OracleOutlook's profile

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 9mo ago

The other alternative theory is that some things just are "brute fact", but that this "brute fact" does not have the features of God in classical theism for whatever reason the philosopher favors.

The question, "Why something, instead of nothing?" isn't at all an easy question, and is not solved by an infinite universe. I don't mean to imply God is an easy answer to the question. Just that there is a differentiation being made by classical theists between God and the universe, and that distinction is "change."

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 2mo ago

there would be a bunch of boring guys getting degrees in it by now, explaining how it all works.

It's called parapsychology, and they have a Journal and various research groups in various Universities including the University of Virginia and UC Santa Barabara.

Materialists reject it out of hand.

3

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 5mo ago

These are words of art that require precise definitions and examples to understand what is even being said here. For example your rebuttal of "quantum superposition" doesn't work on what is meant by the word "form." Without writing a hundred pages on what is meant by the terms Act, Potency, Perfection, etc I cannot defend this argument, and so I will not be defending these arguments in a forum post (or at all, dozens of better people have written these books already.) But please desist from claiming that theists do not give arguments that go from First Cause to the Divine Attributes.

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 6mo ago

This part of the review goes over research on comparing adoptions with adoptions:

If one looks on the surface, findings are mixed with respect to family functioning or children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors. With respect to family functioning, there are few studies, but Erich, Leung, and Kindle (2005) found lower family functioning (d ¼ 0.14) for SSA parents in spite of those parents having advantages in terms of social support and education. After some, but not all, of the relevant variables were controlled, even lower levels of family functioning were found (d ¼ 0.36, p < .07) for the gay and lesbian adoptive families. Even though that discrepancy represented a small to medium effect, its nonsignificance (p < .07) permitted Ryan (2007) and Averett et al. (2009) to argue for the no difference hypothesis. Nevertheless, there were several other factors that were more influential for predicting family functioning than parental sexual orientation. Averett et al. (2009) also examined family functioning and found lower levels for same-sex families of younger (d ¼ 0.14) and older (d ¼ 0.27) chil- dren. Thus, with respect to family functioning, it appears that SSA families are experiencing lower functioning, but the effect sizes are small to medium at most, usually not significant given the small sample sizes involved. There is some evi- dence that same-sex families may do better with younger children than older children with respect to family functioning.

In part 3 of this report, outcomes for children adopted by same-sex parents are considered. Studies conducted within the past 10 years that compared child out- comes for children of same-sex and heterosexual adoptive parents were reviewed. Numerous methodological limitations were identified that make it very difficult to make an accurate assessment of the impact of parental sexual orientation across adoptive families. Samples were often small and nonrandom. Some ‘‘same-sex’’ adoptive or foster parents may be mother–adult daughter heterosexual dyads. Important variables were often overlooked, including social desirability response bias. None of the studies assessed child outcomes in terms of delayed gratification, self-control, impulsivity, emotional self-regulation, or time preference. Most par- ticipating gay and lesbian families were from the socioeconomic elite of U.S. society. Most studies involved the adoption of young children, under the age of six years. Because of numerous methodological limitations, it might be best to hesitate to draw much in the way of firm conclusions from the available research. We still know very little about family functioning among same-sex families with low or moderate incomes, those with several children, or those with older chil- dren, including adolescents. Some important child outcomes (e.g., substance abuse, sexual orientation, educational progress) may not become relevant or apparent until an adopted child reaches adolescence. Within the limited available studies, it appears that same-sex families may report slightly lower levels of family functioning, especially with respect to older adopted children, but most studies have found few differences in children’s internalizing or externalizing behaviors as reported by parents. Two studies appear to have found opposing longitudinal trends in which children in heterosexual adoptive families fared better over time while children in SSA families fared worse. Small to moderate effect size differ- ences were observed in terms of children’s gender role behaviors and attitudes, probably reflecting less traditional gender role attitudes among same-sex parents compared to heterosexual parents.

So mostly you nailed it when you said it was too early. A lot of the negative factors that we would measure couldn't manifest in the literature for a while. Couples adopt kids under 6 years of age, but things like academic excellence, teenage drug and sex habits, etc are things that can only be measured from kids 14+.

However, I am not sure that the average adoptive parent provides better outcomes than average natal parents. When looking at mixed families of adopted and biological children, adopted children receive more attention but have worse outcomes. Could this effect partially negate the socioeconomic effect?

