accept. The intense sufferings of animals through billions of years so far, have
no credible excuse and are simply incompatible with the God proposed by
Christian theism.
Arguing against animal experimentation and exploitation, Andrew Linzey
wrote, "Animals can never merit suffering; proper recognition of this
consideration makes any infliction of suffering upon them problematic."88
Indeed! Again, "Animals can never merit suffering." Period. It does not make a
whit of difference whether human beings or God inflict this suffering upon them.
There is no moral justification for it. None.
NOTES
1. Robert Wennberg lists them in God, Humans, and Animals.- An Invitation
to Enlarge Our Moral Universe (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 25-26.
2. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882 (New York; W. W.
Norton, 1958), pp. 85-96.
3. The Portable Atheist Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, (Philadelphia,
PA: Da Capo Press, 2007), p. xviii.
4. Ibid., pp. xix-xx.
5. River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York: HarperCollins,
1996), p. 131-32.
6. Paul Waldau, "Religion and Animals," in In Defense of Animals.- The
Second Wave, ed. Peter Singer (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), p. 79.
7. See the extensive documentation of this on our official Web site, "The Bible
and the Treatment of Animals," to be found at http://sites.google.com/
site/thechristiandelusion/Home/the-bible-and-animals, which I consider a
chapter for this book in and of itself.
8. Alvin C. Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1974), p. 28.
9. Keith M. Parsons, God and the Burden of Proof Plantinga, Swinburne, and
the Analytic Defense of Theism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989), pp.
125, 132.
10. Michael J. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008), p. 37. In other words, a defense is appropriate only
when it comes to the logical problem of evil. It has no effect on the evidential
problem.
11. Ibid., p. 38.
12. Ibid., pp. 99-100.
13. Peter van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006),
pp. 49-5 5.
14. Wennberg, God, Humans, and Animals, pp. 3 10-11.
15. Another Christian solution is that God created the world as already fallen
from the very start, according to liberal Christians and process theologians. I just
cannot devote the space to the liberal position here. See John Hick, Evil and the
God of Love, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), where he argues that
the world was created fallen. Recently James A. Keller defends process theism
in Problems of Evil and the Power of God (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing
Limited, 2007). See also David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil. A Process
Tbeodicy (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1976); and Evil Revisited-
Responses and Reconsiderations (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1991). Christopher Southgate's "evolutionary theodicy" is to be found in his
book, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil
(Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2008). In my opinion, a god such as this one is too
small to be relevant to the needs of the created world, and as such can be safely
ignored.
16. The Bible Has the Answer (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, 1987), pp. 116-
20.
17. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 133.
18. J. W. Rogerson, "What Was the Meaning of Animal Sacrifice?" Animals
on the Agenda, eds. Andrew Linzey and Dorothy Yamamoto, (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1998), pp. 11-12.
19. Ibid., p. 13
20. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1.42-43, as quoted by Paul
Copan in Tbat:c lust Your Interpretation: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge
Your Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001) p. 152.
21. On the vision in the book of Isaiah, see Copan, Thats,justYour
Interpretation, p. 229 n. 34 and my previously mentioned post on "The Bible and
the Treatment of Animals."
22. Tbat:rjustYourInterpretation, pp. 150-52.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil, pp. 85-89.
26. Ibid., p. 92.
27. Genesis 1-15 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1987), p. 34.
28. Ibid., p. 192.
29. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, p. 83.
30. Ibid., pp. 94-96.
31. A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell,
1954).
32. Of course, if Dembski believes God can answer prayers retroactively, then
he should have no problem testing these prayers, as I suggested in my book
WIBA, pp. 226-27. Pray that the Holocaust did not happen, or pray that a car
accident that killed some teenagers the night before did not happen. If God can
retroactively answer prayers, then as I argue this could be tested scientifically. I
claim that nothing will ever change in the past and that we would remember
having prayed these prayers precisely because nothing will ever change. What's
his prediction?
33. William Dembski, The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil
World (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2009). In my opinion, Dembski
does a good job arguing against the young-earth-creationism view of R. C.
Sproul and Robert Moore, who have decided to change their minds from an old-
earth creationism to the young-earth view due to the problem of animal
suffering.
34. Ibid.
35. Wennberg, God, Humans and Animals, p. 333.
36. C. S. Lewis (with C. E. M. Joad), "The Pains of Animals," Animals and
Christianity: A Book of Readings, eds. Andrew Linzey and Torn Regan (New
York: Crossroad, 1988), p. 59.
37. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 135.
38. Swinburne, "The Problem of Evil," in Contemporary Philosophy of
Religion, eds. Steven M. Cohen and David Shatz (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1982), pp. 12-13. This seems to be Michael Lloyd's conclusion in "Are
Animals Fallen?" in the book Animals on the Agenda, eds. Andrew Linzey and
Dorothy Yamamoto, chapter 12.
39. See Michael Lloyd's chapter, "Are Animals Fallen?" in Animals on the
Agenda, pp. 147-60.
