Dr. Peter Kreeft once noted that, “When Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his great Summa Theologica, he could find only two objections to the existence of God, even though he tried to list at least three objections to every one of the thousands of theses he tried to prove in that great work” (Fundamentals of the Faith, p. 54). The two objections that Aquinas had in mind were the problem of evil and the apparent ability of science to explain everything without God. During my doctoral studies, however, I came across a series of articles devoted to disproving the existence of God by showing that the very attributes of divinity are incoherent and thus impossible to actualize in reality. These are known as “ontological disproofs.”

Ontological disproofs are logical arguments against of the existence of a thing based on what it would be if it existed. These arguments are very important because they do not simply purport to prove that God does not exist (like, say, the Easter Bunny or martians), but that God cannot exist (like a square circle or a married bachelor). This fairly recent form of argumentation has gained quite a bit of popularity among philosophical atheists (for example, Michael Martin devoted 23 out of 33 articles in his book The Impossibility of God to ontological disproofs).

The basic form of these arguments is something like this:

1. If God exists, he must be like ‘X’.  [Here ‘X’ = some attribute(s) of God, e.g.,  he must be good, loving, omnipotent, etc.].
2. ‘X’ is actually impossible.
3. Therefore, God cannot exist.

Unlike the simplistic rants of some atheists online, these are sophisticated arguments that demand equally sophisticated responses. The argument forms are valid, so to prove them unsound, some premises must be shown to be false.

Another reason for my interest is that I found myself unhappy with the responses I saw from some Christian apologists. It seemed like they were allowing the atheists to set up the rules in such a way that they could not lose, and the apologists were playing into their hands. Further, it seemed that some of the solutions proposed by these apologists would lead to theological heresy.

I saw the overall problem as one of how God can be spoken of correctly without creating these dilemmas that atheists use to argue against his existence. I believe the answer can be found in the classical "doctrine of analogy" – a way of understanding God-talk that does not open itself up (as easily, at least) to ontological disproofs, and also safeguards orthodox theology.

That pretty much summarizes my dissertation. For those interested in the topic, a more robust discussion follows.

Constructing Ontological Disproofs

Constructing a basic ontological disproof is fairly straightforward:

1. Assert that God must have some attribute (‘X’).
2. Define ‘X’.
3. Offer counterexample(s) to the possible actualization of ‘X’.
4. Redefine ‘X’ to avoid counterexample(s) problem.
5. Repeat 3 and 4 until procedure shows that ‘X’ cannot be actualized,.
6. Conclude that because ‘X’ cannot be actualized, God cannot exist.

Examples:

• Omnipotence: The ability to do all things must include the ability to not do certain things, for some abilities preclude others by definition.
• Omniscience: No other being can know propositions with certain indexicals (time, location, subject-object, etc).
• Supernaturality: There must be at least one fundamental law of creation which is not a result of God’s will – that of God’s will being effective. Therefore God’s ability to will is also natural.

A variant of this kind of argument is to pit two attributes against one another. If it can be demonstrated that God must have two attributes that cannot actually coexist, then God cannot exist:

1. Assert that God has attribute ‘X’.
2. Assert that God has attribute ‘Y’.
3. Show that A follows from ‘X’.
4. Show that ~A follows from ‘Y’.
5. Conclude that because “‘A’ and ‘~A'” cannot be true, God cannot exist.

Examples:

• Perfection vs. Creator: A perfect being needs nothing, but without a need God would not create.
• Creator vs. Immutability: An unchanging being cannot intend to create at one time and not at another.
• Immutability vs. Omniscience: An unchanging being cannot know changing truths (which differ from one time to another).
• Transcendence vs. Omnipresence: A transcendent being cannot be present as well.
• Justice vs. Mercy: No being can both give what one deserves and not give what one deserves.

Answering Ontological Disproofs

Modern Philosophy

Although many responses to these kinds of arguments have been offered, most follow the same basic method. Namely, they accept that the only way out of these logical conundrums is to change the definition of God’s attributes until they no longer suffer from the atheist’s attack, and proceed to do so until they have reached that goal. A good example of the procedure is found in two chapters of William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland’s Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (reproduced online here). In his response to ontological disproofs, Craig makes two interesting remarks:

1. Scripture gives philosophers a wide latitude with regard to doctrinal formulations.
2. Anti-theistic critiques can be helpful in forming more adequate conceptions of doctrine.

He goes on to say that “two controls have tended to guide this inquiry into the divine nature: Scripture and Perfect Being theology.” He goes so far as to conclude that “Theists thus found that antitheistic critiques of certain conceptions of God could actually be quite helpful in framing a more adequate conception.” An example of this procedure is found in his response to problems of God’s immutability (changelessness):

"Rejection of radical immutability leaves it open for us to affirm nonetheless that God is immutable in the biblical sense of being constant and unchangeable in His character. Moreover, He is immutable in His existence (necessity, aseity, eternity) and His being omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. These essential attributes are enough to safeguard God’s perfection without having Him frozen into immobility."

While “framing a more adequate conception” in this way might get around some skeptical arguments, this kind of thinking also leads Craig to deny that God is eternal (atemporal):

"A second powerful argument for divine temporality is based on God’s being all-knowing. In order to know the truth of propositions expressed by tensed sentences like “Christ is risen from the dead” God must exist temporally. For such knowledge locates the knower relative to the present."

Similar thinking has also led to Craig’s affirmation of admittedly heretical positions concerning God’s will and the the Son’s procession from the Father. By playing by the atheist’s rules, Craig and others may be handing over Christian orthodoxy in order to save (some kind of) theism.