4

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 6mo ago

I'm asking OP to defend one of the consensus-building statements he made, "there are a lot factual errors: ... children raised by two same-sex parents have equal or better life outcomes to straight parents." I'm not arguing for any particular policy regarding where to put kids once one or more of their parents are unwilling or unable to raise them.

3

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 9d ago

I don't really mean for the average person to see percentages. Of course one could calculate percentages after the fact.

I mean for the politicians to only see a percentage on each line item. I mean for politicians to argue that X program should get .01% of the budget, while that program only receives .005%. Percentages are a way of declaring priorities.

And then, after the percentages are selected, the total budget compared to the tax revenue for the previous year is argued about and chosen.

2

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 28d ago

Are we looking at the same Hooper study? It's funny how we can both look at it and zoom on different things:

We found little or no effect of reducing saturated fat on all‐cause mortality (RR 0.96; 95% CI 0.90 to 1.03; 11 trials, 55,858 participants) or cardiovascular mortality (RR 0.95; 95% CI 0.80 to 1.12, 10 trials, 53,421 participants), both with GRADE moderate‐quality evidence.

...

There was little or no effect of reducing saturated fats on non‐fatal myocardial infarction (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.07) or CHD mortality (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.16, both low‐quality evidence), but effects on total (fatal or non‐fatal) myocardial infarction, stroke and CHD events (fatal or non‐fatal) were all unclear as the evidence was of very low quality. There was little or no effect on cancer mortality, cancer diagnoses, diabetes diagnosis, HDL cholesterol, serum triglycerides or blood pressure, and small reductions in weight, serum total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and BMI. There was no evidence of harmful effects of reducing saturated fat intakes.

I looked through a few of the studies they reviewed but most don't really demonstrate a low PUFA/high Sat Fat diet anywhere.

The Black Study reduced fat entirely (not substituting PUFA for Sat fat) and found that keeping fat under 20% of calories helped reduce skin cancer.

The DART Study advised men to increase ratio of PUFA to SFA, but: "The advice on fat was not associated with any difference in mortality." Men who were advised to eat fatty fish did better, but I'm open to the idea that it's the O3:O6 ratio that matters, meaning increasing O3 might be beneficial to people (especially in the context of a high O6 diet).

Then we get to the Houtsmuller study, which look like it's going to actually address the PUFA thesis. Two groups of people fed a controlled diet, one diet has 4x as much Linoleic acid as the other. Sounds good. He doesn't give a lot of details about what is in each diets how he assessed the Linoleic acid quantity in the study. But let's take him for his word. There are a couple details that stand out to me:

First is, "The linolcic acid content of diet II was 4 times that of diet I, being 20.4 gr/1000 kcal for group II and 5.3 gr/1000 Kcal for group I."

According to the PUFA hypothesis, it's more like a cliff than a gradient. Humans naturally eat around 4-5 gr a day of PUFA without seed-oil or mono-gastric animal sources. This study has the Sat Fat group get twice that.

The other detail is they mention one of the sources of Sat Fat, "except for 4 patients of group I who preferred butter over saturated margarines." The Sat Fat group's intervention included getting fed partially-hydrogenated margarine. Which means lots of transfats. The negative effect this study found can possibly be explained by the amount of transfats in the Sat Fat arm of the study.

I'll admit I didn't check every study, but the ones I checked aren't really applicable to anything I'm concerned about. The only one I saw that clearly substituted Linoleic Acid for actual Sat Fat was the Sydney Study, which showed that substituting Margarine for Butter actually increased risk of Cardiovascular disease.

That said, the Sydney study Margarine probably had transfats. I'm not going to state that the Sydney study proves Sat Fat is the best, but it does support my primary point, which is that nutritional studies on fats are Terrible, do not account for common confounders, and a meta-analysis of a bunch of terrible studies does not make for good data.

which again is fine for people without aspirations to build muscle (which doesn't apply to OP).

I'm talking about OP's wife. OP seems to want his wife to become slimmer, not a body builder. I'm indicating that to lose weight might require cutting protein down to the bare minimum (around 50g), something that is left out of a lot of advice. Losing lean mass when losing weight can actually be quite good, as you don't want a lot of extra skin hanging around.

2

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1mo ago · Edited 1mo ago

Sandman, if you haven't already. The other graphic novel I would recommend is Batgirl (2000—2006). It stands on its own and is quite beautiful.

