Seeking a straight answer re:Christ resurrection.

  Hebrews2:9BibLE"But him who was made a little inferior to the angels,Jesus,we do see garlanded with glory and honor so that by God's grace he may taste death for everyone." How could almighty God in whole or in part ever be inferior to any creature. Of course we know the standard fudge his created human body altered  the creators eternal nature. The finite changed the infinite.

Hebrews1:4BibLE" Becoming as much better than the angels as he has inherited a more transcendent name than  they" now if the created human form made the creator inferior to the angels prior to his resurrection why does not the same human form keep him inferior to them after his resurrection. A straight answer please.

The Holy Bible:an overview.

 The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, "the books") is a collection of religious texts, writings, or scriptures sacred to Jews, Samaritans, Christians, Muslims, and others. It appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they are collectively revelations of God. These texts include theologically-focused historical accounts, hymns, prayers, proverbs, parables, didactic letters, admonitions, essays, poetry, and prophecies. Believers also generally consider the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration.

Those books that are included in the Bible by a tradition or group are called canonical, indicating that the tradition/group views the collection as the true representation of God's word and will. A number of biblical canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents from denomination to denomination. The Hebrew Bible shares most of its content with its ancient Greek translation, the Septuagint, which in turn was the base for the Christian Old Testament. The Christian New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. Among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about what should be included in the canon, primarily about the biblical apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect or recognition.

Attitudes towards the Bible also differ among Christian groups. Roman Catholics, High Church Anglicans, Methodists and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of both the Bible and sacred tradition, while many Protestant churches focus on the idea of sola scriptura, or scripture alone. This concept rose to prominence during the Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only infallible source of Christian teaching. Others, though, advance the concept of prima scriptura in contrast, meaning scripture primarily or scripture mainly.

The Bible has had a profound influence on literature and history, especially in the Western world, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type. According to the March 2007 edition of Time, the Bible "has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written. Its influence on world history is unparalleled, and shows no signs of abating." With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, it is widely considered to be the best-selling book of all time. As of the 2000s, it sells approximately 100 million copies annually.

Annihilationism:an overview.

 In Christianity, annihilationism (also known as extinctionism or destructionism) is the belief that those who are wicked will perish or cease to exist. It states that after the final judgment, all unsaved human beings, all fallen angels (all of the damned) and Satan himself will be totally destroyed so as to not exist, or that their consciousness will be extinguished rather than suffer everlasting torment in hell (often synonymized with the lake of fire).

Annihilationism is directly related to the doctrine of conditional immortality, the idea that a human soul is not immortal unless it is given eternal life. Annihilationism asserts that God will eventually destroy the wicked, leaving only the righteous to live on in immortality. Some annihilationists (e.g. Seventh-day Adventists) believe God's love is scripturally described as an all-consuming fire and that sinful creatures cannot exist in God's presence. Thus those who do not repent of their sins are eternally destroyed because of the inherent incompatibility of sin with God's holy character. Seventh-day Adventists posit that living in eternal hell is a false doctrine of pagan origin, as the wicked will perish in the Lake of fire. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that there can be no punishment after death because the dead cease to exist.

Annihilationism stands in contrast to both belief in eternal torture and suffering in the lake of fire and the belief that everyone will be saved (universal reconciliation or simply "universalism").

The belief in Annihilationism has appeared throughout Christian history and was defended by several church fathers, but it has often been in the minority. It experienced a resurgence in the 1980s when several prominent theologians including John Stott were prepared to argue that it could be held sincerely as a legitimate interpretation of biblical texts (alternative to the more traditional interpretation of them) by those who give supreme authority to scripture. Earlier in the 20th century, some theologians at the University of Cambridge including Basil Atkinson supported the belief. Twentieth-century English theologians who favor annihilation include Bishop Charles Gore (1916), William Temple, 98th Archbishop of Canterbury (1924); Oliver Chase Quick, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1933), Ulrich Ernst Simon (1964), and G. B. Caird (1966).

Some Christian denominations that are annihilationist were influenced by the Millerite/Adventist movement of the mid-19th century. These include the Seventh-day Adventists, Bible Students, Christadelphians and various Advent Christian churches. Additionally, some Protestant and Anglican writers have also proposed annihilationist doctrines. The Church of England's Doctrine Commission reported in 1995 that "[h]ell is not eternal torment", but "non-being".

Annihilationists base the doctrine on their exegesis of scripture, some early church writing, historical criticism of the doctrine of hell, and the concept of God as too loving to torment his creations forever. They claim that the popular conceptions of hell stem from Jewish speculation during the intertestamental period, belief in an immortal soul which originated in Greek philosophy and influenced Christian theologians, and also graphic and imaginative medieval art and poetry.

Did our Lord ever say it is better to give.

 Acts20:35NIV" In everything I did I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak,remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said:'it is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Recently some atheist apologists have taken issue with our beloved brother Paul's paraphrase of our lords teaching. Where in the gospels (they ask) is there any record of Jesus saying any such thing? I don't expect the following to have much purchase among the more hypercritical members of that camp, but hopefully some of the more measured constituents of the tribe would be edified.

Luke14:13,14NIV"But when you give a banquet,invite the poor,the crippled,the lame,the blind,and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you,you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous".

Is the prophet Enoch in heaven?

  Hebrews11:5The BibLE"It was by faith Enoch was translated so as not to see death,and was not to be found because God translated him;for before the translation he was vouch for as having pleased God."