I think the problem with most of these incoherency arguments, and many modern apologetic attempts to answer them by rethinking God’s attributes, is that they assume we can define God’s attributes in a univocal (same) manner according to how they are found in creatures. Definitions from finite reality are simply “blow them up” to the “size” of God (i.e., infinite).  For example, God’s omniscience (all-knowing) is defined as “knowing all true propositions” – as if making man’s limited knowledge of true propositions unlimited is all that is necessary to describe God’s knowledge. The problem is that such a method actually defines God’s attributes as “infinite finitude” or “limitless limits.” It is easy to see how contradictions will arise when an attribute of God is defined as an unlimited version of a necessarily limited concept. In theistic ontological disproofs, the atheist is simply noting this outcome.

Medieval Theology

Admittedly, in speaking about God, our language is using limited modes of expression. It must, for we have no other means of communication. All the words we have at our disposal are labels for things we experience in reality, and everything we experience is limited. It might seem, then, that univocal God-talk is all that is available to us if we are to say anything true about him. But because God transcends his limited creation, no concepts are attributable to God in the same way. On the other hand, we can say true things about God. So there must be a third way. That way is analogy.

In analogical talk, words mean similar things but are not univocal. We can speak of a  good knife and a good shoe, or say food is healthy and people are healthy. The common term in these pairs of statements have the same logical meaning, but do not pick out the same ontological reality. So while we can define “good” as “that which increases a thing’s ability to perform its function” we do not thereby say that “sharpness” in a good knife is the same as “comfort” in a shoe. Thus, in analogy we must know a thing’s nature – what it is, or what it is for – before we can know the meaning of the words used concerning it. For example, if I say, “My wife is a rose,” one immediately perceives that I am saying she is beautiful. Why not that she grows in the ground or photosynthesizes light? Because in knowing both the nature of a woman and the nature of a flower we can pick out logical similarities between them (e.g., beauty, softness, etc.) exclude dissimilarities (e.g., thorns, photosynthesis), then apply those logical similarities to the ontological realities.

With God we must continually purify our creaturely language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound, or imperfect. If we do not, we can easily be misled into thinking that the thoughts in our minds evoked by the terms we use in God-talk are really what they are in God. As Michael Martin himself notes:

“ordinary men tend to understand God in ways that are familiar to them despite the protests of theologians and intellectual ministers. As a result, God tends to be conceived of in the image of a man – a man much more powerful, moral, knowledgeable, and so on than ordinary men.”

Craig seems to agree with this assessment when he bemoans the problem of analogy:

"While we can say what God is not like, we cannot say what He is like, except in an  analogical sense–which must in the end fail, since there is no univocal element in the predicates we assign to God–, leaving us in a state of genuine agnosticism about the nature of God. Indeed, on this view God really has no nature; He is simply the inconceivable act of being. Why should we adopt so extraordinary a doctrine?"

I would say the reason we should accept such an “extraordinary doctrine” is that God is truly extra-ordinary! If God transcends all we know from finite reality, then we do not know his infinite nature directly. If we do not know God’s nature directly, then our words (which communicate only the finite reality in our minds) will fail to communicate the ontological essence of God – even when they are true statements. But we can know the truth of propositions about God without knowing God’s essence. For example we can know much about a person by looking at a painting of her, but paintings do not give us the true essence of a thing (one is paint on canvas, another is a human being). Another example: a child can know what it is to love pizza, love his toys, and love his parents – but when he considers that his parents love each other he does not really know what that love is. However, he can make true statements about their love and recognize their kind of love when he grows older and experiences it himself.

No creaturely words are used univocally (i.e., with the same meaning) of God and us; nor are they simply used equivocally (i.e., with two completely different meanings). Rather, God talk is analogical (i.e., in a way partly the same and partly different). So we must not confuse what we are thinking when we say something of God with what is literally true of him. Our talk of God is analogical – partly alike (univocal) and partly unlike (equivocal). We can thus speak truthfully of God in several ways:

• Negation of the Limited (e.g., infinite, eternal, aseity, impassibility).
• Super-Eminent Affirmation of the Unlimited (e.g., omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient).*
• Metaphor (e.g., God’s “arm,” God’s “repentance,” “fire,” “rock”).

To say this leads to “genuine agnosticism about the nature of God” or the view that “God really has no nature” is to confuse what we can know about God with knowing God. Knowing God is not simply affirming true propositions about him – it is having his very essence in our minds. As finite creatures, we cannot know infinite reality in this way. But we can know true statements about God. Univocity is not found in the ontological referents of words, but in their abstract definitions. Knowing that good is “comfortable” when said of a shoe (because a shoe’s purpose is comfort) and that good is “sharp” when said of a knife (because a knife’s purpose is to cut) does not help me know what good is in anything else unless I know what that thing is. But I can abstract from its usage that “good” means “attains to its purpose.” Thus I can affirm statements about another thing’s goodness when I know what it is. Since I do not fully know the ontological reality being picked out by the word when it is used of God, I may not know what it is (= have it existing in my mind) – but I can affirm that the statement “God is good” is true.

Conclusion

Good theology begins with proper metaphysics – not by simply denying finitude to finite concepts. This is why theological definitions based on classical metaphysics of God’s perfections often sound so obtuse:

If the doctrine of analogy is correct, the linguistic precision with which these atheists (and their apologist correlatives) approach ontological disproof arguments is simply not available for use. Finite univocal concepts are necessarily incoherent when applied to an infinite being, and so their use will naturally result in contradictions. While perhaps too unwieldy for contemporary analytic philosophers, these more precise definitions do not open themselves to the same kinds of critiques when understood analogically.
 
 
(Image credit: Graphicality)

There are a lot of good arguments against atheism (like the argument from contingency). There are also some good ones which unfortunately have been used incorrectly so many times that they have been misidentified as bad ones (like Pascal’s Wager). Even more unfortunately, there are also some genuinely bad ones (like the argument from the banana), and some of these are quite popular.