3

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1mo ago

Off topic, but how are you leaning on the DIS fight? Do you think Trian would be an improvement? Is Blackwell Capital even a contender?

A lot of people see it as a fight against woke Disney, or unaffordable Disneyland, or whatever their current complaint is, but I don't think that's a priority for anyone in the fight.

2

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 5mo ago

I am very disheartened to hear that you have deemed the Cosmological argument 'trounced... for decades." I have seen atheists like Dawkins completely misunderstand the Cosmological argument and refute caricatures of it. I have seen some philosophers provide interesting propositions that make supporters of the Cosmological argument need to add details and rebuttals. This is not a stagnant field, and no side has won (though there are several theist arguments that have no good rebuttals yet.)

In your link, rebuttal 1 shows that the author does not understand what is meant by "Cause," because radioactive decay absolutely has a cause. I don't like Craig's argument because the premise "The Universe Had a Beginning" is harder to defend than other premises, and I will not defend WLC's Cosmological argument. A flaw with Rebuttal 2 is that not every event needs to be separated from its cause in time, there are many causes that occur concurrently with the event it causes, like all Essentially Ordered Causes. My ire for Rebuttal 3 increases every time I see it. Just going to quote Feser on this one:

“What caused God?” is not a serious objection to the argument.

Part of the reason this is not a serious objection is that it usually rests on the assumption that the cosmological argument is committed to the premise that “Everything has a cause,” and as I’ve just said, this is simply not the case. But there is another and perhaps deeper reason.

The cosmological argument in its historically most influential versions is not concerned to show that there is a cause of things which just happens not to have a cause. It is not interested in “brute facts” – if it were, then yes, positing the world as the ultimate brute fact might arguably be as defensible as taking God to be. On the contrary, the cosmological argument – again, at least as its most prominent defenders (Aristotle, Aquinas, Leibniz, et al.) present it – is concerned with trying to show that not everything can be a “brute fact.” What it seeks to show is that if there is to be an ultimate explanation of things, then there must be a cause of everything else which not only happens to exist, but which could not even in principle have failed to exist. And that is why it is said to be uncaused – not because it is an arbitrary exception to a general rule, not because it merely happens to be uncaused, but rather because it is not the sort of thing that can even in principle be said to have had a cause, precisely because it could not even in principle have failed to exist in the first place. And the argument doesn’t merely assume or stipulate that the first cause is like this; on the contrary, the whole point of the argument is to try to show that there must be something like this.

It is not special pleading, it's basic logic. The Causal Principle is defined as "whatever begins to exist has a cause." This is a good defense of the Causal Principle. If someone can give a very good argument that A)There exists a series of causes and effects and changes, B) It is not the case that the series has an infinite regress, and C) It is not the case that its members are joined together like a closed loop, then they have given a very good argument that D) Therefore, the series has a First Cause and a first change. And many people have indeed made very good arguments on this, here is one of the latest

If there is a first, uncaused-Cause, and whatever begins to exist has a cause, then the first uncaused-Cause did not begin to exist. If the First Cause did not begin to exist it is not some sort of special pleading to say that it has no cause.

If you then go on to say, "The Universe didn't begin to exist, therefore it does not need a cause," the universe is a set of things that change, and this provides a good defense of "It is not the case that the series has an infinite regress."

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 6mo ago

Are you referring to me linking to "A Review and Critique of Research on Same-Sex Parenting and Adoption?" Because that is a literature review on the research of Same Sex parenting. I didn't dismiss it, it was my supporting document. You don't need to read the whole thing, just the abstract provides a basic gist:

Studies conducted within the past 10 years that compared child outcomes for children of same-sex and heterosexual adoptive parents were reviewed. Numerous methodological limitations were identified that make it very difficult to make an accurate assessment of the effect of parental sexual orientation across adoptive families. Because of sampling limitations, we still know very little about family functioning among same-sex adoptive families with low or moderate incomes, those with several children, or those with older children, including adolescents or how family functioning may change over time. There remains a need for high-quality research on same-sex families, especially families with gay fathers and with lower income.

3

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 6mo ago

Yes, please present me with that evidence? The whole comment was a request for the iron clad evidence.

2

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 6mo ago

Now that I'm near my computer I am more confident that I can reject the idea that all the Jewish immigration during the Ottoman empire were Zionist settlers, but rather the majority were still refugees during this era.