Does this mean that Enoch went straight to heaven without dying (a privilege denied our Lord himself) . Here are some scriptures to consider.

John3:3The BibLE "Jesus replied" verily,verily I tell you,if a man is not born over,he cannot see the reign of God."" (So no entry to heaven apart from sharing in Jesus death and resurrection)

John3:13The BibLE"And NOBODY has gone up to heaven but he who came down out of heaven,the Son of Man." (Need we say more?)

Hebrews11:13The BibLE"In faith ALL (i.e those previously mentioned in the chapter) these died not having received the promised things,.."

As the scriptures say at the mouth of three witnesses  every matter is established see Matthew 18:16

More scrutinizing of JEHOVAH'S thumb print.

 

Croft, Continued: I’m Not Saying It’s Aliens

Elizabeth Whately

Continuing to address a new Substack piece by James Croft where he objects to some of my comments on his debate with Stephen Meyer, today we turn to a hot topic: aliens!

He’s Not Saying It’s Aliens

In my article on the God hypothesis and the problem of background knowledge, I said that were Croft to apply his demand for background knowledge consistently, it would mean we couldn’t indirectly infer our way to non-divine alien entities either. Croft doesn’t concede this, but he does say there would be a “degree” of hampering from a lack of such knowledge:

How could someone responsibly construct a hypothesis that a new, non-human intelligent agent might exist? Does the lack of background knowledge that I’ve pointed to on the part of God also hamper attempts to abductively infer that aliens are the cause of some phenomenon, for instance? To some degree, it does — and of course it does.

He illustrates with an example: Suppose a crew lands on Mars and finds a perfectly spherical floating orb of unknown make and origin. If this crew had independent background knowledge of alien races with means and motive to build floating spheres,  this would make the inference to aliens stronger than if they didn’t. 

This is true! Trivially true, in fact. Neither Meyer nor any other ID-friendly philosopher would disagree with Croft that background knowledge can make a good inference to the best explanation better. But the question at hand is whether it’s always needed to make it good.

In this specific case, Croft happens to think that absent background knowledge, “Aliens!” would be a weakly justified hypothesis. Here, my mind immediately went to the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where moon colonists discover a monolith — not a floating sphere, but a grounded rectangular prism, which emits a high-pitched sound when the sun comes out:

The scene is shot and scored in a very ominous way, where the ominousness lies precisely in the sense that the monolith is, well, alien. And in fact, as the story unfolds, we learn that it is. 

Maybe for Croft, it wouldn’t be so ominous. But maybe it would. I would be curious to know if he thinks it’s analogous to his floating sphere or not. A more interesting question, though, would be to ask him what our Mars landers should conclude if they find, say, a cave wall displaying the digits of pi. Or perhaps a friendly garbage-collection robot, with a design unknown to any human designer on Earth at the time. Those sorts of discoveries would be much more analogous to what we observe as we examine human and animal bodies on a micro and macro scale — code, function, moving parts in service of a whole, and so on and so forth.

It’s the Things You Know…

But Croft believes he can say more. The inference to aliens behind the floating orb is weak, but “Meyer’s inference to God is even weaker [emphasis Croft’s].” He then gives a proof-of-concept argument based on the “background knowledge about human beings, evolution and astronomy” our Mars landers could still appeal to:

1. We know that intelligent life can evolve on particular kinds of planets, because we did.

2. We know that there are lots of potentially life-permitting planets in the universe, because we have found many of them, and we can tell from our understanding of astronomy and physics that there must be many more out there.

3. It is reasonable to conclude, given what we know about the evolution of life on our planet, that intelligent life may have evolved on one of these other worlds.

4. It is plausible, given what we know about humans and other animals, that such life would also want to create technologies (as we and other animals do), and also that they might want to contact other species.

5. Sufficiently advanced alien technologies might be inexplicable to us, just as the technologies we have today would be inexplicable to our ancestors were they to view them. And, therefore:

6. It is not unreasonable to postulate that this phenomenon (the floating orb) is a technology created by an alien intelligence.

The second half of this argument is good (hurray, agreement)! However, I find it ironic that Croft’s Premise 4 appeals to the creativity, drive, and, well, intelligence that we observe in ourselves to design things. He appears to believe this is a legitimate stepping stone on the way to aliens, but in his frame, it abruptly loses all legitimacy on the way to God. His Premise 5 also shows deference to things that might be beyond our ken from our currently limited human perspective, also wise! But are doctors and scientists likewise not still stymied by many mysteries within creation itself? Have there not been numerous times when they declared something “useless,” only to discover they’d been too hasty?

But of course, the really eyebrow-raising premise here is the first one: “We know that intelligent life can evolve on particular kinds of planets, because we did.” Is that a fact? Obviously, I’m not here to recap the entire debate over the evolution process, nor the origin of life process. The origin of life debate is especially heated, as Meyer shows in his latest book, and as other excellent scientists like Brian Miller and James Tour have done elsewhere. I won’t repeat their arguments (though I’ll link to just one article by Miller treating a critical review of Meyer’s book at length), but I will say it’s cheeky of Croft to simply help himself to this statement as his own Premise 1 in a hypothetical case for aliens, when it’s the very question at issue in the debate over the God hypothesis. If this is how he defines “background knowledge,” perhaps we simply have different standards for “knowledge”!

The extreme improbability that life would originate by chance is a good note on which to pause and pick up next time, as I address Croft’s more technical objections to Meyer’s Bayesian inference.