One of the worst is all the more dangerous because it sounds enough like a good argument that it is often made by seasoned apologists. I don’t think it has a name, but the idea is that in order for someone to know that there is no God, one would have to have to be God. Even the more “sophisticated” versions of this schoolyard argument are fallacious, and this needs to be called out before the argument does any more damage.

Proving Universal Negatives

It is popular in apologetic circles to argue that one cannot prove a “universal negative” (aka a “negative existential proposition”) such as “God does not exist.” This has some intuitive appeal – after all, how can one make an assertion concerning all of reality (i.e., “God does not exist anywhere.”) without knowing all of reality? Indeed, the famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell once admitted that when it comes to the existence of God, the proper “attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments.” However, the argument still fails as an apologetic strategy.

The underlying mistake is that the problem of proving a universal negative only applies to things that (at least) can possiblyexist. So, for example, it might be impossible to completely disprove the existence of unicorns, simply because of the difficulty of searching out every possible location such creature might inhabit (perhaps extending to other planets). Thus, it would be extraordinarily difficult to definitively prove that “there are no unicorns in existence anywhere.”

When it comes to the existence of Santa Claus, however, it would not be nearly as difficult. This is because the existence of a being answering to the standard description of Santa Claus can be shown to be definitively impossible. Rather than surveying all possible locations where such a being might be found, one can simply note that the conditions required for such a being to exist are essentially impossible.

Put another way, while I may not be able to prove the non-existence of any 10′ tall bachelors, I can certainly prove the non-existence of married bachelors. In a similar fashion, if one could show that based on the type of being that God would be if he existed that such a being was impossible, then the universal nonexistence of God could be known without “knowing it all.”

Requiring Godlike Powers

A corollary to the above mistake is the followup conclusion that one would need to be godlike oneself in order to coherently deny God’s existence. The idea is that one would have to be omniscient and / or omnipresent (know everything there is to know or be everywhere there is to be) in order to posses the knowledge that God does not exist, because anything less would leave the door open for God’s existence in a heretofore unknown part of reality. But omniscience and  omnipresence are attributes of deity. Thus the popular conclusion is that in order to disprove God, one would have to beGod.

This is a popular but philosophically ill-informed apologetic tactic. For example, seminary president and popular apologist Alex Mcfarland writes,

“It is important to realize something about being an atheist that even most atheists fail to acknowledge and that is that atheism requires omniscience (complete knowledge of everything).… An atheist is making a positive assertion that there is no God. The only way that anyone could make such an assertion would be to presume that he knew everything about everything.” (“The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity”, 37-38).

The same claim is made by the president and founder of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (the top Evangelical apologetics website) Matt Slick:

"Then you cannot KNOW there is no God. . . . atheism is illogical. You cannot know there is no God. To do that, you’d have to know All things to know there is no God." (“An Atheist Says He Knows There Is No God”)

This argument is also made by Christian research institute president Hank Hanegraaff:

“Atheism involves a logical fallacy known as a universal negative. Simply stated, a person would have to be omniscient and omnipresent to be able to say ‘there is no God’ from his own pool of knowledge. Only someone capable of being in all places at the same time — with a perfect knowledge of all that is in the universe — can make such a statement based on the facts. In other words, a person would have to be God to say there is no God. Hence, the assertion is logically indefensible. By using arguments like this, you will often find that an atheist quickly converts to agnosticism and is thus making progress rapidly in the right direction.” (“The Folly of Denying God” CRJ, 1990)

The same conclusion is repeated by popular apologists Ron Rhodes and Kenneth R. Samples in their respective articles on dealing with atheists in the Christian Research Journal in the 1990’s.

The argument does not seem to be losing any steam, either. As late as 2013, Ravi Zacharias made a similar claim on his Facebook page:

These alleged requirements are really just another species of the previously-discussed problem of proving a universal negative. Only empirical inductive arguments that require as their support the totality of reality (a “perfect induction” on a universal scale) would fall into such a trap. Rational deductive arguments (especially those involving direct contradictions) do not suffer from this flaw. (Interestingly, given the generally poor reception of the only purely deductive argument for the existence of God – Anselm’s Ontological Argument – among theists and atheists alike, it may be the case that atheists actually have the upper hand in attempting to argue their position based on logic alone.)

Conclusion

This particular argument fails due to the basic difference between empirical-inductive and rational-deductive proofs for a universal conclusion. Because inductive arguments are (by definition) those which (usually) give only probable support to their conclusion, and are usually based on empirical facts for their support, the idea that one could use such a method to disprove God is clearly problematic. There are, however, purely rational deductive arguments which would (in theory) definitively prove their conclusion by demonstrating that the notion of God is self-contradictory. And, since these kinds of arguments are indeed given against the existence of God, then it is not the case that “atheism is logically indefensible” (at least on these grounds). Thus, it is also false that atheists would have to posses godlike powers to know that God does not exist, because contradictions can be proven with merely human abilities.

Although not a lot of atheists have spoken out against this specious argument, it is a very bad one and makes theists look bad. To my fellow theists, I ask that you please do not use this argument, and alert those who have to its failure.
 
 
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Although many college students today are ignorant concerning the Holocaust from only a generation ago, many seem to think they know enough about the Crusades to use them as an argument for the evil of religion. Like the tired refrain that religion is “anti-science” even though only one example is usually offered (and it is mistaken), the Crusades are often “the” example listed for the equally wearisome complaint that religion causes more wars than any other factor (a laughable falsehood).

