traffic lights were arbitrary? What if you wanted to drive 70 mph through a school zone when children were getting out of school? Would our roads be better or would it be mass chaos?
Of course, we’re thankful that there are laws for driving. If there are traffic laws, should there not be laws for thinking? Should there be some mistakes that no thinker wants to make? There are also laws of nature. An apple that falls from a tree will fall in accordance with the laws of gravity.
The name “Ratio Christi” means“the Reason of Christ.”For many Christians, this is an odd term. We often think of Jesus as good and loving and holy and righteous and gentle. He is indeed those things, but rarely when we describe Jesus do we describe him as smart. The only attributes we list of Jesus are emotional or relational ones. Do we believe Jesus was smart?
Karl Giberson, the former president of BioLogos, a ministry dedicated to uniting Christianity and science, has recently written about how Biola University has opened a new Center for Christian Thought. Through the article, Giberson gives a brief history of the way Christianity has responded to intellectual challenges in the 20th century. He commends Biola for the work that they are doing to help further academic investigation in this area.
Towards the end of the article, however, there is suddenly a shift in tone when Giberson says that when it comes to the evolution question, Biola is on the wrong side and indicates that they have a repudiation of evolution in their mission statement. Giberson says we need to have the courage to speak out rather than be worried about donors and their pocketbooks. We must take a stand.
Tim King, Communications Director for Sojourners, recently penned an article at CNN.com’s Belief Blog. He argues against the idea that higher education itself is not the reason that Christians are leaving the faith in college. Instead, he says, it is because of hypocrisy. He gives examples such as how religious freedom matters at one point and doesn’t seem to at another. He writes of how Franklin Graham would not judge whether Obama is a Christian or not, but when it came to Gingrich and Santorum, he did affirm their Christianity.
There is a kernel of truth to what King is saying, but there is also plenty wrong with it.
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