Luke Plant's home page (Posts about Christianity)https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/categories/christianity.xml2024-01-02T09:23:03ZLuke PlantNikolaIs the Lord's Day the Christian Sabbath?https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/is-the-lords-day-the-christian-sabbath/2023-08-24T10:15:37+01:002023-08-24T10:15:37+01:00Luke Plant<p>Most of this post was written a long time ago, but I thought it would be useful to have somewhere public that I can point people to for my answer to this question, so I’m finally publishing it.</p>
<p>At the outset, I need to say that this issue is one that I think Christians should not divide over. The view I present below is not the one I grew up with, but I have no particular ambition to convert people to my view — except that, with regard to those who have the duty to teach God’s word, it is important to do so properly, “rightly handling the word of truth”, preaching the full counsel of God with all His authority, but never giving human ideas that same authority. It is to people with those duties that the following is really directed. The tone of this article should be interpreted with that in mind — my concern is with those who are not rightly teaching scripture (while being aware that I have failed and probably continue to fail in this extremely demanding privilege in many ways).</p>
<p>Before going on — if you are worried about the length of this article, the last two thirds of it actually consists of an appendix containing quotations from the early church, and are not part of the main argument.</p>
<section id="definitions">
<h2>Definitions</h2>
<p>For my definition of the concept of a “Christian Sabbath” or “Christian Sabbatarianism”, I will take this quotation from The Westminster Confession:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chapter 21 VII. As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath.</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="principles">
<h2>Principles</h2>
<p>We need to ask if the above statement is biblically grounded or not.</p>
<p>First, a principle: in teaching people to obey God, it is a sin to add to the commands that God has given us. We are allowed to go no further than what the Bible itself requires in the demands we place on people, or we come under the condemnation of Jesus (Matthew 15:7-9).</p>
<p>We must teach only what the Bible teaches, and what can and must be deduced from it. As the Westminster Confession puts it so well:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chapter 1. VI. The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, we are not free to extrapolate, “read between the lines” or “join up the dots” in any way we please, but must teach all of what Scripture explicitly says and what <strong>necessarily</strong> flows from it, according to its own logic, and only that.</p>
<p>We note that Scripture may teach by precept, example or implication, but precept is stronger than example, as an example of behaviour found in the Bible could be good, bad, or incidental. Implication can be fairly strong or fairly weak, depending on the details.</p>
</section>
<section id="questions">
<h2>Questions</h2>
<p>I will respond to the claims of the Westminster Confession with a series of questions:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>Does the NT ever refer to the Lord’s Day as the Sabbath?</p>
<p>No, it does not.</p>
<p>This is already sufficient reason to not call the Lord’s Day the Sabbath. If the Bible doesn't call it that, it may well have good reasons for not doing so, and we will only succeed in confusing ourselves and biasing our reading of Scripture when we use biblical terminology in unbiblical ways.</p>
<p>To give an illustration:</p>
<p>In charismatic and Pentecostal circles, it is quite common to use the phrase “waiting on the Lord” to mean a kind of meditative, “listening” prayer in which you wait for the Holy Spirit to lead your thoughts directly, and interpret that as the voice of God.</p>
<p>One of the difficulties with this is that, in my view, it is taking a biblical phrase and using it in an unbiblical way — I think “waiting on/for the Lord” in the Bible is actually about trusting God. This produces a feedback loop that is difficult to escape from. Because of how the phrase is used in those circles, every time they read Psalm 130:5,6, Isaiah 40:31 or similar passages, it is firstly assumed that the Bible is talking about their practice of listening in prayer. Those texts then reinforce not just the legitimacy of the practice, but its importance.</p>
<p>When asked for biblical support for their practice, they do point to these texts — despite the fact that the phrases they contain have been interpreted according to their usage of that terminology, rather than actually describing the practice in a clear way. It becomes very difficult for them to believe that listening in prayer is either unbiblical or not as important as they have thought — after all, they know for a fact that they've been encouraged to do that many times in God’s word, even if they can't remember where.</p>
<p>(I’m not saying here that God never leads us via our thoughts when praying, by the way, that’s another issue I’m not getting in to.)</p>
<p>In the same way, if we call the Lord’s Day “the Sabbath”, every time we read the Ten Commandments or many other passages about the Sabbath, we equate “Sabbath” with “the Lord’s Day”, creating a feedback loop that makes it very difficult to even take the non-Sabbatarian view seriously — after all, we know for a fact that God has told us that it is a sin to work on the Lord’s Day, being unaware of the unbiblical interpretative jump our minds have made. I suspect that this is the primary reason that the Sabbatarian position retains a hold over many Christian circles.</p>
<p>And, by the way, as far as I can tell from the records we have, in at least the first 4 centuries, while Christian teachers often mentioned “the Sabbath”, they never used that word to refer to the Lord's Day — see Appendix.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Does the NT ever prescriptively take Sabbath laws and apply them to the Lord’s day (e.g. command people not to work on the Lord’s Day)?</p>
<p>No, it does not.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Does the NT ever descriptively set out a pattern of Christians observing Sabbath regulations on the Lord’s day?</p>
<p>No. We do find Christians worshipping God on the first day of the week. But they worshipped on other days too (<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%202%3A46&version=NIVUK">Acts 2:46</a>). Whether Christians are required to spend some time worshipping God on the Lord’s Day is a different question to whether the Lord’s Day is the Sabbath. We are certainly never told they avoided labour or recreation on the Lord’s Day, or gave the whole day over to the worship of God.</p>
<p>In <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+20%3A7&version=NIVUK">Acts 20:7</a>, the disciples there apparently met late at night.</p>
<p>Often it seems they met before dawn on Sunday:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as a god</p>
<p class="attribution">—Pliny</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most likely, the unsociable hours of these meetings were due to the fact that they were working the rest of the time, since Sunday was an official day of work in the Roman Empire until Constantine.</p>
<p>The following is an argument from silence, and is therefore weaker, but I think it has some strength to it:</p>
<p>Had the early church been refusing to work on Sunday, this would have been scandalous, and a more than adequate justification for persecution (at least in the eyes of the persecutors). It seems fairly unlikely historically that if Christians had the practice of taking the whole of Sunday off, that there would be no record of it, especially given documents like Justin Martyr's Apologies, where he defends Christians against the grievances that others had against them.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>This leaves the case for Christian Sabbatarianism on very shaky ground, with neither precept nor example to support it.</p>
<p>However, we still want to answer the question “what should we do with the 4th commandment?”. This could potentially provide a case for a Christian Sabbath concept by way of some biblical logic. Answering this question requires looking at both the OT background to the command, and how the NT treats it.</p>
</section>
<section id="old-testament-treatment-of-the-sabbath">
<h2>Old Testament treatment of the Sabbath</h2>
<p>We find:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>The Sabbath is not a creation ordinance, despite what some say. Adam was commanded to work, reproduce etc., but there is no command to rest every seven days. The account of God’s creation in six days and rest on the seventh is not made into any kind of pattern in the book of Genesis, and while Genesis 2:3 talks of God blessing the seventh day and making it holy, it doesn’t fill out what that means in terms of a requirement not to work.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no record of anyone observing Sabbaths until we come to Moses. (See also quotes from Justyn Martyr and Tertullian below, who said that Abel, Enoch, Noah and Melchizedek did not observe Sabbaths).</p></li>
<li><p>The creation-basis for the command in the law of Moses is not a strict copy, but an adaptation based on the pattern. God worked for 6 days, then had an eternal day of rest (there is no “evening and morning the seventh day”). This is then adapted into a weekly cycle with a commandment to cease from labour for the Jews. So we are primed for the idea that the creation principle of rest may be adapted in different ways in the New Covenant.</p></li>
<li><p>The Jewish Sabbath is a special sign of God’s covenant with the Jews — see <a class="reference external" href="Ezekiel20:11-12">Ezekiel 20:11-12</a>. Clearly God couldn't have said this of moral laws e.g. the command not to murder could not have been called a “sign” between God and the Jews, since it was common to Jews and the rest of the world.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>On this basis, it seems very unlikely that the Jewish Sabbath is part of the moral law that all the world must obey. The Westminster Confession does not have an adequate biblical basis for saying that God appointed one day in seven to be kept holy by all people “from the beginning of the world”.</p>
</section>
<section id="new-testament-treatment-of-the-sabbath">
<h2>New Testament treatment of the Sabbath</h2>
<p>Does the NT ever speak directly on the issue of how laws about Sabbath or special day observance are to be handled by Christians? Thankfully, it does:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%202%3A16-17&version=NIVUK">Colossians 2:16-17</a>, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204%3A10&version=NIVUK">Galatians 4:10</a>, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2014%3A5&version=NIVUK">Romans 14:5</a>.</p>
<p>These texts are clear, and do not require exegetical somersaults to understand, once Sabbatarian glasses have been removed:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>The Sabbath is, like other OT ceremonies, a shadow that is fulfilled in Christ.</p></li>
<li><p>We are at liberty to observe special days if we want to, but not to require other people to do so.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the NT, there are no holy things or places or days, only a holy people.</p>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%204%3A1-11&version=NIVUK">Hebrews 4:1-11</a>.</p>
<p>The Sabbath is fulfilled for Christians by the eternal rest of the new heavens and new earth. Christians enter that now in spiritual ways, by resting in Christ, and ceasing their attempts to gain acceptance by works.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Negatively, the council of Jerusalem is also deafening by its silence on the issue. It specifically discusses the points where Jewish law impinged upon Gentile consciences. Sabbath observance was not practised among Gentiles, so I think the silence of Acts 15 on this matter is rather difficult to explain if the apostles believed that Sabbath observance was necessary for Gentiles and had been moved to the Lord’s Day after Christ’s resurrection, as claimed by the Westminster Confession.</p>
<p>OT and NT point unambiguously in the same direction. Other texts that are sometimes quoted (“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” etc.) simply don't address the question (unless you have made the unbiblical equation of “the Sabbath” equals “the Lord’s Day”, in which case seeing these texts clearly will require a fair amount of un-thinking).</p>
<p>One text which is sometimes used to support the universality of the Sabbath is Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”. This argument depends firstly on translating ‘anthropos’ as ‘man’, and then understanding ‘man’ to mean ‘all mankind’. It is perfectly possible to translate ‘anthropos’ as ‘people’ (as per <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%202%3A27&version=NET">the NET translation</a>) or understand it in that way, and the argument then disappears. If I said “The Highway Code was made for people, not people for the Highway Code”, I would not be implying that wherever there are people, there is the Highway Code, and it will always be that way, time without end. In fact I would more likely be implying the opposite — the Highway Code is an invention that serves human needs, and can be adjusted or abandoned if necessary. The question is then: which meaning is more appropriate for this text? Given the OT history, which gives no hint of Sabbath observance for all mankind, either by precept or example, with the Sabbath being introduced by Moses and understood as a specific sign of God’s covenant with the nation of Israel (as above), it seems far more appropriate to understand this text as meaning simply “the Sabbath was made for people” — and not as a statement of the universality of the Sabbath.</p>
<p>There remains one argument I know of in favour of Christian Sabbatarianism: the Sabbath is part of the Ten Commandments, which are God’s eternal moral law, and therefore must continue.</p>
<p>First, in response, the Bible never states that the Ten Commandments are God’s eternal moral law. The division of the law into moral, civil and ceremonial, while useful, is not strictly biblical, and must always be subject to what the Bible actually says. The NT texts on the Sabbath make it clear that the Jewish form of the Sabbath (one day in seven rest) is ceremonial. We must not allow the systems that we have extracted from scripture (or think we have) to override plain exegesis. It is infinitely better to have holes, even gaping holes, in our systematic theology, than to handle the Bible in such a way that we override or ignore just one of God's holy words.</p>
<p>The argument that the Sabbath is part of God’s eternal moral law reminds me of the proof that 2 is an odd number. It goes like this:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>Consider the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number">prime numbers</a>. They are, by definition, positive integers that are divisible only by 1 and themselves. The sequence starts: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, …</p>
<p>As you’ll notice, they are all odd numbers — look at them: 3 is odd, 5 is odd, 7 is odd, 9 is odd. All the prime numbers are odd.</p>
<p>– “Excuse me, what about 2? That looks even to me…”</p>
<p>– We don’t talk about 2. (I’ll see you after class).</p>
<p>As I was saying, <strong>all</strong> the prime numbers are odd.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The number 2 is a prime number.</p></li>
<li><p>Therefore, 2 is an odd number. QED.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The proof that the Sabbath is an eternal moral command looks the same:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>All the Ten Commandments are God’s eternal moral law.</p>
<p>Look at them: “Do not murder” – a moral command that existed before Moses, and is repeated in the NT. And so it is with all of them – “You shall have no other Gods before me”, “Do not commit adultery” etc.</p>
<p>– “Excuse me, what about the 4th commandment? It seems pretty clear that the Sabbath was given specially to the Jews as a covenant sign, and the NT tells us that we don’t have holy days any more because they are fulfilled in Christ…”</p>
<p>– We don’t talk about the 4th commandment. And please don’t interrupt.</p>
<p>As you can see, <strong>all</strong> of the Ten Commandments are God’s eternal moral law.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The Sabbath law is part of the Ten Commandments</p></li>
<li><p>Therefore the Sabbath is an eternal moral command. And we celebrate it on Sundays, obviously.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Even if we were to conclude the Sabbath is a moral command and must continue, we're not free to make up <strong>how</strong> it should continue. The NT actually gives us no ground for saying the Jewish Sabbath has been moved to the Lord’s Day. We would be left saying that it continues just as it is in the OT (producing many difficulties which I won't go into) — or, it continues and applies in the New Covenant age in the way described in Hebrews, that is, in a spiritual way as above (in other words, a long way round to the non-Sabbatarian position).</p>
<p>In fact, the NT is clear that the command is fulfilled in Christ just as other ceremonial commands are. We're not left in the dark about how to understand it. If we attempt to put observance of the Lord's Day as a Sabbath into a moral category, we produce an impossible situation when it comes treating people who fail to observe it. For matters of plain morality, we are required by scripture to judge people, to the extent of putting them out of the church and not even keeping company with them — “expel the wicked person” (<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+5&version=NIVUK">1 Corinthians 5</a>). When it comes to observing holy days, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2014&version=NIVUK">Romans 14</a> tells us that we must not judge each other, but rather accept one another (v1, 5, 13). To claim, as some do, that Romans 14 is talking about sacred days apart from the Lord's Day is simply special pleading, as there is no basis for saying so. This is a simple <em>reductio ad absurdum</em> that shows we erred when making literal Sabbath day observance a NT obligation. Rather than it being logically inescapable that the Lord's Day is to be observed as a Sabbath — which is the standard required for us to teach other people to so observe it — the reverse is closer to the truth.</p>
</section>
<section id="conclusion">
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>To conclude the argument from Scripture:</p>
<p>The idea stated in the Westminster Confession that the Lord’s Day is to be the Sabbath from the resurrection of Christ to the end of the world cannot be found in Scripture, just as its statement about Sabbath observance “from the beginning of the world” is also insufficiently supported by the Bible. There are no statements whatsoever supporting the claim that the Sabbath must be observed on the Lord’s Day to this effect, either by precept, example or implication. If this idea comes from the Bible at all, it only does so by one possible extrapolation among several, and not by “good and necessary consequence”, which is the standard any teaching must pass before it can be taught from our pulpits. Further, it is an extrapolation that contradicts how the Bible itself handles the subject.</p>
<p><strong>However:</strong></p>
<p>The principle behind the need to set time aside to worship God can certainly apply to how we use Sunday (as well as other times in the week), especially if we have the freedom to use Sunday in a way that we choose. We also have the freedom as believers to “observe” the Lord’s day if we want to, whatever we mean by that — but not to put that requirement onto others (<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2014%3A5-6&version=NIVUK">Romans 14:5-6</a>). There is also the pattern that NT believers have handed on of meeting together on the Lord's Day, and the commandment in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2010%3A25&version=NIVUK">Hebrews 10:25</a> to not forsake meeting together, which also mean that for most people, setting aside time to meet with God's people on Sunday must be a high priority.</p>
<p>For myself, with my work situation meaning that I have the freedom to rest on a Sunday (when I'm not preaching), I've found it an enormously helpful practice, and one that I commend to everyone. In fact, I would be suspicious of myself and my walk with God if I was preferring to do other things on the Lord’s Day — I've got the other days of the week when I can work. My practice has changed relatively little since I've come to a non-Sabbatarian position. But making this a binding rule on others, or even on myself, is not something that Scripture allows me to do.</p>
<p>There is also the principle of “rest”, which is big topic and it’s not my purpose to look at it in this post. While I couldn’t agree with every word of it, I found <a class="reference external" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/timothy-keller-sermons-podcast-by-gospel-in-life/id352660924?i=1000601090144">Tim Keller’s sermon on Work and Rest</a> to be really helpful.</p>
</section>
<section id="appendix-early-church">
<h2>Appendix – Early church</h2>
<p>While it is Scripture and Scripture alone that settles the matter, the Early Church is also of interest. To diagnose our own blind spots it is often helpful to look to what the Church has historically believed. The earlier you go, the less likely it is, in general, that waters are muddied by traditions of men that have been added.</p>
<p>[UPDATE 2023-09-11] In addition, correct interpretation of some of the key texts mentioned above has often been overridden on the basis of historical claims that turn out not to be true. One example of this was furnished by a commenter below, <a class="reference external" href="https://purelypresbyterian.com/2018/10/15/is-the-sabbath-optional-an-evaluation-of-romans-14-and-colossians-2/">whose website</a> quotes from Wilhelmus à Brakel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Secondly, it is a well-known truth that the apostles commanded the churches everywhere to observe the Lord’s day (refer to the above). It is common knowledge that there was neither any contention concerning that day, nor was there any intent to force or eradicate the observance of this day contrary to the wishes of the apostles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’ve heard this argument many times; it misled me in the past and continues to mislead people today. So I’m indebted to the person commenting below for providing a good example of it!</p>
<p>What is presented above as “well-known truth” is in fact false, or at best obscuring the truth. While the practice of meeting together on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection was indeed a widespread tradition that originated from earliest times, to call it “observing” the day, or claim the apostles commanded “observance” in the sense needed for a Sabbatarian view, is directly opposed to the evidence we have. For this argument to have any weight, its proponents need to show the actual Biblical or historical evidence demonstrating which things the apostles commanded to be done or not done on the Lord’s Day — hiding behind “it’s common knowledge” simply will not do. [end update].</p>
<p>I have not been able to find any evidence of Christian Sabbatarianism at all in the first two centuries. Many sources suggest some Christians continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath (i.e. Saturday) for centuries, but I haven't yet found an early source for that.</p>
<p>In general, the sources describe the practice of Christians meeting together on the Lord’s Day as being pretty much universal, but without making it a Sabbath day.</p>
<p>Origen in 220 AD is the first to say that the Lord’s Day should be observed as a day of rest, but he seems to be out of line with most people of his time, who made no such rules.</p>
<p>Very clear quotes on the subject from early Christians, including early believers like Justyn Martyr, and authorities like Tertullian and Augustine etc. can be found at <a class="reference external" href="http://www.bible.ca/H-sunday.htm">http://www.bible.ca/H-sunday.htm</a> and are copied below.</p>
<p>They are quite explicit about Christians not observing the Sabbath, and not being required to — and in fact you are overthrowing the gospel if you do (Chrysostom)! The word Sabbath is used exclusively of Jewish holy days, or in a strictly spiritual sense that doesn’t involve obeying any Sabbath-day regulations, but rather resting in the gospel and living in general holiness of life.</p>
<p>Where they talk about Christians “observing” the Lord’s Day (which mostly starts from about 3rd/4th century), it is as a contrast to observing the Sabbath, the main requirement being that Christians be joyful and that they meet together, and not that they refrain from any activity — which is called Jewish superstition and idleness.</p>
<p>Put together, they present overwhelming evidence that there is not a hint of a “Christian Sabbath” tradition (that fits with the Westminster Confession’s idea of what such as day is like) that was passed down from the apostles.</p>
<p>Justin Martyr is worth looking at in some detail:</p>
<section id="justin-martyr-dialogue-with-trypho-circa-130-150-ad">
<h3>Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho (circa 130 - 150 AD)</h3>
<p>This is a report of a long debate with some Jews, in which the subject of Sabbath and circumcision comes up several times. It's extremely clear that Justin Martyr did not consider Christians to be bound to observe the Sabbath or sabbath days, and had an understanding of the Sabbath exactly in line with what I have written above, often with the same proof texts.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/justin_martyr/dialog_with_trypho/anf01.viii.iv.x.html">Chapter X</a></p>
<p>And when they ceased, I again addressed them thus:—</p>
<p>“Is there any other matter, my friends, in which we are blamed, than this, that we live not after the law, and are not circumcised in the flesh as your forefathers were, and do not observe sabbaths as you do?</p>
<p>Trypho:</p>
<p>But this is what we are most at a loss about: that you, professing to be pious, and supposing yourselves better than others, are not in any particular separated from them, and do not alter your mode of living from the nations, in that you observe no festivals or sabbaths, and do not have the rite of circumcision; and further, resting your hopes on a man that was crucified, you yet expect to obtain some good thing from God, while you do not obey His commandments.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/justin_martyr/dialog_with_trypho/anf01.viii.iv.xii.html">Chapter XII</a></p>
<p>Justin Martyr:</p>
<p>I also adduced another passage in which Isaiah exclaims: “ ‘Hear My words, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people: nations which know not Thee shall call on Thee; peoples who know not Thee shall escape to Thee, because of thy God, the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified Thee.’ This same law you have despised, and His new holy covenant you have slighted; and now you neither receive it, nor repent of your evil deeds. ‘For your ears are closed, your eyes are blinded, and the heart is hardened,’ Jeremiah has cried; yet not even then do you listen. The Lawgiver is present, yet you do not see Him; to the poor the Gospel is preached, the blind see, yet you do not understand. You have now need of a second circumcision, though you glory greatly in the flesh. The new law requires you to keep perpetual sabbath, and you, because you are idle for one day, suppose you are pious, not discerning why this has been commanded you: and if you eat unleavened bread, you say the will of God has been fulfilled. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances: if there is any perjured person or a thief among you, let him cease to be so; if any adulterer, let him repent; then he has kept the sweet and true sabbaths of God. If any one has impure hands, let him wash and be pure.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/justin_martyr/dialog_with_trypho/anf01.viii.iv.xviii.html">Chapter XVIII</a></p>
<p>“For since you have read, O Trypho, as you yourself admitted, the doctrines taught by our Saviour, I do not think that I have done foolishly in adding some short utterances of His to the prophetic statements. Wash therefore, and be now clean, and put away iniquity from your souls, as God bids you be washed in this laver, and be circumcised with the true circumcision. For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined you,—namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts. For if we patiently endure all things contrived against us by wicked men and demons, so that even amid cruelties unutterable, death and torments, we pray for mercy to those who inflict such things upon us, and do not wish to give the least retort to any one, even as the new Lawgiver commanded us: how is it, Trypho, that we would not observe those rites which do not harm us, —I speak of fleshly circumcision, and Sabbaths, and feasts?</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/justin_martyr/dialog_with_trypho/anf01.viii.iv.xix.html">Chapter XIX</a></p>