The Crusades are often pictured as a series of bloodthirsty religious wars comparable to modern-day jihad terrorism. However, while there certainly were misdeeds performed during the Crusades – and these should be remembered and judged accordingly – the larger issue is whether or not the Church in general – or even the Crusades in particular – were at fault for such acts. Hitler and his Nazi state can be properly blamed for the atrocities of the Holocaust, for these vile acts flowed directly from his teachings and commands. But were the Crusades equally to blame for the evil performed while they were enacted, or are they, like other Christian Urban Legends, misunderstood and misrepresented?

Bad Press and Modern Myths

 
Thomas F. Madden, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University, says that,
 

“During the Middle Ages you could not find a Christian in Europe who did not believe that the Crusades were an act of highest good. Even the Muslims respected the ideals of the Crusades and the piety of the men who fought them. But that all changed with the Protestant Reformation. For Martin Luther . . . argued that to fight the Muslims was to fight Christ himself, for it was he who had sent the Turks to punish Christendom for its faithlessness. . . . It was in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century that the current view of the Crusades was born.”

Even after the Reformation / Enlightenment period, the Crusades were not looked upon in a negative light. Even Muslims showed little interest in the Crusades before it became politically expedient after “the West” declared Israel a nation once again. Only in the last couple generations have the Crusades became the “whipping wars” in anti-religion propaganda.

Crusade History

 
“The Crusades” generally refers to the set of seven distinct campaigns over a 150 year period (A.D. 1099 to 1254) that were enacted to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim control. Since the birth of Islam under Muhammad, Muslims had fought to bring the world under their control. Islam got off to a weak start under Muhammad until violence became the modus operandi. After a few centuries of conquest, though, Islam had spread to North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and into Spain. By the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks had taken control of Palestine and closed Jerusalem to both Jews and Christians. The Muslim invaders attacked Constantinople (the capitol of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Eastern Church), and were headed into Europe, before the first Crusade was called by Pope Urban II in 1095 to defend the Christian West.

The word “Crusade” was not actually used during this time, nor was “war” since these campaigns were considered more of a religious pilgrimage. After the 12th century, the word was used to designate those fighting on “croisade” – a French term meaning “the way of the cross." During the First Crusade, Jerusalem was successfully recaptured. Crusader territories were established that the Second Crusade (1147-1149) was called to reinforce. By 1191, Jerusalem and many of these Crusader territories had fallen back into Muslim hands, so a Third Crusade was called to attempt recovery. This led to the famous clash between the Muslim leader Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted (who was not able to regain Jerusalem from the Muslim forces).

The Fourth Crusade was launched in 1202, but, for various reasons, ended up coming against Constantinople itself. This divided both Empire and Church, and the East would never forgive the West for the atrocities that occurred (which sadly mirrored previous atrocities from the East). The Fifth Crusade started in 1217 in Egypt – largely going nowhere. The Sixth Crusade in 1228 was directed back toward Palestine. It was successful, but short-lived. The Seventh Crusade lasted from 1248-1254, with Islamic forces destroying the remnants of the Crusader territories. Crusading came to an end shortly thereafter.

Urban Legends

 
The major issues people cite concerning the Crusades (when they can cite any at all) often involve some of the urban legends surrounding them. It is thought that Muslims were the innocent party and the Crusades instigated their hatred of the West, that Crusaders massacred innocent Jews and even other Christians, that children were sent to war, and that all of this was done to get rich. Perhaps worst of all, the Crusaders thought they would get away with it because the Pope promised them forgiveness of any sin committed while on Crusade. Like most urban legends, these falsehoods are based on only barely true, mostly misunderstood or misrepresented grounds.

Aggression

 
The Crusades were not simply unprovoked aggression – as noted above, they were defensive moves to protect Christendom from Muslim invasion. Muslims had been attacking Christians for more than 450 years before the First Crusade. Further, the idea that the Crusades also sparked Muslim hatred of the West is a historical falsehood. The Crusades did not do much damage to the Islamic forces, and not much notice was given to the Crusades by Muslims for several centuries. Muslims did not even seem to take active interest in the Crusades until the early 20th Century.

Massacres

 
It has been said that when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 they massacred every man, woman, and child in the city until “the streets ran ankle deep with the blood.” History and science show this to be poetic hyperbole. A contemporary Muslim source has been discovered that puts the number of the slain at three thousand. Was there violence? Absolutely. In that time, a city that had to be taken by force belonged to the victorious invaders – including people. This barbaric idea actually helped lessen damaging resistance (read Josephus for what happens when this goes wrong) and so served something of a cultural purpose. Thus, while it was a tragedy by today’s standards (although one might wonder at what people in that time might think of our war tactics today), it was not uncommon back then. Further, Muslim cities that surrendered to the Crusaders were left untouched, the people retained their property, and they were allowed to worship freely.

Anti-Semitism

 
No Crusade was ever called against the Jewish people. Sadly, there were unprovoked attacks on Jewish settlements by some rogue Crusaders, but the Church actually spoke out against them and some local bishops, clergy, and laity attempted to defend the Jews against them. Again, this is comparable to modern warfare – sometimes soldiers go off and commit horrible acts during war – but that is not an indictment on the legitimacy of the war itself, nor of the ruling authority (provided it did not command nor overlook such acts).

Riches

 
Christians did not go on crusade in order to plunder Muslims or get rich. Becoming a soldier was extremely expensive, and claiming an enemy’s treasure was the usual way of financing war in that day. Many crusading knights ended in bankruptcy. The failure of the Fourth Crusade is often claimed to have been caused by lack of funds. The Seventh Crusade cost more than six times the annual revenue of the crown. Moreover, the casualty rate for crusaders were very high – some say as high as 75 percent. The prospects for survival were low, much less getting wealthy.