40. Gregory A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil-Constructing a
Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), pp.
238-40.
41. Kingston, in Animals and Christianity, p. 74.
42. Wennberg, God, Humans andAnimals, p. 330.
43. See chapter 21, "The Devil Made Me Do It," in my book, Wby I Became
an Atheist, pp. 383-86.
44. Animals and Christianity, pp. 50-51.
45. Ibid.
46. Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, eds. Thomas M. Lennon and
Paul J. Olscamp (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 494.
47. Andrew Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009), p. 45.
48. On this, see Daisie Radner and Michael Radner, Animal Consciousness
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996).
49. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. (New York: Avon Books, 1990),
pp.201-202.
50. Francois-Marie Arouet, Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary, ed., trans.
Theodore Besterman (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 65.
51. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal
Behavior (Orlando, FL: Harvest Books, 2005), pp. 179-283.
52. Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters, p. 47.
53. On this, see George B. Wall, Is God Really Good?(Washington, DC:
University Press of America, 1983), pp. 97-100.
54. Wennberg, God, Humans and Animals, p. 315.
55. Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters, p. 17.
56. Wennberg, God, Humans and Animals, p. 315.
57. Besides Animals in Translation, see also Tom Regan, The Case for Animal
Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), chapters 1-3; Gary
Kowalski, The Souls of Animals, 2nd ed. (Walope, NH: Stillpoint, 1999);
Donald Griffin, Animal Minds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992);
Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Sufferings of Animals and
the Call to Mercy (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2002), and Robert Wennberg,
"What Are Animals Like?" in God, Humans, andAnimals, pp. 84-118. Although
Michael J. Murray argues for this, he admits that the evidence on behalf of
animal pain and consciousness is "weak." He admits few will find his
conclusions "compelling or even believable," in Nature Red in Tooth and Claw,
p. 71. Right that!
58. Wennberg, God, Humans and Animals, p. 313.
59. Animals and Christianity, pp. 53-55.
60. Van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil, 133.
61. Ibid.
62. Wennberg, God, Humans and Animals, pp. 317-18.
63. John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, 4th ed. (London: Collins, 1975), p.
350.
64. See also Regan, The Case forAnimal Rights.
65. Keith Ward, Rational Theology and the Creativity of God (New York:
Pilgrim, 1982), pp. 201-202.
66. Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God-Christian Eschatology, trans. M.
Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), p. 132.
67. Southgate, The Groaning of Creation, p. 89.
68. Ibid., pp. 88-90.
69. Emphasis mine. Haught, Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect for Religion
in the Age of Evolution (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), p. 158.
70. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, p. 184.
71. Ibid., p. 121.
72. Ibid., p. 128.
73. See Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin:r God (New York: HarperCollins,
1999), p. 290; and Michael A. Corey, Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000), p. 120.
74. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, pp. 175-80.
75. Ibid., pp. 147, 149 n. 24.
76. See Dinesh D'Souza, "Why We Need Earthquakes," Christianity Today,
April 28, 2009, http://www.christianitytoday.coin/ct/2009/may/12.58.html ?
start= 1.
77. Personal e-mail to the author, August 10, 2009.
78. David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (New York, Bobbs-
Merrill, 1947), part 11, p. 206.
79. Keller, Problems of Evil and the Power of God, pp. 23-24.
80. Richard Carrier asks (via e-mail) that even if God created animals: "Why
couldn't God give animals rational souls and speech, so we could enter into free
and equal trade with them in labor and goods? Riding horses would then be no
evil, nor plowing fields with oxen, if they are simply under employment, with all
the same compensation, liberties, and rights as humans themselves pulling plows
or rickshaws."
81. Why I Became an Atheist, pp. 193-94.
82. See chapter 13, "The Problem of Evil-Part 2: Objections Answered," in
Why I Became an Atheist, pp. 243-62, where I argued on behalf of Paul Draper's
and William L. Rowe's evidential arguments, and I where disputed both Stephen
Wyk-stra's CORNEA defense and Peter van Inwagen's "massively irregular
world" defense (I'll not repeat myself here). For a further criticism of the
ignorance defense coming from a process theistic perspective, see Keller, "The
Ignorance Defense," in Problems of Evil and the Power of God, pp. 73-92. With
regard to Rowe's arguments, Christian philosopher William Hasker has argued
that the existence of gratuitous evil is consistent with Christian theism. See his
Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God (London: Routledge 2004), pp. 58-
79; and The Triumph of God over Evil-Theodicy fora World of Suffering
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), pp. 171-98. For a response to
Hasker, see Nick Trakakis, The God beyond Belief In Defense of William Rower
Evidential Argument from Evil (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2007), pp.
303-31. There is also an attack on Rowe's argument by Michael Almeida in "The
New Evidential Argument Defeated," Philo 7, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2004): 22-
3 5, which is rebutted by Richard Carrier, "Fatal Flaws in Michael Almeida's
Alleged `Defeat of Rowe's New Evidential Argument from Evil,"' Pbilo 10, no. 1
(Spring/Summer 2007): 85-90.
83. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 129.
84. Wennberg, God, Humans, and Animals, p. 340.
85. Stewart Goetz, "The Argument from Evil," The Blackwell Companion to
Nat ural Theology, eds. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Malden, MA:
Wiley Blackwell, 2009), p. 492.
86. See chapters 12-13 in my book, Why I Became an Atheist, pp. 228-62.
87. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 130.
88. Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters, p. 35.
and many other scholars have argued that the Gospels are myths about
Jesus, not historical records. But Christian apologists balk at the notion and
deploy every argument they can against it. Since I am one of the prime targets of
my friends Paul Rhodes Eddy and Greg Boyd in their landmark work of Gospel
apologetics, The 7esus LegendA Case for the Historical Reliability of the
Synoptic7esus Tradition (Baker Academic, 2007), I would like to respond to the
book and its chief arguments and flaws. My discussion focuses on these two
scholars and their work, but it will soon become clear that what I have to say
applies equally to evangelical apologists in general, even those who have not
taken things quite as far as Eddy and Boyd have.
What is the task of biblical criticism? It is to advance the understanding of the
Bible by applying new methods to the study of the text. One hopes to learn more
and new things abut the text. By contrast, what is the task of Christian
apologetics? It is essentially one of retrenchment. It wants to turn the clock back
on criticism and in effect to learn less about the Bible, to undo all that critics
consider progress. The apologist makes minimal concessions to critical method,
using it opportunistically to try to vindicate the Bible as the kind of prop he
needs it to be for the sake of his faith. One senses on every page that the
Christian apologist wishes that the Higher Criticism of scripture had never been
invented (probably by Satan) to confuse matters.
Their book takes, in the traditional style of historical apologetics, a completely
deductive a priori approach, trying to nibble away at critical methods and
conclusions with quibbling and caviling objections that are often beside the
point.1 The authors appropriate the rhetoric of postcolonial critics to make it
look like only Dead White Males would hesitate to accept miracle claims. Eddy
and Boyd have claimed the laurel wreath of "victim" for fundamentalism so as to
dignify credulity as a method. They argue that it would be a Eurocentric, ethno-
biased slur to "people's religion" the world over if we did not broaden the
analogy of present-day experience (with which to judge past-event claims) to
include that of various Pentecostals, third world shamans, and New Agers. The
viewpoint of such a "confederacy of dunces" the authors dub a "democratized
epistemology" (pp. 71-72). That is just the same sleight of hand that intelligent
design creationists employ to get their quack science included in public school
curricula. In fact, the approach of Eddy and Boyd is reminiscent of intelligent
design propaganda at a number of revealing points, as we shall see.
Our apologists, though certainly more widely read in many relevant fields
than any predecessor (certainly more than the pompous N. T. Wright), manage to
have learned nothing important from their studies. For one thing, and it is
perhaps the main thing, Eddy and Boyd simply cannot bring themselves to grasp
the difference between methodological and metaphysical naturalism. They insist
that the only reason critics refuse to acknowledge any miracle stories as probably
true is that said critics are a stuck-up elite with an anachronistic commitment to a
quaint creed of naturalism and/or Deism. They brand me personally as a
naturalist (pp. 47, 156, despite p. 54 n. 33), though I have repeatedly rejected this
label (even in public debates with Boyd). I regard it as the height of arrogant
foolishness for mere mortals to pontificate on the nature and workings of a
largely unknown universe. Naturalism as a philosophy has absolutely nothing to
do with my historical methodology. Nor, I am convinced, does it affect, much
less vitiate, the work of critics like Bultmann-or even David Hume. Boyd and
Eddy manage to find various quotes from Bultmann, Robert Funk, and others in
which they confess (or seem to) a personal belief in metaphysical naturalism,
and here the apologists think to have found the smoking gun (46-49, etc.). But
such beliefs have nothing to do with methodological naturalism (a.k.a
methodological atheism, a.k.a. the surprisefree method).
Let's give it one more try. Greg? Paul? Are you listening? Troeltsch's
"principle of connection" does not say we know or believe that all events happen
according to unbroken, immanent cause and effect. We weren't there; we don't
know. That is why we have to try to devise methods like this to tell us what most
probably happened. All we can do is to assume a causeand-effect nexus, just like
the TV weatherman. We use the only reasonable guide we have. And experience
tells us that whenever a scientist or historian has stopped short, shrugged, and
said, "Well, Ican't explain it! I guess it must be a miracle!" he has later regretted
it. Someone else was not willing to give up, and, like a detective on a Cold Case
Files show on TV, he or she did manage to find the neglected clue. Willard Scott
does not pretend to know for a fact that a sovereign God will not reach down and
stop the lightning bolt from starting a forest fire tomorrow. He does not know
that the nostrils of El Shaddai or Jupiter Pluvius will not stir up a Tsunami next
week. He can do no more than extrapolate from current, known trends what is
Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion Page 35