Jim Daly and how to argue effectively

While my computer was down I read an article by Jim Daly on why gay marriage is a bad idea. Jim Daly is the President of Focus on the Family. You can read his article here. http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2011/05/24/why-same-sex-marriage-will-fail I found his arguments to be so poor that if I wasn't already certain that gay marriage is bad I would be convinced it's a good idea. So that vein here are four general guidelines to making an effective argument.

1. Be as consistent, honest, and reasonable as you can. Inconsistency is not just a sign of hypocrisy, it's a guarantee of a bad argument. If you're not honest no one should listen to you. You can demand that someone account for every logically possible explanation for X, but this is quite unreasonable as there are a lot of highly improbable but logically possible explanations for X. If you demand that every possible explanation is ruled out (or in) than nothing can get accomplished as it is nearly impossible for anyone to meet that demand.

2. If you use any evidence, statistics, or premises that are not obvious or are controversial, make certain you cite the sources or prove the premise. You don't have to cite a mathematician if you claim that 2+2=4, as that is obvious to everyone who knows math. However if you are talking about theoretical calculus than citing a mathematician or proving the premise is necessary.

3. Make sure you use good logic and reason and don't use any logical fallacies. A lot of "common sense" is logically fallacious. The most common example is that most people do believe that correlation establishs causation. It doesn't.


4. Keep your argument as simple and easy to follow as possible. Don't start arguing for socialized health care and wind up "proving" that people are basically evil. Some problems and issues are quite complicated and it can be difficult to keep them simple. The process oil goes through from extraction to fuel for a car is logistically very complicated. If an "argument" is tracing this process it will get long and quite complicated. But even here if the process is explained well enough it will be easy to follow. Doing this will make your argument stronger and enable you to communicate with people better.

There are other guidelines that can help, but following these ones should keep you in good shape.
How do Daly's arguments shape up? Well pretty poorly. The only one of these criteria Daly meets is part of the first one. Daly is honest, but every other aspect of his argument(s) is terrible. Nothing he says is convincing because his argument(s) is fallacious, unreasonable, needlessly complicated, and he doesn't cite anything.

It's not clear if Daly is giving one argument or several because his article lacks a clear thesis (a single statement summarizing his main point) and the organization of his article is poor. He says he can argue against same sex marriage, "On the basis of logic, reason, common sense and the fact that preservation of traditional marriage is in the best interest of the common good, as evidenced by any number of factors, including reams of social science data and thousands of years of history." But then he jumps all over the map. He discusses things that seem to have no relation to gay marriage (abortion) and ends up arguing that gay marriage advocates are infringing on religious rights (Which may be true, but it in no way establishes that gay marriage is a bad idea; it establishes that proponents of the idea have behaved badly).

Daly doesn't cite a single source for any of his evidence or premises. He is arguing from social science statistics (which are vague and often misleading under the best of circumstances) but he doesn't say where he is getting his evidence. I don't think he is making them up, but without the citations I can't know that, and I can't check the evidence to make sure it is accurate (perhaps the social scientists Daly got his information from used bad methodology?).

Daly's argument(s) are fallacious because the actual arguments he gives have little or nothing to do with gay marriage. Whether previous social and cultural changes had good or bad results doesn't establish that gay marriage will have a good or bad result. Each cultural change must be judged on it's on merits (or lack there of) not the fact that other changes had bad results.

Daly doesn't even effectively argue that these other changes had negative effects. Don't misunderstand, I stand with him in affirming that things like abortion and cohabitation are morally wrong. However he's trying to argue that such things have directly lead to certain social ills, but he's using a common logical fallacy. He's assuming that correlation does establish causation, and it doesn't. The fact that cohabitation and child abuse increased at the same time doesn't establish a causation between the two. Maybe it's the other way around and child abuse caused the increase in cohabitation?

I am quite convinced that gay marriage is a bad idea and is morally wrong, but nothing Daly said in the article effectively argues that fact. Part of the reason I decided to critique Daly is that I affirm his conclusion, but the way he got there is just terrible. It is important to critique people you agree with when they use bad arguments and reasoning. One of the primary problems with most ideological and political groups in America is failure to be self critical.

So don't argue like Daly. Make every effort to keep your arguments reasonable, consistent, logical, simple, and always cite your evidence (when appropriate). Otherwise you'll be acting like a congressman or a fool.

Killing is sometimes good, but it is still tragic. A Christian response to the Celebrations of bin Laden’s Death.