Children

 
Ironically, the so-called “Children’s Crusade” of 1212 was neither a crusade nor was it made up of children. Due to religious enthusiasm, some German youth (what most 20th Century westerners would call “adolescents”) proclaimed themselves “Crusaders” and began a march to the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately for them, the sea failed to miraculously dry up to allow them to cross over to the Holy Land for free. The Pope responded that he did not call this “Crusade,” and told them to go back home.

Indulgences

 
Another famous urban legend surrounding the Crusades is even found among Christians. Evangelical scholar Ergun Caner criticizes the Pope for promising, “If you go and kill the infidel, you will be forgiven immediately — Paradise,” and concludes that, “There is fundamentally, no difference between bin Laden, in that case, and the Crusades.” This is a gross misrepresentation.

A Bull of the Crusade granted indulgences to those who took part in the crusades for “all penitential practices incurred by the crusaders provided they confess their sins.” These indulgences were similar to those that had historically been granted to the faithful for helping to build churches, hospitals, orphanages, and monasteries. Unlike the Muslim’s guaranteed “ticket to Paradise” for dying in jihad, an indulgence is “not a permission to commit sin, nor a pardon of future sin; neither could be granted by any power. Indulgences cannot get anyone out of Hell. It is not the forgiveness of the guilt of sin; it supposes that the sin has already been forgiven.”* Rather, indulgences are given for the remission of the temporal punishment due for sin that has been forgiven but not yet expunged by penance. Thus it was the temporal penances associated with forgiveness that were to be remitted.

The promise of ultimate forgiveness of sins required a contrite heart and was offered ahead of time as an assurance that should a faithful Crusader die while on Crusade, his final absolution (“last rites”) was already in place. The characterization of the remission of temporary, purgatorial sufferings of an already-forgiven and Heaven-bound Christian to the singular guarantee of Islamic Paradise for a Muslim assassin who dies in Jihad is fundamentally flawed. The Crusades were presented as penitential acts of devotion, not “get-out-of-hell-free cards.

Holy War?

 
To even tacitly admit that the Crusades were actions motivated by loyalty to Christianity, rewarded by papal indulgences, and sometimes led by the Church, may seem incredible to our modern Western mindset, but it was not unusual at the time. The Church at that time had the political authority and responsibility to protect the West. By the time of the first Crusade, Muslims had already been attacking the Christian West for many centuries. Something eventually was going to be done.

But were the Crusades really “religious wars”? Clearly not all battles between religious groups are over religion, any more than they are battles over language. Much like the Catholic-Protestant battles in Ireland, it simply is the case that some territories are nearly coextensive with certain faith groups (or linguistic groups, or racial groups, or political groups). If the Muslims had invaded India, perhaps we’d be discussing the “Hindu Crusades” – but they invaded the Holy Land and had their sights set on Christian Europe. Religious motivation was involved in a big way, of course, but the Crusades were not violent means of spreading religion – they were responses to Islam’s actions. Further, not all battles are “wars.” If a city gets attacked by invaders, the people can protect themselves and their city, or help may be sent from another city, without a formal declaration of war.

Just War?

 
Unfortunately, the Crusades are often simply lumped in with “religious wars” and treated according to whatever standard one uses to judge such events. Ergun Caner compares the Christian Crusades to Islamic Jihads. He believes that there was “a fundamental quantum shift that took place at the calling of the Crusades. Up until the Crusades, we had operated under a ‘just war criteria.’” Caner complains that, unlike the Iraq conflict for example, “Pope Urban [II] crossed the line from a ‘just war’, in Latin ‘bellum iustum’ to ‘holy war’, or ‘bellum sacrum.’” Caner goes on to criticize the Crusades for not being called by a secular authority, not distinguishing between combatants (he gives no justification for this claim), and for desiring to “kill the infidel instead of convert the infidel.” This seems to be a flawed analogy though, as the Crusades were a defensive act against an aggressor – not a formal war.

But even if one considers the Crusades wars, Just War Theory would not necessarily rule against them. Augustine’s criteria for a just war are that it be called by a right authority (Jus ad Bellum) and conducted in the right way (Jus in Bello). These criteria were commented on by Thomas Aquinas, who said the following:
 

“First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. For it is not the business of a private individual to declare war…(Romans 13:4)…and for this reason Augustine says, “The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority."

There is nothing here requiring a “secular” authority. Further, it should be noted that the Pope, at this time in history, was not simply a “religious leader” of some sect (like Osama bin Laden). The Pope sat at the head of the Christian world – a world that had been under attack for centuries – and the Crusade he called was to come to the defense of the Christian world (not simply to attack infidels whom he happened to disagree with).
 

"Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. Wherefore Augustine says, “A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly.”

It was appropriate for Christians to defend against attacks, and to try to regain lands which their enemy had seized and desecrated. The Muslims were the cause of this problem, and had been for centuries, and defense of oneself or one’s brothers is certainly just.
 

"Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. Hence Augustine says, “True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good.”

The Crusades might not have been called for the “conversion of the infidel,” but they need not have been to be just. Defending one’s life or land is reason enough to fight – and to the degree that that was intended by the Crusaders, they were in the right.

Conclusion

 
Although many bad things happened during the Crusades, these were not called for by the governing authority. Nor, as it is commonly claimed, were sins committed while on crusade simply forgiven by virtue of their being committed while on crusade. Evil acts were committed during the Crusades because the Crusades were battles fought by fallen humans, and bad things happen in such circumstances. The evil of misdeeds done in a “religious” campaign might be more critically accounted, but they are not necessarily more unusual.

Finally, no misdeeds can be properly blamed on religion unless, of course, a given religion approves of such things.
 
