For the benefit of those who may not know, I should point out that Dr. Gleason Archer is the guru of modern biblical inerrantists. In defending the inerrancy doctrine, they probably quote his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties more often than any other apologetic reference work, so I am delighted to publish a tirade that he directed at me in a letter that arrived unexpectedly in mid-May. It will give TSR readers the opportunity to see that even one of the best apologists that inerrantists have to offer really has no convincing evidence that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant "word of God." About all he can do is preach.
I'm somewhat confused about Dr. Archer's references to my "recent correspondence," because I have not written to him since 1993. Two years before, I sent him a complimentary subscription to The Skeptical Review and requested his opinion of it, which after two follow-up inquiries, he finally sent in a letter dated October 28, 1991. Needless to say, his opinion wasn't complimentary. In response, I contacted him and proposed a debate on biblical inerrancy at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, where he was a Bible professor at the time and may still be. On February 16, 1993, he wrote me to reject the debate proposal on the grounds that it would be "as pointless for [him] to debate [me] as it would be for either of us to debate with Mary Baker Eddy about the reality of matter." My correspondence files for that year show no response that I sent to this letter, which was quite emphatic in its rejection of the debate proposal. I am therefore at a loss to understand Dr. Archer's reference to my recent correspondence or why he would write to me after five years.
His letter, almost in its entirety, was a resort to the fallacy of undesirable consequences. This fallacy results when one opposes a proposition on the grounds that if it is true, undesirable consequences will ensue. Dr. Archer apparently thinks that if his god-view is not true, then our existence is totally meaningless, so he seems to reason that the undesirability of this consequence must mean that his god does exist. Aside from the absurdity of believing that a proposition can be made true just by wanting it to be true, the proposition itself is absurd. Even if Archer's god does exist, people live their entire lives without ever seeing him, yet they are obviously able to live meaningful lives. I certainly believe that my life has meaning, and that is because I have assumed the responsibility of giving it meaning. Except in cases where there are debilitating handicaps, anyone else can do the same, because whether an individual's life has meaning depends more on the individual than any other factor, so if Dr. Archer thinks that his life would have no meaning without a god-crutch to lean on, I feel sorry for him. He needs to find the personal initiative and imagination to give direction and purpose to his life without leaning on some god-idea that may well be false.
No atheist bashing would be complete unless the theist regurgitated the usual threats and denunciations, and so Dr. Archer didn't disappoint us. He said that the "most degenerate terrorist stands on the same plane of meaningless that [I] do," but I would beg to differ with him. Since many terrorists are motivated by beliefs that they are doing the will of whatever gods they may believe in, it would be more accurate to say that the most degenerate terrorist stands on the same plane of meaningless that Dr. Archer does. I personally prefer to stand on a higher plane than that of a racist god who ordered the massacre of women, children, and infants who happened not to have been born in the nation that he had chosen to be his "special people."
Dr. Archer ended his tirade with the usual Christian warning of what awaits those who "have defied God," but he seems to have confused me with those who are credulous enough to believe in vengeful gods and judgment days. Such rhetoric is wasted on those whose lives are not directed by superstitious fear.
Meanwhile, I will renew my proposal that Dr. Archer and I
debate biblical inerrancy at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School so
that the ministerial students there will have an opportunity to
consider both sides of the inerrancy question. We will eagerly await
his answer.
