[RD] Ask a Theologian V

[Agent327]

I think Cynovolans is referring to the fact that the angel and resurrection tale is a later addition. It was not part of the original story.

There has also been made an argument by a theologian that the grave was indeed not empty. Which obviously would preclude any resurrection, and explain why Mark ended with 6:18.

Is Plotinus on vacation, I am wondering?

 

[_random_]

Nah, the earliest manuscripts of Mark end like this:

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Mag′dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salo′me, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. 6 And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.

So the angel (although not named as such in this account) appears, and the Resurrection explicitly occurs, although there's nothing said about Jesus actually appearing to anyone after the fact. That's the oldest extant Passion narrative we have, make of it what you will.

 

[Plotinus]

Pretty Hinduish as a foundation. Does Origen fit into any of his thinking?

Is there a connection there? Origen was, after all, no Hindu. I doubt very much that Aquinas had read any Origen - his knowledge of Origen would have been entirely second-hand, via Augustine. Origen was at heart a Platonist, and so too was Augustine, and so too, really, was Aquinas, though he didn't know it. So there's a sort of indirect influence there. But I can't think of anything particularly Origenist about Aquinas in particular.

So, Plotinus, you've been calling out an argument a lot lately, but I'm not exactly sure what the problem is, or exactly which of these two arguments it is:

1. The universe is complex, so the creator of the univers has to be equally complex. Therefore you can't use the complexity of the universe to argue for the existence of god.

This one I get. Case in point, the solar system used to be a bunch of gas in a rotating disk. Now on earth we have living organisms, far more complex. So I see that this doesn't hold

However, if the arguement is simply:
2. If you say the univere needs to have been created, you have to accept that the creator of the universe has to have been created (and that creator's creator again and so forth). Therefore, there is no reason to assume that the universe isn't created "out of nothing"

I'm not entierly sure about the flaw in this argument. Can you enlighten me?

I'm not a theologian, but that just makes sense to me from "basic logic" principles.

If you claim that "Everything requires a creator", then each creator also requires a creator.

If you on the other claim that "Not everything requires a creator", then the universe itself doesn't necessarily require a creator.

This is the answer. You can't say "Everything has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause," and then go on to say "God is uncaused." That's inconsistent. Of course it might happen to be the case that the universe has a cause and God doesn't, but then it's not true that everything has a cause, and so the argument for God breaks down.

The more rigorous version of the argument is not that every thing requires a creator, but that every effect or change requires a cause.

The universe in which we live is clearly constantly changing, and so requires a cause (or many causes) to explain how this mutable state came to be.

The "God of the Philosophers" is posited to be completely immutable; he would not only not require a cause, but could not possibly have any cause.

(This conception of God does not align particularly well with the biblical portrayal of the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," however.)

That version of the argument avoids the inconsistency problem, but it seems to me to hit another problem, which is that the universe itself is not a "change or effect" and so no longer needs a cause. If every change needs a cause, then everything that happens in the universe requires a cause, but there could be a first cause which is not itself a change or effect.

In physics the cause of the universe is the Big Bang. Before that nothing existed. It doesn't require the presupposition of a cause, creator. The problem is not so much 'what caused the universe?', but rather the human inability to accept that something came from nothing. However, before the universe, that is exactly what was there: nothing.

Surely the Big Bang is not the cause of the universe. It's just the cause of everything in the universe that comes after it. The fact that everything contingent exists at all can't be down to the Big Bang, because the Big Bang is one of those contingent existents, isn't it? (There might not have been a Big Bang.) It seems to me that asserting that it doesn't need a cause is as unwise as asserting that it does. We don't know.

Simply postulating that before the universe there was God ignores two problems:

1) before the universe there no time and no space (i.e. there was no 'before' the universe).

2) what is the cause of God? (Postulating in addition that 'God needs no cause' is basically ignoring the question by saying ' we don't ask that' c.q. 'we don't answer that question'. From a physical point of view it simple means: first God popped into existence, and next the universe. It doesn't provide any kind of explanation, but merely transposes the question as to the why or how to God.)