The First Aliyah was assisted and funded by Zionists, but as Wikipedia states:

Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine from Eastern Europe occurred as part of mass emigrations of approximately 2.5 million people[12] that took place towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. A rapid increase in population had created economic problems that affected Jewish societies in the Pale of Settlement in Russia, Galicia, and Romania.[7]

Persecution of Jews in Russia was also a factor. In 1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and the authorities blamed the Jews for the assassination. Consequently, in addition to the May Laws, major anti-Jewish pogroms swept the Pale of Settlement. A movement called Hibbat Zion (love of Zion) spread across the Pale (helped by Leon Pinsker's pamphlet Auto-Emancipation), as did the similar Bilu movement. Both movements encouraged Jews to emigrate to Ottoman Palestine.[citation needed]

Meanwhile, a large number of other Jews in the Ottoman Empire, primarily Yemen, moved to Ottoman Palestine at the same time.

The Second Aliyah was also driven by widespread emigration from Eastern Europe. Two million Jews emigrated, only twenty thousand went to Ottoman Palestine. There were many pogroms at this time, the most well-known being the Kishinev massacre.

The Third-Fifth took place during British rule, so I don't know if I need to keep going to make my point.

If I amended my above scenario to state "Some indigenous groups in less hostile South American countries helped pay for these people's flight to Wyoming, because they were one day hoping for a Native American State" does that substantially change the morality of these people's flight to Wyoming?

2

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 9mo ago

I'm going to start referring to the philosopher's God as pGod, to disambiguate and maybe help distinguish the idea in your mind from any religious upbringing you might have had.

I have no idea what the difference between "God knows all its actions" and "God does not know its actions" are. What does it actually mean for an unchanging system to "know" a thing?

I think it can only be discussed analogously, and determined negatively. Meaning, we can be certain of what pGod isn't, and use all those "isn'ts" to develop an "is." It is so far outside our realm of experience as temporal, complex creatures.

When we know something, we are grasping its form and holding the form somewhere inside our self. As the originator and grounds of all forms, pGod grasps these forms in their most perfect way. That is what is meant by pGod knowing everything.

Also, is there any particular reason that we would expect that the universe we live in is one that is causally downstream of an instance of this specific type of god?

What specific type of god? pGod, the First Cause God? The arguments from casualty, rationality, motion, essence, etc all point to the same type of pGod. They are all arguments for the same God that Is, Existence itself, formulated differently to avoid different objections as they arise, to try to express the idea more clearly.

Or do you mean the omniscient, omnipotent, divinely simple God? The same arguments that make the case for pGod are then continued to require such things. As you can see above, the omniscience follows from the nature of the pGod as the ground of all things, that which is "proved" (philosophically, proof just means a logically coherent argument given certain starting positions) in the argument for pGod.

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 9mo ago

It doesn't seem you're responding to what I'm actually saying so I'm not sure what productive conversation can be had here. I'm not arguing from contingency or motion. I'm not even making an argument for God. I did not say a particular actual infinity of contingent things is impossible - in fact I explicitly said it's possible and how ("brute fact")!

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 9mo ago

That there are real relationships within the universe itself, without which it would be something substantively different, indicates that this is not the answer. Classical Theism requires that God be "divinely simple," composed of no parts that could even be conceptually taken away.

But I will admit we are coming up to the edge of which arguments I remember comfortably. There are lots of distinctions made between types of relationships, causal, change, etc and I have forgotten more here than I remember.

Needless to say, if presented with the box described in the OP, I would open it in a heart beat! I have spent a decent percentage of my life trying to answer the question with the tools I have, and will undoubtedly spend a lot of time in the future on the matter (I have Gaven Kerr's "De Ente et Essentia" on my desk and am trying to psyche myself up for what some have called the best proof for God's existence yet.)

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 9mo ago

I'm not saying "I can't imagine." I said, with the starting position of no contingent things, having an infinite amount of no contingent things does not equal a contingent thing. An infinite series of contingent things that don't exist cannot explain existence. That is what I said, that is what I meant.

Your example relies on a "brute fact:" at least one contingent thing exists. And that is an argument that some philosophers make! It may be true. It is a possible solution. The implications of accepting a "brute fact" haven't been fully unpacked yet but from what I understand it is a possible solution.

I see two possible solutions to the problem of existence: classical theism (at least one non-contingent thing exists) or acceptance of brute facts.