<p>Therefore to you alone this circumcision was necessary, in order that the people may be no people, and the nation no nation; as also Hosea, one of the twelve prophets, declares. Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned [Abel, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek], though they kept no Sabbaths, were pleasing to God; and after them Abraham with all his descendants until Moses, under whom your nation appeared unrighteous and ungrateful to God, making a calf in the wilderness: wherefore God, accommodating Himself to that nation, enjoined them also to offer sacrifices, as if to His name, in order that you might not serve idols. Which precept, however, you have not observed; nay, you sacrificed your children to demons. And you were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you might retain the memorial of God. For His word makes this announcement, saying, ‘That ye may know that I am God who redeemed you.’</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/justin_martyr/dialog_with_trypho/anf01.viii.iv.xxi.html">Chapter XXI</a></p>
<p>“Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and impose on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness, and that of your fathers,—as He declares that for the sake of the nations, lest His name be profaned among them, therefore He permitted some of you to remain alive,—these words of His can prove to you: they are narrated by Ezekiel thus: ‘I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and keep My judgements, and take no part in the customs of Egypt; and hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding ye rebelled against Me, and your children walked not in My statutes, neither kept My judgements to do them: which if a man do, he shall live in them. But they polluted My Sabbaths. And I said that I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness, to accomplish My anger upon them; yet I did it not; that My name might not be altogether profaned in the sight of the heathen. I led them out before their eyes, and I lifted up Mine hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries; because they had not executed My judgements, but had despised My statutes, and polluted My Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the devices of their fathers. Wherefore I gave them also statutes which were not good, and judgements whereby they shall not live. And I shall pollute them in their own gifts, that I may destroy all that openeth the womb, when I pass through them.’</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="mathetes-epistle-to-diognetus">
<h3>Mathetes: Epistle to Diognetus</h3>
<p>I also came across this work, dating from AD 130 to the end of the century, which is relevant for its general tenor:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/mathetes/epistle_of_mathetes_to_diognetus/anf01.iii.ii.iv.html">Chapter IV.—The other observances of the Jews.</a></p>
<p>But as to their scrupulosity concerning meats, and their superstition as respects the Sabbaths, and their boasting about circumcision, and their fancies about fasting and the new moons, which are utterly ridiculous and unworthy of notice,—I do not think that you require to learn anything from me.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://ccel.org/ccel/mathetes/epistle_of_mathetes_to_diognetus/anf01.iii.ii.v.html">Chapter V.—The manners of the Christians.</a></p>
<p>For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers.</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="other-early-church-and-church-fathers-writings">
<h3>Other Early Church and Church Fathers writings</h3>
<p>The following are taken verbatim (including comments) from <a class="reference external" href="http://www.bible.ca/H-sunday.htm">http://www.bible.ca/H-sunday.htm</a> . I have checked the accuracy of some, but not most of them.</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>90AD DIDACHE: "Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day: 1. But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. 2. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. 3. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations." (Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Chapter XIV)</p></li>
<li><p>100 AD BARNABAS "We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead" (The Epistle of Barnabas, 100 AD 15:6-8).</p></li>
<li><p>100 AD BARNABAS: Moreover God says to the Jews, 'Your new moons and Sabbaths 1 cannot endure.' You see how he says, 'The present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but the Sabbath which I have made in which, when I have rested [heaven: Heb 4] from all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another world.' Wherefore we Christians keep the eighth day for joy, on which also Jesus arose from the dead and when he appeared ascended into heaven. (15:8f, The Epistle of Barnabas, 100 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 1, pg. 147)</p></li>
<li><p>110AD Pliny: "they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath not to (do) any wicked deeds, never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of good food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind."</p></li>
<li><p>150AD EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLES.- I [Christ] have come into being on the eighth day which is the day of the Lord. (18)</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: "He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming both that we glorify His name, and that you profane [it]. The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them] always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first.". (Justin, Dialogue 41:4)</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: …those who have persecuted and do persecute Christ, if they do not repent, shall not inherit anything on the holy mountain. But the Gentiles, who have believed on Him, and have repented of the sins which they have committed, they shall receive the inheritance along with the patriarchs and the prophets, and the just men who are descended from Jacob, even although they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the feasts. Assuredly they shall receive the holy inheritance of God. (Dialogue With Trypho the Jew, 150-165 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, page 207)</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: But if we do not admit this, we shall be liable to fall into foolish opinion, as if it were not the same God who existed in the times of Enoch and all the rest, who neither were circumcised after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any other rites, seeing that Moses enjoined such observances… For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham. (Dialogue With Trypho the Jew, 150-165 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 1, page 206)</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration." (First apology of Justin, Weekly Worship of the Christians, Ch 68)</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned [after mentioning Adam. Abel, Enoch, Lot, Noah, Melchizedek, and Abraham], though they kept no Sabbaths, were pleasing to God; and after them Abraham with all his descendants until Moses… And you [fleshly Jews] were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you might retain the memorial of God. For His word makes this announcement, saying, "That you may know that I am God who redeemed you." (Dialogue With Trypho the Jew, 150-165 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 1, page 204)</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: There is no other thing for which you blame us, my friends, is there than this? That we do not live according to the Law, nor, are we circumcised in the flesh as your forefathers, nor do we observe the Sabbath as you do. (Dialogue with Trypho 10:1. In verse 3 the Jew Trypho acknowledges that Christians 'do not keep the Sabbath.')</p></li>
<li><p>150AD JUSTIN: We are always together with one another. And for all the things with which we are supplied we bless the Maker of all through his Son Jesus Christ and through his Holy Spirit. And on the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a city or a rural district. [There follows an account of a Christian worship service, which is quoted in VII.2.] We all make our assembly in common on the day of the Sun, since it is the first day, on which God changed the darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior arose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturn's day, and on the day after (which is the day of the Sun the appeared to his apostles and taught his disciples these things. (Apology, 1, 67:1-3, 7; First Apology, 145 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , Vol. 1, pg. 186)</p></li>
<li><p>155 AD Justin Martyr "[W]e too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined [on] you–namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your heart. . . . [H]ow is it, Trypho, that we would not observe those rites which do not harm us–I speak of fleshly circumcision and Sabbaths and feasts? . . . God enjoined you [Jews] to keep the Sabbath, and impose on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness and that of your fathers" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 18, 21).</p></li>
<li><p>180AD ACTS OF PETER.- Paul had often contended with the Jewish teachers and had confuted them, saying 'it is Christ on whom your fathers laid hands. He abolished their Sabbath and fasts and festivals and circumcision.' (1: I)-2</p></li>
<li><p>190AD CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: (in commenting on each of the Ten Commandments and their Christian meaning:) The seventh day is proclaimed a day of rest, preparing by abstention from evil for the Primal day, our true rest. (Ibid. VII. xvi. 138.1)</p></li>
<li><p>190AD CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: He does the commandment according to the Gospel and keeps the Lord’s day, whenever he puts away an evil mind . . . glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself. (Ibid. Vii.xii.76.4)</p></li>
<li><p>190AD CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Plato prophetically speaks of the Lord’s day in the tenth book of the Republic, in these words: 'And when seven days have passed to each of them in the meadow, on the eighth they must go on." (Miscellanies V.xiv.106.2)</p></li>
<li><p>200AD BARDESANES: Wherever we are, we are all called after the one name of Christ Christians. On one day, the first of the week, we assemble ourselves together (On Fate)</p></li>
<li><p>200AD TERTULLIAN: "We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath" (Tertullian's Apology, Ch 16)</p></li>
<li><p>200AD TERTULLIAN: It follows, accordingly, that, in so far as the abolition of carnal circumcision and of the old law is demonstrated as having been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance of the Sabbath is demonstrated to have been temporary. (An Answer to the Jews 4:1, Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. 3, page 155)</p></li>
<li><p>200AD TERTULLIAN: Let him who contends that the Sabbath is still to be observed a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because of threat of death, teach us that in earliest times righteous men kept Sabbath or practiced circumcision, and so were made friends of God. .. …Therefore, since God originated Adam uncircumcised, and inobservant of the Sabbath, consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering Him sacrifices, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was by Him commended… Noah also, uncircumcised - yes, and inobservant of the Sabbath - God freed from the deluge. For Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, He translated from this world… Melchizedek also, "the priest of most high God," uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was chosen to the priesthood of God. (An Answer to the Jews 2:10; 4:1, Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. 3, page 153)</p></li>
<li><p>200AD TERTULLIAN: Others . . . suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is well-known that we regard Sunday as a day of joy. (To the Nations 1: 133)</p></li>
<li><p>200AD TERTULLIAN: To us Sabbaths are foreign. (On Idolatry, 14:6)</p></li>
<li><p>220AD ORIGEN "On Sunday none of the actions of the world should be done. If then, you abstain from all the works of this world and keep yourselves free for spiritual things, go to church, listen to the readings and divine homilies, meditate on heavenly things. (Homil. 23 in Numeros 4, PG 12:749)</p></li>
<li><p>220 AD Origen "Hence it is not possible that the [day of] rest after the Sabbath should have come into existence from the seventh [day] of our God. On the contrary, it is our Savior who, after the pattern of his own rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of his death, and hence also of his resurrection" (Commentary on John 2:28).</p></li>
<li><p>225 AD The Didascalia "The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and the oblation, because on the first day of the week our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven" (Didascalia 2).</p></li>
<li><p>250AD CYPRIAN: The eight day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s Day." (Epistle 58, Sec 4)</p></li>
<li><p>250 AD IGNATIUS: "If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death-whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master-how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead. If, then, those who were conversant with the ancient Scriptures came to newness of hope, expecting the coming of Christ, as the Lord teaches us when He says, "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me; " and again, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad; for before Abraham was, I am; " how shall we be able to live without Him? The prophets were His servants, and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited for Him as their Teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and Saviour, saying, "He will come and save us." Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for "he that does not work, let him not eat." For say the [holy] oracles, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]. Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, "To the end, for the eighth day," on which our life both sprang up again, and the victory over death was obtained in Christ, whom the children of perdition, the enemies of the Saviour, deny, "whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things," who are "lovers of pleasure, and not lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." These make merchandise of Christ, corrupting His word, and giving up Jesus to sale: they are corrupters of women, and covetous of other men's possessions, swallowing up wealth insatiably; from whom may ye be delivered by the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ! (Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, Chapter IX)</p></li>
<li><p>250AD IGNATIUS: "On the day of the preparation, then, at the third hour, He received the sentence from Pilate, the Father permitting that to happen; at the sixth hour He was crucified; at the ninth hour He gave up the ghost; and before sunset He was buried. During the Sabbath He continued under the earth in the tomb in which Joseph of Arimathaea had laid Him. At the dawning of the Lord’s day He arose from the dead, according to what was spoken by Himself, "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man also be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." The day of the preparation, then, comprises the passion; the Sabbath embraces the burial; the Lord’s Day contains the resurrection." (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians, chapter 9)</p></li>
<li><p>250AD IGNATIUS: If any one fasts on the Lord’s Day or on the Sabbath, except on the paschal Sabbath only, he is a murderer of Christ. (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philippians, chapter 8)</p></li>
<li><p>250AD IGNATIUS: "This [custom], of not bending the knee upon Sunday, is a symbol of the resurrection, through which we have been set free, by the grace of Christ, from sins, and from death, which has been put to death under Him. Now this custom took its rise from apostolic times, as the blessed Irenaeus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons, declares in his treatise On Easter, in which he makes mention of Pentecost also; upon which [feast] we do not bend the knee, because it is of equal significance with the Lord’s day, for the reason already alleged concerning it." (Ignatius, Fragments)</p></li>
<li><p>300 AD Victorinus "The sixth day [Friday] is called parasceve, that is to say, the preparation of the kingdom. . . . On this day also, on account of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to God or a fast. On the seventh day he rested from all his works, and blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed to fast rigorously, that on the Lord’s day we may go forth to our bread with giving of thanks. And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews . . . which Sabbath he [Christ] in his body abolished" (The Creation of the World).</p></li>
<li><p>300AD EUSEBIUS: "They did not, therefore, regard circumcision, nor observe the Sabbath neither do we; … because such things as these do not belong to Christians" (Ecc. Hist., Book 1, Ch. 4)</p></li>
<li><p>300AD EUSEBIUS: [The Ebionites] were accustomed to observe the Sabbath and other Jewish customs but on the Lord’s days to celebrate the same practices as we in remembrance of the resurrection of the Savior. (Church History Ill.xxvii.5)</p></li>
<li><p>300 AD Eusebius of Caesarea "They [the pre- Mosaic saints of the Old Testament] did not care about circumcision of the body, neither do we [Christians]. They did not care about observing Sabbaths, nor do we. They did not avoid certain kinds of food, neither did they regard the other distinctions which Moses first delivered to their posterity to be observed as symbols; nor do Christians of the present day do such things" (Church History 1:4:8).</p></li>
<li><p>300 AD Eusebius of Caesarea "The day of his [Christ's] light . . . was the day of his resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one and only truly holy day and the Lord’s day, is better than any number of days as we ordinarily understand them, and better than the days set apart by the Mosaic Law for feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths, which the Apostle [Paul] teaches are the shadow of days and not days in reality" (Proof of the Gospel 4:16:186).</p></li>
<li><p>345 AD Athanasius "The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation" (On Sabbath and Circumcision 3).</p></li>
<li><p>350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS: Be not careless of yourselves, neither deprive your Saviour of His own members, neither divide His body nor disperse His members, neither prefer the occasions of this life to the word of God; but assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord’s house: in the morning saying the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath-day. And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection, on which we pray thrice standing in memory of Him who arose in three days, in which is performed the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the Gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food? (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 2)</p></li>
<li><p>350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS: For if the Gentiles every day, when they arise from sleep, run to their idols to worship them, and before all their work and all their labors do first of all pray to them, and in their feasts and in their solemnities do not keep away, but attend upon them; and not only those upon the place, but those living far distant do the same; and in their public shows all come together, as into a synagogue: in the same manner those which are vainly called Jews, when they have worked six days, on the seventh day rest, and come together in their synagogue, never leaving or neglecting either rest from labor or assembling together… If, therefore, those who are not saved frequently assemble together for such purposes as do not profit them, what apology wilt thou make to the Lord God who forsakes his Church, not imitating so much as the heathen, but by such, thy absence grows slothful, or turns apostate. or acts wickedness? To whom the Lord says to Jeremiah, "Ye have not kept My ordinances; nay, you have not walked according to the ordinance of the heathen and you have in a manner exceeded them… How, therefore, will any one make his apology who has despised or absented himself from the church of God? (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 2)</p></li>
<li><p>350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS: Do you therefore fast, and ask your petitions of God. We enjoin you to fast every fourth day of the week, and every day of the preparation, and the surplusage of your fast bestow upon the needy; every Sabbath-day excepting one, and every Lord’s day, hold your solemn assemblies, and rejoice: for he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord’s day, being the day of the resurrection, or during the time of Pentecost, or, in general, who is sad on a festival day to the Lord For on them we ought to rejoice, and not to mourn. (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 5)</p></li>
<li><p>350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS "Which Days of the Week We are to Fast, and Which Not, and for What Reasons: But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week. But do you either fast the entire five days, or on the fourth day of the week, and on the day of the Preparation, because on the fourth day the condemnation went out against the Lord, Judas then promising to betray Him for money; and you must fast on the day of the Preparation, because on that day the Lord suffered the death of the cross under Pontius Pilate. But keep the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection. But there is one only Sabbath to be observed by you in the whole year, which is that of our Lord’s burial, on which men ought to keep a fast, but not a festival. For inasmuch as the Creator was then under the earth, the sorrow for Him is more forcible than the joy for the creation; for the Creator is more honourable by nature and dignity than His own creatures." (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 7)</p></li>
<li><p>350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS "How We Ought to Assemble Together, and to Celebrate the Festival Day of Our Saviour's Resurrection. On the day of the resurrection of the Lord, that is, the Lord’s day, assemble yourselves together, without fail, giving thanks to God, and praising Him for those mercies God has bestowed upon you through Christ, and has delivered you from ignorance, error, and bondage, that your sacrifice may be unspotted, and acceptable to God, who has said concerning His universal Church: "In every place shall incense and a pure sacrifice be offered unto me; for I am a great King, saith the Lord Almighty, and my name is wonderful among the heathen." (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 7)</p></li>
<li><p>350 AD Cyril of Jerusalem "Fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans or into Judaism, for Jesus Christ has henceforth ransomed you. Stand aloof from all observance of Sabbaths and from calling any indifferent meats common or unclean" (Catechetical Lectures 4:37).</p></li>
<li><p>360 AD Council of Laodicea "Christians should not Judaize and should not be idle on the Sabbath, but should work on that day; they should, however, particularly reverence the Lord’s day and, if possible, not work on it, because they were Christians" (canon 29).</p></li>
<li><p>387 AD John Chrysostom "You have put on Christ, you have become a member of the Lord and been enrolled in the heavenly city, and you still grovel in the Law [of Moses]? How is it possible for you to obtain the kingdom? Listen to Paul's words, that the observance of the Law overthrows the gospel, and learn, if you will, how this comes to pass, and tremble, and shun this pitfall. Why do you keep the Sabbath and fast with the Jews?" (Homilies on Galatians 2:17).</p></li>
<li><p>387 AD John Chrysostom "The rite of circumcision was venerable in the Jews' account, forasmuch as the Law itself gave way thereto, and the Sabbath was less esteemed than circumcision. For that circumcision might be performed, the Sabbath was broken; but that the Sabbath might be kept, circumcision was never broken; and mark, I pray, the dispensation of God. This is found to be even more solemn that the Sabbath, as not being omitted at certain times. When then it is done away, much more is the Sabbath" (Homilies on Philippians 10).</p></li>
<li><p>412 AD Augustine "Well, now, I should like to be told what there is in these Ten Commandments, except the observance of the Sabbath, which ought not to be kept by a Christian . . . Which of these commandments would anyone say that the Christian ought not to keep? It is possible to contend that it is not the Law which was written on those two tables that the apostle [Paul] describes as 'the letter that kills' [2 Cor. 3:6], but the law of circumcision and the other sacred rites which are now abolished" (The Spirit and the Letter 24).</p></li>
<li><p>597 AD Gregory I "It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these [men] but preachers of Antichrist, who when he comes will cause the Sabbath day as well as the Lord’s day to be kept free from all work. For because he [the Antichrist] pretends to die and rise again, he wishes the Lord’s day to be had in reverence; and because he compels the people to Judaize that he may bring back the outward rite of the Law, and subject the perfidy of the Jews to himself, he wishes the Sabbath to be observed. For this which is said by the prophet, 'You shall bring in no burden through your gates on the Sabbath day' (Jer. 17:24) could be held to as long as it was lawful for the Law to be observed according to the letter. But after that the grace of almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has appeared, the commandments of the Law which were spoken figuratively cannot be kept according to the letter. For if anyone says that this about the Sabbath is to be kept, he must needs say that carnal sacrifices are to be offered. He must say too that the commandment about the circumcision of the body is still to be retained. But let him hear the apostle Paul saying in opposition to him: 'If you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing' (Gal. 5:2)" (Letters 13:1).</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
</section>What if none of it is true?https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/what-if-none-of-it-is-true/2023-04-10T08:33:00+01:002023-04-10T08:33:00+01:00Luke Plant<p>Three responses to the question, “What if none of the things I believe about Jesus and God are actually real? What if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead?”</p><p>At some point most Christians will have to face questions about the reality of the Christian faith. What if none of the things we believe are actually true? What if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead? I don’t think there are adequate reasons to doubt, but here are 3 answers to that question.</p>
<section id="the-apostle-pauls-answer">
<h2>1. The apostle Paul’s answer</h2>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%2015&version=NIVUK">1 Corinthians 15:12-19</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If Jesus’ resurrection is a myth, then we are wasting our whole lives, and are the most pitiable of people. As Paul continues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I face death every day – yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,</p>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">‘Let us eat and drink,</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">for tomorrow we die.’</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="a-philosophers-response">
<h2>2. A philosopher’s response</h2>
<p>If you are more philosophically inclined, you could respond to the apostle Paul in this way:</p>
<p>If the Bible is not true, then what is true? Certainly none of the other religions – none comes close to having something like the resurrection of Jesus as a pillar to support its claims. That leaves us with atheism, which provides us with not the smallest scrap of a foundation on which to build any claims about the purpose of life, or what is a good or bad.</p>
<p>In which case, who can say what is a waste of a life, and what is a good use of one? Is hedonism the answer? Or pursuing the “good” of mankind, whatever we think that is? Or is living in delusion actually the best? No-one can say – there is no purpose behind our existence, nothing we were created for, and no-one has an objective place from which to say that other people are to be pitied or wasting their lives.</p>
</section>
<section id="puddleglums-answer">
<h2>3. Puddleglum’s answer</h2>
<p>In C.S. Lewis’s story “The Silver Chair”, Puddleglum is a Marshwiggle, a human-like creature who lives in the swamps and has a very gloomy outlook on life.</p>
<p>In the story, Puddleglum and two human children, Eustace and Jill, search for the missing Prince Rillian, and find him deep in an underground world where he had been enchanted by a witch. After freeing him from the enchantment, they have to face the witch herself, who proceeds to try to persuade them, with clever words and an intoxicating odour, that “the Overworld” they now want to return to does not in fact exist. The “sun” they claim to have seen is merely a fantastical extrapolation from the lamps they have seen in the underworld; the great “lion” they believe in is likewise a childish dream, generated from imaginations that have seen a cat and wanted a bigger and better cat. “Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world. There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan.”</p>
<p>She has almost succeeded when Puddleglum realises that the fire is responsible for the smell that is bewitching them all, which he bravely puts out with his bare feet. Then he says the following words, which, like many parts of the Chronicles of Narnia, are an obvious and deliberate allegory to Lewis’s apologetic arguments for Christianity, and need no further commentary:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“One word, Ma'am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we <em>have</em> only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours <em>is</em> the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”</p>