The theist's answer to that is that God is outside time. So he wasn't temporally "before" the universe, only logically and causally prior to it. He didn't "pop into existence" because there was never a time when he didn't exist; or, more properly, he exists in no time at all.

I have taken a class on the New Testament and was surprised when the professor said the oldest manuscripts of Mark we have end at 16:8 with the women fleeing Jesus' tomb and telling no one of the angel or the resurrection. I thought that ending(and apparently so did later scribes) was disappointing. The professor and the textbook(Ehrman's New Testament) said this was fitting of Mark's theme of fear overpowering faith. But I don't understand how this ending would have won any converts. It leaves a lot of open questions. How did anyone know there was a resurrection if the women told no one? How does the author know any of this? Didn't Jesus have something really important to tell the disciples?

I think I'm rambling but I guess my question is why would Mark end his gospel without any resolution?

Yes, this is weird and no-one has ever really explained it satisfactorily, as far as I know. There's even some doubt over whether the ending makes grammatical sense, suggesting that it breaks off in mid-sentence. Note also that there is no "angel" in Mark's Gospel - the women are greeted by a young man in a white garment, possibly the same one who lost his garment in 14:51-52. So as _random_ says, Mark's Gospel has the Resurrection, but no risen Jesus. Perhaps one might explain that as intended to mean something like the risen Christ is in all of us rather than out there or something, but that still wouldn't explain the negative tone of the last sentence. It's possible that there was an original ending which is now lost, and this wasn't meant to be the last sentence.

Is Plotinus on vacation, I am wondering?

On research leave in fact, but I'm also looking after a baby now, which turns out to be quite time-consuming.

 

[Agent327]

This is the answer. You can't say "Everything has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause," and then go on to say "God is uncaused." That's inconsistent. Of course it might happen to be the case that the universe has a cause and God doesn't, but then it's not true that everything has a cause, and so the argument for God breaks down.

Very clear. Of course, one might argue that 'everything has a cause' is induced from observation. But God can't be observed in the way the universe can, ergo this 'rule' might not apply to God. (Seeing as God exists irrespective of time and space.)

That version of the argument avoids the inconsistency problem, but it seems to me to hit another problem, which is that the universe itself is not a "change or effect" and so no longer needs a cause. If every change needs a cause, then everything that happens in the universe requires a cause, but there could be a first cause which is not itself a change or effect.

That is less clear. It's also inconsistent with what we know of the physical universe, which is still evolving.

Surely the Big Bang is not the cause of the universe. It's just the cause of everything in the universe that comes after it. The fact that everything contingent exists at all can't be down to the Big Bang, because the Big Bang is one of those contingent existents, isn't it? (There might not have been a Big Bang.) It seems to me that asserting that it doesn't need a cause is as unwise as asserting that it does. We don't know.

You seem to be making a curious difference between a temporal cause and between the universe and 'everything in the universe'. To us, the Big Bang is actually the cause of everything, i.e. the universe. Secondly, the Big Bang no longer exists; the only thing it can be extrapolated from is the residual radiation left over from it - and the still increasing expansion of the universe. So it is logical to assume that prior to the universe there was the Big Bang. It is, however, not logical to assume there was anything prior to the Big Bang - unless one adheres to a continuous expansion and contraction of universes. (Which, incidentally, would explain the 'cause' of the Big Bang, should one feel the need for it.) But, since there was neither space nor time 'before'the Big Bang, any question relating to such a 'before' becomes logically meaningless. In practice, it leaves neither room nor necessity for a Divine Creator. (If you wish, you can put God in front of the Big Bang, but it really doesn't add anything, logically.)

The main point of the Big Bang is that the laws of physics as we know them break down at this point. That is, to be more precise, the physics as we know it, didn't exist until right after the Big Bang. And this would include both time and space.

The theist's answer to that is that God is outside time. So he wasn't temporally "before" the universe, only logically and causally prior to it. He didn't "pop into existence" because there was never a time when he didn't exist; or, more properly, he exists in no time at all.

And apparently also in no space, basically existing in nothing. The phrase 'God is outside time' has no meaning when there is no time, which is a dimension of space. Without a prior (also time-related), there is no need for a cause or a creator. So again, the question gets merely transposed to the why or what of God.