0

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 2d ago

Nicotinamide Riboside: https://www.thorne.com/products/dp/resveracel

1

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 22d ago

I think the difference is before there is addiction, someone might be able to have 3 servings of alcohol a week (or whatever the recommended amount is), without much temptation to binge. But after someone has had an addiction to alcohol and recovered, they cannot have any serving of alcohol without a strong temptation to binge. There are alcoholics who are able to avoid alcohol entirely, but not many who are able to go from alcoholic to having a healthy moderate relationship to alcohol.

1

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1mo ago

It supports the narrative that most Israelis can just "go back where they came from."

1

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1mo ago

But for every person like me, there's someone living at their parent's house (parental support), that their parents own (home ownership), with a long term girlfriend. There isn't a material difference between them and the requirements you list. The things keeping them from having kids are attitude and perception.

1

Context

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 2mo ago

I'm assuming you're treating the covenant referred to here as roughly the same as the Mosaic one? That one definitely does promise life: "the one who does these things shall live by them," which Paul quotes in Galatians.

Do you believe that Jews who followed the Law went to Heaven without Jesus's death, and in fact would have made it to Heaven without Jesus' death? I never heard that position before, but Paul's quote in Galatians does not support it. Galatians 3:11-12: "Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”" The full quote is clear, the law is based on "living by" i.e. performing actions. It's not saying the law provides eternal life.

(I'm going to start using the Lattrimore translation, because I'm noticing a lot of theological language smuggled in when I switch between NRSV and NIV. Lattrimore was a secular Greek translator who is most famous for his excellent translation of the Iliad. He did become Episcopalian towards the end of his life, but this conversion was after he translated the New Testament. I think we're both trying to figure out the words as Paul wrote them, and short of studying Greek this is the best resource I can get.)

Let's go back to Romans. Paul starts Romans off with discussion of Pagan wickedness. Then he broadens it to discuss everyone's (even Jewish) sinfulness.

Romans 2:6-8: Through your hardness and your unrepentant heart you are storing up for yourself anger on the day of anger and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will give to each according to his actions: to those who, through steadfastness in doing good, strive for glory and honor and incorruptibility, he will give everlasting life

This doesn't sound like sole fide.

Then we have Romans 2:12-15 "For those who sinned outside the law will also perish outside the law: and those who sinned while within the law will be judged according to the law. For it is not those who listen to the law who are righteous in the sight of God, but it is those who do what is in the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what is in the law, they, without having the law, are their own law; and they display the work of the law engraved on their hearts;"

So from the beginning, Paul is referencing the Law as referred to Torah observance. Gentiles "do not have the Law", but "display the work of the law engraved on their hearts." Paul seems really concerned with telling Roman Jews that Gentiles are able to do good without being Jewish. Because they are Gentiles they aren't participating in the nation-building or ceremonial aspects of the Jewish law, but rather the natural law or the moral law.

Throughout this, Paul is admonishing the Jewish people in Rome to not boast. They are just as sinful as the Gentile populace.

Now we move to Romans 4. So that I am not accused of ignoring any detail, I will go through section by section and explain how it makes perfect sense from a Catholic view:

1-5: What then shall we say of Abraham, our forefather in the way of the flesh? If Abraham was justified because of his actions, he has reason for glorying; but not before God, since what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness in him. For one who does something, repayment is counted not as grace but as his due; but for one who does nothing, but believes in him who justifies the impious man, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Abraham is the patriarch, the father of the Jewish people. Abraham cannot boast because he had no power in himself to justify himself. Instead, God reaches out to Abraham and (despite some shakiness on Abraham's part) Abraham responds with faith. It is Abraham's response that counts as righteousness. Abraham believing God would give him descendants was a good/just/righteous action - it counts as righteous. It doesn't count as neutral or evil.

God singling Abraham out is a huge grace that Abraham received. Abraham did not deserve God's offer of a covenant. It is Abraham's faith in God that was considered the righteous action.

6-12 So David also says of the blessedness of the man whom God counts as righteous, apart from his actions: Blessed are they whose lawless acts have been forgiven and whose sins have been hidden away. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count. Now, is this blessedness for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? Since we say the faith of Abraham was counted as righteousness. How then was it counted? In his circumcised or uncircumcised state? It was when he was not yet circumcised, but still uncircumcised. And he received the mark of circumcision, the seal upon the righteousness of that faith he had when he was still uncircumcised; to be the father of all those who are believers through their uncircumcised state so that righteousness could be counted for them, and also to be the father of the circumcised for those who not only have been circumcised but also walk in his footsteps through the faith, which our father Abraham had when he was still uncircumcised.