I had mixed feelings when I watched the news on Sunday night/Monday morning.  While I was pleased to hear that bin Laden had finally gotten his due (buzz says that it was SEAL Team Six, so I toasted them) I was quite disturbed to see so many people celebrating his death like it was the end of an election or Mardi Gras.  Well it is unclear just how big these celebrations were, that doesn’t affect the issue.  There are evil people who should die and when they are killed the world is made a better place, but this is tragedy, not a cause for celebration.

Some well-intentioned people question how the killing of anyone can be justified, but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume here that killing evil people can be justified.  If it is possible to justify killing anyone, bin Laden certainly was one of them.  The man had caused the deaths of thousands of people and it is without question he would have killed more if he had the opportunity.  Killing him makes the world a better place and if I had been present on the raid to get him, I would have pulled the trigger myself.

However I wouldn’t have then raised my fist in the air and chanted “U.S.A.” over and over again (and I very much doubt any of the SEALS did that, only the Americans on the streets).  Just because something is good doesn’t mean it is something to be celebrated.  We celebrate things (like holidays) because they are pleasant and wonderful things that point to the good parts of life or encourage us to live better lives.  Not everything good is to be celebrated.  It’s a good thing that my digestive system works well but it would be pretty foolish of me to daily celebrate that fact.  Killing evil men to prevent them from doing more evil is a good thing, but it is a tragedy, not something to be celebrated.

Even in the Old Testament (were God commanded and commended a great deal of killing) killing was not regarded as something to be celebrated.  Soldiers or other men who killed people were considered unclean and needed to be ritually cleansed before they could rejoin the community. 

Bin Laden was a man with the image of God in him just the same as I am.  It’s tragic beyond measure that he perverted, blasphemed, and distorted that image of God to the point that it was necessary to kill him before he did more evil.  This is not fundamentally different than the tragic nature of the death of anyone who is brought to death by perverting and distorting the image of God within him.  No one celebrates in the streets when a man dies of AIDS because he distorted the image of God by living a lifestyle that separated him from God.  When that happens it’s a tragedy and we should all mourn the loss and the man’s wasted life.  Well I can’t quite bring myself to mourn for bin Laden (and if I could that might be an indicator of other problems) viewing his story as tragedy is a far more Christian response than celebrating with chants of “USA!”  He came to this point because he rejected the truth of Christ and that is tragic.  But I still raise a glass to SEAL Team Six, and I hope they find all the other evil men who need to die.

Grace is Good because we're so Bad.

Some of my friends have been trying to get me read Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins."  As people have already reviewed that book to death (just look at Amazon) I thought it would be more helpful to discuss/explain one of the questions he tries to answer.

Several months ago, a co-worker asked how I respond to a paradox within Christianity.  He explained that there are people who can never hear about Christ due to practical limitations (like time and geography).  Given this how can those people be saved?  I responded by pointing to some sections in Romans that talk about the gentiles becoming a law unto themselves (2:14).  I reason that this says God has adequately revealed himself in the world and other creation so he will judge people who have no access to scripture and knowledge of Christ based on that revelation.  This is a very common response to the paradox but he countered with another one.  If it is true that God can draw people unto him only by general revelation (creation and such) then by spreading the word of Christ we actually decrease the chances of someone being saved as this can introduce complications and other problems (I won’t list them here for brevity).  However this violates the Great Commission (Matthew 28) and other directives of Christ so we have a paradox.  Anyone who has seriously interacted with Christianity has encountered some form of this apparent paradox.  So what about the people who have not heard and cannot hear?

To put it simply, this is no problem.  In order for the question/paradox to be valid, it must in some way be unjust for God to allow people to perish with no chance to receive grace.  There are only two possible reason why this would be unjust; either people must in some way be worthy of a chance to receive grace or there must be a moral requirement on God to extend people grace. Neither of these are true (In Christianity, they might be aspects of other religions/worldviews).
It is unjust when people do not get what they deserve.  To say that it is unjust for some people to not receive grace due to lack of knowledge is to assume that these people deserve a chance to receive grace.  But they don’t deserve it; none of us do.  Every person who has ever lived deserves to go to hell, so there is nothing unjust about it if any of us do (no matter the reason).  I deserve to burn in hell.  The most honest and ethical person you have ever known also deserves to go to hell.  As I really am that bad, it in no way makes God unjust if he decides to arrange the world in such a way that I have no practical chance of knowledge of Christ (obviously he did not do that in my case).  The natural, logical, and necessary result of sin is death and damnation (James 1:15).  We are all sinners (Romans3:23, Psalm 14:2-3) so if God decides he doesn’t want to save some people (or all of us) there is nothing unjust or unfair about it.
1. Christianity teaches that everyone is sinful and unjustified.
2. No sinful or unjustified individual deserves a chance.
3. So under Christian teaching no man deserves a chance, regardless of how good he appears or how unfair this might seem.