On research leave in fact, but I'm also looking after a baby now, which turns out to be quite time-consuming.

Condolances and congratulations. Hopefully both will work out well.

 

[Cynovolans]

On research leave in fact, but I'm also looking after a baby now, which turns out to be quite time-consuming.

Congratulations! And thanks for the answer.

 

[_random_]

Yes, this is weird and no-one has ever really explained it satisfactorily, as far as I know. There's even some doubt over whether the ending makes grammatical sense, suggesting that it breaks off in mid-sentence. Note also that there is no "angel" in Mark's Gospel - the women are greeted by a young man in a white garment, possibly the same one who lost his garment in 14:51-52. So as _random_ says, Mark's Gospel has the Resurrection, but no risen Jesus. Perhaps one might explain that as intended to mean something like the risen Christ is in all of us rather than out there or something, but that still wouldn't explain the negative tone of the last sentence. It's possible that there was an original ending which is now lost, and this wasn't meant to be the last sentence.

What do you make of the chiasmus of the Messianic Secret? Also, why would you interpret the young man as being the one who lost his clothes earlier? Would Mark's audience not have read a young man in white announcing God's message as an angelic figure, as later Gospel writers did?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I'm also looking after a baby now, which turns out to be quite time-consuming.

Woah, congrats. Babies are the best.

 

[jackelgull]

How much power did the Pope wield over the Catholic Church? I know that there were curious episodes where there was a French and Italian Pope who excommunicated each other, but in general, how much respect did the authority of the Pope in Rome get?

 

[schlaufuchs]

How much power did the Pope wield over the Catholic Church? I know that there were curious episodes where there was a French and Italian Pope who excommunicated each other, but in general, how much respect did the authority of the Pope in Rome get?

How much power did the Pope yield when, and relative to whom? This question is inanswerable unless you provide those two clarifications.

 

[jackelgull]

How much power did the Pope yield when, and relative to whom? This question is inanswerable unless you provide those two clarifications.

I'm not sure if what I mean is wielding power so much as it is respecting authority. If a Pope made a papal decree for example, would the local religious elite accept it as legitimate and enforce it, or would they ignore. I am specifically talking about the geographical area known as Germany before Otto the Great, but after the collapse of the Carolingian empire.

 

[abradley]

Is there a connection there? Origen was, after all, no Hindu. I doubt very much that Aquinas had read any Origen - his knowledge of Origen would have been entirely second-hand, via Augustine. Origen was at heart a Platonist, and so too was Augustine, and so too, really, was Aquinas, though he didn't know it. So there's a sort of indirect influence there. But I can't think of anything particularly Origenist about Aquinas in particular.

This is the answer. You can't say "Everything has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause," and then go on to say "God is uncaused." That's inconsistent. Of course it might happen to be the case that the universe has a cause and God doesn't, but then it's not true that everything has a cause, and so the argument for God breaks down.

That version of the argument avoids the inconsistency problem, but it seems to me to hit another problem, which is that the universe itself is not a "change or effect" and so no longer needs a cause. If every change needs a cause, then everything that happens in the universe requires a cause, but there could be a first cause which is not itself a change or effect.

Surely the Big Bang is not the cause of the universe. It's just the cause of everything in the universe that comes after it. The fact that everything contingent exists at all can't be down to the Big Bang, because the Big Bang is one of those contingent existents, isn't it? (There might not have been a Big Bang.) It seems to me that asserting that it doesn't need a cause is as unwise as asserting that it does. We don't know.

The theist's answer to that is that God is outside time. So he wasn't temporally "before" the universe, only logically and causally prior to it. He didn't "pop into existence" because there was never a time when he didn't exist; or, more properly, he exists in no time at all.

Yes, this is weird and no-one has ever really explained it satisfactorily, as far as I know. There's even some doubt over whether the ending makes grammatical sense, suggesting that it breaks off in mid-sentence. Note also that there is no "angel" in Mark's Gospel - the women are greeted by a young man in a white garment, possibly the same one who lost his garment in 14:51-52. So as _random_ says, Mark's Gospel has the Resurrection, but no risen Jesus. Perhaps one might explain that as intended to mean something like the risen Christ is in all of us rather than out there or something, but that still wouldn't explain the negative tone of the last sentence. It's possible that there was an original ending which is now lost, and this wasn't meant to be the last sentence.

