Roe v. Wade at 43: Critiques and Reflections

Today, January 22, 2016, is the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973), the opinion that declared abortion a constitutional right.  Over the years I've published several online analyses of Roe v. Wade and its logic:

"Abortion and Human Equality." Interview in National Review Online (22 January 2014)

"Roe at Forty, Part 1: The Court's Failure to Address the Unborn's Moral Status," The Catholic Thing

(4 January 2013)

"Roe at Forty, Part 2: The Court's Two Unwarranted Stipulations," The Catholic Thing (4 January 2013)

For those looking for a more extensive critique of Roe, in chapter 2 of my 2007 book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press), I offer a detailed analysis of Roe and some subsequent Supreme Court opinions on abortion.

Although I do not critique Roe in my most recent book--Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015)--it includes a chapter relevant to some of the philosophical and legal issues central to the abortion debate: "Personhood, Prenatal Life, and Religious Belief." 

Tump's "Freedom Kids" and Obama's "Children of Change": What Do They Tell Us?

This video, featuring the Trump-supporting "Freedom Kids," has received a lot of attention and ridicule online:

In 2008, this video, featuring Obama-supporting "Children of Change," received a lot attention and ridicule online:

Both videos, though cringe-inducing, express legitimate longings on the part of certain segments of the American populace. Our political leaders and opinion writers ignore these sentiments at their own peril.  A presidential candidate who can tap into these deep yearnings in a way that is intelligent and respectful while being assertive and non-abrasive will win the White House.

Why Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God - Part II

That's the title of my most recent contribution to The Catholic Thing (TCT), which was published online this morning. It is a follow-up to my December 17, 2015 TCT piece,"Do Muslims and Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?"  The occasion for writing the original essay was the controversy surrounding Wheaton College (IL) professor, Larycia Hawkins, who put on administrative leave for publicly claiming that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Earlier this week Wheaton began termination proceedings against the professor. 

This is how today's piece begins: 

On December 17 on this page I addressed the question of whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. I gave the same answer given by Vatican II, and by the

Catholic Church since the Council: yes. Muslims and Christians do worship the same God, even though Islam holds an imperfect understanding of the divine, since it denies Christ’s divinity and thus, by implication, God’s triune nature. 

As the Church declared in Nostra Aetate (1965): “[Muslims] adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men. . . .Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet.” 

This argument prompted several critical replies, almost exclusively from non-Catholic Christians, including distinguished thinkers such as Albert Mohler, Andrew Walker, Matthew Cochran, and Peter Leithart. (To say nothing of a raft of outrage from TCT readers.) Each, with differing emphases, correctly documents what Christians believe are the inadequacies of Muslim theology given how God has progressively revealed himself through history as taught in Scripture. I do not dispute this point; it is actually consistent with my argument. Let me explain. 

The Church’s view rests on the distinction between “general” and “special” revelation. The former concerns those truths about God that can be known through unaided human reason; the latter, those truths about God known only through Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and/or the Holy Spirit speaking through the magisterium. (Many Protestants also accept this distinction, though they only include Scripture under the category of special revelation). 

In order to better grasp this distinction, let’s consider an argument for the existence of a Creator God offered by the Persian Muslim philosopher, Al-Ghazali (1058-1111 AD): the “Kalam Cosmological Argument.” It figures prominently in the work of Evangelical philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig. He summarizes the argument in this way:

>>> continue reading

Carl Trueman selects Taking Rites Seriously as one of his top 4 books of 2015

Over at Reformation 21, the website for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, theologian Carl Trueman lists my new book, Taking Rites Seriously, one of the top 4 books of 2015.  Here's Professor Trueman's list:

R. Kent Hughes and Douglas Sean O'Donnell, The Pastor's Book (Crossway). This book is an extremely helpful handbook on all aspects of the pastoral task.

Francis J. Beckwith, Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge). Given the growing pressure on religious freedom, it is important for Christians to understand how the law works, both institutionally and culturally. These connected essays by Frank Beckwith are superb.

Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (Bloomsbury). I

read everything I can by Scruton. Witty, learned and always very helpful. Any man who can speculate as to whether there is more to Habermas's theory of communicative action than 'his inability to communicate it' is well worth reading.

P J O'Rourke, Thrown Under the Omnibus (Atlantic Monthly). My Christmas holiday reading. A fat selection of the best writing of one of the funniest political and cultural commentators around.