 
Originally posted at Soul Device. Used with permission.
(Image credit: Emyoku)

In this article I wish to offer some clarification on different categories of arguments for the existence of God. I am not weighing in on the relative value any of them here. Rather, I am just pointing out some distinctions and categories that are often confused or missed at the popular level. Also, due to non-standard nomenclature, specific argument titles are not as important as the actual arguments. Regardless of labels, it is important to keep these distinctions in mind when arguing toward various conclusions. As will be shown below, confusing them can have very negative consequences.

Cosmological Arguments

 
Cosmological arguments proceed from the fact of existence of the cosmos to a creator. A key ingredient in the most popular cosmological argument (e.g., the kalam) is the idea that one must avoid an “infinite regress” (i.e., the supposition of an actual infinite quantity).

The main issue I’ve seen here is that many people (e.g., Richard Dawkins) take their understanding of one issue with infinite regresses and then import it into some contingency forms of the argument, like the one crafted from the writings of Thomas Aquinas. The problem is that Aquinas denied the validity of arguing for the beginning of the universe based on an infinite regress, thus he clearly was not supposing such a thing in either the Five Ways or in On Being and Essence.

“Horizontal”  (Kalam) Cosmological Argumentation

The basic form of the “horizontal” or kalam cosmological argument is as follows:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.

The heart and soul of the kalam argument lies in the impossibility of an infinite regression of temporal events. An actual infinite is a set which contains an infinite number of members, the potential infinite, on the other hand, is an ever-increasing set formed by successive addition. Only the potential infinite has, or can have, real existence, for an actual infinite number of things cannot exist (“infinite number” ultimately being a contradiction). So, if the universe had no beginning, then the number of moments before today would be an actually infinite amount of moments. But there cannot be an actually infinite amount of moments, so the universe must have begun and was caused to begin by something outside the universe.

“Vertical” (Contingency) Cosmological Argument 

The “vertical” or contingency argument comes from the work of Thomas Aquinas. Its form is radically different from the "horizontal" argument:

1. A contingent being (i.e., a being that exists but can not-exist) exists.
2. This contingent being must have a cause of its existence that is something other than the contingent being itself, and an infinite number of additional contingent beings cannot provide an adequate causal account for the existence of a contingent being.
3. Therefore, a necessary being (a being that cannot not-exist) exists.

The key issue in premise 2 is that multiple, even infinite, contingent beings cannot ultimately explain the existence of the being we started with. This is not, however, because we cannot have an infinite number of something—it is because an infinite number of contingent beings would never ultimately account for itself (in the same way that positing an infinite number of train cars does not explain the motion of the first train car—there has to be an engine).

(Note: Other contingency arguments, such as Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason, are usually not confused in the above manner and so are not restated here).

Design Arguments

 
These are probably the most confused arguments for God, and it happens all the time. The two main forms, the intelligent design and teleological, are often lumped together.

Intelligent Design Argumentation

Design arguments typically proceed from the identification of various patterns, information, or statistical anomalies to God’s existence as the best explanation for these features. Intelligent design arguments are usually of the form:

1. The universe (or something in it) exhibits some property that is evidence of design (e.g., information, improbability, hospitality to life).
2. Design is always thought to be caused by some intelligence.
3. Therefore, the best explanation for the property is that there exists an intelligent designer who intentionally brought it about.

There are both micro and macro versions of Intelligent Design arguments, some from things smaller than humans (DNA, bacteria, etc.) and some larger (atmosphere, galaxies, etc.). To the extent any of these things are shown to have some kind of design, they are used as evidence of having a intelligent cause. Generally speaking, God is considered that cause.

Teleological Argumentation

“Telos” comes from the Greek word for “ends or goal.” A true teleological argument, therefore, looks forpurposefulness in creation—not simply statistically-improbable states, information codes, or irreducibly complex systems. Aquinas’s argument, for example, relies specifically on the explanation for goal or end-directed natures, activities, or properties found in creation. Goal-directed systems can only be accounted for by the existence of an intelligent being who directs that system.

Further, since all created things seem to operate according to some goal (even goals that are not their own, such as those of rocks and protons), the entire universe can be explained only by the existence of an intelligent being beyond creation.

Moral Arguments

 
There are many version of the moral argument that are often confused as well. Two of the most common versions concern the Moral Law and the Natural Law:

Moral Law Argumentation

The moral law argument is often said to be taken from Romans 2 and was famously used by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. It usually goes something like this:

1. All people recognize that some things are right, and some things are wrong, which requires a standard or law against which things can be judged.
2. Standards and laws requires a lawgiver, or something to ground this law.
3. This universal law requires a lawgiver.

The key here is that moral intuition seems to be built into humans. Because the Moral Law transcends known creation (humanity being at the “top”, so to speak), this universal law requires a lawgiver that  transcends known creation (i.e., God). This, unfortunately, is where the confusion comes in. It is one thing to try to ground morality in God—it is another to explain how we know this moral law. At this point many people confuse the moral law argument with natural law.

Natural Law Argumentation

The term “Natural Law” is sometimes used as equivalent to the “laws of nature,” (i.e., the order which governs the material universe). In these cases, the “law” is really more of a description of what  things are—not necessarily how they should be. Thus, it could refer to rocks falling, plants photosynthesizing, animals sleeping, etc. Natural law arguments, then, proceed from the existence and knowability the nature of things (what they are—not what they do) to moral laws based on those natures:

1. X is a certain kind of thing.
2. Action Y is a good for the flourishing of X.
3. Therefore, Y is moral action for X to perform, and ~Y is bad for X.