On research leave in fact, but I'm also looking after a baby now, which turns out to be quite time-consuming.

A Catholic answer to the bolded bit:

Who Created God?
Matt Fradd
February 20, 2013 | 1 comment
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How should one respond to the old schoolboy retort, “If everything needs a cause, who caused God?”

First, philosophers and theologians do not maintain that whatever exists needs a cause. Instead, they propose that certain things need causes, such as things that have a beginning or things that don’t have to exist.

If something came into existence at a certain point in time—that is, if it had a beginning—then there needs to be a cause, an explanation, for why it came to be. But if something exists outside of time—like God—then it does not need an explanation for its beginning, because it does not have one.

In the same way, if something doesn’t have to exist, then we need an explanation for why it does exist. But if something does have to exist—if it is a necessary being, like God—then it does not need a further explanation.

The things we perceive in the universe, including space and time themselves, appear to have had a beginning, and so they need a cause—a reason why they began in the first place.

In the same way, each particular bit of matter in the universe doesn’t seem to be necessary. Each could not exist. Therefore, we need an explanation for why each does exist.

Believing philosophers and theologians thus propose God as the ultimate explanation for these things. But since he is a necessary being that exists outside of time, he needs no further explanation.

Indeed, the question “Who created God?” is nonsensical, because it amounts to asking “Who created an uncreated being?”

You might be surprised, as I was, that in his book The God Delusion, prominent atheist Richard Dawkins rehashes this line of argumentation, calling it “the central argument of my book.” “If the argument of this chapter is accepted,” writes Dawkins, “the factual premise of religion—the God Hypothesis—is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist" (pp. 188-189).

Here's a summary of his argument:
(Continued)
http://www.catholic.com/blog/matt-fradd/who-created-god

Congrats on the baby, long life to you and yours.

 

[abradley]

This is pure long 2:10

The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe | Rutgers University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-2ANyXhLrw

In February 2015, Dr William Lane Craig visited Rutgers University in New Jersey at the invitation of the campus Christian group Ratio Christi. He gave an evening lecture on the subject “The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe” to a packed auditorium of several hundred students. Although some pushback was anticipated, the audience, which was composed of both believers and nonbelievers, proved to be very open, and a wonderful time of interaction for an hour and a half afterwards took place.

Am a fan of Dr William Lane Craig, most Catholics (and others) drone on and on putting me to sleep. Dr Craig no.

But that's me.

 

[Plotinus]

Woah, congrats. Babies are the best.

Thank you, though I've yet to be convinced of that!

What do you make of the chiasmus of the Messianic Secret?

I didn't know it was chiastic, so I'm probably not the person to ask about that!

Also, why would you interpret the young man as being the one who lost his clothes earlier? Would Mark's audience not have read a young man in white announcing God's message as an angelic figure, as later Gospel writers did?

I remember reading that interpretation in a commentary somewhere along the line and I thought it made sense of the odd passage about the naked young man, which otherwise seems like a moment of low comedy right in the middle of the Passion narrative. You could see the loss of clothes and the gaining of the white raiment as symbolic of something or other, I'm sure. But there's no indication in the text that the young man is meant to be an angel. Note that angels are almost entirely absent from Mark's Gospel (other than the rather vague reference in 1:13), whereas Matthew and Luke both have masses of them, especially in the birth narratives. Beyond this I don't really know what the best interpretation is.

I'm not sure if what I mean is wielding power so much as it is respecting authority. If a Pope made a papal decree for example, would the local religious elite accept it as legitimate and enforce it, or would they ignore. I am specifically talking about the geographical area known as Germany before Otto the Great, but after the collapse of the Carolingian empire.