Carl Trueman holds the Paul Woolley Chair of Church History and is professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He writes regularly for the First Things blog, First Thoughts, and hosts the podcast, Mortification of Spin. 

Me, Carl Trueman, and the Mortification of Spin team--
Aimee Byrd, Todd Pruitt, and Alicia Elaine Ward--in Atlanta last November

Book Recommendation: God Without Parts by James E. Dolezal

Over the Christmas break I read the 2011 book by James E. Dolezal, God Without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (Pickwick Publications, 2011).

When the book was first released, Dr. Dolezal dropped me a kind note in order to bring his book to my attention.  I was grateful for the suggestion, but at the time I was too busy working on several projects including my most recent book, Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015).  Now that I am working on a book on Thomas Aquinas and Evangelicals--which is probably at least two years away from completion--I wanted to reacquaint myself with some of the issues in philosophical theology that originally drew to me philosophy as a young man. Among those issues is the question of divine simplicity, the doctrine that God is simple. It is a doctrine--embraced as uncontroversial by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformed traditions until fairly recently--that maintains that God is not a composite entity. In fact, he is not an entity at all, but the Transcendent Creator and Source of all that is non-divine.

Yale's God and Human Flourishing Program: "The Same God?"

Just found this interesting collection of papers via Fr. Al Kimel's blog.  Located online at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, you can find the papers here. This is how "The Same God?" consultation is introduced: 

The consultations immediately preceding The Same God? investigated what it means for human beings to flourish—and of the centrality of God’s power and activity to our highest flourishing considered from the standpoint of Christian theology. But what difference do alternate religious standpoints make to such an account of human flourishing, and how are we to consider the “God” invoked in “God and Human Flourishing” given religious pluralism? Specifically, to what extent can one assume the sameness of the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—the three great monotheistic faiths whose followers comprise over half of humanity? 

This question has a significant bearing on human flourishing: if God is integral to human flourishing, then whether this majority of humanity is worshipping the same God is a poignant question. Many Christians agree that Jews, Christians and Muslims do worship the same God, although many more Christians hold this to be true with regard to Judaism than to Islam. What remains rather unclear and largely unexamined in scholarly literature is the exact basis on which Christians claim that they do (or do not) worship the same God as Jews and Muslims—a central point of investigation for this consultation.Select papers from this consultation were published in a volume by Eerdmans Publishing Co. titled Do We Worship the Same God?  

Again, you can find the papers here.

Muslims, Christians, and the Same God: Round-Up with Advice to Volf and Clark (with Addendum)

Since the publication of my December 17, 2015 piece over at The Catholic Thing--"Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?"--many others have commented on the topic as well.  

Those generally in the "yes" column include.....

• Edward Feser
• Fr. Al Kimel
• Dale Tuggy
• Miroslav Volf
• Michael Rae
• Kelly James Clark
• John G. Stackhouse

Those generally in the"no" column include.....

• Andrew T. Walker
• Albert Mohler, Jr.
• Lydia McGrew
• Matthew Cochran
• Richard B. Davis
• Nadeel Qureshi
• Kevin Bywater
• Scot McKnight

Those who think the question is too complicated to offer a quick and easy answer include....

• Bill Vallicella (with follow-up posts here and here)
• Peter J. Leithart (with a follow-up post)
• Roger Olson

The occasion for so much commentary on this topic over the past three weeks is the controversy surrounding Dr. Larycia Hawkins, a Wheaton College political science who claims that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Some argue that this may violate the school’s statement of faith, to which all faculty must subscribe.

Although I disagree with those at Wheaton College (and elsewhere) who make this claim, I think it is uncharitable to accuse them of harboring anti-Muslim bigotry, as both Volf and Clark charge. It seems to me that those who take the "no" side on the question of whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God are defending a reasonable position, though it is one that I (along with Volf and Clark) think is mistaken. 

If Volf and Clark seek to persuade those with whom they disagree, they should take a page out of their own book and extend the same charity to their fellow Christians that they (rightfully) believe their fellow Christians should extend to their Muslim neighbors. 

Addendum: Both Clark and Volf respond in the combox. I am grateful for their replies and clarifications. They are scholars from whom I have learned much. 

Let me address each of their comments.