Natural laws are derived from observations and experience of things in the world around us. By knowing what something is and what its purpose is, we can objectively determine what is good or bad for it. Thus, it works whether or not natural laws are expanded upon—or explicated by—some deity (for more on this see Dr. Edward Feser’s article). That is why the Natural Law is not the Moral Law “written on the heart” by God, nor part of Divine Command Theory, nor equivalent to God’s group-specific covenental laws. And it is not part of the Moral Law Argument given above. Technically, a non-human alien could observe humanity from another planet and discover natural human moral principles without partaking in humanity’s moral code at all.

Presuppositional Arguments

 
Presuppositional apologists sometimes confuse what they call “the transcendental argument” (that without Christianity, nothing else in reality can be adequately explained) with grounding arguments (aka demonstratio quia).

Transcendental Argumentation

To reason “transcendentally," in this context, is to argue that “X is actually necessary to deny X, therefore X must be the case.” Presuppositional apologists often give the example of logic as being transcendentally necessary, because one must employ logic to deny logic. Since it would be self-defeating to use logic to show that logic cannot be used, the denial of logic can be transcendentally disproved.

Grounding Argumentation

The demonstratio quia ("argument to ground") is similar in that it uses the necessity of one thing in its argument. Unlike transcendental arguments, however, grounding arguments proceed from the existence of some effect to a necessary condition for that effect. The form would be something like this: “X is necessary for Y, so if one denies X, one must also deny Y.”

The key to these differences is that while logic is required to deny logic, morality is not necessary to deny morality. Logic, then, is shown to be transcendentally necessary while God, in the Moral Argument, is not (it is actually a grounding argument: “For morality to exist, God must exist, and morality exists, therefore God exists.”).

The problem is that Presuppositionalists will sometimes give an example of a good transcendental argument, but then switch to grounding arguments in their actual apologetic—even when defending their own system. This confusion also leads some apologists into thinking that Presuppositionalism per se is much stronger and more distinct as an apologetic system than it really is.

Conclusion

 
While basic categories are useful when first learning a subject, eventually the distinctions that justify those categories can become very important. Once you become familiar with these arguments, it will help provoke fruitful dialogue if you get more precise as soon as possible. This is demonstrated by the story of the atheist daughter of a popular Christian apologist who lost her faith when she could not answer a theological question. As is clear from her recounting of her thinking, the question itself was based on her own confusion over natural law and God’s covenant commandments. Confusion about theses arguments, whether by Catholics or atheists, can have real and long-lasting effects.
 
 
Originally posted at Soul Device. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: STL Short Sale)

The Catholic Church is often the victim of the same kinds of urban legends that surround the Titanic or Aspartame. Whether it is the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, chained church Bibles, or Galileo, people are being led to believe falsehood and making bad decisions based on those falsehoods. Given the gravity of the decisions being made, any intelligent person deserves to have the facts.

If there is a hierarchy to urban legends that skeptics use to try to discredit the Catholic Church, the Spanish Inquisition is probably at the top. It’s an easy one, because most people think they know enough about it to not ask questions, and the knee-jerk reaction to the images brought to mind of thousands being tortured or killed for their beliefs are usually all one needs to make the point: the Church is untrustworthy at best, and genuinely evil at worst.

However, it turns out most of what people think they know about the inquisition is simply not true. The urban legends surrounding the Spanish Inquisition span from Reformation-era England to modern-day Fundamentalism, and are unfortunately so widespread that even many Christians believe them. To put it up front: yes, there were abuses done in the name of the Church—some committed by members of the Church. The urban legends concern the nature and extent of the abuses, as well as who was responsible for them. Although the evils present during various phases of the Inquisition were very real, should not be defended, and have been admitted by the Church, many historical misunderstandings and falsehoods based in anti-Spanish or anti-Catholic propaganda remain to this day.

Quick Summary

 
Modern historical research has uncovered facts that dismantle many of these centuries-old falsehoods. Here are some quick corrections concerning popular misunderstandings:

• The Inquisition was originally welcomed to bring order to Europe because states saw an attack on the state’s faith as an attack on the state as well.
• The Inquisition technically had jurisdiction only over those professing to be Christians.
• The courts of the Inquisition were extremely fair compared to their secular counterparts at the time.
• The Inquisition was responsible for less than 100 witch-hunt deaths, and was the first judicial body to denounce the trials in Europe.
• Though torture was commonly used in all the courts of Europe at the time, the Inquisition used torture very infrequently.
• During the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, between 3,000-5,000 people were sentenced to death (about 1 per month).
• The Church executed no one.

What was the Spanish Inquisition?

 
In order to understand the urban legend status of the Spanish Inquisition, one must first understand the Inquisition in general. Existing in various parts of Europe as early as the 12th Century, the inquisition was part of the judicial system of the Church which dealt with heresy. The Bible records instances where God commanded that formal inquiries were to be carried out to discover believers in false religions (e.g., Deuteronomy 17:2–5; 13:5, 17:7, 12; cf. 1 Corinthians 5:13), and this idea was put into practice in the time when the Church and state were much more closely associated than they are today. Although, as part of the Church, the Inquisition was concerned only with its own members, loyalty to the Church assumed loyalty to the State and vice versa. This may seem unfair or oppressive, but it is how things were back then.

The original Inquisition of the 12th Century concerned the Catharists who blended Gnosticism with Manichaeism and believed in two gods. Their beliefs led to potentially civilization-destroying social consequences. Catharists refused to take oaths, which back then meant opposing government authority. Marriage was considered sinful while secret fornication was permitted. Even suicide was encouraged. These were not faithful bands of “Bible Christians” or a hidden “remnant” of true believers trying to avoid the evil institutional Church. Eventually Europe was so endangered by this group heresy that the Inquisition seemed to be a political necessity.