Abraham was able to achieve one canonically righteous action (his faith in God's promise) before being circumcised. Therefore, the uncircumcised Gentiles can also consider Abraham their Father in Faith (see that this is contrasted to verse 1, Abraham as the forefather in the way of the flesh.) And the circumcised are also supposed to walk in faith just like Abraham.

13-15 For the promise to Abraham, or his seed, that he should be the inheritor of the world, was not on account of the law, but of the righteousness of his faith. For if the inheritors are those who belong to the law, then the faith is made void and the promise is gone; for the law causes anger, but where there is no law there is no lawbreaking.

God told Abraham that the his descendants would inherit before the Torah existed. Abraham's faith was righteous (not imputed righteousness, but unqualified righteous.) It cannot be that only those who follow the Law of Moses will inherit the world, because the law by itself does not justify. "The law causes anger." This ties back to Chapter 3 verse 20: "since through the law comes consciousness of sin." The law only reveals human weakness. No one was ever going to follow the Torah all the way to Heaven.

16-21 Thus (it is) because of faith, and thus by grace, that the promise should hold good for all his seed; not only for him who has the law but for him who has the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all, as it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. It held good in the sight of God, in whom he believed, the God who puts life into the dead and summons into existence the things that do not exist. He against hope believed in the hope that he would become the father of many nations according to what had been said, that is: Thus shall your seed be. And Abraham, without weakening in his faith, knew that his own body was that of a dead man, since he was about a hundred years old, and he knew the dead state of Sarah’s womb, but he was not distracted with unbelief in God’s promise but was strengthened in his belief, giving glory to God and assured that God was able to do as he had promised.

Description of Abraham's act of faith. Restatement that faith is a gift, an unearned grace. Restatement that Abraham is the father of all those who have faith as well as the father of Jews in flesh. There is a little bit of a comparison between God bringing life from Abraham and Sarah's dead bodies and God bringing spiritual life from the spiritually dead Gentiles, but Paul doesn't really elaborate there.

22-25 Thus it was that faith counted as righteousness in him. But it was not written for him alone that it was so counted for him, but also for us for whom it is to be counted, for us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was betrayed for our sins and raised up again for our justification.

Abraham's faith was righteous. God made sure that this passage was included in Genesis so Paul could win this argument with the Romans that the uncircumcised can be saved. I see very clearly the Catholic view of God sending grace, Abraham accepting the grace, and then that action of accepting the grace counting as righteousness.

This whole process is about how Abraham was justified, not his becoming righteous with this as one step of a broader whole (note: an aorist in 4:2, meaning a simple past action.

Abraham was dead when Paul wrote his letter, so whether he was justified or not would have happened in the past, not as something ongoing. But 4:2 is an ironic negation - Abraham wasn't justified because of his action. Also, the aorist simply states the fact that an action has happened. It gives no information on how long it took, or whether the results are still in effect. An aorist could mean that the action took years. But however long it took, it's over now because Abraham is dead.

Chemnitz' examination of the council of Trent

All four volumes are $180, do you know which volume or page number you're thinking of?

Alister McGrath is a reputable Evangelical historian. His book on the history of justification - Iustitia Dei - is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject. McGrath writes, "[If] the nature of justification is to be defended, it is therefore necessary to investigate the possible existence of 'forerunners of the Reformation doctrines of justification...' [This approach] fail in relation to the specific question of the nature of justification and justifying righteousness... A fundamental discontinuity was introduced into the western theological tradition where not had ever existed, or ever been contemplated, before. The Reformation understanding of the nature of justification - as opposed to its mode - must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum."

One of the foremost Evangelical scholars on the topic could not find a historical belief in Forensic Justification or the imputed righteousness of Christ. I know that many Protestants believe in a great apostasy. But I personally expect that those who lived closest to Paul's time and spoke Greek in the same cultural context would best understand what Paul's message is. And no one in the Patristic age read Romans and thought, "Forensic Justification."

For example, St. Clement of Rome who was bishop of Rome from 88 AD to 99 AD wrote, "Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works and not our words." (1 Clement 30) This is someone who lived in Rome and likely read the first edition of the letter Paul wrote. This is someone who knew Peter and Paul - Paul references Clement in Philippians 4:3. If Paul was arguing sole fide, why was Luther the first one to understand it?