Dr. Victor Reppert On Why He Doesn't Read Any Book I've Recommended

I don't think there is another blog where so many educated evangelicals and atheists converge for debate but here at Debunking Christianity. I like this very much and admire these Christians who wish to engage the opposition even though at times it gets a bit rough. Some of the best evangelical scholars visit and comment here like "The Big Four": Victor Reppert (ranked about 18th in all-time comments), David Marshall, Randal Rauser, and Matthew Flannagan (although Matt only comments when I write about him). I have even allowed guest posts by several other Christian scholars, like James Sennett, Doug Groothuis, Craig Blomberg, Kenneth Howell, John F. Haught, and even one by William Lane Craig (posted by proxy), all of which can be read here. Few of them however, have ever acknowledged that my arguments are any good (Sennett, Howell and Haught are the exceptions, but then they aren't evangelicals). Probably none of them have ever heard any really good faith-damaging atheist argument (the ones they acknowledge don't actually provide an under-cutting defeater to their Christian faith). Perhaps because I have interacted the most with "The Big Four" I've become convinced Christian apologetics is rank sophistry, or just plain blind willful ignorance. By sophistry I mean "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning," or rather, "subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation."

For the record, Reppert seems to be the most biblically ignorant of the "Four" (because he focuses on his specialty, the Argument from Reason). Randal Rauser is biblically literate but is also almost pure sophistry. Vic is the most cool, calm, and dispassionate commenter, willing to take the heat without responding in kind, and the most willing to learn from his opponents (but as you'll see that doesn't mean much). Marshall is the wittiest and the most biblically literate (although that too doesn't mean much). Rauser loves to communicate in hypothetical stories which I find very interesting (although most of them utterly miss the point). Flannagan pretty much argues like I do although with a great deal of sophistry. Now for my case in point of the day, Dr. Reppert's ignorance.

At about comment # 120 in a post where I claimed Randal Rauser isn't even trying to understand my arguments, and where I bested him, Vic had the honesty to acknowledge I was not inconsistent as Rauser had claimed. So now all I need to do is watch Reppert and Rauser duke it out between themselves. [*Sigh* it won't happen]. Read the post I just linked to in order to get up to speed. The topic was Satan. I claimed that if he exists then he was dumber than a box of rocks, whereas Rauser said I was dumber than a box of rocks (I did tell you that it sometimes gets rough, right?)

Here was part of the ensuing discussion between Vic and myself (I think I got them all in order):

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Victor Reppert
Why is it assumed that Satan expected to win his battle with God? The line from Paradise Lost is "Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven." In other words, "It may be hell, but at least I'm in control!"
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John W. Loftus
Vic, that has never made any sense at all. It's pure sophistry. Would you like to defend that?
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Victor Reppert
I would make the note that given this feature of Loftus's discussion, he isn't guilty of any inconsistency. If what he is assuming is that Satan expected to win, and would only rebel against God if he thought he could win, then he would be stupid, knowing that God was omnipotent and held all the power. But Loftus himself, on the assumption that he were confronted with the existence of an omnipotent being, apparently would refuse to worship, in spite of having no expectation of victory against the Omnipotent. But while this gets him off the hook from outright inconsistency, we are still left needing an explanation for he would assume that concerning Satan.

A Catholic friend of mine once said "If Calvin's God exists, I would insist on being damned. But it would do me no good." (I think he was presuming that he would get whatever fate God predestined him for anyway, regardless of whether he rebelled or did not rebel, so his "insistence" would make no difference). But I would be careful about making any bold predictions about what I would do if I were faced, at the end of all things, with an omnipotent but unjust being who demanded that I worship him.
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John W. Loftus
Worship is to attribute worth-ship to God, isn't it? Adoration is another word that comes to mind. I could never adore a barbaric God at all. And if he could read my thoughts and condemn me for not worshiping him then I would be doomed.
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Victor Reppert
I know there are various accounts of the development of the idea of Satan, but I think this is getting a little off track on the central issue. You imply that Christians believe that Satan expected to win his battle with God, and that that would make Satan dumber than a box of rocks. Why should anyone assume that Christians believe this about Satan? If you are right about the moral character of any being who exercises omnipotent control over this universe, then why couldn't there be a created being who concluded that what this being was doing was immoral, and rebelled, even though it cost him a banishment.
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John W. Loftus
Vic, please read the relevant literature. Your philosophizing about Satan takes the Bible literally (or something like that). It's nothing but sophistry unrelated to the actual evidence. That's why I don't value your kind of philosophy. Almost any meaningful concept can be thought of as rational and this is a test case.

