The “Health and Wealth” Gospel and the U. S.

My wife is searching for a specific book that she is having trouble finding, so we went by the local Christian bookstore to see if they had a copy. While we were there, she received a call from a friend and they started talking. Since I could tell that the conversation was going to last several minutes, I started walking around and looking at books. I had been there earlier in the day (actually, I already had been there three times that day) looking for a specific book, and while I was there I had browsed their theology section.

So, I walked over to the magazine rack and saw the current issue of Christianity Today. The cover story was about the Prosperity Gospel–what I called in this post’s title the “Health and Wealth” gospel–and its rapid acceptance in Africa. Not surprisingly, the doctrine that Christ wants his followers to be materially wealthy, more wealthy than they could have ever imagined, is spreading fast through some of the poorest areas in the world. One of the preachers that the article discusses has a golden throne (!) that he sits on during worship services.

Anyway, I am always concerned about such abuses. I do not believe that Jesus blesses His followers in the manner that some of these Prosperity Gospel preachers teach, but that is not what I want to address in this post. Instead, I want to point out something that I was struck by yesterday while reading that article.

Many Christians resist the Prosperity Gospel; not all do, but there are a numerous segment of Christendom that do reject it. Yet, many of the people who reject it will also endorse the claim that God blessed America with greatness because of her piety and godliness. They believe that the demise of the U.S. is eminent due to our increasing secularization. We often hear these people refer to 9/11 as God’s warning to us. God is going to take His blessings away from our country due to our wickedness. The thing I realized when I was reading the article was that I know many people who reject the doctrine that God wants His followers to be extremely materially blessed, but yet think that if America follows God we will be blessed with power and wealth. Why do they reject the Prosperity Gospel when it applies to individuals but accept it when it applies to nations?

It appears to be inconsistent to me, but then again I might be missing something. I know that some people are careful enough to accept or reject both, or perhaps give a response to the worry that accepting the “Nation Prosperity Gospel” but rejecting the “Personal Prosperity Gospel” is inconsistent.

I will write more about this in a future post.

Three Distinctions

I have had the blessing of studying philosophy over the last few years, and the blessing has been compounded by my opportunity of studying under very talented philosophers who were gifted teachers. I was remarking to one of my teachers the other day that I have found that the most exhilarating thing about studying philosophy is learning distinctions that really clarify one’s thoughts and increases one’s critical thinking ability by many fold. I thought I would share with my readers three distinctions that I have found most useful. I do not promise to fully or clearly explain these distinctions, but I hope I give enough information for my reader to begin making use of the distinctions.

1. Correlation vs. Causation – This distinction gets confused very often in public discourse, especially when political pundits bring out statistics that they believe proves their points. Two objects or events correlate if, when one of them occur, the other occurs (or has a high statistical probability of occurring). Yet, this does not mean that one causes the other. I might say that every time A occurs, B occurs; yet this does not mean that A causes B. If someone had a statistic that said that whenever the minimum wage is increased the unemployment rate increases, this does not mean that the minimum wage hike causes the increase in unemployment. It could, but that still needs to be proven. Also, people often confuse this distinction when discussing historical events. Ludwig von Mises points out in Theory and History that one cannot show connection between historical events unless one approaches the historical events with theory. In other words, theories, such as economic and political theories, cannot be derived from history since if one does not approach the historical events with theories one can only get correlations and not causation from the events.
2. Metaphysics vs. Epistemology – Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy dealing with what is, and epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with our knowledge of what is and the requirements for knowledge. People confuse their metaphysics with their epistemology when they confuse the truth of something with a person’s belief in that thing. For example, if someone argues that since you cannot know something, it cannot be true, they are confusing metaphysics and epistemology. People often do this in religious arguments, especially debates over the existence of God. People will argue that since theists cannot prove God’s existence, then God does not exist. That we do not know that God does not exist does not mean that he does not exist.
3. Necessary vs. Sufficient – If A is necessary for B, then whenever you try to get B you must have A. For example, an engine is necessary for an automobile, so if you have an automobile you must have an engine. However, an engine is not all that you need to have an automobile. You need brakes, seats, a frame, etc. You must have an engine to have a car, but you must have more than an engine if you want a car. A is sufficient for B if, to get B, you do not need anything other than A. If you need a drink, than a Coke is sufficient. To get a drink you do not need anything besides Coke. Notice that if A is necessary for B, then if you have then you must have A. However, if A is sufficient for B, then if you have B you might not have A; after all, C could also be sufficient for B, so that if you have either A or C and nothing else, you can get B. (For example, a Coke is sufficient for you to have a drink, but so is a glass of water. So, if you have a drink I cannot assume you have a coke since you could be drinking water.)