</blockquote>
</section>Accepting the paedo-baptised into credo-baptist churcheshttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/accepting-the-paedo-baptised-into-credo-baptist-churches/2023-01-30T09:47:55Z2023-01-30T09:47:55ZLuke Plant<p>Jesus’ command, “feed my sheep”, is the controlling priority.</p><p>This post is about a long-standing debate in churches of a credo-baptist persuasion about whether you can accept those baptised as infants into membership, and I approach this as someone standing in the Reformed tradition, in the baptist tradition, meaning I believe that <a class="reference external" href="https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-does-the-bible-say-about-baptism">the Bible’s teaching on baptism gives no justification for infant baptism</a>, and as an elder of my local church.</p>
<p>My position is that, if the person has a credible profession of faith, then their lack of believer’s baptism must not block their membership, and we would be sinning in a grievous way against the Lord Jesus if we failed to accept them into full membership.</p>
<p>The argument for the contrary position seems to go something like this:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>Only believer’s baptism is valid baptism.</p></li>
<li><p>Baptism is how you become a member of local church, and we require baptism of other people before membership.</p></li>
<li><p>Therefore it would be inconsistent to allow those not baptised as believers, but only as infants, to be members.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As it stands, this argument is mostly fine – I think there are some potential logical problems with it (we could argue about improper vs invalid baptisms etc), but they are mostly irrelevant given what follows. In the absence of overriding concerns, the argument would probably convince me.</p>
<p>But, there <strong>are</strong> overriding concerns! And very large ones.</p>
<p>Ultimately, we can’t be 100% consistent with everything that God requires all the time. In fact we can go further: consistent Christian living requires us to be inconsistent with some of the commands or principles in God’s word some of the time. Reality ensures that dilemmas will come – in a broken world, it is not possible to simultaneously obey all God’s commands. The only question is this: will we resolve the conflicting requirements we find ourselves under according to God’s own priorities or not?</p>
<p>If you believe that, in theory at least, you can obey everything with no inconsistency all the time, then I don’t think you’ve been paying attention, and you are in fact much more likely to be simply resolving the tensions in a way that it is very out of line with God’s priorities and demands.</p>
<p>I realise that this may be a surprising way of speaking, perhaps especially for those from a reformed background like myself, so I need to spend some time on that. Despite growing up with Bible teaching every week and even every day, it wasn’t until Bible college that I was clearly exposed to this teaching.</p>
<section id="disobedience-to-some-of-gods-commands-some-of-the-time-is-a-biblical-duty">
<h2>Disobedience to some of God’s commands, some of the time, is a Biblical duty</h2>
<p>Let’s imagine the situation: you are an Old Testament Israelite believer, on your way to Jerusalem to make a required sacrifice at the temple. You are not hugely wealthy – you have an animal with you, but not a lot of spare money. On the way, you meet a destitute family close to starvation. Do you:</p>
<ol class="upperalpha simple">
<li><p>Kill the animal to give to the starving family as food, or</p></li>
<li><p>Carry on to Jerusalem to make the sacrifice as God requires?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If you have even a small understanding of scripture and God’s character, this should be fairly easy, but I’ve made a second example, for those struggling with the first:</p>
<p>You are a Levite or priest travelling from Jericho to Jerusalem, in order to do the temple duties required of you in God’s law. You come across a man who is unconscious and bleeding. Do you:</p>
<ol class="upperalpha simple">
<li><p>Take whatever time is necessary to look after the man, potentially missing your duty turn at the temple, or</p></li>
<li><p>Carry on to Jerusalem to do your duty as God requires?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hopefully I don’t need to further labour the point. But we should look at the important passage that directly handles this general topic, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2012&version=NIVUK">Matthew 12:3-8</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The issue here is not first of all the Sabbath, but the broader principle “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. God himself, who commanded both the sacrificial system and having mercy on our fellow human, says extremely clearly that one is far more important to him than the other.</p>
<p>In the real world, we will hit situations like this, and we will have to make a choice. If we fail to prioritise God’s commands as he himself prioritises them, we are in danger of doing something terrible, like leaving a family to starve for the sake of a religious ceremony.</p>
<p>This is not a “lesser of two evils” theology. The passage is clear that you can <strong>break</strong> some of God’s laws, some of the time (the priests “profane” the Sabbath, and David did that which “was not lawful”), and yet still be “guiltless”.</p>
<p>The implications of this are important, and need to be restated: <strong>if you are not living inconsistently with some of God’s commands, some of the time, you are doing it wrong</strong>. The idol of the perfectly “consistent” position must have its head and hands smashed, and bow before God and his priorities.</p>
<p>Or, put another way: treating less important matters as if they were of primary importance will eventually lead you into grievous sin against the Lord Jesus at some point.</p>
<p>The good news is that if you were attempting to literally do the impossible and obey all the different conflicting commands simultaneously, you can relax: God just wants you to work out which is most important, and do that one. He usually makes it pretty clear.</p>
</section>
<section id="priorities-in-the-church">
<h2>Priorities in the church</h2>
<p>So much for the general principle, let’s come to what God’s priorities are in the church.</p>
<p>Let’s start with John 21:15-17:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’</p>
<p>‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘you know that I love you.’</p>
<p>Jesus said, ‘Feed my lambs.’</p>
<p>16 Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’</p>
<p>He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’</p>
<p>Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep.’</p>
<p>17 The third time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’</p>
<p>Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’</p>
<p>Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jesus really hammers Peter here. The threefold repetition of “Do you love me?” was emphatic enough in itself, but was also deliberately echoing Peter’s threefold denial, and Jesus’ point was not lost: “Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’” This is classic NT understatement – it means that Peter’s heart broke and the tears started to flow down his face, it means he related this conversation over and over and over to his fellow apostles, it means the memory of this conversation drove everything he did to the end of his days.</p>
<p>Jesus was interested in a full reconciliation and re-instatement, so he didn’t hesitate to put his finger on the matter of Peter’s denial, though it was extremely difficult. At the same time, he gives Peter three opportunities to say “I love you”, but in each case, Jesus wants to make it painfully clear what love for Him means: looking after His people.</p>
<p>It is <strong>almost</strong> as if Jesus is promoting the command to look after God’s people spiritually to the level of the greatest commandment – the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. This fits with the heightened priority Jesus gives to loving our Christian brothers and sisters in other passages (e.g. John 13:34, 1 John 2:3:11, 1 John 3:16).</p>
<p>That duty did not fall on Peter alone, but comes to every believer, and especially to every elder. The <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+20%3A13-38&version=NIVUK">passage in Acts</a> describing Paul’s farewell words to the elders of the Ephesian churches is one of the most emotionally charged texts in the New Testament, and includes these words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The gravity of these words can’t be overemphasised, and they are words that haunt – or should haunt – every elder of a church. When you press home your point with talk about the blood of God – words that make theologians squirm – then you are laying it on thick.</p>
<p>If you are an elder of a flock, and God sends you a sheep, your job is to welcome and shepherd them – to feed and nurture and care for them. That includes providing them with all the “means of grace” – everything that God has provided to help nourish his people spiritually and bring them safely to glory. Perhaps most important is the preaching of God’s word, but others of huge importance are communion and all the privileges of membership, including opportunities to serve, accountability and the necessary bonds of church discipline.</p>
<p>If God sends you someone who shows every sign of being a sheep, you don’t have the right of refusal – at least, not without some excellent reasons, reasons of which God himself would say “You are right, that is more important”.</p>
<p>The duty to look after God’s flock is not one command among many given to elders – it is <em>the</em> command. It is the summary command of all the other commands – as demonstrated by both the passages mentioned above. This doesn’t mean that none of the other commands matter – they give shape to what feeding the flock means – but they must not be applied in a way that subverts the great command.</p>
<p>So, what is there in scripture on the other side of this argument?</p>
<p>We have the command to baptise – but this is not particularly relevant to the question, as it’s pretty clear that we are not supposed to be baptising anyone against their will. The issue here is not elders unwilling to baptise, but sheep who are unwilling to be baptised because they believe they already have been.</p>
<p>We have the command to be baptised – important, but again not directly relevant to this exact question, as it is the business of the believer to obey this, not our responsibility as leaders.</p>
<p>We have a duty to teach and maintain right doctrine. But the Bible clearly differentiates quite starkly between primary and secondary (and tertiary) matters (e.g. compare Galatians 1:6-9 with Romans 14). And the debate between paedo- and credo-baptism is clearly not a primary matter.</p>
<p>We have to ask, how much of scripture is devoted to commanding elders to have 100% baptismal purity in their churches? Or to maintain absolute standards regarding how we teach disciples on any secondary issues? It’s pretty difficult to find any Biblical material on this, let alone anything expressed with close to the priority given to the elders’ duty to minister to the sheep that God sends them.</p>
<p>In general, we can see the lower priority of baptism in a number of ways:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>It’s a bodily ritual, and Christianity isn’t in general about that kind of thing, but about “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).</p></li>
<li><p>People can be saved without being baptised at all.</p></li>
<li><p>As a once-for-all entrance rite, it’s not something we are supposed to be doing continually. We don’t re-baptise those who have been previously baptised when people become members, but to some degree have to trust that those who baptised were careful in how they did it.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The ordinances (baptism and communion) exist for the good of the sheep; the sheep do not exist for the good of the ordinances. The ordinances are temporary; the sheep, and God’s love for them, are eternal.</p>
<p>So I struggle to see how anyone could look at the Biblical data and conclude that ensuring 100% adherence to credo-baptist practice would ever trump the command of Jesus to feed his sheep.</p>
<section id="consequences">
<h3>Consequences</h3>
<p>Another way of approaching questions of relative importance like this is to ask, “what would be the consequences of the different actions we take?”</p>
<section id="negative-consequences">
<h4>Negative consequences</h4>
<p>If we have a position in which we tolerate less than absolute adherence to believer’s baptism amongst our membership, what are the negative consequences?</p>
<p>Short term, there is very little. For the person themselves, there are positive benefits they are missing out on, but we can’t do anything about that (see section on “Positive consequences” below).</p>
<p>Regarding others around, is some already baptised or yet-to-be baptised person going to be encouraged to be baptised as an infant? Since no-one has a time machine, this is impossible. With baptism being a one-time act that happened (or didn’t) in the past, there is no ongoing, in-your-face active example that has a bad influence on others.</p>
<p>Will someone be confused about what we are teaching about the nature of valid baptisms? There is certainly some danger, but 1) it is not of primary importance and 2) it is easily countered: we teach people what we consider to be the right understanding of baptism, and we <strong>also</strong> take the perfect opportunity to teach them about God’s own priorities regarding loving and caring for those who give every indication that they are true believers.</p>
<p>What about the longer term impact – will we erode belief in the importance of believer’s baptism? If it has an exaggerated position in people’s hearts, then yes, we will be demoting it, and that will be a good thing. We will be helping to establish the correct position of this doctrine and practice in the hierarchy of what God is looking for in a Biblical church. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy go hand-in-hand, and right practice here will support right doctrine regarding which things are primary, and which are not.</p>
<p>I also have to point out: if we are seriously that concerned about a longer term impact and dilution of what we consider to be right doctrine, then we have to purge our bookshelves of paedo-baptist authors, cut off contact with paedo-baptist believers and disavow the baptisticly-mixed conferences and ministries we are involved with. It is one of the great ironies that the position that prioritises consistency over compassion, and cannot countenance having even a single non-credo-baptised member, is often fine with having our bookshelves, our supported missionaries and even our pulpits full of such believers!</p>
<p>On the other side, what are the negative consequences of sending away evident believers because of their paedo-baptist position? Here are some of the more serious ones:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>We would be embedding significant errors into the hearts of the flock: that the matter of credo-baptism vs. paedo-baptism is one of primary importance, while the obligation to love and protect God’s flock is a matter of relative indifference.</p></li>
<li><p>We will entrench the sad and scandalous divisions that plague Christ’s church, by refusing membership and welcome to those who come from the paedo-baptist side of God’s family. (There is a much bigger argument from the principle of Christian unity that I have not enlarged on here, because, while I think it ought to be a major factor, is slightly more involved in application).</p></li>
<li><p>If we fail to feed a sheep God sends us – that is, we deny them the God-ordained means of grace – it could result in spiritual disaster or malnourishment for that person. The Lord puts an infinite value on every one of his lambs, and he will not hold us guiltless. John Piper <a class="reference external" href="https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/response-to-grudem-on-baptism-and-church-membership">rightly said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…excluding a true brother in Christ from membership in the local church is far more serious than most of us think it is.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
<p>And there is one perhaps less serious consequence we can add: we will be denying paedo-baptists the benefit of actually being a part of the very churches where they might hear what we consider to be the Biblical position on baptism!</p>
</section>
<section id="positive-consequences">
<h4>Positive consequences</h4>
<p>We can look at this the other way: what are the positive outcomes we could conceivably hope for in insisting on an absolute position regarding baptism?</p>
<p>For the person who simply rejects Christ’s command to be baptised, there are multiple. By insisting that they must be baptised, we are teaching them that Christ is both Lord and Saviour, and his commands are not to be set aside. We are teaching them that they have a grossly inadequate view of scripture and that they must change. If we succeed in our aim, we’ve brought them into a position of humbled obedience and a happy conscience before Christ. And if we fail to persuade, and we therefore refuse membership, we do so on the basis and with the explicit explanation that they appear to be still unsaved, and still not in submission to Christ. We are thereby enlightening them about their true, lost spiritual state. In both cases, we do them great spiritual good.</p>
<p>But what for the convinced paedo-baptist? Assuming we have tried and failed to persuade them of credo-baptism, the very best we can hope for by continuing to insist on baptism is to do them zero spiritual good:</p>
<p>If they submit to baptism only because the church requires it, how are they better off spiritually? They have the same view of Christ and his Lordship before and after. They have the same view of scripture – it is abundantly evident from the ways we engage with reformed paedo-baptists that we don’t consider them to be heretical, and our statements of faith often express our position on scripture in identical ways. Their conscience is unchanged – they believe that before and after they were in identical states of obedience. From their position, they have been re-baptised – they have completed an essentially empty and unnecessary ritual, which in fact contradicts God’s own wishes for that ceremony. God is interested in heart obedience, and all of the spiritual benefits that flow from baptism require both understanding and heart submission, and not mere outward conformity. So the only thing we have achieved is to give them a bath.</p>
<p>If they still refuse baptism, we don’t teach them anything – we haven’t revealed their lost condition to them, because we don’t believe that. They have learned something about how stubborn we are, and nothing more. We’ve again done them zero spiritual good. In this case it will also lead to the negative consequences described above.</p>
<p>Baptism as an entrance rite to the visible church of Christ exists only for the spiritual good of the flock – God is not interested in outward rites for their own sake. We don’t merely do baptism “just because Christ says so”. That’s crucial, but not sufficient. If that’s all we have, we will be unable to weigh up different commands and their relative priority. We’ll be unable to apply “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, and we’ll make huge mistakes.</p>
<p>If we insist on absolute adherence to Christ’s commands in ways that pay no attention to the purpose of those commands, we demonstrate that we have lost the plot. We’ve got the priority of those commands all wrong because we have forgotten to ask why the commands were given.</p>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="objections">
<h2>Objections</h2>
<section id="this-opens-the-way-to-completely-unbaptised-people-being-accepted">
<h3>“This opens the way to completely unbaptised people being accepted”</h3>
<p>If someone refuses baptism completely, and cannot be corrected by appealing to Christ’s commands, then they give strong evidence that they are not a believer, since they do not have a heart attitude of submission to God, and you would legitimately refuse them membership on that basis.</p>
<p>The same is not true of a believer who considers their infant baptism to be valid, and believes that they are obeying Christ’s commands. While I’m not at all convinced by the paedo-baptist case, it is a <em>reasonable</em> case based on a <em>reasonable</em> approach to scripture. When paedo-baptists argue on the basis of household baptisms, the model of circumcision and a certain view of covenant continuity, I cannot conclude that they must have unregenerate hearts to have come up with such an interpretation. I just think they’re wrong, and not doing justice to what the Bible actually says. There is a difference between wrongly understanding God’s word and refusing to understand God’s word.</p>
<p>For my intended audience, this is a point I don’t need to labour. We already demonstrate in a thousand ways that we not only regard many convinced paedo-baptists as believers, but in fact hold many of them in high regard in the faith.</p>
</section>
<section id="if-a-person-refuses-believers-baptism-they-are-the-one-refusing-membership">
<h3>“If a person refuses believer’s baptism, they are the one refusing membership”</h3>
<p>The flaw in this argument is that they are not actually refusing membership – they want membership – but refusing what they see as an unbiblical hurdle, one that would go against their understanding of what scripture requires of them. We cannot put any terms on membership and say “We welcomed you, you’re the one who refused to come”.</p>
<p>Rules about church membership only exist because of a more important goal: to protect the flock from spiritual danger and ensure their spiritual health and growth. If we design and apply membership rules so they function as a mechanism for excluding from protection the very sheep that they were supposed to protect, we’ve turned their entire purpose on their head.</p>
</section>
<section id="we-exclude-people-on-the-basis-of-other-secondary-matters-why-not-this">
<h3>“We exclude people on the basis of other secondary matters, why not this?”</h3>
<p>The argument here is that there may be other reasons why someone we believe to be a genuine sheep might be rightly excluded from membership of a church – for example, those who reject some important doctrine in our basis of faith. If that’s allowed, shouldn’t the same be applied those who differ in the secondary matter of baptism?</p>
<p>As with the previous objection, the issue to remember here is that membership criteria do not exist for their own sake, but for the sake of the flock and for the flock’s protection. As well as feeding the flock, we are to protect them from wolves e.g. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2020%3A29-31&version=NIVUK">Acts 20:29-31</a>. We must be willing to draw a sharp line between those who must be protected and those we are protecting from.</p>
<p>This is normally done on matters of primary (salvific) importance. Someone who denies a key part of the gospel must be excluded not only because they demonstrate that they are (most probably) not a true believer, but because of their influence on others.</p>
<p>However, sometimes there are cases where we might judge a person to be probably a genuine sheep, but whose behaviour and influence is sufficiently wolf-like that we are forced to exclude them. One example might be infallibility of scripture.</p>
<p>The decision will usually depend very strongly on other factors: Are they are a new believer with lots of inadequate views because they just haven’t had chance to be discipled yet, or someone confirmed in their opinions? Will they take every opportunity to convert others to their view, or will they show respect for the church’s position? Just how dangerous is their doctrinal stance, and how likely are they to influence others?</p>
<p>In regard to paedo-baptism, I can certainly imagine cases where someone could exhibit sufficiently divisive behaviour that would result in them being excluded from membership. But in general, we are already agreed that the error, while an error, is on a secondary matter, and not in itself pernicious enough that we need to purge its influence from our congregations.</p>
<p>The basis of these decisions is not the rules for rules’ sake, nor consistency, but the end goal of taking care of God’s people. If we forget that, if we forget why we doing all this, we will commit all kinds of horrors in his name.</p>
</section>
<section id="they-can-go-to-the-church-down-the-road">
<h3>“They can go to the church down the road”</h3>
<p>First, the existence of a good, nearby church that is willing to look after the sheep that we refuse to care for is not an excuse for disobedience. The existence of that church may significantly lessen the seriousness of the consequences of our sin, but it does not lessen the sin itself.</p>
<p>Second, the existence of such a church can by no means be taken for granted. In one of the places where I have served the Lord, the next nearest church to our own (baptistic) church was several hundred miles away. If your policies only work where you have the luxury of many nearby churches, you will need to pray that those are policies are not copied, and that they don’t spread to other less fortunate places. I, for one, will join you in that prayer.</p>
<p>It is striking to me as I’ve read some of the positions on both sides of this debate, how few people even considered the possibility that there might not be an alternative church for people to be members of. The relative luxury of western countries in this matter has made us fat, instead of taking the full weight of the awesome responsibility we have as ministers of the means of grace. When you are the only church in a city of more than a million, the only light in the darkness, the only place where starving lambs will get spiritual food, the only people with the keys to the kingdom, you cannot get away with the lazy thinking and lazy attitude that says “other people will do my job so let them”.</p>
</section>
<section id="church-members-should-submit-to-the-elders-views">
<h3>“Church members should submit to the elders’ views”</h3>
<p>This objection is based on an overreach of the authority of the eldership. We as elders don’t have the right to override people’s consciences, nor insist that they take our doctrinal views on board. We have the right to the chance to persuade people of what we believe scripture teaches, but not to insist that they say “I agree with you”. There are matters of practical application where we do expect submission from members (e.g. if we say “we’re going to have our members’ meeting at 7pm”, we would not expect some people to decide on a different time), but we are not local popes on any doctrinal matter.</p>
<p>Our aim is not to establish our own authority, but that of Christ’s. If we do achieve the aim of getting people to do what we say, but only by threatening them with spiritual starvation and without having persuaded them that it is what Christ wants, we’ve achieved nothing or less than nothing. Submission of the heart is not achieved by twisting of arms.</p>
</section>
<section id="this-makes-things-messy">
<h3>“This makes things messy”</h3>
<p>Sometimes church life is avoidably messy because of poor decisions or leadership, and we make life hard for ourselves. But sometimes, it is unavoidably messy, because flocks are made up of <strong>sheep</strong>. That’s just the way it is, we didn’t choose it, but we have to live with it, and respond according to God’s character and expressed priorities.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="conclusion">
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>The Lord Jesus has made himself abundantly clear on this matter. We simply need to ask, “what is more important to Christ, his sheep being fed, or 100% outward conformance to a religious ritual?” The failure of many baptistic churches to get the right answer to this simple question can be attributed only to their sinful refusal to prioritise his wishes above their own historic divisions and distinctives, and because of a lack of clarity on the doctrine of God’s own hierarchy of commands and priorities.</p>
<p>When faced with the dilemma of what to do with the convinced paedo-baptist who has not been baptised as a believer, but gives every sign of being a sheep and not a wolf, I cannot see room for any conclusion other than this: it is our duty to “profane” baptism, and accept them into membership. If we fail to do so, on the day of judgement Christ will say to us “I sent you a sheep, but you refused to feed them. Why?” And we will have nowhere to hide.</p>
</section>A model for the soulhttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/a-model-for-the-soul/2022-12-10T16:08:00Z2022-12-10T16:08:00ZLuke Plant<p>A way to think about the soul, and how it relates to the body, in the 21st century</p><p>This post is an attempt to give a <em>model</em> for thinking about the Christian concept of the soul. It is not a <em>theory</em>.</p>
<section id="models-vs-theories">
<h2>Models vs Theories</h2>
<p>I’m loosely borrowing the language of <em>models</em> and <em>theories</em> from the scientific world. If you present a <em>theory</em>, you will often be expected to give a somewhat comprehensive explanation and description of how something <em>really is</em>. If, on the other hand, you present a <em>model</em>, you will be expected to give <em>a useful way of thinking about something or making calculations about it</em>.</p>