I doubt very much I could ever persuade you that thinking of a being as suicidal describes the highest creature God supposedly ever made. The other option is that he's dumb. I don't think either one could possibly describe the highest creature God ever made, or at least, one that led a third of the angels away from God.

Gregory Boyd at least bites this bullet by arguing Satan thinks he can win. [Edit, at least I think this is his position without re-reading his books on the subject].

In reality, none of the motivations for Satan's behavior make any sense because he's a man-made mythical being. I think the book of Revelation is clear that it's a battle, and why is it a battle in the first place?

I think the best explanation is that God is not actually pictured as an omnipotent being in large swaths of the Bible as the Devil was introduced in the intertestamental period to exonerate God from the massacre by Antiochus IV Epiphanes
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John W. Loftus
Self-destructive behavior does not describe the highest creature God ever made. Self-destructive behavior is stupid irrational behavior. Self-destructive behavior, when the person knows with certainty he will be punished with the tortures depicted in the 20th chapter of Revelation, is utterly stupid irrational behavior to the max.
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Victor Reppert
Actually, that is beside the point with respect to the context. The fact is that you were describing Christians, and what they believe, in particular, you were attributing to Christians the claim that Satan thought he could win. Now you say Boyd says that.

Your argument was

1) Christians hold that Satan thought he could win a battle with God.

therefore

2) Christians must think Satan is stupid. But they don't, so their position is incoherent.

I take it your argument is some kind of reductio ad absurdum against Christians (and I think you were attibuting these beliefs to all Christians, not just conservative evangelicals), without making any argument that premise 1 is true of all Christians. Maybe this will float as a lemma of a dilemma--either he thinks he can win, in which case he's stupid, or else he doesn't think he can win, in which case he's pathologically suicidal.
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John W. Loftus
Vic, have you ever read even one of the books I've recommended, like Thom Starks, or others?

On Satan you need only read one book, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots

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John W. Loftus
My arguments are like a shoe that fits. If it fits wear it. If it doesn't ignore it. There are just too many Christianities to speak to. My argument is a reducio if you accept the premises. If you don't then don't bother with it. That you bothered with it in a link on your site needs justification.

Your view of Satan doesn't fare any better. And all of these views don't take seriously the relevant literature.

Stay uniformed about what you argue for Vic. It's better that way.

Or, you could read that one little book. Your choice.
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Then comes the kicker, are you ready?

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Victor Reppert
What is my view of Satan? I don't know that I have ever presented one. I did present a view of Satan that would avoid your line of argumentation, and pointed out that Christians need not be committed to what you were attributing to them. I even reconstructed your argument so that it avoided the consequence I was pointing out.

And I suspect that there is relevant literature on both sides of the issue. To tout some particular piece of scholarship as if it were definitive would be hasty. Of course, if you assume that all the bias has to be on the side of the believers, then we know in advance which scholarship you are going to regard as "relevant."
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John W. Loftus
But Vic, since you have probably NEVER read a single book that I have recommended to you how do you know that the scholarship I recommend is not better argued?

End of discussion (so far).
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And herein lies the rub.

Over the years I have recommended one book for Vic to read for every major discussion/debate we've had. That probably represents 40-50 books. To date I have never seen any evidence Vic has read a single one of them. (He can correct me but it's clear he hasn't read but a few of them, if that).

I've recommended Thom Stark's book, The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It).

And recently I've recommended both of these books, one by Matt McCormick, Atheism and the Case Against Christ, and one by Howard Bloom, The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates

In Vic's defense he would probably say he has a specialty and reads only in that specialty. Okay, but to blog daily without reading even one book I recommend and yet to continue interacting with me is ignorance, his ignorance. How often can this be his excuse where he says: "I suspect that there is relevant literature on both sides of the issue." Sure, there is "relevant" literature on both sides of the evolution debate, but it comes from ignorant evangelicals. Does this mean that since there are ignorant people out there writing books it absolves him of his epistemic duty to investigate some important issues for his faith outside of his specialty? I don't see how it can.

Nonetheless, when it comes to the concept of Satan, as far as I know, there isn't one book on the Devil written by an evangelical scholar who takes seriously the Biblical data in the context of the surrounding ancient cultures at the time. Not one. Not one.

NOT ONE!

Satan is a man-created mythical being, pure and simple.

[Warning: Do not suggest an evangelical book on Satan if you have not read it and if it does not meet the qualifications I specified].

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