On an athestic response to Easter

For Easter, Michael Egnor put up a small post, wherein he quotes an essay of one Nathaniel Peters concerning a recent reflection of Pope Francis concerning grace and Pelagianism:

On this greatest of holidays, Nathaniel Peters has an essay on Pope Francis' beautiful reflection on grace and pelagianism.

Peters:

One of the greatest theological diseases we find in contemporary Catholicism [Ilíon: and amongst Christians in general] is pelagianism, the notion that we’re all basically good people whose moral improvement and salvation is the result of our good actions. In this mindset, God’s grace becomes less consequential because it’s less necessary. [On this false view,] At its heart, Christianity is about doing good things.

Throughout history, great theologians have combated pelagianism: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and, in our own time, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Benedict XVI. They have reminded us that, at its heart, Christianity is a love story in which God seeks us out and draws us closer to himself. The first move belongs to God, and any real good we do is a gift from him, enshrouded with his own love. In this understanding, God’s grace has the primacy and priority. ...

As we seek the Lord and His grace, Francis reminds us that our encounter with Him is a gift, freely given to us and unearned by us. Our good works are not what earn us grace. They are grace, working in us.

His gift to us was earned, but not by us.

Happy Easter to all.

Naturally, a certain of the foolish and self-contradictory lying atheist-and-leftists who infest Engor's blog just had to spout off:

What a lovely religion Christianity is! Asserting that basically all humans are totally depraved.

Frans de Waal has recently published a book 'the Bonobo and the Atheist' dealing with the evolution of morality in social animals, including wolves, elephants, whales, gorillas, common chimps and bonobos.

Were he not an atheist, he'd be an adherent of pelagianism. He notes that the human urge to help and cooperate is innate. On neuroimaging studies, activation of centres to cooperate occur earlier and more easily than those causing self serving actions.

Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), were he not an agnostic, would have been an adherent of utter depravity, insisting that humans are basically selfish and egoistic, with only a thin veneer of altruism for show. 'Scratch an altruist, and a hypocrit[e] bleeds'.

He'd fit nicely in the Catholic Church were it not for the fact that he'd be unlikely to seek a relationship with God.

I'm glad I don't belong to a religion that insists that I have to seek 'grace' before I can do any good. And even then, I'm not responsible for any good I do.

'bachfiend': "What a lovely religion Christianity is! Asserting that basically all humans are totally depraved."

One has merely to observe other human beings to see the truth "that basically all humans are totally depraved" One has merely to be honest about oneself to admit the truth that one, too, is totally depraved.

So, what 'bachfiend' is here objecting to in Christianity is that it demands honesty concerning human beings ... and concerning one's own self. Ultimately, this self-idolaty, this refusal to admit that oneself is morally depraved, is at the root of all anti-Christianity.

BUT NOTICE: 'bachfiend' -- an explicit-and-rabid God-hater -- is asserting a moral objection to Christianity! TO WIT: that Christianity is morally depraved because it insists that all human beings are both morally depraved and utterly helpless to make themselves moral, that we are unable to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps to a "higher moral plane".

Consider this carefully: 'bachfiend' explicitly denies that there is any such thing as a moral obligation, that there is such a thing as moral goodness, that anything can possibly be morally wicked. But, that doesn't stop him from constantly making moral assertions (*).

His religion, both in its metaphysics (that is, God-denial) and in its practical application (that is, evolutionism), demands that he deny the reality of morality.

Well, as luck would have it, no one ever said that 'atheists' were logically or rationally consistent.


(*) All 'atheists' -- just as all other human beings -- constantly make moral assessments and moral assertions. It doesn't matter whether the 'atheist' is a rabid God-hater, as 'bachfiend' or as most of the regulars at Skeptical Eye, on the one extreme, or a more measured or low-key 'atheist', who can generally keep his disdain under control, as Jordan or Bede. Human beings cannot *not* make moral judgments.


'bachfiend': "Frans de Waal has recently published a book 'the Bonobo and the Atheist' dealing with the evolution of morality in social animals, including wolves, elephants, whales, gorillas, common chimps and bonobos.

Were he not an atheist, he'd be an adherent of pelagianism. He notes that the human urge to help and cooperate is innate. On neuroimaging studies, activation of centres to cooperate occur earlier and more easily than those causing self serving actions."

Which is to say, morality s not *real*: what we call 'morality' is just certain behaviors, supposedly evolutionarily advantageous -- in the past, but we're all over that, now, now that we have 'Science!' -- caused by the way our neurons generally fire, for most of us, most of the time. If 'Evolution!' had just happened to go a different way than it just happened to go, well then, our ideas of "morality" might well be different.


'bachfiend': "Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), were he not an agnostic, would have been an adherent of utter depravity, insisting that humans are basically selfish and egoistic, with only a thin veneer of altruism for show. 'Scratch an altruist, and a hypocrit[e] bleeds'.

He'd fit nicely in the Catholic Church were it not for the fact that he'd be unlikely to seek a relationship with God."

Apparently, Thomas Huxley understood the meaning of the metaphysics he was pushing.