<p>For example, if you’re teaching the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_laws">gas laws</a>, you might model molecules as solid bouncy spheres. Of course, you would not be claiming that molecules really are solid bouncy spheres, and in fact we know that they are very different from that. A more accurate description, however, which might involve atoms and sub-atomic particles etc., will not help you in this context. If you go further and describe particles as blobs of quantum goo, you’ll be even further from communicating an intuitive understanding of bulk gas properties.</p>
<p>Multiple models are often necessary in a single area. The most obvious example of this is <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality">wave-particle duality</a> in quantum physics. In some circumstances, you need to be able to think of light – and the rest of matter – as being composed of particles, other times as waves. In would be nice if our brains had a single intuitive model that incorporated both of those naturally, but it seems we don’t.</p>
<p>A model is more humble than a theory. When you use a model, you are conscious of the fact that <strong>there will always be a gap between your understanding of reality and reality itself</strong>.</p>
<p>If these things are true for understanding those parts of reality that can be more readily measured and tested scientifically, it shouldn’t surprise us if we need to think about revealed, spiritual reality in a similar way. It turns out I’m not the first to apply this way of thinking to theology: for a fuller discussion, see the “Mystery and Models” section of J.I. Packer’s lecture on <a class="reference external" href="http://www.the-highway.com/cross_Packer.html">The logic of penal substitution</a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="the-component-theory">
<h2>The component theory</h2>
<p>The model I’m about to describe stands in contrast to what we could call a “component” theory of human nature. That theory takes some of the language found in parts of the Bible where a person might be described as being made up of “body” and “soul” (e.g. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%2012%3A7&version=NIVUK">Ecclesiastes 12:7</a>), and considers this language of us having different “parts” as being more than a model, but a complete description of reality – soul and the body are the two constituents from which a whole person is constructed. Put the two together and you’ve got a real person. While one is subtracted (death), you no longer have a person.</p>
<p>This division in itself has not been controversial, with many noting that as well as “soul” and “body”, in the Bible there is also mention of “spirit”, leading to debates between the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartite_(theology)">bipartite</a> and <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_(theology)">tripartite</a> camps.</p>
<p>Both camps get into trouble with the biblical data, because the Bible simply doesn’t use its own terminology consistently. Sometimes it even refers to the whole person as a “soul” – for example, Genesis 2:7 says that the man God created became a living “soul” (Hebrew “nephesh”), seemingly referring to the whole person, and 1 Peter 3:20 refers to the people on the ark as “souls” (Greek ψυχή which can be translated soul or life). As another example, when the Bible commands us to love God with all our <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2012%3A30&version=NIVUK">heart, soul, mind and strength</a>, we wouldn’t conclude there are actually 4 components that make up the person.</p>
<p>A component theory of body and soul quickly gets you into difficult theological and philosophical issues, especially regarding how the two interact. I think increasingly many Christians have seen how the bipartite (or tripartite) positions are problematic from a biblical perspective and have seen the need to emphasise the fundamental one-ness of human nature.</p>
<p>A dualistic, component theory also becomes pretty problematic in the light of many advances in science, especially neuroscience. As we understand more and more about what different parts of the brain do, we are going to increasingly discover the role of the brain in moral and ethical judgements, and in spiritual experiences. Those who lean on a component theory of body and soul are going to find the soul continually shrinking and becoming a victim of a “soul of the gaps” ideology, just as a <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps">God of the gaps</a> approach to the physical sciences results in God disappearing.</p>
</section>
<section id="how-i-think-about-the-soul">
<h2>How I think about the soul</h2>
<p>If I remember correctly, the seed thought in the analogy that follows is from a book called “The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten”, by Julian Baggini. I no longer have my copy of the book, so I’m not sure whether I have developed, misrepresented or just wholesale plagiarised the ideas found there – but I certainly don’t claim originality. The thought here could also probably be expressed in terms of other ideas from philosophers, but I like this better.</p>
<p>The analogy: what is “a piece of music”?</p>
<p>That seems like a pretty hard question in itself. To make it more concrete, let’s pick a famous piece. I was going to choose Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto, because the tune often goes round my head, but Bohemian Rhapsody is a bit shorter to type – feel free to substitute with anything of your own choosing, preferably something with a tune you can call to mind easily.</p>
<p>A specific piece of music like Bohemian Rhapsody could be defined as a certain sequence of sound waves – a far from perfect definition, but we have to start somewhere. But now we could ask: once the sound waves have died down, does that piece of music still exist?</p>
<p>I think most people would agree that even if no-one were playing Bohemian Rhapsody right now, it would still exist in our world – firstly because we have lots of recordings of it, on various physical media and sheet music. If someone somehow succeeded in destroying all of those, we could still say that it exists in many people’s memories. Between us we would probably do a pretty good job of reproducing it.</p>
<p>However, once the last recording is gone, and the last person who remembers it has died, I think it would be fair to say that it has finally been lost or destroyed.</p>
<p>So, in order to exist, a piece of music needs to have a physical form. But that physical form is not limited to just one medium. We can also note that there might be many different recitals or recordings of the same song which cannot be identical, and yet are all somehow, in some sense the “same” song.</p>
<p>So much for the analogy. The question we are really thinking about is this: what is a human being?</p>
<p>As humans we are fundamentally physically. My body is me, and I am my body. And the future hope of Christians involves physical bodies in a physical world – that is the resurrection we are promised and are waiting for.</p>
<p>Yet, we are aware that we are more than our bodies, and Biblical language reflects that.</p>
<p>And what about after death? The idea of a disembodied soul or a disembodied existence is a very strange one and very difficult to square with our fundamentally physical nature. Yet the Bible does talk of being “with God” immediately after death, long before the promised resurrection.</p>
<p>So is it possible for a human being, like a piece of music, to be “recorded” and “played back” somehow?</p>
<p>What if there was a perfect, infinite mind that was able to know every part of who am I, body, mind and spirit? If God, at the point I die, captures in his mind every detail about me, and not just the physical aspects of my final state, but the fully 4-dimensional reality of everything I ever did or thought, everything about who I really was, could you say that I still existed? What if God was able, with his infinitely powerful and precise imagination, to think about me, to lovingly recall me to his mind so perfectly and vividly that it became a genuine existence for me?</p>
<p>What if that’s what I mean when I say “my soul is going to be with God”?</p>
<p>There are a number of things I like about this model:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>It emphasises the goodness and importance of our physical nature.</p></li>
<li><p>It fully escapes the “soul of the gaps” trap, and frees us from looking for ways that body and soul “interact”.</p></li>
<li><p>It frees us from having to answer questions like “when does the soul enter the body of the unborn child?” The answer to that question that would have big ethical consequences, but it’s question which the Bible doesn’t actually address, let alone answer. I think it’s the wrong question, based on a wrong theory.</p></li>
<li><p>It rightly makes the “<a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_state">intermediate state</a>” a definitely inferior and strange form of existence, compared with the resurrection we are looking forward to.</p></li>
<li><p>While emphasising the fundamental physicality of the body, it still makes a distinction between “who I really am” and “my body right now”. It allows for the idea that the body can somehow be a less than perfect representation of the real person – just as you could have an imperfect performance of Bohemian Rhapsody that somehow still “is” Bohemian Rhapsody. This is helpful for other things in life – for example, in thinking about illnesses or disabilities, including mental illnesses and the deterioration of the body in old age.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There are certainly weaknesses in this model, but I think that’s fine – it’s not supposed to be the <strong>only</strong> model. I don’t think it can claim to be “Biblical” – it’s what Packer would call a “secondary” model, rather than a primary one. I don’t even think it is “correct”, in the same way that “molecules are solid bouncy balls” is not “correct”.</p>
<p>It’s just one way of thinking about the subject that I don’t think contradicts what the Bible teaches, and can be helpful to us in some contexts – especially, in showing that there are other ways of thinking about what the soul is in the context of a growing understanding of the brain that makes <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism#Substance_dualism">substance dualism</a> increasingly untenable. I found it helpful for thinking about a subject that is full of deep mysteries, my wife didn’t think it was completely heretical, so I thought it was worth sharing.</p>
</section>The argument from unwanted childrenhttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-argument-from-unwanted-children/2022-06-27T14:03:24+01:002022-06-27T14:03:24+01:00Luke Plant<p>Why the argument from unwanted children doesn’t convince those who are pro-life</p><p>Katharine Birbalsingh asked on Twitter:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This makes a good argument IMO for abortion instead of madness we see on twitter<br><br>Having said that, it doesn’t mention real numbers or culture change<br><br>Would love to hear from my pro-life followers why this doesn’t convince (other than religious reasons) <a href="https://t.co/ifaGSb4SMR">https://t.co/ifaGSb4SMR</a></p>— Katharine Birbalsingh (@Miss_Snuffy) <a href="https://twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1541119246272536582?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 26, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><p>As a pro-life person who very much respects Katharine Birbalsingh, and the way
she has chosen to engage with people on Twitter, I thought I would write a very
quick response (likely full of typos etc., sorry in advance). If the writing
comes over as curt or hostile, that is not intended, I’m just trying to be
logical and direct (and I’m not afraid of challenging people that I know do not
shy from being challenged!)</p>
<p>The linked article on <a class="reference external" href="https://quillette.com/2022/06/24/the-tragedy-of-the-unwanted-child-what-ancient-cultures-did-before-abortion/">The tragedy of the unwanted child</a>
basically argues along these lines: if we don’t have abortion, we’ll have lots
of infanticide or abandonment, and so we should allow abortion instead as its
not as bad as those. Plus it’s natural, based on arguments from evolutionary
biology/history/anthropology. To quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Safe abortion, then, is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of
neonaticide and abandonment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If I understand the article rightly, it is basically saying that
infanticide/neonaticide/abandonment etc. are not morally bad, just unfortunate
because they are more upsetting for mothers.</p>
<p>So, by “cure”, it means not a way of tackling a moral evil, but a way of making
us not feel as bad. The article doesn’t quite put it as bluntly as that, but at points it
comes close.</p>
<p>If you want someone to articulate this position even more clearly, see people like
<a class="reference external" href="https://bioedge.org/uncategorized/peter-singer-on-abortion/">Peter Singer</a>,
who rightly recognise that there is no fundamental biological difference between
the born and unborn child. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/08/15520/">The life of a new human being begins at
fertilisation, and there is no serious scientific dissent on this matter</a>.</p>
<p>So, there are two ways it can go:</p>
<p>First, if you really believe this argument, you should be in favour of
legalising both abortion and infanticide. The article even pointed out that in
some parts of the world, neonaticide is safer than abortion for mothers. So, if
you allow abortion for some mothers, but not infanticide for mothers where that
is safer, why not?</p>
<p>The moral argument in the article appears to be that killing young children is “natural”, based on reasons drawn from evolutionary biology and the practices
of cultures across the world.</p>
<p>Is this a sound argument? I reject it on logical grounds (as well as religious)
for the same reason I reject arguments for legalising rape, and many other
things we might call “natural”, including all murder. If, as a non-religious
person you want to claim something is not “natural”, what is it – supernatural?
Everything is natural, because it exists in the natural world.</p>
<p>It is simply impossible to build moral views out of arguments of things being
natural or not, nor on accepted practices across the world (but that’s a longer
post).</p>
<p>If you accept this article’s argument, you must be willing to say that you take
Singer’s position, or you are being dishonest about what you believe (or
deliberately living with intellectual muddiness on this issue, which is probably
more comforting).</p>
<p>The other way we could go, is to agree with the article that infanticide is bad,
but not primarily because it is distressing for parents and others, but because of a
belief in the sanctity of human life (wherever you get that from). And if you
believe that, then abortion is bad for the same reason infanticide is bad – it’s
killing a human being. There can be times when that is justified (saving the
mother’s life and perhaps some other cases), but ultimately a human life
deserves legal protection.</p>
<p>The next point to make is that the article fundamentally presents a false
dichotomy. Either we allow abortion, or we have to live with infanticide.</p>
<p>But as the article rightly points out, Christianity changed our attitude to
infanticide. We came to recognise infanticide as bad, and it stopped happening
(as much as before). <a class="reference external" href="https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/59472/were-christians-in-the-roman-empire-known-to-rescue-abandoned-babies">Early Christians rescued children that were exposed</a>.
Society became more compassionate. We found ways to help those who struggled to
look after their children. We took on the burden of looking after the unwanted,
as continues today with adoption agencies.</p>
<p>So, it turns out we do not simply have to live with evil things! We can change
attitudes towards it, and change society.</p>
<p>In summary, you have to choose:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Abortion and infanticide are the same thing</strong> (as the article explicitly
points out), they are the same morally, and <strong>we should legalise both</strong>. We
prefer abortion because it is less distressing (to us) and often safer for
mothers. But if mothers are safer/less distressed by infanticide, that should
be both permitted and encouraged.</p>
<p>Also, the right response to the poor and vulnerable, who are more tempted than
others to kill their children, is to encourage them to do so with cheap, legal
options. This will result in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/emily-ward/blacks-make-134-population-36-abortions">disproportionate numbers of ethnic
minorities/poor people being killed by abortion</a>
(which is no surprise, given the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.hli.org/2020/07/planned-parenthood-eugenic-racism/">origins of agencies like Planned Parenthood</a>).</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>Abortion and infanticide are the same thing</strong>, and we should legislate
<strong>against</strong> them in basically the same way. (The main difference is that while
pregnancy is ongoing, the unborn child can affect the life/health of the
mother in some ways that it can’t after birth, and that changes some things).</p>
<p>The right response to those are struggling to provide for their children is
that the whole of society, in some way, helps them bear that burden, and
provides them with the support needed to look after their families, or the
option of adoption if that fails.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Which one is it? I’d love to hear your answer Katharine!</p>
<section id="updates">
<h2>Updates</h2>
<p>Things I could have added but didn’t have time to this afternoon:</p>
<p>The attitude of compassion that drove the early Christians should also
characterise society’s behaviour now. Also, the one area that the article linked
above can really help us is pointing out that, very often, those seeking
abortions are people in desperate circumstances who are pushed into it by great
physical/financial need, and possibly social pressure as well.</p>
<p>So, part of society compassionately bearing the burden is to ensure free medical
health care for mothers and their children, at the very least (as it is here in
the UK). Health systems where <a class="reference external" href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/ask-experts/how-much-does-an-abortion-cost">having an abortion costs $750</a>
but <a class="reference external" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/cost-giving-birth-in-united-states/3/">giving birth costs about $15,000</a> sound
like something concocted by Satan himself.</p>
<p>Legal implications should also reflect these truths. Making abortion illegal
doesn’t mean you have to criminalise women who seek or have abortions, you could
limit that to those who do the abortions. There should be recognition that in
most cases, when women seek abortions or expose their children, it is usually
more of a societal rather than individual failure.</p>
<p>For me, as well as for saving the mother’s life, I would make an exception in
the case of rape, at least on the legal level. Laws are very important, but not
everything you think is wrong will be best addressed by laws.</p>
</section>The technological case against Bitcoin and blockchainhttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/2022-03-05T19:44:01Z2022-03-05T19:44:01ZLuke Plant<p>A look at the claim that Bitcoin and blockchain represent a technological revolution, fairly in depth but trying to avoid any techno-babble.</p><p>Continuing from my <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain">first post on the Christian case against Bitcoin and
blockchain</a>,
this post looks at the technology claim – the idea that Bitcoin, Ethereum and
other cryptoassets represent an amazing “technological revolution” that we
should be making the most of.</p>
<p>This post got out of hand, despite cutting tons of material! But, in my defence:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>It’s shorter than Dan Olson’s 2 hour marathon, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g">Line Goes Up</a> (very highly recommended).</p></li>
<li><p>It has a contents table, so you can skip to the bits that interest you.</p></li>
<li><p>It has GIFs. A few.</p></li>
</ul>
<nav class="contents" id="contents" role="doc-toc">
<p class="topic-title">Contents</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#the-problem-with-technology" id="toc-entry-1">The problem with technology</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#the-argument-from-authority" id="toc-entry-2">The argument from authority</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#about-me" id="toc-entry-3">About me</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#evaluating-technology" id="toc-entry-4">Evaluating technology</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#what-problem-does-bitcoin-solve" id="toc-entry-5">What problem does Bitcoin solve?</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#how-the-blockchain-solution-works" id="toc-entry-6">How the blockchain solution works</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#does-this-solution-actually-work" id="toc-entry-7">Does this solution actually work?</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#problems-and-costs" id="toc-entry-8">Problems and costs</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#peer-to-peer" id="toc-entry-9">Peer-to-peer?</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#security" id="toc-entry-10">Security</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#ledger-technology" id="toc-entry-11">Ledger technology</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#money-technology" id="toc-entry-12">Money technology</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#new-currency-required" id="toc-entry-13">New currency required</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#money-creation-mechanism" id="toc-entry-14">Money creation mechanism</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#fixed-money-supply" id="toc-entry-15">Fixed money supply</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#payment-technology" id="toc-entry-16">Payment technology</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#privacy-and-anonymity" id="toc-entry-17">Privacy and anonymity</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#irreversibility" id="toc-entry-18">Irreversibility</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#banking-technology" id="toc-entry-19">Banking technology</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#be-your-own-bank" id="toc-entry-20">Be your own bank</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#use-an-exchange" id="toc-entry-21">Use an exchange</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#so-who-is-this-good-for" id="toc-entry-22">So who is this good for?</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#are-there-other-uses" id="toc-entry-23">Are there other uses?</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#blockchains-for-databases" id="toc-entry-24">Blockchains for databases</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#smart-contracts" id="toc-entry-25">Smart contracts</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#nfts" id="toc-entry-26">NFTs</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#nfts-of-everything" id="toc-entry-27">NFTs of everything</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#daos" id="toc-entry-28">DAOs</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#web3" id="toc-entry-29">web3</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#can-we-fix-it" id="toc-entry-30">Can we fix it?</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#upgradability" id="toc-entry-31">Upgradability</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#scalability" id="toc-entry-32">Scalability</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#energy-use" id="toc-entry-33">Energy use</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#proof-of-stake" id="toc-entry-34">Proof-of-stake</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#proof-of-something-useful" id="toc-entry-35">Proof-of-something-useful</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#but-its-still-early-days" id="toc-entry-36">“But it’s still early days!”</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#conclusion" id="toc-entry-37">Conclusion</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#epilogue" id="toc-entry-38">Epilogue</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#updates" id="toc-entry-39">Updates</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnotes" id="toc-entry-40">Footnotes</a></p></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<section id="the-problem-with-technology">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-1" role="doc-backlink">The problem with technology</a></h2>
<p>Crypto-mania is not really about technology. If you want to understand what is
going on, you need to understand it at the level of economics, culture and human
nature, which I touched on more in my first post, and Dan Olson’s video is
excellent in that regard.</p>
<p>The technology is just a source of “magic”. In other places and times, the
witch doctor, or the priest speaking in Latin, provided the magic that you
couldn’t speak against. In our day, it is the high priests of science and
technology <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#science" id="footnote-reference-1" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>1<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a>. But they can be much more convincing than voodoo,
because science and technology actually work.</p>
<p>And computer technology can appear quite magical. Modern hardware seems nearly
miraculous, and there have been amazing software breakthroughs, especially in
the area of cryptography – such as <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography">public key cryptography</a> and <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange">Diffie-Helman key
exchange</a> —
that are not only mathematical gems, but amazingly useful too.</p>
<p>And no-one wants to be <a class="reference external" href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paul-krugman-internets-effect-economy/">Paul Krugman in 1998</a>:</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paul-krugman-internets-effect-economy/"><img alt="“By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/paul_krugman_internet_quote.jpeg"></a>
<p>So, this post is an attempt to equip those who aren’t computer experts with
enough knowledge to engage with the main technological claims of blockchains,
and how they measure up in reality. I won’t go into mathematical detail, and I
will obviously simplify in some cases, but try not to make any simplifications
that mislead.</p>
</section>
<section id="the-argument-from-authority">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-2" role="doc-backlink">The argument from authority</a></h2>
<p>If you want, <a class="reference external" href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority">we can use an argument from authority as a shortcut</a> to all of this. Below
is a very small selection from the very many competent and diverse software
experts, across business, academia and Open Source/Free Software sectors, who
will tell you that blockchain technologies are not helpful to the world:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.schneier.com">Bruce Schneier</a> is the first name that comes to
my mind if I wanted an authority on cryptography and security. He has written a
very clear article pointing out <a class="reference external" href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html">the fundamental flaws in blockchain as a
“trustless” technology</a> – in
summary:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And <a class="reference external" href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/04/clever-cryptocurrency-theft.html">more recently</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is insane to me that cryptocurrencies are still a thing.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray">Tim Bray</a> is a famous software
developer, employed by big name companies and involved in important
specifications. He is a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/05/13/Not-Believing-in-Blockchain">crypto-non-believer</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.stephendiehl.com/">Stephen Diehl</a> is a very talented software
developer that I know especially for his helpful writing about <a class="reference external" href="https://www.stephendiehl.com/pages/writings.html">Haskell and
related subjects</a>. In
recent years he’s become famous for his ethical stance against abuses by tech
companies, and especially <a class="reference external" href="https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog.html">Bitcoin etc</a>. He has a helpful summary of his
arguments (shorter than this post) – <a class="reference external" href="https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/against-crypto.html">The Case Against Crypto</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza">Miguel de Icaza</a> is best
known for a very impressive list of contributions to the Free Software/Open
Source world. He is also a <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1474353505846583297">firm crypto-sceptic</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski">Jamie Zawinski</a> or <a class="reference external" href="https://www.jwz.org/">jwz</a> is an internet legend, best known for his
contributions to Netscape Navigator and for being one of the founders of