That is much more specific! But it's hard to answer because pretty much all of the Popes in that period were utter non-entities who typically reigned for little more than a year or two. In the first half of the tenth century, the papacy was basically run by the Theophylacti of Rome - this is the period that prim nineteenth-century Protestant historians called the "pornocracy". Throughout the period you mention, most papal disputes seem to have been with secular rulers rather than with other churchmen. One exception is Nicholas I (858-67), who had run-ins with John of Ravenna and Hincmar of Rheims over different matters, but neither of those were in the location you specify. More relevant was his dispute with Lothair II of Lotharingia, who had replaced his wife with the support of the local bishops. Nicholas disapproved of this and deposed some of the bishops. But most of the opposition that Nicholas faced over this came from Lothair and the emperor Louis II - I don't see much evidence that the Lotharingian church itself offered the Pope much resistance after he had issued his decrees.

The Popes of this period seem to have spent most of their time having disputes with Constantinople, with the Saracens, and with temporal powers. This sometimes involved disputes over ecclesiastical appointments, such as when John X was forced to recognise the accession of a five-year-old boy as archbishop of Rheims in 925. This was because his father was the count of Vermandois, so it was a matter of the temporal powers forcing the Pope's hand, rather than any rebelliousness in the bishops themselves.

A Catholic answer to the bolded bit:

That answer is effectively abandoning the argument, though. The point of the criticism in question was as a reply to the argument that holds that everything needs a cause. The passage you quote rejects that argument and instead offers other arguments. Of the arguments it offers, the first one (everything that begins needs a cause, and the universe had a beginning) is tendentious. Thomas Aquinas rejected it, and I think rightly, because we can't know that the universe had a beginning. Even if we could know this, I don't see why we should suppose that everything that begins requires a cause. The second argument (all contingent things must be caused by a necessary thing) is more mainstream (and Aquinas accepted it), but it has always seemed odd to me, because one would have thought that a contingent thing that is fully explained by a necessary thing is itself necessary, in which case the argument undercuts itself. Perhaps more worryingly, the very concept of a necessary thing is itself very dubious. It's hard to see how any existential claim could be necessarily true - for any object you can think of, it seems you could imagine its non-existence. This was Kant's objection to this form of argument and it seems powerful to me. If it's correct then the traditional concept of God (as necessarily existing) is actually an impossible object and cannot exist.

This is pure long 2:10
Am a fan of Dr William Lane Craig, most Catholics (and others) drone on and on putting me to sleep. Dr Craig no.

But that's me.

I haven't watched all of this but I have watched a number of Craig's talks on this subject. In fact I show one of them to my students regularly, where he starts with the assumption that everything with a beginning in time must have a cause and ends up proving the existence not merely of a cause of the universe but of a perfectly good, personal God. It's always fun watching the students' expressions of utter disgust. It's a truly terrible argument. Craig puzzles me because he's clearly an intelligent person - he has an excellent explanation somewhere on YouTube of the differences between the A-series and B-series of time - and yet his theistic arguments are so very weak. In a nutshell, his primary assumption that everything that has a beginning in time must have a cause is just that - an assumption; his arguments from the paradoxes of infinity to the necessity of a temporal beginning of the universe not only misunderstand transfinite mathematics but in my opinion undercut the notion of an infinite God as well; and his argument that only a personal cause will explain why the universe began at time X rather than time Y is hopeless, because if time began with the universe then talking about the time when it began is meaningless. And don't even start on his defence of the genocides of the Hebrew Bible!

 

[abradley]

{Snip}I haven't watched all of this but I have watched a number of Craig's talks on this subject. In fact I show one of them to my students regularly, where he starts with the assumption that everything with a beginning in time must have a cause and ends up proving the existence not merely of a cause of the universe but of a perfectly good, personal God. It's always fun watching the students' expressions of utter disgust. It's a truly terrible argument. Craig puzzles me because he's clearly an intelligent person - he has an excellent explanation somewhere on YouTube of the differences between the A-series and B-series of time - and yet his theistic arguments are so very weak. In a nutshell, his primary assumption that everything that has a beginning in time must have a cause is just that - an assumption; his arguments from the paradoxes of infinity to the necessity of a temporal beginning of the universe not only misunderstand transfinite mathematics but in my opinion undercut the notion of an infinite God as well; and his argument that only a personal cause will explain why the universe began at time X rather than time Y is hopeless, because if time began with the universe then talking about the time when it began is meaningless. And don't even start on his defence of the genocides of the Hebrew Bible!