Under Christian belief, there are no moral requirements on God; moral requirements come from him.  God is the source of all morality as what is moral is intrinsic to his nature (This is why God cannot sin.  Nothing can violate its own nature and sin is a violation of God’s nature).  The only possible moral requirement on God would be requirements he places on himself.  When he makes promises (to Abraham, David, or people in general) he is placing a moral requirement on himself.  When God swore a pact with Abraham, he swore by himself because there was no one greater for him to swear by (Hebrews 6:13).  A moral requirement is always placed on the individual by a higher authority.  There is no higher authority than God, so there is no one above him to place moral requirements on God.  This does not mean God is amoral or immoral.  As morality is an intrinsic and inherent part of his nature, God is the most moral and ethical thing that exists.  When Job says that God is treating him unfairly one of God’s responses is to say Job that he doesn’t know what he is talking about and that Job has no moral authority over him (Job 41).
1. God is the source of all morality and all moral requirements.
2. As the ultimate source of morality, there is nothing and no one else to hold moral requirements on God.
3. So the only moral requirements God has are those that he places on himself.

Additionally asking “what about those who don’t know” ignores the general revelation of God.  Christianity teaches that God has adequately revealed himself in creation so to assert that some people might not have a chance is simply false.  Everyone who has ever lived experiences creation so if God can be known through creation the question is nonsensical and foolish.  Psalm 14:1 calls atheists morally deficient, Psalm 19:1 says that creation proclaims God’s work, and Romans 1:18-20 says that God has made such things plain to people.  Either scripture is wrong or everyone really does know on some level.
1. People can only be morally responsible for what they know.
2. God has adequately revealed himself to everyone.
3. So everyone is morally responsible for knowledge of God.

The point is that if Christian teaching is true, I don’t deserve a chance, and God is in no way required to give me one.  What makes grace so amazing is that God does give me (and everyone else) a chance anyway.  The gap God crosses to offer us forgiveness is greater than the gap that a Jew who was killed in a concentration camp would cross to forgive Hitler.  If this seems like an excessive example; it’s not.  The example isn’t nearly strong enough, but I have a hard time thinking of a stronger one.  All of us have done far more evil to God than Hitler ever did to anyone.  None of us deserves a chance, so asking “What about people who haven’t heard?” is at best a misunderstanding of what Christianity espouses.

So why does this question bother so many people and why does it seem so unjust that a man who lived in a jungle in South America in 550 AD and tried to do right by those around him might be hell?  We cannot say that is through no fault of his own as everyone who exists is at fault and he has adequate revelation of God.  We cannot say it is because God is unjust.  Rather I think in most cases this question arises out of the ideals of Western/American culture.  Our culture is highly individualistic and believes very strongly that everyone deserves a chance.  A central idea of democratic style government is a high value on the individual and a belief that everyone deserves a say.  American culture’s primary belief of individual nature is that most people are basically good and reasonable (if this were not so no one would believe democracy is a viable form of government).  Because of this belief, we seek to treat everyone fairly and give everyone an equal chance.  We think they deserve it.  But (as I established above) no one deserves grace and salvation.  Many people have (most likely inadvertently) allowed the culture’s belief about the goodness of people to co-opt the Christian teaching about the depravity of man.

The question “What about those who haven’t heard?” may (and most likely does) come from the best of intentions, but it isn’t really a valid question if Christian teachings on God, sin, and human nature are true.  As God has a merciful and loving nature (he died for us after all) he hasn’t left those who haven’t heard to rot.  Rather he has ensured that everyone does get a chance by revealing himself in the world.  But if God had decided to refuse some people a chance there would be nothing morally or logically wrong with that.

This fact is what is so amazing and wonderful about grace.  We don’t deserve it, we shouldn’t get, and God doesn’t have to give it to us, but he still literally went through hell to give it to us.  Without the fact that we don’t deserve it, grace isn’t really that amazing.  If we are just getting a chance that we deserve, why is that all that impressive?  Christ said;
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.  And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back (Luke 6:32-35)."
What good would it be if God only gave us what we deserve?  To believe that people might deserve a chance at best cheapens grace to a moral requirement.  If this all grace is, than it is no longer based in love (love should transcend moral requirements according to Christ) and there is nothing that special about Christianity anymore.

So perhaps due to an accident of birth some people never hear about Christ.  As none of us deserve it, this is perfectly just.  But would the same God who comes up with something like grace just leave people to rot?  No, has revealed himself to everyone and he does care for us.  So praise God for grace and don’t inadvertently cheapen it by assuming we deserve it.  We don’t and that is why it is one of the most incredible things that exists.