<a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla">Mozilla</a>. He <a class="reference external" href="https://www.jwz.org/blog/tag/dunning-krugerrands/">does not have a very
high opinion of cryptoassets or their promoters</a> (language warning).</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.theregister.com">The Register</a> is a venerable, no-nonsense UK
news site for techies, by techies (as opposed to the large number of sites
that are for techno-enthusiasts who don’t really understand the tech, written
by columnists who also don’t really understand the tech). It has a great piece
on how <a class="reference external" href="https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/06/the_dark_equation_of_harm/">blockchain has failed and needs to be retired</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum">Guido van Rossum</a> is the author of the
Python programming language, which is currently <a class="reference external" href="https://pypl.github.io/PYPL.html">probably the world’s most
popular programming language</a>. He <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1508959260905918465">recently tweeted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let web3 die in a flaming ball of fire.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I selected the above from a much larger list because:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>They are all actual technologists who write software and understand software
systems.</p></li>
<li><p>They had established reputations as such before this whole crypto stuff
started, from a wide range of backgrounds, and I knew them as first as
software people, not as crypto-sceptics. This is important to me as I try to
avoid the “echo chamber” effect in the people I listen to.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Since debate on this subject took off, the majority of my Twitter feed, which
has a lot of established software developers in it, has come down pretty firmly
on the crypto-sceptic side. In fact, mocking Bitcoin/Ethereum/NFTs/web3 and
their fans has become a bit of a pastime. I’ve been trying really hard not to
mock or insult people, but when it comes to the technology, sometimes it’s the
only way to stay sane…</p>
<p>Here’s a bunch more very well qualified techies who’ve been outspoken against
cryptoassets:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._H._Rosenthal">David S H Rosenthal</a>,
a very distinguished computer scientist who has worked on major projects at
big tech companies like Sun, Nvidia, Oracle, and has co-authored <a class="reference external" href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/945445.945451">award winning
papers on distributed consensus mechanisms</a>. You literally couldn’t ask
for a more qualified expert. See <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html">his recent EE380 talk</a> and <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.dshr.org/search/label/bitcoin">other posts on his blog</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.mollywhite.net">Molly White</a>, experienced software developer
and Wikipedia editor – see her <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/">blockchain collection</a> and <a class="reference external" href="https://web3isgoinggreat.com/">sarcastic news site, “Web3 Is
Going Just Great”</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/nweaver.html">Nicholas Weaver</a>, PhD in
Computer Science and lecturer at Berkeley. He is an expert in this field,
having followed it academically since 2013 – see <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/ncweaver">his tweets</a>, his lecture <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4">Cryptocurrencies and
Blockchains – Burn it with fire!</a>, and his lecture <a class="reference external" href="https://youtu.be/J9nv0Ol-R5Q?t=69">Computer
Security 161 Cryptocurrency Lecture</a>
where he concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no value in this space. None. Zero. Zilch. Zippo.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_Booch">Grady Booch</a>, internationally
recognised software engineer – see <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/Grady_Booch/status/1470116884796170241">his tweets</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Atwood">Jeff Atwood</a>, another very famous and
influential software developer – see <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1470941647722598400">his tweets</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="http://tantek.com/">Tantek Çelik</a>, web developer, who is famous to me for
the workarounds he developed when we were all languishing under the misery of
Internet Explorer 5 and 6 – see <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/tante">his tweets</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://hillelwayne.com/">Hillel Wayne</a> is a software consultant, and the
author of an excellent blog and several books, with a focus on a branch of
computer science known as <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_methods">Formal methods</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mickens">James Mickens</a>, computer
scientist and professor at Harvard - see his lecture <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RTC22Z2xI">Blockchains Are a Bad
Idea</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/i/lists/1470046292336336900/members">There are many others</a>, and <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/rufuspollock/awesome-crypto-critique/">many more
critiques</a> you can
read.</p>
<section id="about-me">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-3" role="doc-backlink">About me</a></h3>
<p>Finally, I’m going to add myself to this list: I’m a software professional who
started programming as a child. I taught myself BASIC and machine code in my
early teens, before I even knew the internet existed. Since then I’ve
accumulated more than 20 years professional software development experience, in
<a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/development-work/">a large range of programming languages and business sectors</a>.</p>
<p>I’ve also had pretty deep involvement with the Open Source world, most notably
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.djangoproject.com/">Django</a>, which is probably the most popular
web framework for <a class="reference external" href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a>, used in a large number of
websites today. When I was more active on that project, I made large
contributions to its security, which requires a very good understanding of how
the web works, along with some of the fundamentals of cryptography.</p>
<p>I now bill myself primarily as a full-stack web developer – that means I make
web sites from start to finish, and I take pride in providing efficient,
well-engineered solutions to real needs. I mention all of this to establish:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>I know how the web and the internet work, with a reasonable understanding of
cryptography, and I’m perfectly capable of understanding Bitcoin at the
technical level.</p></li>
<li><p>I am not a technophobe, or anything like it. As a web developer, I’m
constantly having to assess and learn new technologies.</p></li>
<li><p>I’ve been around long enough to know that many things go round in circles,
not every new thing lasts, and sometimes we go backwards. There are plenty of
new technologies <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/03/28">that turn out to be duds</a>.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I can’t claim technologists are 100% anti-crypto of course – this is a very
divisive topic in the tech world. But the narrative that says all or most
technologically literate people see this as a great revolution is completely
false.</p>
<p>But if you’ve read this far, you might want an actual analysis rather than the
shortcut. Here goes…</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="evaluating-technology">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-4" role="doc-backlink">Evaluating technology</a></h2>
<p>How do you evaluate a piece of technology? In the many Open Source projects and
closed source private projects I’m involved in, when a change or addition is
proposed, the questions you ask are:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>What problem does this try to solve?</p></li>
<li><p>Does it actually solve it?</p></li>
<li><p>What costs does it bring with it?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So let’s look at those questions regarding Bitcoin, Ethereum etc.</p>
<section id="what-problem-does-bitcoin-solve">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-5" role="doc-backlink">What problem does Bitcoin solve?</a></h3>
<p>We can’t do better than to refer to the original Bitcoin whitepaper, which
describes a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.bitcoin.com/satoshi-archive/whitepaper/">“A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”</a>.</p>
<p>The fundamental problem Bitcoin claims to solve is the ability to have
“peer-to-peer” electronic money transfers that do not go through a financial
institution, in a similar way to how cash works peer-to-peer, without needing a
trusted third party to be involved. In the whitepaper, the primary motivations for
this are:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>to avoid the need to trust intermediaries,</p></li>
<li><p>to reduce transaction costs by reducing costs associated with mediation (banks
have to be ready to sort out cases of fraud),</p></li>
<li><p>to deal with fraud caused by reversible transactions.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So, in evaluating Bitcoin, we should primarily be comparing it to other payment
systems – physical cash and electronic payments – and banking systems.</p>
<p>Cash is a convenient form of payment that takes seconds to complete, is highly
reliable, and has a very high degree of privacy. It suffers from the
inconvenience and insecurity of having to carry cash around with you, and so is
increasingly being replaced by electronic transfers. These work extremely well:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In a shop, I can pay for goods electronically with a PIN or just a swipe,
taking a few seconds to complete a transaction, using a bank debit card or a
credit card.</p></li>
<li><p>Between friends, I can do instant (or almost instant), free bank transfers
24/7 for <a class="reference external" href="https://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/transaction-limits">small to fairly large amounts</a>, and with other
slower systems for very large amounts. When I lived in Turkey, I had the same
– though inter-bank transfers cost a few pennies – and as far as I can tell
most countries have something similar right now.</p>
<p>In countries that are lagging in this regard (hello USA!), there are other
solutions like Venmo that apparently work pretty well.</p>
</li>
<li><p>This convenience brings some security issues, but modern banking has tons of
great features for handling fraudulent activity – <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1472741073021771780">for example</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Got a call this morning about unusual credit card charges. Within ten
minutes had the card cancelled, all the ongoing fraudulent charges
blocked, all the older fraudulent charges disputed, and a new card in the
mail.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There is some significant room for improvement:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>You need a bank account to do these electronic transfers.</p></li>
<li><p>Banks are capable of blocking financial activity, which can be bad if it is
legitimate and you are being persecuted in some way.</p></li>
<li><p>There is the risk of banks going bust.</p></li>
<li><p>Banks, or other third parties that we route payment through, have a pretty clear
idea of how we are spending money.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Banks are not perfect, but they are fairly well regulated, and of all the
financial worries I have, banks stealing or losing my money is the least of
them. Even if they go bust I have a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings/">government protection guarantee of £85,000</a> in the UK. In
evaluating cryptoassets, we need to see how much they can actually improve
things, if at all.</p>
</section>
<section id="how-the-blockchain-solution-works">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-6" role="doc-backlink">How the blockchain solution works</a></h3>
<p>The innovation that permissionless blockchains <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#blockchains" id="footnote-reference-2" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>2<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a> have brought is an
ingenious <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science)">consensus</a> algorithm based
on “proof of work”. Let’s unpack that briefly (or, just skip this bit, I won’t
tell anyone).</p>
<p><em>Consensus protocols</em> are mechanisms for allowing a group of cooperating computers
(usually called nodes) to act as a single database and store data safely and
consistently even if:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>there is no fixed leader among the nodes</p></li>
<li><p>any of the nodes may become faulty or unavailable at any time.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Designing protocols to do this is really challenging, but there are <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science)#Some_consensus_protocols">good
options today</a>,
all with some limitations.</p>
<p>Bitcoin goes one step further, allowing consensus to be achieved under even more
challenging circumstances, including when there are any number of unknown nodes
who may join in, and they may all be actively trying to cheat each other.</p>
<p><em>Proof of work</em> was a pre-existing concept. It is based on the fact that some
computations require a lot of work to do, but are easy to verify once done. The
output of such computations can be used as proof that you’ve spent computational
resources (i.e. electricity), and therefore the money it requires.</p>
<p>Bitcoin uses “proof of work” in a novel way as a consensus protocol by making
cheating too expensive. It essentially requires computers to make many, many
guesses for the next “right” number that would allow a proposed new transaction
to be added to the end of a list. The result is that a distributed set of nodes
who don’t trust each other can achieve agreement on a growing chain of records,
called blocks, that list transactions, i.e. transfers of Bitcoin. The protocol
does this without requiring a central trusted authority (like a government), or
a trusted intermediary (like a bank), and without allowing bad actors to
transfer the same money to more than one person (a problem known as “double
spending”).</p>
<p>The electricity required for this deliberately inefficient process has to be
paid for, of course, so why would anyone join in? Bitcoin solves this as
follows:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>the protocol rewards any participant that correctly adds a block to the chain
with some newly created Bitcoin.</p></li>
<li><p>in the real world, we need a sufficient number of people to believe this
Bitcoin is worth something, rather than merely being a made up token on a
computer. Otherwise “miners” have spent a lot of electricity for nothing.</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="does-this-solution-actually-work">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-7" role="doc-backlink">Does this solution actually work?</a></h3>
<p>Most people agree that the fundamental mechanics of blockchains as a consensus
protocol, as described in the Bitcoin whitepaper, do actually work.</p>
<p>However, the solution has immense weaknesses and costs.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="problems-and-costs">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-8" role="doc-backlink">Problems and costs</a></h2>
<section id="peer-to-peer">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-9" role="doc-backlink">Peer-to-peer?</a></h3>
<p>While technically the shape of Bitcoin network can be described as
“peer-to-peer” in terms of the participating computers, from the perspective of
users making payments it is not.</p>
<p>Normally, peer-to-peer internet protocols only require the involvement of the
two peers to succeed <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#peer2peer" id="footnote-reference-3" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>3<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a>. In the real world, cash is a genuine
peer-to-peer protocol – no-one else needs to be involved at all for a cash
transaction to work.</p>
<img alt="/blogmedia/cash-peer-to-peer.png" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/cash-peer-to-peer.png">
<p>Bitcoin is very different. If I have some Bitcoin, and want to transfer it to
you, and we are both sitting in the same room and have all the computer and
network hardware we like, it is still impossible for me to transfer ownership to
you without an internet connection. We have to connect to the Bitcoin network,
add our transaction to the public, shared list of all transactions, and wait for
confirmation. So, from the perspective of a user wanting to make a payment, it’s
better to think of Bitcoin as a large, <strong>distributed but centralised</strong> system
rather than a decentralised one.</p>
<img alt="/blogmedia/blockchain-network-shape.png" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/blockchain-network-shape.png">
<p>This is in contrast to electronic transfers in traditional banking. If you and I
have the same bank, we only need to talk to our bank in order to transfer money
between us, and no outside network needs to be involved. If we have different
banks, they need to be able to talk to each other, but that is all.</p>
<img alt="/blogmedia/traditional-banking.png" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/traditional-banking.png">
<p>There is no shared ledger of transactions that needs to be communicated between
banks and kept consistent, and this is a crucial advantage. This makes Bitcoin,
at its theoretical best, <strong>more centralised</strong> and <strong>less peer-to-peer</strong> than
traditional banking (at least in theory <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#banking-peer-to-peer" id="footnote-reference-4" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>4<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a>).</p>
</section>
<section id="security">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-10" role="doc-backlink">Security</a></h3>
<p>There are significant ways cryptocoins could fail disastrously. The first
of these is “network partition” events.</p>
<p>The question is this: what happens when part of the network becomes cut off from
the rest? For example, one country might become disconnected, or the whole of
the Americas might become disconnected from Europe, Asia and Africa.</p>
<p>With the modern internet, it’s most likely that this would be the result of some
kind of cyber-attack, but it could also happen accidentally.</p>
<p>Now, some might suggest that such a partition is far-fetched. But:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>An attack that partitioned the Bitcoin network, without having to partition
the entire internet, would be <a class="reference external" href="https://hackingdistributed.com/2017/05/01/bgp-attacks-on-btc/">surprisingly easy to pull off</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>If you are designing a new global banking system, or even just a national
currency, this is exactly the kind of situation you need to consider.</strong></p></li>
</ul>
<p>What happens if there is a major natural disaster, like a massive earthquake, or
a war, or a cyber-war? (I wrote these words weeks before Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, but even before that reminder of the fragility of peace, you would have
to be extremely foolish to ignore the possibility of war).</p>
<p>The internet itself was designed to cope with exactly this kind of problem.
Bitcoin, however, <a class="reference external" href="https://paulkernfeld.com/2016/01/15/bitcoin-cap-theorem.html">cannot cope with major network partitions</a>. In summary,
this is what would happen:</p>
<p>Both sides of the Bitcoin network would carry on working (although if there was
an unequal divide, one side might be slowed so much that it became unusable).
Let’s imagine this carried on for a few days or weeks before connections were
properly restored. At this point we would have two divergent “branches” of the
blockchain, which is not allowed. By design, there is no way to merge the
branches, and Bitcoin will simply pick whichever of the two branches happens to
be the longest. For the unlucky half, <strong>all transactions that happened during
those days or weeks of network partition would be erased</strong>.</p>
<img alt="GIF of Hugh Laurie saying “oops”" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/oops-sorry.gif">
<p>In other words, utter mayhem.</p>
<p>Could we develop a satisfactory fix to this problem? No – this is an instance of
the very well studied <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem">CAP theorem</a>. The alternatives to just having
weeks of data erased are also quite fun (in the sense of, “isn’t it fun to
imagine how the world is going to end?”):</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>You try to avoid the situation by simply halting all trade and financial
transactions until sufficient connectivity is restored (or this could be
enforced by the protocol itself).</p></li>
<li><p>Instead of joining the two networks back together, you irreconcilably split
the cryptocoin into two different coins.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Traditional banking doesn’t suffer from this problem.</strong> We’d certainly have
problems if the internet suffered large partitions, especially because of
increasing centralisation and reliance on a few big providers. But we could work
around them, because the fundamental protocols of both the internet and banking
are much better decentralised and much more robust. A bank transfer doesn’t need
the majority of the internet to be connected – you just need the two banks to be
able to talk to each other. You wouldn’t need anything to be erased when
connections are restored. No doubt there would disputes in some cases, but,
critically, <strong>disputing individual transactions doesn’t require invalidating the
entire chain of everyone else’s transactions.</strong></p>
<p>There are other serious ways that cryptocoins can or have failed:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Centralisation that puts the network under the control of an insufficient
number of independent entities to ensure trustworthiness.</p>
<p>The idea of decentralisation is that there are a large number of
<strong>independent</strong> entities that collectively run the network, making it very
difficult to corrupt. While in theory the “mining” process that validates
transactions is decentralised, there is actually an <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.dshr.org/2018/10/gini-coefficients-of-cryptocurrencies.html">extremely high degree of
centralisation in many popular cryptoassets</a>.</p>
<p>As <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html">David Rosenthal writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Centralized systems have a single locus of control. Subvert it, and the
system is at your mercy. It only took six years for Bitcoin to fail
Nakamto's goal of decentralization, with one mining pool controlling more
than half the mining power. In the seven years since no more than five
pools have always controlled a majority of the mining power.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, Bitcoin has already failed in this regard, and as Rosenthal
explains, this is due to a fundamental flaw in the protocol: “proof of work”
provides financial motivation for centralisation, because it makes more sense
for miners to club together and pool resources to improve their lottery
chances.</p>
<p>David Gerard explains the same thing – <a class="reference external" href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/06/27/bitcoin-myths-immutability-decentralisation-and-the-cult-of-21-million/">decentralisation of Bitcoin is a myth</a>.</p>
<p>A high degree of centralisation can lead to problems such as “51% attacks”,
which allow the same cryptocoins to be spent more than once. These <a class="reference external" href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/51-attack.asp">have
already happened multiple times</a> to other cryptoassets,
but not to Bitcoin’s blockchain at the time of writing.</p>
</li>
<li><p>“Hard forks” – another way of splitting a cryptocoin in two. Because there is
no-one in charge, there is nothing to stop a group of participants deciding to
erase a whole section of the blockchain and declaring their new chain to be
the “true” one. In general it’s not easy to do, but it happened to <a class="reference external" href="https://ethereum.org/en/history/#dao-fork">Ethereum
in 2016</a>, and the fork “won”,
because it was backed by influential people (the founders of Ethereum) who
considered that they had been “cheated” – even though the cheater was
technically the one playing by the rules.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr class="docutils">
<p><strong>Interlude 1: Assessment so far</strong></p>
<blockquote class="pull-quote">
<p>The issues highlighted above are, by themselves, enough to ensure that
Bitcoin and all similar cryptocoins are not even close to being viable
currencies for any sensible nation state, and never will be. They are
entirely unfit for purpose due to needing a global, well-connected internet
in order to do local transactions securely. It has also been demonstrated
both in theory and in practice that they cannot give us even the advantages
they promise, like decentralisation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Could they perhaps serve as some kind of potential “auxiliary” money system?
Well, it kind of defeats the point of having a currency to have more than one,
and there are a bunch more costs and disadvantages…</p>
</section>
<hr class="docutils">
<section id="ledger-technology">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-11" role="doc-backlink">Ledger technology</a></h3>
<p>The Bitcoin blockchain is essentially a public ledger of transactions. As such
we can compare it to other systems that maintain ledgers of transactions. As
well as security, mentioned above, another axis of comparison is efficiency.</p>
<p>The “proof of work” method for consensus makes Bitcoin astonishingly
inefficient. In addition, the self-adjusting nature of the protocol and economic
factors mean that the higher the dollar value of Bitcoin, the more electricity
it will use.</p>
<p>The result is that at the time of writing, a single Bitcoin transaction requires
approximately 1 million times more electricity than a Visa transaction, or at
least several hundred thousand times. (<a class="reference external" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/a-single-bitcoin-transaction-has-a-bigger-carbon-footprint-than-100000-hours-of-youtube-videos/articleshow/84373569.cms">Source 1</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/">source 2</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center">
<img alt="Chart showing Bitcoin’s increasing energy consumption over time." src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/bitcoin-energy-consumption-over-time.png">
<figcaption>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption">Source - digiconomist</a></p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Let’s pause to think what a ridiculous factor that is. Imagine a new vehicle,
being seriously proposed, that used 1 million times more fuel than a typical
car: a full tank of fuel would move it a majestic 50 cm from its parking spot.</p>
<p>In response, Bitcoin proponents would prefer to compare total Bitcoin energy
consumption, which now probably equals that of the whole of Finland, <a class="reference external" href="https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consumption-fallacy-8cf194987a50">with the
entire traditional banking system</a>.
That’s ridiculous however – the global banking system actually provides global
banking services – including physical cash, instant electronic payments of many
kinds, loans etc. to a high proportion of the world’s population. Bitcoin, on
the other hand, provides banking services to virtually no-one (relatively
speaking), and, in addition, still relies on the global banking services because
you can’t actually use Bitcoin to pay for anything.</p>
<p>If you care about climate change or looking after the planet, <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/">which I believe
you should</a>,
then this should weigh as a very important consideration. Or even if you don’t,
you should still care about waste, and the resources that will necessarily be
diverted away from useful things.</p>
<p>One of the original claimed motivations for Bitcoin was “reducing transaction
costs”, which is looking quite ridiculous. Even if, for some cryptoassets,
transaction fees paid by the end user are low or zero, the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative">negative
externalities</a> here are
absurdly high.</p>
</section>
<section id="money-technology">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-12" role="doc-backlink">Money technology</a></h3>
<section id="new-currency-required">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-13" role="doc-backlink">New currency required</a></h4>
<p>For this system to work, the protocol has to be able to reward “miners”, and
without relying on any other financial institution. This means that it has to
create a new currency – Bitcoin or Dogecoin or one of many others. Every
different blockchain requires its own currency. This is a pretty awful
disadvantage, because the whole point of a currency is that you only want one.