By the late Middle Ages, the subjects of Portugal and Spain were often Muslim or Jewish, and the re-conquering of those lands created a clash between these subjects and the Crown as well as the Church. King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile thus established the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 to weed out any remaining traitor-heretics (mostly focusing on converted Jews). Unlike the historical Inquisition of the Church, this Inquisition was essentially controlled by the secular government (even when staffed by clergy). It thus operated largely outside the control of the Church. In fact, when abuses were reported, Pope Innocent VIII complained to no avail.

Facts and Fictions

 
Two major factors make a fair evaluation of the Spanish Inquisition difficult today. The first is that most of what we think we know about it is simply not true. The second is that we judge the realities of the Spanish Inquisition according to modern Western sentiments. Most of European life in the period covered by the Inquisition would be judged barbaric by this standard, and, ironically, the Inquisition was actually rather progressive compared to the rest of the world at the time. Here are some specific examples:

Fairness in Trials

 
Although the days of having court-appointed lawyers and access to one’s accusers were a long way off, at one time the Spanish Inquisition was widely hailed as the best run, most humane court in Europe. There are records of people committing blasphemy in secular courts so they could have their case would fall under the Inquisition’s jurisdiction. Further, the Inquisition was the first to pronounce Europe’s witch hunt a delusion and prohibited anyone from being tried or burnt for witchcraft (the number of witches killed by the inquisition was less than 100 out of over 125,000 trials).

When the Inquisition found someone guilty of heresy, most of the sentences were not unfair—many simply required the performance of some penitential good works. Heretics were unrepentant threats to the state—not confused, simple folk (in fact, the Inquisition had little impact on the vast majority of people because it simply did not exist in many rural areas). Finally, while verdicts of guilty or not-guilty fell to the inquisitors, the use of violent punishments was up to the secular authorities.

Use of Torture

 
Most of the torture and executions attributed to the Church during the various inquisitions didn’t occur at all, and historians now concede that Inquisition torture chambers never existed. Torture was indeed used during some Inquisition trials (hardly uncommon for the court system of the time). The Inquisition, though, had strict rules regarding its use that put it far ahead of its time.

Torture was unauthorized until 20 years after the Inquisition began. It was first authorized by Pope Innocent IV in 1252—not as a mode of punishment, but as a means of discovering truth. It was not to be used to threaten life or cause loss of limb, was to applied only if the accused was uncertain and seemed already convicted by many weighty proofs, and after all other options had been used. When it was used it was not to be used more than once, and for no more than 15 minutes. Unfortunately these rules were sometimes circumvented by creative readings of the rule book. Torture was most cruelly used under the pressure of secular authority (Frederick II, for instance, abused the Inquisition to persecute his personal enemies). So, while torture was used in some cases, the idea of continent-spanning torture and death caused by the Church is simply not the case.

There were no rapes, feet burning, creative torture chambers, iron maidens, etc., and reports show that between 98%-99% of all Inquisition trials did not involve torture at all. Compared to secular courts that decreed the death penalty for damaging shrubs in England, or disembowelment for sheep-stealing in France, the Inquisition was actually far more conservative than the secular Europe of the day.

Death Toll

 
No one knows exactly how many people perished because of the Inquisition, but it is thought to be  between 3,000 and 5,000 people during the 350 years of its existence. Some writers quote figures so wildly impossible it is amazing they have any purchase at all (I’ve seen numbers nearing 95 million—more than the entire population of the countries the Inquisition was held in!).

In 1998, Pope John Paul II stated that “The Inquisition belongs to a tormented phase in the history of the Church, which...Christians [should] examine in a spirit of sincerity and open-mindedness...[I]t is necessary to know the facts exactly and to recognize the deficiencies in regard to evangelical exigencies in the cases where it is so.”

Six years later, a symposium commissioned to study the Inquisition released its findings: the total number of accused heretics put to death during the Spanish Inquisition comprised 0.1 percent of the more than 40,000 who were tried. In some cases the Inquisition saved heretics from secular authorities.

Historical vs. Urban Legend Sources

 
If all this is true, then where did the misunderstandings come from? Political attacks on Spain (which was being equated with the Inquisition) and Protestant propagandists (identifying themselves with the heretical “martyrs” of ages past), resulted in the publication of falsehoods that were distributed via the new printing press throughout Europe. People like William of Orange and Montanus basically set the stage for historical thinking on the Inquisition for centuries to come—the so-called “Black Legend” of Inquisition terror. Further, activists, politicians, and even artists turned the Inquisition into a symbol of religious intolerance during the Enlightenment age which followed the Protestant revolution.

In recent years, however, the Vatican opened up its secret archives for historical investigation. Inquisition records that were made by and for the Inquisition were allowed to be researched for the first time in history. Since then, the above facts have been generally discoverable in modern history books (whether Catholic or not). Corrected Inquisition history can be found in sources such as Inquisition by Edward Peters and The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision by Henry Kamen. Comparative secular documentaries include The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition (BBC) and the more sensationalistic The Spanish Inquisition (History Channel).

Conclusion: What Does this Say About the Church?

 
When looking at the facts of the Inquisition, and placing those facts in their proper historical context, the picture we discover is far less terrible than is been believed. Even so, there were certainly abuses committed in the name of Christianity during the Inquisition. The question is, did the Church encourage theses abuses? The Church is most aware of her own failings and that she contains all sorts of sinners. She even knows some of them manage to work their way into positions of authority (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15).

But what matters for the Church, and what it should be judged by, is what it actually teaches. It would be absurd to criticize the Church for something done against what it advocates. Just as we don't judge the efficacy of a medicine by those who refuse to take it, so we should judge the Church only by her actual teachings and official actions.
 
 
Originally posted at Soul Device. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: Paris Ankara)