Modus Tolens and Infallibility of the Catholic Church

I know my readers can understand my lack of time to write regular posts; we are all lacking in spare time! My last post as a critique of an argument against Catholicism made by Protestant theologian James White, after which I resolved to critique an argument made by Catholics in favor of Catholicism. Since I am short on time, I have chosen to critique an argument that, though prevalent, is easily refuted. (Or, at least, it is easy to show that there is more work that needs to be done to make the argument valid.)

When I first became interested in Catholicism, I would frequent Catholic theology forums, asking questions about doctrinal specifics, e.g. the Ever-Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Eucharist, etc. Often I would give an argument against a Catholic teaching, hoping to receive good responses to the argument. Of course, many replies to my arguments were given that were often very strong and sometimes devastating, which is what has kept me interested in Catholic theology for almost two years. However, many times someone would respond by saying that the church was infallible and all my arguments against specific dogmas of the Catholic Church were useless if I could not refute the infallibility of the Church. In other words, the doctrine was true if the Catholic Church was infallible, and, therefore, I needed to refute the infallibility of the Church before I could attack the specific dogmas of the Church.

However, an introductory logic course can give one the tools to spot the problems in this response. Let me explain: a certain statement in logic is known as a conditional. These statements take the form of “If p, then q.” – if the proposition p is true, then the proposition q is true. Modus ponens is the rule in logic that says, “Given ‘If p, then q,’ and told that p is true, then it necessarily follows that q is true.” (For example, if it is true that If I go to the store, then I will buy milk, and you know that I went to the store, then you know that I bought milk.)

Modus tolens is a rule that is similar to modus ponens, but works in the opposite way. It says, “Given ‘If p, then q,’ and q is false, then p is false.” If q is false, then p must be false because if it was true, then according to “If p, then q” q is true. But we know q is not true. (For example, if it is true that If I go to the store, then I will buy milk, and you know that I did not buy milk, then you know that I did not go to the store; otherwise, I would have bought milk.)

So, let me return to the response to my arguments against specific Catholic dogmas. If the Catholic Church is infallible in the way she claims, then its dogmas must be true. Notice that this last statement takes the form of a conditional: if p, then q. So, modus tolens can be applied. If I know that one of its dogmas is false, then I know that the Church is not infallible. When attacking a specific dogma of the Catholic Church, I do not have to turn my attention away from that dogma towards the issue of the Church’s infallibility; in proving the dogma’s falsity, I prove the Church fallible.

Let me say that I am neither claiming that the Church is infallible, nor am I claiming that it is fallible; I am also not taking a stand on the truth or falsity of any of her dogmas. I only wanted to point out that logically people are addressing the Church’s infallibility when they address a specific dogma. So, I hope Catholics will stop trying to shift discussions about specific dogmas to the infallibility of the Church: the debate already concerns the infallibility of the Church.

Of course, when one tries to prove that a dogma of the Catholic Church is false and then draw the conclusion that the Church is fallible, one must be more certain that the dogma in question is false then they are that the Church is infallible. If one is more certain that the Church is infallible than one is that a specific teaching of the Church is false, then one will infer that the teaching is in fact true, even if one cannot prove it. So, Catholics can try to argue for the infallibility of the Church to make a person more certain of that than they are of the falsity of the Church’s dogmas, but Catholics cannot honestly claim that logically one must directly refute the infallibility of the Church before turning one’s critical gaze toward specific dogmas of the Church.