And this problem leads to a bunch more.</p>
</section>
<section id="money-creation-mechanism">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-14" role="doc-backlink">Money creation mechanism</a></h4>
<p>In times of the gold standard, to have more money in the economy you had to
physically dig gold ore out of the ground and refine it etc. This is horribly
expensive, and limits the supply of money in the economy, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.history.com/news/how-did-the-gold-standard-contribute-to-the-great-depression">contributing to
economic depression</a>.</p>
<p>Due to economic needs, we moved away from that to fiat currencies, where banks
are able to create money on demand, just by opening a loan account and putting
some entries in a database – a process which is almost free (apart from the time
and expertise of the person who approves the loan, which is one of the services
that justifies banking as an industry).</p>
<p>Blockchain, however, would be a massive downgrade to this – you have to use huge
amounts of energy to “mine” a Bitcoin, like with gold. Except it is much worse
than before: <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8FyGzn_e_0">gold at least has a number of important applications</a>, like jewellery and electronics,
due to its remarkable physical and chemical properties, but Bitcoin calculations
have no other value.</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/12/28"><img alt="Modified Calvin and Hobbes strip. Calvin: “Hey dad, why don’t you cut down all the trees on our hill and burn them to mine bitcoin?” Dad: “Because that would be polluting, stupid and completely unnecessary.” Calvin: “The problem with dad is he doesn’t know progress when he hears it”" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/calvins_dad_doesnt_know_progress_when_he_sees_it.png"></a>
</section>
<section id="fixed-money-supply">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-15" role="doc-backlink">Fixed money supply</a></h4>
<p>Bitcoin is designed such that eventually no more coins will be produced. This
was a deliberate choice by the inventors because they don’t understand money,
and it is a fatal flaw. As <a class="reference external" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2017/07/26/the-fundamental-conflict-at-the-heart-of-bitcoin/?sh=15874e734fdb">Frances Coppola writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As it stands, Bitcoin is unsuitable as a main medium of exchange. It simply
does not have the capacity or the structural features required to support
significant economic activity.</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
</section>
<section id="payment-technology">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-16" role="doc-backlink">Payment technology</a></h3>
<p>The global Bitcoin network, despite its astonishing electricity usage, is
capable of doing at most 7 transactions per second. It’s difficult to convey
just how laughably small that figure is given the size of the network and the
energy it uses. People who work at big tech companies are used to designing
computer systems that scale to millions of transactions per second as a minimum.</p>
<p>At Bitcoin’s pathetic rate, given 7 billion people on the planet, your personal equal
share amounts to 2 (two) Bitcoin transactions in your entire life. What’s worse
is that adding computers doesn’t make it go faster, it just adds more
electricity consumption. The blockchain has “anti-scaling” features that
contradict the normal scaling properties you might have come to expect or
assume.</p>
<p>As a contrast, the much smaller Visa networks <a class="reference external" href="https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-tools/retail.html">handle on average 1,700
transactions per second, with a claimed capacity of 24,000/s</a>.</p>
<p>If you use Bitcoin to pay for something, you then have to wait for confirmation.
This will take <a class="reference external" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/how-long-does-a-bitcoin-transaction-take">about 10 minutes, but it could be far more</a>.
This is pretty terrible in comparison to the 2 second swipe you need at a
supermarket checkout.</p>
<p>We then have to point out that most places simply do not accept Bitcoin, which
is because the exchange rate to fiat currencies is far too <a class="reference external" href="https://bankunderground.co.uk/2019/04/11/bitesize-how-volatile-is-bitcoin/">volatile</a> —
Bitcoin is a terrible “store of value”, which is one of the most important
features of money.</p>
<p>Then there are fees. Ethereum, in addition to ridiculous power usage, also has
crazy high transaction fees due to the inefficiency built into the network. For
Ethereum, the so called “gas” fees for a <strong>single</strong> transaction are <a class="reference external" href="https://ethereumprice.org/gas/">hovering
around 30 USD</a> at the time of writing, but
they can swing to thousands of dollars (!).</p>
<p>Bitcoin also used to be very bad in terms of network fees, but has improved a
lot. However, since Bitcoin is not in use as a currency anywhere, you’ll always
get hit double with currency conversion costs, in contrast to other
international money transfer systems that work with local currencies.</p>
<p>At this point, we have to abandon the idea that Bitcoin and Ethereum really
qualify as payment technologies at all, apart from some niche cases that we’ll
cover later.</p>
</section>
<section id="privacy-and-anonymity">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-17" role="doc-backlink">Privacy and anonymity</a></h3>
<p>A genuinely peer-to-peer payment system could, at least in theory, have a great
story in terms of privacy, like physical cash. In place of that, and in place of
the (limited) privacy your bank account can provide you, Bitcoin has a public,
shared database of all transactions, which is obviously a massive downgrade.</p>
<p>Now, blockchains are in theory anonymous, in that human names don’t appear in
them. Instead, you are represented by your public keys. However, if anyone ever
learns who owns a key, your anonymity disappears, and it is highly likely that,
over time, connections between keys and people will emerge.</p>
<p>If you are willing to put extra work in and bounce money around, you may be able
to achieve a reasonable level of anonymity using Bitcoin, but for most people
with “nothing to hide”, there will be no motivation to do that. For these
reasons it is now widely accepted that Bitcoin offers very poor privacy
(although some other cryptocoins are much better).</p>
</section>
<section id="irreversibility">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-18" role="doc-backlink">Irreversibility</a></h3>
<p>It is one of the main features of Bitcoin that, in contrast to traditional
banking, transactions are irreversible – coins can only be moved with the
permission of the owner. According to the whitepaper, this is one of the primary
motivations for Bitcoin, due to its ability to stop buyers committing fraud —
such as when a buyer pays and receives goods, but then is able to do a
chargeback on their credit card, fraudulently claiming they didn’t get the
goods.</p>
<p>Attempts by Bitcoin to prevent this seem to miss the point: reversibility in
traditional banking is a deliberate feature, and one that comes from <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Fund_Transfer_Act">laws</a>, not an
accidental bug that needs to be fixed by technical means.</p>
<p>In the Bitcoin system, the advantage that irreversibility provides is at least
equalled by the downside of making it much harder, or impossible, to counter
fraud by sellers, and other people like hackers.</p>
<p>Let’s consider the cases: I order some goods on internet. If I pay upfront,
there is every possibility that the seller will take my irreversible payment and
never send me the goods. So I refuse to do that, and instead we do payment at
the door – the delivery driver doesn’t finally hand over the goods until I
confirm the payment. This is already pretty inefficient, especially if they have
to wait 10+ minutes for confirmation on the network. However, when I get inside,
I discover that the box is empty, or missing something vital. Maybe I discover
it a week later, but there is now nothing I can do.</p>
<p>The balance has been tipped, but much too far – consumer protections are out of
the window. What we want is for reversibility to be technically possible, but
controlled by appropriate laws that can be reviewed and changed as needed.</p>
<p><strong>Irreversibility is by far the most impressive feature of blockchain, but it is
a feature you absolutely don’t want.</strong></p>
<p>In reality, however, local laws would probably still apply, so you would still
have legal methods to pursue a refund, as long as you lived in the same country.
They would just be more inefficient. All this shows a more general point: if you
can work “outside” the virtual system (by virtue of human beings having physical
bodies that have to live in a geographical place with laws), then the guarantees
you can make within the system quickly become pointless.</p>
<p>Also, irreversibility is basically incompatible with the way that the rest of
banking works, giving further opportunities for fraud when people forget this —
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/steve-wozniak-had-70000-in-bitcoin-stolen-after-falling-for-a-simple-yet-perfect-scam-2018-02-28">including clever people like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniac</a>
— and adds major hurdles if you want to buy and then immediately use
cryptocoins, unless you buy in cash.</p>
</section>
<section id="banking-technology">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-19" role="doc-backlink">Banking technology</a></h3>
<p>Let’s explore the options:</p>
<section id="be-your-own-bank">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-20" role="doc-backlink">Be your own bank</a></h4>
<p>The major innovation that Bitcoin claims is that it does away with the need for
banks. Instead, you can <strong>be your own bank</strong>. This is possible because of the
way that Bitcoin works effectively as something close to, but not quite,
“digital cash”.</p>
<p>We have to explain that for a second, because a wrong mental model will lead to
many wrong conclusions – and could leave you wide open to losing all your
digital coins if you have any.</p>
<p>Bitcoin builds on <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography">public key cryptography</a>, which is an extremely
useful technology based on mathematically connected pairs of large numbers. One
number in each pair is called a “public key”, the other the “private key”. The
public key, as the name suggests, can safely be shared with everyone. It can
then be used by other people to test the authenticity of messages generated with
the corresponding private key, which must always be kept secret by the owner.
The public key can also be used for sending encrypted messages that only the
private key owner can read.</p>
<p>In Bitcoin, public keys function as “addresses” to which you can send money —
like a bank account number. The Bitcoin protocol uses cryptographic signatures
to ensure that only the owner of an address can transfer money away from that
address.</p>
<p>In this system, knowing the private keys is of critical importance:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>with those keys, you can move your cryptocoins around and spend them.</p></li>
<li><p>without those keys, you cannot do anything.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So you need to store them safely! And this leads to the concept of a “digital
wallet”. Technically it is the blockchain that stores the record of how much
Bitcoin you have, and your wallet stores just the keys. But those keys are
everything, so the metaphor of a “wallet” containing “digital cash” is a helpful
one.</p>
<p>Your “digital wallet” could be:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>on your computer or smart phone,</p></li>
<li><p>in a specialised hardware device, called a hardware digital wallet. These are
popular especially because of the threat of your computer being hacked, and
your software wallet compromised.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So, if you lose your digital wallet, your money is gone forever. If your wallet
is stolen, your money is gone. If your hardware breaks – like from water damage
— your money is gone. If the computer storing your software wallet is hacked,
your money is gone.</p>
<p>Due to its “cash-like” nature, cryptocoin transfers are also irreversible. There
is no bank who can step in and grant you a refund.</p>
<p>The metaphor of a wallet breaks down a bit, because, unlike cash, it is, or can
be, very easy to copy a wallet. While hardware digital wallets are often
designed to make it hard to export keys or make copies, software wallets will
allow you to make backups, which is good for recovery – but also opens up more
opportunities for theft. For example, you might be <a class="reference external" href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/tiktok-and-53-other-ios-apps-still-snoop-your-sensitive-clipboard-data/">vulnerable to theft by an
app on your computer</a>.</p>
<p>And if someone has an unencrypted copy of your keys, they can use the contents
without your permission, or even knowledge – until you check and find that
your wallet is empty. This makes it work very differently from a physical cash
wallet.</p>
<p>Most if not all digital wallets will use strong password-protected encryption to
stop other people getting access. This is a mixed blessing: unlike the password
to your online banking, the passwords here are not mere access passwords that
can easily be reset. Rather, they are encryption keys, which means they are used
to scramble your data while it isn’t in use. If you forget the password, the
data remains scrambled forever. It is mathematically impossible to reverse the
scrambling without your password, meaning your money is gone.</p>
<p>Encryption also doesn’t really protect you from many theft scenarios. If someone
steals your hardware digital wallet, they may not be able to access the
contents, but that is small comfort because you can’t either. And if they ask
for the passphrase while pointing a gun at your head, or your child’s, are you
going to refuse?</p>
<p>I’m labouring all this to point out that when you are your own bank, you become
responsible for looking after all your money, and you have to know all this
stuff. It’s like storing your life savings in cash under your bed, but in some
ways worse – a digital wallet is more portable for a thief, can be easier to
access remotely depending on how it is stored, and is also much easier to
accidentally destroy or lose.</p>
<p>I agree with <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/12/30">Hobbes</a> on
this one.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way – unlike with physical cash in a suitcase, being your own
crypto bank will not protect you from a “run on the bank”. The equivalent in
the crypto world, in which lots of people rush to convert their virtual money
(Bitcoin/Ether/Tether etc) into real money (dollars etc) would cause a massive
crash in the price. There is nothing like sufficient liquidity in the system, so
the vast majority of people would lose almost everything. You’d still have your
Bitcoins, of course, but they would be worthless.</p>
</section>
<section id="use-an-exchange">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-21" role="doc-backlink">Use an exchange</a></h4>
<p>So you’ve decided, wisely, that securing your home and your computers, both
physically and digitally, to the point where they could function as a bank is a
terrible idea.</p>
<p>Now, logically, you should have rejected cryptocoins completely, since they only
exist to allow you to do just that. But let’s say that instead, inexplicably,
you still want to use them, so you decide to use <em>an exchange</em>. You hand over
your private keys (or your coins) to a company, they look after them and use
them for you, on your behalf.</p>
<p>This means:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>you have to trust this organisation not to run off with or lose your coins.</p></li>
<li><p>as an intermediary they can track you.</p></li>
<li><p>and they can also block you from using your money.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, back to where we were with banks. Except it’s worse. Much, much
worse.</p>
<p>The first problem is that the companies operating in this arena are perfectly
aware that cryptocoins are simply a “greater fool” scam, with the fools being
their customers. It can be no surprise then, that the biggest names, like
Binance and Tether, are regularly embroiled in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-15/tether-bitfinex-to-pay-fines-totaling-42-5-million-cftc-says">scandal</a>
after <a class="reference external" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/binance-giant-crypto-exchange-under-regulatory-scrutiny-2021-07-01/">scandal</a>,
with <a class="reference external" href="https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-pump-and-dumps-gamestop-dogecoin-fomo/">pump and dump schemes everywhere</a>.
In fact <a class="reference external" href="https://jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cryptocurrency-scam-blockchain-bitcoin-economy-decentralization">it is all a giant scam</a>,
and sometimes they even <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1469677423423799302">openly admit this</a>.</p>
<p>Further, cryptocoin exchanges are <a class="reference external" href="https://www.hedgewithcrypto.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/">hacked with astonishing frequency and for
astonishing amounts of money</a>, with, to
date, $2.66 billion stolen since 2012. It seems almost every day there is news
revealing <a class="reference external" href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/epxb8m/crypto-protocol-publicly-announces-flaw-users-relentlessly-owned-by-hackers">incredible incompetence</a>,
including <a class="reference external" href="https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/bitcoin-gerald-cotten-quadriga-cx-death">that time when a CEO died and took the exchange’s fortune with him to
his grave</a>.</p>
<p>Crypto.com, whose <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBC5TVdYT8">“fortune favours the brave” advert</a> likened using their gambling
services to being an intrepid explorer, had <a class="reference external" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-17/crypto-com-suspends-withdrawls-after-unauthorized-activity">$30+ million stolen just the other
week as I write this</a>.
I’ll grant them that you would indeed have to be very “brave” to become one of
their customers.</p>
<p>You should also know that, compared to banks, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2022/02/what-happens-if-a-cryptocurrency-exchange-files-for-bankruptcy.html">you probably have far less legal
claim on your money in the case of an exchange going bankrupt</a>.
It doesn’t matter that you technically “own” the crypto you’ve given them,
you’ll be last in the queue for getting anything back.</p>
<p>The problems, however, are not just dishonest or incompetent people running the
exchanges, or the fact that you don’t have deposit insurance or legal rights.
The cash-like nature of cryptocoins, in particular the irreversibility and
relative pseudonymity of transactions, make crypto exchanges a massively more
tempting target for criminals, and this is only likely to continue and get
worse.</p>
<p>We can contrast this to money in a bank account. Your bank doesn’t “store” your
money. It has some cash reserves, but none with your name on it. Money is just a
record of debt: your current account balance is just the amount of money the
bank owes you, which happens to be recorded in a database. If someone deletes
the database, your money does not get deleted, because the legal debt remains.
There is no equivalent to the “private keys” in cryptocoins that give hackers
control over money. If someone succeeded in hacking into a bank and completing a
bank transfer of a large amount of money, it would have a very clear destination
— another bank and account – which usually makes it pretty easy to trace,
reverse and prosecute.</p>
<p>Of course there is still the possibility of hacks on banks being profitable for
criminals, but the practical difficulties are much greater than with
cryptocoins.</p>
<p>And we haven’t even covered the many more everyday kind of scams played on
individual crypto owners. Similar scams exist with normal money, but with
cryptocoins they are made all the more likely by the obscurity of the
technology, and much harder to recover from due to irreversibility.</p>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="so-who-is-this-good-for">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-22" role="doc-backlink">So who is this good for?</a></h2>
<p>There are in fact some people who, despite the terrible disadvantages, use
cryptocoins as a form of payment or money transfer technology, its original
intended use case. This happens:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>when they have no other option, or,</p></li>
<li><p>when profit margins are very high, so high volatility is of less importance,
and irreversibility and (potential) anonymity are of critical importance.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Who does that apply to? <strong>Criminals</strong>. Cryptocoins are a boon for criminals,
especially those operating internationally. It makes <a class="reference external" href="https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/Financial%20Trend%20Analysis_Ransomeware%20508%20FINAL.pdf">a perfect payment
mechanism for ransomware</a>,
which has seen a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252504676/Ransomware-attacks-increase-dramatically-during-2021">dramatic rise in recent years</a>
and is also excellent for money laundering. High volatility of the price is a
small concern when you are stealing, and the extra steps you need to achieve
privacy are no problem for the more competent criminals, who are <a class="reference external" href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/18/cryptocoms-stolen-ether-being-laundered-via-tornado-cash/">making the
most of “privacy” services like Tornado Cash</a>.</p>
<p>There will probably be some other legitimate, non-criminal users. <strong>But it is
always true that deregulation sometimes helps some people.</strong></p>
<p>For example, if we completely deregulated the sale of medicines, it would make
it easier and cheaper for genuine medicines to reach the people who need them.
There would be cases where this might even save lives. But it would also be
easier for all the fake and dangerous medicines too, which are of course cheaper
to produce, so pretty soon legitimate companies will suffer massively, as well
as the general public – which is why we have regulation.</p>
<p>So of course you can find isolated instances where cryptocoins have enabled
someone to work around an oppressive regime and get some money they desperately
needed. But, given the kind of terrible disadvantages in comparison to normal
money, it is inevitable that criminal activity will get by far the biggest
boost, which is bad for everyone.</p>
</section>
<section id="are-there-other-uses">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-23" role="doc-backlink">Are there other uses?</a></h2>
<p>Whether you look them from the angle of “money”, “payments” or “banking”
technology, cryptocoins have achieved an impressive level of failure. Anyone who
is honest has given up on the idea of cryptocoins as money.</p>
<p>Instead, apart from use by criminals, it is in demand only because of a
financial speculative bubble based on a <a class="reference external" href="https://web3.lifeitself.us/claims/is-negative-sum">negative-sum “greater fool” scheme</a>, which is both immoral and
destructive. (That’s not really the subject of this post, so I’ll leave it to
other articles, but just to note – the leading crypto-proponents are not just
admitting that crypto is a Ponzi, <a class="reference external" href="https://unherd.com/thepost/is-crypto-just-one-big-ponzi-scheme/">they are bragging about it</a>).</p>
<p>However, at this point, crypto-proponents will claim permissionless blockchains
are useful because of “revolutionary” technology that can be built on top of
them. Let’s have a look. If we must…</p>
<img alt="GIF of Megara from Disney’s Hercules, looking very bored" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/megara_bored.jpeg">
<section id="blockchains-for-databases">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-24" role="doc-backlink">Blockchains for databases</a></h3>
<p>One way to look at blockchains is as immutable, distributed tamper-evident
databases. Breaking that down:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>immutable means that you cannot change any data on them – you can only add
more records (“append only”). This is nothing new.</p></li>
<li><p>distributed means there isn’t just a single copy of the data – there are many
redundant copies. This is also nothing new.</p></li>
<li><p>tamper-evident means you can tell if someone has tried to change data later.
There are other tamper-evident databases, but blockchains are bringing
something new here in terms of operating in an environment where we don’t
trust anyone.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Described like this, it does sound like something that could have some
interesting real world applications.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in the 12 years since it has been invented, virtually no real use
cases have turned up, and certainly nothing that would come close to justifying
the astonishing inefficiency of the technology. It is the <a class="reference external" href="https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost-nothing/86714927310-8f431cae">amazing solution for
almost nothing</a>.</p>
<p>The first huge problem is this:</p>
<p>You may be able to store information in a tamper-evident way, but how are you
going to ensure the information is actually true?</p>
<p>This is a fatal flaw in almost all attempts to use blockchains for anything. As
Calvin put it, “<a class="reference external" href="https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/02/19">reality continues to ruin my life</a>”.</p>
<p>For example, “Verisart” is a blockchain company who will record authorship of
artwork on the blockchain. It wasn’t long before a prankster called Terence Eden
<a class="reference external" href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/06/how-i-became-leonardo-da-vinci-on-the-blockchain/">got himself recorded, immutably and eternally, as the painter of the Mona Lisa</a>.
<a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#verisart" id="footnote-reference-5" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>5<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a></p>
<p>The next issue is that if there is a person we can trust to not lie about the
data in the first place, there are massively more efficient systems for
recording that information. We can just use a database, and keep redundant
copies with some auditing functionality. In many cases we could additionally use
well-established, efficient cryptographic techniques like <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_certificate">public key
certificates</a> – the same
system your web browser uses to check the authenticity of websites.</p>
<p>The reality is that the only kind of truth-claims that blockchains are suitable
for managing are about the cryptocoin associated with the blockchain – Bitcoin
for the Bitcoin blockchain, Ether for the Ethereum blockchain etc. – and that is
only because those blockchains are by definition the source of truth for that
cryptocoin.</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="https://xkcd.com/2267/"><img alt="XKCD cartoon “Should your project use blockchain?”" class="align-center" src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/blockchain.png"></a>
<p>Note also that you can’t just remove the cryptocoin and keep the blockchain
technology – a permissionless blockchain requires a speculative cryptocoin to
power it, otherwise no-one will ever pay for it, as <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html">David Rosenthal explains</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because miners' opex and capex costs cannot be paid in the blockchain's
cryptocurrency, exchanges are required to enable the rewards for mining to
be converted into fiat currency to pay these costs. Someone needs to be on
the other side of these sell orders. The only reason to be on the buy side
of these orders is the belief that “number go up”. Thus the exchanges need
to attract speculators in order to perform their function.</p>
<p>Thus a permissionless blockchain <em>requires</em> a cryptocurrency to function,
and this cryptocurrency <em>requires speculation</em> to function.</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="smart-contracts">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-25" role="doc-backlink">Smart contracts</a></h3>
<p>The Ethereum blockchain, compared to Bitcoin, adds the ability for the whole
network to run custom code, known as a smart contract, which can be used for
moving coins around.</p>
<p>This is a potentially interesting feature, but with massive flaws.</p>
<p>The entire premise of the smart contract is that you don’t have to trust a
person you are entering into agreement with, but you instead read the code of
the smart contract, and then trust an independent, distributed machine to
execute the code exactly as written, because it cannot do anything else.</p>
<p>So, all we have to do now is create a programming language where the code is
perfectly readable by ordinary people, and cannot easily harbour accidental
bugs, or deliberate hacks.</p>
<img alt="GIF of podcast host laughing and crying uncontrollably" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/nerdtainment-sarah-atwood.gif">
<p>If we had anything close to that, every software developer in the world would be
out of a job. We’ve been trying to design programming languages like that for
decades, and it’s impossible.</p>
<p>Oh, and in addition, with smart contracts, you don’t get to try out your code in
a real environment and fix it if someone finds a bug. If they find a bug – all
the cryptocoins you sent to that contract will probably be gone (depending on
the exact nature of the bug). You’ve got to get it right first time, because of
irreversibility.</p>
<p>Experienced computer programmers everywhere:</p>
<img alt="GIF of baby laughing and falling over" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/baby-laughing-falling-over.gif">
<p>The next flaw is that for smart contracts to be useful, they have to interact
with the real world, and get truthful data into them. However, as already
discussed, there are no trusted “inputs” to blockchains. They can only trust the
record of their own coins. This massively limits the usefulness of such systems.