Yes, and the audience at Rutgers clapped 53:00, guess it depend on the audience.

 

[Mouthwash]

It's hard to see how any existential claim could be necessarily true - for any object you can think of, it seems you could imagine its non-existence.

What significance does that have? You can imagine that five plus five equals two or that the sky is made of music, but it doesn't prove anything.

The second argument (all contingent things must be caused by a necessary thing) is more mainstream (and Aquinas accepted it), but it has always seemed odd to me, because one would have thought that a contingent thing that is fully explained by a necessary thing is itself necessary, in which case the argument undercuts itself.

That's just semantic confusion. The argument should be stated as: something that is 'apparently' contingent must ultimately be caused by something necessary.

 

[Plotinus]

What significance does that have? You can imagine that five plus five equals two or that the sky is made of music, but it doesn't prove anything.

I can't imagine those things at all, and I don't think you can either. To put it more accurately, for the concept of any given substance, there seems to be no intrinsic contradiction in supposing that substance not to exist. Now this supposedly isn't the case with God, who is defined as necessarily existing - but the point is that this seems to be just playing with words. Whether or not God actually exists, I can conceive of him not existing. What the defender of this argument needs to do is to show how any existential statement can be necessarily true, and this is a hard thing to do given that, at least in our experience, none is.

That's just semantic confusion. The argument should be stated as: something that is 'apparently' contingent must ultimately be caused by something necessary.

It's not semantic confusion. If the proponent of the argument thinks that contingent things are only "apparently" contingent then she thinks they're necessary. And if they're necessary then they're not contingent and the argument collapses!

The theist can get around this, perhaps, by distinguishing between different kinds of necessary things, as Leibniz does. E.g. God's existence is intrinsically necessary (its necessity is inherent to its concept) while my existence is only extrinsically necessary (my necessity is not inherent to my concept, but is dependent upon God's existence, which is intrinsically necessary). The problem now is that this looks very like Spinozism, which Leibniz was well aware of; but perhaps that's not such a serious problem, as it's more theological than philosophical.

 

[Arakhor]

Yes, and the audience at Rutgers clapped 53:00, guess it depend on the audience.

In fairness, (a) the audience probably weren't theology students and (b) the audience was an actual audience, not simply watching a video.

 

[Mouthwash]

I can't imagine those things at all, and I don't think you can either.

Sure I can. 2+2=5. There, imagined!

To put it more accurately, for the concept of any given substance, there seems to be no intrinsic contradiction in supposing that substance not to exist. Now this supposedly isn't the case with God, who is defined as necessarily existing

You can't conceive of something that you can't also conceive the antithesis of. But some mind-independent object might necessarily exist, and our minds would be perfectly capable of thinking that it doesn't exist at all.

It's not semantic confusion. If the proponent of the argument thinks that contingent things are only "apparently" contingent then she thinks they're necessary. And if they're necessary then they're not contingent and the argument collapses!

The argument for God's existence is that the universe is contingent, but that there cannot be an infinite sequence of contingencies, so some necessity must have set everything in motion. Yes, it's true that by equal measure everything necessarily exists, but the argument is pointing out that our universe's apparent contingency makes no sense.

 

[classical_hero]

Nah, the earliest manuscripts of Mark end like this:

So the angel (although not named as such in this account) appears, and the Resurrection explicitly occurs, although there's nothing said about Jesus actually appearing to anyone after the fact. That's the oldest extant Passion narrative we have, make of it what you will.

If you look at the manuscript you will see there is more than enough room to include more. Considering that manuscripts were extremely valuable and wasting any space would be a waste of money, leaving such a big gap in a manuscript is extremely odd.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, and the audience at Rutgers clapped 53:00, guess it depend on the audience.

Keep in mind, he's a paid showman. This is why he never updates his arguments, even when they're shown to be incorrect. He just reuses them on a new, naive audience. He excels at debating, I'll grant. But he debates for an audience, and thus uses bait-and-switch techniques plus a sprinkle of charisma/mockery to bias the audience.

WLC is truly terrible. His audience members comes aware with the notion that 'their side' has been 'proven', but then they parrot his arguments in a form that's even less philosophically robust.