Posted a thing on Satan on ThinkChristian.net.

Posted a thing on the CRC Network on Classis and the Denominational Question.

And did some dialog on Facebook on the devil following upon the Santorum piece.

You can arrive at a reasonable argument for the existence of Satan easier than you can for the existence of God IF (probably by virtue of your culture) you belief in a class of personal spiritual beings. Without a personal creator “evil” is a rather arbitrary notion. In the economy of persons with power it is easy to define evil as “whatever I don’t like”. Given all of this there will be an adversary (the original translation of “satan”) because you will have conflicting wills.

Popular culture, old and new likes to dress up the devil in silly clothes or with startling special effects. OK. Any personal being with intelligence and power would be capable of playing games with perception at least as handily are we are which again should lead us to a bit of sobriety.

Secularism is a culture. Materialists not believe in “spiritual” beings therefore leaving them to find their devils in the flesh. This hardly bodes well for materialist non-violent ideologies.

Also clippings from two reviews of Plantinga’s book:

Why Christianity actually provides a better foundation for science than does Naturalism.

In the final chapter of the work, Plantinga argues for a conflict between science and Naturalism. The argument centres on how to best explain the reliability of our belief-forming mechanisms (perception, memory, reason and so on). Christianity has a straightforward answer: God either directly created or providentially superintended the development of these faculties and ensured that they are aimed at forming true beliefs. The Naturalist, Plantinga argues, is in a much tougher situation. Because according to Naturalism there is no God or any other being like God, he instead must give a non-theistic evolutionary account of the origin of these faculties. Unguided evolution, though, cannot do the trick. Evolution only selects for survival and reproduction, it does not select for truth. No doubt if Naturalism is true then the belief-forming mechanisms in our brains would have to be ones which help us survive and reproduce, but why think they would also be aimed at the truth? As Plantinga puts it, “All that’s required for survival and fitness is that the neurology cause adaptive behavior; this neurology also determines belief content, but whether or not that content is true makes no difference to fitness.” To survive and thrive we need to act in certain ways, but that does not ensure that our beliefs will be true. So, the likelihood that our belief-forming mechanisms are reliable is low if Naturalism is true, but decently high if Christianity is true. Hence, science itself conflicts with Naturalism.
http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/3082/where-the-conflict-really-lies

Alvin Plantinga’s take on “The New Atheists”

In conclusion I thought I would mention a couple of zingers that Plantinga aims at the New Atheists, for those who might be interested in such things. In addition to referring to Richard Dawkins and Peter Atkins as “dancing on the lunatic fringe” (p. 77), Plantinga maintains that the New Atheists “propose to deal with their opponents not by way of reasoned argument and discussion, but by way of ridicule and ‘naked contempt’…. Why they choose this route is not wholly clear. One possibility, of course, is that their atheism is adolescent rebellion carried on by other means. Another (consistent with the first) is that they know of no good reasons or arguments for their views, and hence resort to schoolyard tactics. In terms of intellectual competence, the new atheists are certainly inferior to the ‘old atheists’–Bertrand Russell and John Mackie come to mind. They are also inferior to many other contemporary but less strident atheists–Thomas Nagel, Michael Tooley, and William Rowe, for example. We may perhaps hope that the new atheists are but a temporary blemish on the face of serious conversation in this crucial area” (pp. x-xi). Plantinga also offers the following comment on Dennett’s dilettantish discussion of the epistemic status of beliefs formed on the basis of faith: “I’m sorry to say this is about as bad as philosophy (well, apart from the blogosphere) gets” (p. 47). Plantinga’s harsh words stem from the fact that Dennett fails to engage the best work in philosophy of religion on this topic. Plantinga asks, “Is this because he is ignorant of that work? Or doesn’t understand it? Or can’t think of any decent arguments against it? Or has decided that the method of true philosophy is inane ridicule and burlesque rather than argument? No matter; whatever the reason, Dennett’s ventures in the epistemology of religious belief do not inspire confidence” (p. 47). Passages such as these suggest an addition we might make to Plantinga’s 1984 classic, “Advice to Christian Philosophers”: Cast your best insults as hypotheticals, if you want to be able to maintain your public commitment to Christian charity.
http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2012/02/prosblogion-rev.html