Everyone trying to build anything useful seems to forget <a class="reference external" href="https://onezero.medium.com/the-inevitability-of-trusted-third-parties-a51cbcffc4e2">The Inevitability of
Trusted Third Parties</a>
which renders the entire endeavour pointless or worse.</p>
<p>So much for the theory. In practice, how is it working?</p>
<p>The language Ethereum uses is called Solidity, which presumably is ironic,
because <a class="reference external" href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14691212">it is a terribly badly designed language</a>. As a simple example, consider
a case where we have <code class="docutils literal">a</code> and <code class="docutils literal">b</code> representing integers. If you know normal
algebra, and you saw an expression like <code class="docutils literal">a + b</code>, you might expect that this
would equal the sum of <code class="docutils literal">a</code> and <code class="docutils literal">b</code>.</p>
<p>In Solidity, <code class="docutils literal">a + b</code> <strong>sometimes</strong> equals <code class="docutils literal">a</code> plus <code class="docutils literal">b</code>. <a class="reference external" href="https://medium.com/coinmonks/math-in-solidity-part-2-overflow-3cd7283714b4">But sometimes it
does not</a>!
Isn’t that fun?</p>
<img alt="Eddie Murphy meme: “Hackers can’t steal your money if math doesn’t work”" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/hackers_cant_steal_your_money.jpeg">
<p>Is this a big deal in practice?</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In 2016, the creators of Ethereum themselves wrote a smart contract for “The
DAO”. A bug allowed an attacker to drain so much money that they “forked” the
entire Ethereum network to get it back. This is basically a “reset the
database to yesterday and declare our version to be the winner” undo
operation.</p>
<p>(If you’ve been paying attention – yes, that negates the entire promise of
blockchains being immutable, and it being impossible to get around smart
contracts. It turns out that if you pretty much own the whole system, which
the Ethereum creators do, or at least did, you don’t have to obey the rules.)</p>
</li>
<li><p>Last week at the time of writing, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/qubit-finance-crypto-platform-begs-hacker-to-return-80-million-in-stolen-funds/">Qubit Finance begged hackers to return $80
million extracted from a buggy smart contract</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>A few days ago, more than <a class="reference external" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/320-million-stolen-from-wormhole-bridge-linking-solana-and-ethereum.html">$320 million was lost in a smart-contract hack
involving a bridge between Ethereum and Solana</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Go to <a class="reference external" href="https://web3isgoinggreat.com/">web3isgoinggreat</a> and search for
“smart contract” and you’ll find tons more. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144962/ethereums-smart-contracts-are-full-of-holes/">Ethereum’s smart contracts are
full of holes</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Could you fix this by spending enough money on finding a programmer you could
trust to write or check smart contracts? You won’t find such a person:</p>
<img alt="Diagram mapping developers in 2 dimensions: “Novice/Experienced”, and “Dishonest/Honest”." class="excalidraw align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/experienced-ethical-programmers-smart-contracts.png">
<p>It’s obvious that the only quadrant you should be hiring from is the top-right
“experienced, honest” group. But these people cannot be hired, because they know
they can’t do it reliably, and they will admit that.</p>
<p>You will definitely attract lots of people from the “experienced, dishonest”
quadrant, however:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>People who are quite happy to take the money you throw at them and say “sure,
I can build a reliable smart contract”.</p></li>
<li><p>People who will write “accidental” bugs that allow “someone” to steal all your
money outright (but deniably, of course, due to the anonymity of blockchains,
and the difficulty of writing correct code).</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="nfts">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-26" role="doc-backlink">NFTs</a></h3>
<p>NFTs are like someone invented a way to make money out of people buying digital
art, except they forgot the “buying digital art” bit.</p>
<figure class="align-center">
<img alt="He-Man doing a face-palm" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/he_man_doh.jpeg">
<figcaption>
<p><em>I knew I forgot something!</em></p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They are based on the idea of recording “ownership” on a blockchain, normally
the Ethereum blockchain. Let’s do this one as a Q&A:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><em>When I buy an NFT, have I bought exclusive legal rights to the art?</em> No, they
remain with the artist.</p></li>
<li><p><em>But I bought legal rights to at least use the art, right?</em> No. In some
agreements you might have various additional rights to use it, but it’s not a
legal part of the NFT.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Does the NFT contain the art in some sense?</em> No, it contains a reference or
link to the art, plus a digital signature, recorded on the blockchain. The
blockchain is far too expensive to actually store more than a link.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Can I check that the art stored at the link hasn’t been changed?</em> That would
have been a really easy thing to add, for anyone with a really basic
understanding of cryptographic techniques, but tons of NFTs <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/colmmacc/status/1486025979713581058">don’t even do that</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Is the link guaranteed to continue to work, and be censorship-proof, like
the blockchain itself?</em> No, it has to be stored somewhere, and <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/jonty/status/1372163423446917122">you’ve got no
guarantee it will continue to be available</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Is there guaranteed to be only one NFT for each bit of art?</em> No, there can be
any number of NFTs of the same artwork.</p></li>
<li><p><em>So what have I actually bought?</em> You have effectively bought an entry in a
database that has a vague association with a bit of art, with the ability to
sell that entry on, in the context of that database, and literally nothing
else.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Do I know that the NFT is guaranteed to have come from the artist?</em> No, anyone
may “mint” an NFT of anything at anytime. This is what “decentralised” means
here – there is no central, trusted authority who can block minting. This is
by design and cannot be fixed.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Do I know that that the artist received some of the money I paid?</em> No – first,
it could just be a fraud (see previous question); second, the money you pay
goes only to the previous owner. Some marketplaces try to pay royalties on
every sale, but it’s not part of the NFT protocol so it’s out of their
control.</p></li>
<li><p><em>As an artist, do NFTs provide a new way for me to make money out of my art?</em>
Yes they do. <strong>They also enable everyone else to make money from your art</strong>.
That’s why <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/FlyingTrilobite/status/1468964415231856642">many artists are being forced to take their art offline due to a
new wave of rampant copyright violations and fraud</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><em>But artists are making quite a lot of money of this, aren’t they?</em> Certainly a
few are, which is entirely predictable. On average, <a class="reference external" href="https://thatkimparker.medium.com/most-artists-are-not-making-money-off-nfts-and-here-are-some-graphs-to-prove-it-c65718d4a1b8">they are probably losing money</a>,
not accounting for all those who aren’t even playing and just want to stop
getting plagiarised.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Is this some kind of joke?</em> Well, a lot of people are laughing all the way to
the bank.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Legally speaking, buying an NFT is <em>exactly</em> like buying this piece of paper,
which has a link to the first ever Calvin and Hobbes strip:</p>
<img alt="photo of paper with handwritten URL on it" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/first_calvin_and_hobbes_strip_nft.jpeg">
<p>It’s unique and “non-fungible” – there is no other piece of paper exactly like
this one. Is it “genuine”? Well, it’s a real piece of paper if that’s what you
mean, and the link works. Otherwise you’ll have to work it out for yourself. But
it’s yours for just $1 million!</p>
<p>It is really difficult to describe <a class="reference external" href="https://medium.com/@mikeyd/nfts-arent-as-stupid-as-you-think-bffab89697e3">just how little sense NFTs make</a>.
It’s like people trading baseball cards, which is fine, except you realise the
traders believe or claim they are actually trading baseball <em>players</em>. Baseball
players and baseball cards, however, are at least physical things, whereas an
NFT gives you the ability to trade in the fantasy of owning a sequence of bytes,
and nothing more.</p>
<p>For what they do, you could provide exactly the same service by switching to a
simple centralised database, which would also allow you to regulate it and avoid
copyright violations etc. All without any blockchain, and for a tiny fraction of
the <a class="reference external" href="https://earth.org/nfts-environmental-impact/">outrageous</a> and entirely
unnecessary costs involved in NFTs.</p>
<p>Even the inventor of NFTs, Anil Dash, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/">has realised they do none of the things
they were originally intended to do</a>,
but they do create perfect opportunities for money laundering and fraud.</p>
<p>As for the claim that NFTs allow you to create “digital scarcity” – a truly
bizarre boast to make – they simply cannot do anything of the kind, outside of
the make-believe world of a blockchain. Minting an NFT of some digital art makes
literally zero difference to anyone else’s legal right to use that art.</p>
<p>The conclusion is this: whatever the original intention, NFTs currently function
as just two things:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>a source of unique casino chips that you can gamble with.</p></li>
<li><p>a method of making demand for otherwise useless cryptocoins like Ethereum and
friends, in order to on-board more people into these “greater fools” schemes
that are rapidly running out of new fools.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This means that none of the above deficiencies of NFTs actually matter – and,
attempts to fix them are just dissembling – because NFT trading is not about
owning art, but gambling in an art-themed casino.</p>
<section id="nfts-of-everything">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-27" role="doc-backlink">NFTs of everything</a></h4>
<p>Not content with miserably failing at digital art, NFTs now have ambitions to
fail at everything else. As an example, one proposed use is for “in-game
assets”. The idea is that you buy an NFT of some digital asset, and can then use
that asset in a video game.</p>
<p>This has so many flaws I don’t know where to start.</p>
<p>First, this is going to require tons of work for game authors. What’s in it for
them?</p>
<p>Then, game authors would effect be honouring someone else’s completely valueless
casino chip. Why would they do that?</p>
<p>Then there are copyright and fraud issues. Ownership of an NFT tells a game
author precisely <strong>nothing</strong> about the provenance of a digital asset, and the
entire space is <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/NFTtheft/status/1491210187495309312">absolutely overrun with frauds and scams</a>, such that
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/on-opensea-80-of-free-nfts-were-fake-or-plagiarized/ar-AATnaxO">80% of NFTs listed on OpenSea are fake or plagiarised</a>.
This is kind of obvious – a permissionless blockchain where anyone can write
anything is a pointless place to store information about “ownership”. Why should
game authors try to wade through this mess which they didn’t make?</p>
<p>So, what do game authors themselves think about this? This is from <a class="reference external" href="https://itch.io/">itch.io</a>, an indie game platform (language warning):</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A few have asked about our stance on NFTs:<br><br>NFTs are a scam. If you think they are legitimately useful for anything other than the exploitation of creators, financial scams, and the destruction of the planet the we ask that please reevaluate your life choices.<br><br>Peace ✌️</p>— itch.io (@itchio) <a href="https://twitter.com/itchio/status/1490141815294414856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2022</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Also f̸̗̎ú̴̩c̷̖͌ḳ̵̀ any company that says they support creators and also endorses NFTs in any way. They only care about their own profit and the opportunity for wealth above anyone else.<br><br>Especially given the now easily available discourse concerning the problems of NFTs.</p>— itch.io (@itchio) <a href="https://twitter.com/itchio/status/1490145515580772356?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2022</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">How can you be so dense? 😢</p>— itch.io (@itchio) <a href="https://twitter.com/itchio/status/1490145718979334144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2022</a></blockquote><p>Why the anger? Because they understand the tech, and know it’s a scam. Also, I’m
guessing they know that the many clueless suckers who have bought NFTs,
believing they confer some kind of ownership, will soon be pestering itch.io to
honour their worthless casino chips.</p>
<p>Certainly there is a market for buying digital assets that you can use in a
video game, but NFTs provide no legal, usable infrastructure that game authors
can use. Games are probably one of the few places where artificial scarcity does
in fact make sense. But from a technical perspective, it’s an absolute doddle to
achieve! Which is why many games already have perfectly functioning economies
for such digital assets – under the control of the game authors, which is needed
for achieving <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_balance">game balance</a>. With
no blockchain.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="daos">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-28" role="doc-backlink">DAOs</a></h3>
<p>Decentralised Autonomous Organisations are a magical reinvention of traditional
organisations, in which smart contracts decide how money gets spent, making it
mathematically impossible to be evil in any way, powered by The Blockchain,
explicit one-coin-one-vote plutocracy (<a class="reference external" href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/04/clever-cryptocurrency-theft.html">what could possibly go wrong?</a>),
Good Intentions (possibly), Poor Thinking (definitely) and Unicorns. All you
need to do is convert your entire existence into a program and encode it into
bits so that you can now literally live on the Ethereum blockchain where you can
be governed by its rules. Also, you get a free unicorn with every DAO
membership, cool!</p>
<p>Sorry, that’s all I can do. There is so much nonsense here that I’m running out
of the will to live.</p>
</section>
<section id="web3">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-29" role="doc-backlink">web3</a></h3>
<p>It’s hard to say exactly what web3 is, because it is just a marketing buzzword,
and it mostly does not exist. It’s meant to be some kind of re-invention of the
web around blockchain technologies.</p>
<p>The narrative spun around it involves “taking back the web” from the big tech
giants who unfortunately seem to control it these days, usually involving a
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.emilygorcenski.com/post/the-myth-of-decentralization-and-lies-about-web-2.0/">revisionist history of where we’ve come from</a>.</p>
<p>But none of it makes any sense. Putting data on blockchains doesn’t give you
control over it – if anything it removes control, because now it is there
forever, immutable. It gives you ownership in the same way that naming a star
with the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Star_Registry">International Star Registry</a> gives you
ownership of a star (that is, not at all). Using smart contracts to control it
suffers from all the same problems I already mentioned.</p>
<p>And then there is the cost. Did we talk about the cost and inefficiency of
storing your data on blockchains yet? Right…</p>
<img alt="GIF of man enjoying popcorn in front of a screen" class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/popcorn.gif">
<p>Prices fluctuate enormously, but at the moment storing 3kb on the Ethereum
blockchain <a class="reference external" href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/web3-fraud">will cost you $250 dollars.</a>. That makes it
about <strong>10 million times</strong> more expensive than a cloud service like Amazon S3
<a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#amazonstoragecosts" id="footnote-reference-6" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>6<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a>. There are essentially no use cases where the peculiar
and weak set of advantages that blockchains give you would make that worth
while.</p>
<p>Then there is querying – i.e. reading the data. When I said that blockchain was
like a database, I meant only that it can store data – not that it does so in
any convenient or efficient form. So, if you want to actually read the data,
you’re first going need to import it into a proper database designed for that.
Unfortunately, 99.99999% of the data on the blockchain is data you don’t care
about, but you’ve got to load it to find what you <em>are</em> interested in.</p>
<p>This is profligate inefficiency, and will only get worse with time, so if you
are attempting to build anything “web3” you will probably need to pay for
another service to do that for you, increasing costs and complexity, and
increasing your reliance on centralised services that could block you. Making
this whole thing worse than pointless.</p>
<p>Any real software engineer who looks at the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.preethikasireddy.com/post/the-architecture-of-a-web-3-0-application">architecture of a web3 application</a>
finds it completely ridiculous. It adds an unbelievable amount of complexity and
cost, for no actual benefit.</p>
<p>Now, under the name of “web3”, you do sometimes hear other projects mentioned,
like <a class="reference external" href="https://ipfs.io/">IPFS</a>, which are honest attempts to mitigate some of
the real problems that the current internet has. I can’t comment on how well
they work, but every useful one among these that I’ve seen doesn’t actually need
or use permissionless blockchains at all.</p>
<p>Conclusion: <a class="reference external" href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/web3-fraud">web3 is a fraud</a>. It appears that
its primary purpose is to try to lend plausibility to the increasingly
discredited idea that blockchain provides some useful technological innovation.
Or, it’s a <a class="reference external" href="https://medium.com/@rossstalker_5939/web3-is-not-decentralisation-its-a-ploy-to-put-crypto-bros-in-charge-c791752e2bb6">ploy to put crypto-lovers in charge</a>
so that they, rather than big tech, can be the ones extracting rent. As the
Register <a class="reference external" href="https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/15/web3_apparently_the_next_generation/">put it</a>,
paraphrasing Douglas Adams:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Web3 is “a myth, a fairy story. It's what parents tell their kids about at
night if they want them to grow up to become economists.” ®</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
</section>
<section id="can-we-fix-it">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-30" role="doc-backlink">Can we fix it?</a></h2>
<p>I know that many Bitcoin proponents will by this point be livid about how unfair
I’ve been, itching to point out all the solutions to some of the issues I’ve
raised. However, most of their responses can be characterised in this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“But we can work around the horrible deficiencies in this technology by not
using this technology!”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is of course true, but entirely irrelevant, and not a good advert for the
underlying tech.</p>
<p>It’s also impossible to work out why we should be even trying to fix these
things. As <a class="reference external" href="https://youtu.be/4vd2rCBjHp8?t=250">James Mickens put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you want to make money better, why not try to just improve money, instead
of starting with a disaster and trying to improve the disaster?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As I’ve attempted to look through some of the proposed solutions, I’ve found it
like responding to conspiracy theorists – there is no limit to the amount of
exhausting nonsense you have to wade through. But anyway, to address some of the
major claims that the flaws can be fixed:</p>
<section id="upgradability">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-31" role="doc-backlink">Upgradability</a></h3>
<p>There are many theoretical improvements to Bitcoin that could be made. For
example, Solana claims thousands of transactions per second, and Monero has much
better privacy. Bitcoin has not adopted these – why not?</p>
<p>Putting aside the fact that these improved systems are still hundreds or
thousands of times worse than non-blockchain solutions on the very metrics they
boast about, we can still ask: why hasn’t everyone “upgraded”?</p>
<p>The answer is found in the fact that:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>public, permissionless blockchains are not controlled by anyone, by
definition.</p></li>
<li><p>they couple together a speculative asset and a ledger technology, because
this is the only way to motivate anyone to join in the consensus protocol.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This means no-one can force anyone to upgrade, and they will only do so if it is
in their financial interests. So, small bug fixes are fairly easy to coordinate,
but fundamental changes that are detrimental to the bottom line of the majority
of players are almost impossible.</p>
<p>Instead of upgrading existing cryptoassets, why hasn’t everyone just switched
to the “better” blockchains? Because that would involve a huge gamble. If people
admitted that their current “investment” was now obsolete, the price would
crash. Since we’ve already abandoned the idea that these things have any actual
utility, it doesn’t really matter how bad they are at what they do.</p>
<p>Since a cryptoasset’s market value depends only on popularity and hype, there
is a religious-level devotion to specific coins, and it needs to be there, so
that you can continue to on-board new recruits to make the price of your coin go
up.</p>
<blockquote class="pull-quote">
<p>This means that permissionless, public blockchains are probably the most
progress-resistant technology ever invented.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Consider, as a contrast, the UK’s <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service">Faster Payments Service</a>. First going live in
2008, it was an upgrade by a factor of 100,000 in terms of transfer speeds
compared to the old CHAPS/BACS systems. These days pretty much everyone in the
UK can do free, interbank transfers within seconds, up to £1 million, 24/7. In
2021 it handled <a class="reference external" href="https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/data-and-insights/faster-payment-system-statistics">3.4 billion transactions</a>,
that’s an average of 110 transactions per second, although peak will probably be
much higher than that, and scalability will be determined only by demand.</p>
<p>When this upgrade happened, it didn’t require the whole world to change, or even
the whole of the UK. We didn’t have to switch to an entirely new currency – that
would be crazy, right? This is just a communication protocol, so it only
required two banks to use it to be useful. Then eventually everyone got on
board. End users like me didn’t even have to know about how any of it works, we
just noticed that things got better and faster. Real-world institutions like
banks can be slow to change, so things can take decades, but they do get there.</p>
<p>Bitcoin went live a year after FPS, but despite being a brand new
technology, defined only by software and without the legacy of having to deal
with existing infrastructure, and consuming vastly more resources, still does
only at most 7 transactions per second. Meanwhile, due to its perverse
economics, energy consumption per transaction has grown hugely.</p>
<p>Coupling the definition of a currency to a specific ledger technology is a truly
terrible idea that makes cryptocurrencies not only a huge downgrade, but a
downgrade to upgradability itself, which is much worse.</p>
<blockquote class="pull-quote">
<p>If we want better money technology, the first thing we need to “fix” is the
idea that people can just invent their own currency, and award themselves and
other early adopters huge amounts of it, due to “innovation” – which might be
nothing more than the novelty of a <a class="reference external" href="https://dogecoin.com/">joke name</a>. This
approach, shared by all the cryptocoins, is guaranteed to produce terrible
results both technologically and economically.</p>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="scalability">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-32" role="doc-backlink">Scalability</a></h3>
<p>One attempt to tackle the scalability of Bitcoin is using a “Lightning Network”.
The idea in its simplest terms is that you do lots of transactions “off-chain”
(not recorded on the blockchain), then just settle up on the blockchain, but
with a lot more complexity.</p>
<p>There is a huge amount of both hype and criticism of this network. But for our
purposes:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>The original design <a class="reference external" href="https://www.coppolacomment.com/2018/01/probability-for-geeks.html">could not possibly work at the high scale envisaged</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Modified designs are just reproducing things like the Visa/Mastercard
networks, where you have a third party that you trust to settle up when direct
bank-to-bank payments are difficult for whatever reason. Except more
complicated, and therefore less efficient, and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.coppolacomment.com/2018/01/lightning-and-fat-controller.html">the developers don’t appear to
realise that they have created a bank</a>
to which you have to lend in order to send a payment.</p></li>
<li><p>Its <a class="reference external" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoReality/comments/rzp2oq/a_critical_review_of_the_lightning_network/">Bitcoin bottleneck</a>
means it cannot come close to the scaling needs it is supposed to address.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://cryptoeconomicsystems.pubpub.org/pub/b8rb0ywn/release/1">A 2019 analysis shows that the network has to run at a loss</a> to get the
low transaction fees it boasts – meaning that it is being artificially propped
up.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It still suffers from all the other problems – like you have to pay with Bitcoin
(or some other cryptoasset) instead of an actual currency, with all its
volatility issues etc. Also, the Bitcoin network itself will still continue to
consume the same vast amount of electricity, for no real benefit. So the
Lightning Network isn’t a case of improving efficiency by reducing load on an
obsolete technology – you get the waste of both systems combined.</p>
</section>
<section id="energy-use">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-33" role="doc-backlink">Energy use</a></h3>
<p>Many attempts to fix the terrible energy use of Bitcoin miss the point: the
inefficiency is deliberate, and necessary for security (if you are relying on
“proof of work”). Many coins that boast less power usage can do so only because
they are less secure, or because they are less popular.</p>
<p>But let’s look at some specific attempts:</p>
<section id="proof-of-stake">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-34" role="doc-backlink">Proof-of-stake</a></h4>
<p>In place of proof of work, “proof of stake” has been suggested, and is already
used by some blockchains. It’s technically complicated, but there are huge
problems with it:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>It is an explicit plutocracy – rule of the wealthy. The people who have
the most coins get the most votes to control the network.</p></li>
<li><p>The wealthy also get the greatest rewards. “The rich get richer”, i.e. an ever
increasing concentration of power and wealth, is an <strong>inevitable</strong> consequence
of the design.</p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://yanmaani.github.io/proof-of-stake-is-a-scam-and-the-people-promoting-it-are-scammers/">It simply does not have the same security properties as proof of work, and
cannot be regarded as a consensus mechanism</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>There is a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/">strong economic argument that it can’t reduce energy consumption
anyway</a>, it will just make
it less obvious.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Ethereum has a plan to switch to proof of stake that’s currently “<a class="reference external" href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/06/27/bitcoin-myths-immutability-decentralisation-and-the-cult-of-21-million/">about
eighteen months away, where it’s been since 2014</a>”.
This may be an indication either 1) of the upgradability problem described above
or 2) that a workable implementation simply cannot be found.</p>
<p>See <a class="reference external" href="https://blog.dshr.org/2021/07/alternatives-to-proof-of-work.html">Rosenthal’s analysis</a> for more
information.</p>
</section>
<section id="proof-of-something-useful">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-35" role="doc-backlink">Proof-of-something-useful</a></h4>
<p>Another set of attempts to fix proof-of-waste can be grouped together as “proof
of something useful”. Examples include <a class="reference external" href="https://solarcoin.org/">SolarCoin</a>,
which rewards you for proving that you have generated electricity via solar
power, and <a class="reference external" href="https://foldingcoin.net/">FoldingCoin</a> which rewards you for
providing computational power for the useful task of “protein folding”
calculations.</p>
<p>Some of these are ridiculously impractical, and obviously so – for example, in
some cases they’ve got no realistic method to prevent fraud. Many of them
sacrifice several important qualities of blockchain technology, to the point of
being nothing more than a reward points system (but less useful). But all of
them miss the point:</p>
<blockquote class="pull-quote">
<p>We already have a system for rewarding people who are providing valuable
things to society – it’s called money! It does not need to be invented, and
we don’t want a different currency for every product – that defeats the whole
point of having a currency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I mention these “alt-coins” only to point out that the crypto world is
full-to-bursting with things that are either obvious get-rich-quick schemes, or
just terrible, pointless ideas that cannot work in the real world. Somehow they
are being taken seriously because they are getting on the hype associated with
crypto.</p>
<p>Also, many of these more “eco-friendly” alt-coins are used to defend the idea
that cryptoassets are not necessarily so bad for the environment, ignoring the
fact that they work in completely different ways, if they work at all, and they
have no chance of ever replacing the popular cryptocoins, or any real world
currency.</p>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="but-its-still-early-days">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-36" role="doc-backlink">“But it’s still early days!”</a></h2>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://blog.mollywhite.net/its-not-still-the-early-days/">No, it’s not still early days for crypto</a>.</p>
<p>When sceptics mocked the internet in the early days, the problem they suffered
from was a lack of imagination. There was no dispute that the internet really
did enable you to send digital information across the world in a fraction of a
second. Some people just failed to see why that might be useful. In addition, it
was generally people who didn’t understand the technology who made those
criticisms.</p>
<p>Permissionless blockchain technology, on the other hand, simply does not achieve
the things it claims, and the people who understand it best have pointed that
out. It has already failed on many of the aims it set for itself (e.g.
decentralisation, as I explain under <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#security">Security</a>, and reducing
transaction costs), and completely failed for its intended purpose. Things built
on top of it, like NFTs, do not and can never do the miraculous things claimed
for them, and the things they can do, are done better in every way without
blockchain.</p>
<p>It’s been more than 12 years for crypto to find a use case. By way of contrast,
consider M-PESA, a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.worldremit.com/en/mobile-money">mobile money</a>
company which launched in 2007 in Kenya. It took only 5 years for 70% of Kenyans
to sign up for an account, giving them <a class="reference external" href="https://randle.substack.com/p/wave?utm_source=url">“near instant access to essential
financial services such as deposits/savings and P2P money transfers”</a>, when in 2006 only 20% of
Kenyans had been formally banked. That’s what successful technology looks like —
providing actual services to people who need it, lifting people out of poverty
with dramatic effects.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, people today who know nothing about solving real-world problems talk
about Bitcoin as “banking for the unbanked” – apparently unaware that this
problem, which is <strong>not</strong> solved by Bitcoin, <strong>is</strong> being solved by technologies
that actually work.</p>
<p>At some point, when technology is having damaging effects in the real world, you
have to be willing to reach a conclusion. At some point you’ve got to stop
giving the benefit of the doubt and be ready to say this is a <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos">Theranos</a> that needs to be shut down.</p>
</section>
<section id="conclusion">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-37" role="doc-backlink">Conclusion</a></h2>
<p>I’m horribly bored of this subject now, but just to sum up:</p>
<p>Blockchain technology is a train wreck. For its intended purpose, whether we
think about it as money, payment or banking technology, it’s beyond useless – an
unbelievably inefficient non-solution whose most impressive features are things
we don’t want, that also gives us huge downgrades in every aspect that we do
care about.</p>
<p>For any other purposes, it appears to be even worse. We can’t say with 100%
certainty that a genuine use case will never turn up, but, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/06/the_dark_equation_of_harm/">as The Register put
it</a>, “you'd
be better off betting on Freddie Mercury being beatified by the Vatican”.</p>
<p>The problems with it are not fixable bugs, they are deep design flaws. The only
possible way you could claim this was a technological revolution is by noting
that the word “revolution” doesn’t indicate which direction you are going.</p>
<p>Technology is not neutral, and our response to it cannot be neutral. Since
permissionless blockchains can only work if they are funded by negative sum
financial schemes that are causing massive waste and an increase in many other
societal evils, this is not just a poor technical choice I can laugh at, it’s
something I have to condemn.</p>
</section>
<hr class="docutils">
<section id="epilogue">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-38" role="doc-backlink">Epilogue</a></h2>
<p>An angel and a demon were watching the goings on at the 2015 Paris Climate
Conference. The demon was obviously amused.</p>
<p>“What are you smirking at?” asked the angel.</p>
<p>“Oh, I really can’t decide what’s more funny”, replied the demon. “The
politicians managing to make these promises with straight faces – it’s a class
act, it really is – or the fact that you are bothering to listen to them. Tell
me again, why are we even here?”</p>
<p>“You’re wrong about humans,” replied the angel, “and always have been. If they
work together, they can turn this climate situation around. You forget – they
still have the image of God in them.”</p>
<p>“Not enough left to save them at this stage. They’re doomed.”</p>
<p>“But they’re such inventive creatures too,” added the angel. “What about the
printing press, and modern medicine, and people in space? Then there’s nuclear
power…”</p>
<p>“Which they used to kill millions!” interrupted the demon.</p>
<p>“…the internet…” the angel continued.</p>
<p>“…yes, full of pornography…”</p>
<p>“Oh do shut up!” snapped the angel. “They’re bound to come up with something to
fix this, I’m sure of it.”</p>
<p>“Alright,” said the demon, spotting an opportunity for some fun. “I have a
prediction for you. In the place of cutting emissions, the next new technology
that will get popular will go in exactly the opposite direction – they will
actually invent a new way to waste more fuel. So much so, in fact,” continued
the demon, warming to his theme, “that they will manage to undo all the savings
they have made so far. In addition, the technology will either be 100% useless
to humanity, or worse – it will hurt everyone involved. It will be a case of
purely self-inflicted pain that will cause further misery and accelerate them
towards ecological breakdown.”</p>
<p>“Oh come on!” replied the angel. “We both know that even at their worst, they
have enough basic self-interest to save them from complete insanity. Why on
earth would they do that?”</p>
<p>“The usual reasons. Greed, or perhaps a desire for fame. Or maybe just
mass-delusion – they’re not nearly as bright as you seem to think they are.”</p>
<p>“It won’t happen.” replied the angel. “Willing to put your money where your
mouth is?”</p>
<p>“Certainly. Ten thousand says it will have taken a hold before the next Paris
conference in 2021”.</p>
<p>“Dollars, I presume?” asked the angel. “We could use one of those fancy new
tokens, ‘cryptocurrency’ I think they call them, just to spice things up a bit?”</p>
<p>“You’re always so behind!” scoffed the demon. “They’ve already been debunked
well enough. They won’t even exist in 2021 – even I am willing to grant they’ve
got that much intelligence!”</p>
<p>“OK”, said the angel. “Dollars it is then.”</p>
</section>
<hr class="docutils">
<section id="updates">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-39" role="doc-backlink">Updates</a></h2>
<p>Mostly written at the beginning of 2022, this post was published on 2022-03-05
but has had various small edits and updates since then to keep it relevant and
correct.</p>
</section>
<section id="footnotes">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-40" role="doc-backlink">Footnotes</a></h2>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="science" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-1">1</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p>“…the high priests of science and technology…”</p>
<p>I’m not implying that science or scientists are frauds – see what I’ve
written on <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/">science and divine revelation</a>.
I’m referring to the fact that it is easy to be fooled by false claims about
science and technology, and the way that “science” or “technology” or
“progress” is often used as if it is some politically or morally neutral
thing, rather than something that has to be applied in a moral framework.</p>
</aside>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="blockchains" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-2">2</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p>All discussion of “blockchains” in this post is all about the permissionless,
public blockchains you find in cryptoassets. There are other things that are
also called blockchains that have very different properties in many details,
which I’m not talking about.</p>
<p>(To confuse things, there are also projects that want the hype of using
permissionless blockchain technology, but use it in a private context, which
is pointless).</p>
</aside>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="peer2peer" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-3">3</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p><strong>Peer-to-peer technologies:</strong></p>
<p>Most P2P technologies using the internet, such as the file-sharing protocol
<a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent">BitTorrent</a>, end up relying on
some centralised services (particularly DNS) in order to find peers and get
started. However, after that, you only need connections between the peers for
them to continue to function, and if you know how to connect to a peer by
some other means, you can often avoid centralised services completely.</p>
</aside>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="banking-peer-to-peer" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-4">4</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p><strong>Communication between banks</strong></p>
<p>In practice, transfers between banks may or may not used centralised
services. But there is no theoretical reason to stop them from communicating
peer-to-peer, and as a fallback they will always be able to do that. At its
simplest, all that needs to happen is that banks hold accounts with each
other. This works because electronic money is fungible. When you transfer
money to someone, they don’t need to receive specific coins, they just need
their balance to go up by the right amount. So we can do it without centrally
tracking who owns specific coins, or tracking the total balance of each user,
unlike Bitcoin.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the recent situation with Russia, where the EU has started
to ban Russian banks from using Swift. This action could cause serious
issues for Russians wanting to do international transfers. But:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>It doesn’t stop local transactions between customers at the same bank at
all.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no need for it to affect transfers between different Russian
banks.</p></li>
<li><p>They will be able to work around it by using alternative channels, without
having to adopt a different national currency.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>None of these would be true if a country used Bitcoin as their currency and
they were cut off from the Bitcoin network.</p>
<p>On the other side, cryptocoin transactions may in practice work more like
banks. Apparently many exchanges, when handling transfers between their own
customers, will handle it internally (just on their own internal database)
instead of writing transactions on the blockchain. This makes sense for
efficiency, but it means they are just reproducing traditional banking
structures, and losing all the supposed advantages of using a blockchain,
making this whole thing pointless. This confirms what we already know – the
blockchain is not an amazing feature to be exploited, but a flaw to be worked
around.</p>
</aside>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="verisart" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-5">5</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p><strong>Verisart and timestamping</strong></p>
<p>I’m well aware of the fact that Verisart and other people will claim that
they weren’t duped, and that the prankster doesn’t understand the genuine
value that Verisart is adding. I do understand the value being added (and so
does the prankster, probably), which is this:</p>
<p>You can use the blockchain as a “timestamp server” that makes it very hard to
backdate a claim without the backdating being very obvious.</p>
<p>And that is the <strong>only</strong> thing they are adding – the blockchain cannot
attempt to verify that the claim is true.</p>
<p>However, while I understand that point, and Verisart might put it somewhere
in their fine print, most of Verisart’s customers do not.</p>
<p>Look at <a class="reference external" href="https://verisart.com/works/23f2c64a-08c6-4a42-8013-84ac8422dffb">how Verisart present their certificates</a>, and tell
me with a straight face that this could not be used to mislead people (if it
wasn’t so obviously silly, like this example).</p>
<p>The only pieces of information that are actually backed by the blockchain are
the timestamps – which are actually the dates when the certificate was
created or changed, not the artwork (obviously in this case). They are way
down the page, and they do extremely little to verify anything, because there
are no controls in place to stop fraudsters from recording their authorship.
It’s entirely possible the real author has no interest in recording
authorship on the blockchain, or didn’t do it quickly, and so a fraudster
could record their “authorship” before the true artist. It proves almost
nothing.</p>
<p>What you need is a company that verifies authorship carefully, and has a good
reputation for doing so. If we can trust the truthfulness of other
information on the certificates they produce, then we can also trust the
timestamps they add, and so the added value of timestamping things on
blockchain is extremely low.</p>
<p>In other words, blockchain adds nothing but confusion, and is there only
because of blockchain hype.</p>
</aside>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="amazonstoragecosts" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-6">6</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p>Amazon S3 “standard” tier, which stores data durably and redundantly across
multiple Availability Zones, <a class="reference external" href="https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/">charge $0.023/Gb/month</a>. Assuming we want to store data for 30
years, that’s $8.28 dollars for 1 Gb. Ethereum, at current prices requiring
$250 for storing 3kb, would cost $83,000,000 for 1Gb.</p>
<p>This is not an apples-to-apples comparison, of course, because that’s not
possible – it’s meant to give an idea.</p>
<p>Nicholas Weaver <a class="reference external" href="https://youtu.be/J9nv0Ol-R5Q?t=3852">has more on the mind-boggling inefficiency of Ethereum</a> in terms of its computing power.</p>
</aside>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></section>The Christian case against Bitcoin and blockchainhttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/2022-03-05T19:44:00Z2022-03-05T19:44:00ZLuke Plant<p>A response to the crypto-positive challies.com article from a Christian perspective</p><p>A number of months ago I read <a class="reference external" href="https://www.challies.com/articles/a-christian-case-for-bitcoin-and-blockchain/">an article on challies.com that attempted to give
a positive take on Bitcoin and blockchain technologies from a Christian
perspective</a>,
which I strongly disagreed with. This post is a response.</p>
<p>I have long been a fan of <a class="reference external" href="https://www.challies.com">challies.com</a>, which has
many excellent Christian articles and resources, and from the same kind of
Christian background as me – Protestant and theologically conservative. The
article in question was not by Tim Challies himself, but was a guest post. It
had just enough plausible sounding arguments, and enough of a credibility boost
from being on challies.com, that I felt compelled to respond.</p>
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="https://xkcd.com/386/"><img alt="XKCD comic: “Are you coming bed?” Answer: “I can’t. This is important. Someone is *wrong* on the internet" class="align-center" src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png"></a>
<p>Thankfully, there are other articles by Christians about Bitcoin, such as <a class="reference external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220611042044/https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-invest-bitcoin/">Greg
Phelan’s recent analysis from an economic perspective</a>, and
the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/faqs-know-bitcoin/">earlier 2017 article by Joe Carter</a>, both of which
are excellent. I won’t be repeating all the observations and arguments made in
those, but I do think that there could be a benefit in providing a response to
the challies.com article from a more technical angle – as someone who is both
theologically trained, and has more than 20 years experience in professional
software development.</p>
<p>I’ve split what I want to say into two parts. This post deals with the claim
that the challies.com article represents a genuinely Christian outlook on
Bitcoin and blockchain. On closer inspection, I think in reality it represents a
mostly misinformed and sometimes very naive understanding of both economics and
technology, and then uses Christianised vocabulary to gloss over the problematic
parts of Bitcoin.</p>
<p>That may sound like a harsh assessment, but I will try to back it up below.</p>
<p>My <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/">second post</a> looks at
the claim that cryptocurrencies and blockchain are a technological revolution.</p>
<p>I’m writing this mostly for a Christian audience, but others may benefit and I
would certainly appreciate input and feedback from those who don’t share my
Christian faith. The ethical principles, although expressed in Christian terms
here, are certainly not unique to Christians.</p>
<p>My posts will focus on Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two most famous cryptoassets,
but most of it applies to others, and I’ll look at some of the others briefly at
the end of the second post. (I prefer the terms “cryptoasset” and “cryptocoin”
to “cryptocurrency”, because these things are not currencies).</p>
<nav class="contents" id="contents" role="doc-toc">
<p class="topic-title">Contents</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#bitcoin-is-a-cult" id="toc-entry-1">Bitcoin is a cult</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#christian-faith-and-risk-taking" id="toc-entry-2">Christian faith and risk-taking</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#the-bitcoin-faith" id="toc-entry-3">The Bitcoin faith</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#faith-and-fomo" id="toc-entry-4">Faith and FOMO</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#a-biblical-understanding-of-money-making" id="toc-entry-5">A Biblical understanding of money making</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#application-to-cryptoassets" id="toc-entry-6">Application to cryptoassets</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#proof-of-waste" id="toc-entry-7">Proof of waste</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#crypto-gnosticism" id="toc-entry-8">Crypto-gnosticism</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#sound-money" id="toc-entry-9">Sound money</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#hope" id="toc-entry-10">Hope</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#inevitablism" id="toc-entry-11">Inevitablism</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#updates" id="toc-entry-12">Updates</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnotes" id="toc-entry-13">Footnotes</a></p></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<section id="bitcoin-is-a-cult">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-1" role="doc-backlink">Bitcoin is a cult</a></h2>
<p>For a Christian to understand and navigate the world of Bitcoin and its
promoters, it’s important to understand that you are dealing with a cult – a
movement <a class="reference external" href="https://www.ft.com/content/9e787670-6aa7-4479-934f-f4a9fedf4829">with its own faith and philosophy and leaders</a> (paywalled), and even
language and culture. One illustration of many:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Don’t let family
members change the topic, holiday dinners are for discussing bitcoin and
onboarding new users. Nobody cares about the weather, pets, movies, etcetera.
Keep the conversation laser-focused on Bitcoin.</p>— Bitcoin is Saving
(@BitcoinIsSaving) <a href="https://twitter.com/BitcoinIsSaving/status/1471891267927879691?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December
17, 2021</a></blockquote><p>You need this understanding first of all to inoculate yourself against the
outlandish hyperbole surrounding everything Bitcoin. When reading “Bitcoin fixes
this” or “blockchain fixes that” or “web3 is the future”, time after time, it’s
easy to lose your head and think, “surely so many people can’t be so wrong?”.
But when something functions as cultish devotion, divorced from any need to be
based on rational claims, the wild enthusiasm should be expected.</p>
<p>For example, take Michael Saylor (1.9 million followers on Twitter):</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.</p>— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1307029562321231873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2020</a></blockquote><p>If you fell asleep on your keyboard and woke up to find that you had
accidentally tweeted “5jubh6 78mktrtyqwerpo”, you would still not have produced
anything so utterly devoid of truth or meaning as this tweet. And yet, you will
likely never compete with Saylor or his tweets in terms of popularity either.</p>
<p>This is perhaps the extreme end of the Bitcoin cult. Normally, it doesn’t seem
to be quite as bad, and perhaps not as bad as other recent cults like QAnon. On
the other hand, it is a cult essentially built around money, and benefiting from
big financial backers who are making the most of the fact that Bitcoin is a
largely unregulated financial asset. So it is pretty dangerous.</p>
<p>A robust response to it, however, needs to be more than a dismissive “it’s a
cult” (which doesn’t address whether the beliefs of the cult are actually true)
and more even than “it’s gambling which is a sin”.</p>
</section>
<section id="christian-faith-and-risk-taking">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-2" role="doc-backlink">Christian faith and risk-taking</a></h2>
<p>The challies.com article starts with talking about the need for “faith” in our
finances, and continues this theme in places where it talks about risk taking.
But the faith it is describing is not Biblical, Christian faith.</p>
<p>Biblical faith is not making a leap into the dark to engage in risky and
possibly unethical behaviour while praying that God will bless you. Neither is
it “you can do miracles, when you believe”, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NieC8KA0EvI">as Dreamworks put it</a>. Rather, faith is trusting that
<strong>God will do what he has promised to do</strong> (as written in the Bible), and
thereby being enabled to do <strong>what is right</strong>.</p>
<p>In addition, while not <em>rationalistic</em>, it is a <strong>rational</strong> faith, based on the
historical reality of God’s revelation of himself in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth and his resurrection from the dead. As the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A14-19&version=NIVUK">apostle Paul wrote</a>,
if Jesus Christ did not actually rise from the dead, then the whole of the
Christian faith is a waste of time and Christians are the most pitiable of all
people.</p>
<p>What does Christian faith look like in practice? Let’s say, for example, that
I’m struggling financially, and I’m tempted to cheat on my tax form. If I
remember that God has <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10%3A29-31&version=NIVUK">promised to look after me</a>.
and refuse that temptation, that’s Christian faith in action. It’s rational
because the miracles and resurrection of Jesus give me good reason to believe
that his words are reliable.</p>
<p>As a negative example, I know of a Christian organisation that “stepped out in
faith” by diverting money received specifically for supporting Christian workers
to a different scheme that failed. They were unable to recoup the money they
owed the workers, and the organisation folded. That is not faith, it is fraud.</p>
<p>To claim that some action is acting in faith requires promises from God that
cover that action, and a Biblical demonstration that the action is a morally
good one that God approves of. If buying Bitcoin is morally out of line with
God’s Word (as the other Christian articles I linked to argue, and as I will
below), it is never acting in faith to do so – even if we feel we are “trusting
God”.</p>
</section>
<section id="the-bitcoin-faith">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-3" role="doc-backlink">The Bitcoin faith</a></h2>
<p>The faith of the Bitcoin cult stands in stark contrast to Christian faith.</p>
<p>All cryptoassets live and die by faith. If the market stops believing that a
certain cryptoasset is valuable, then it immediately ceases to be valuable. It
has no value other than as an entirely speculative financial asset and so the
faith aspect is vital.</p>
<p>But Bitcoin faith is a blind and anti-rationale faith. Bitcoiners carry on
believing despite all the accumulated evidence that Bitcoin is a dead-end idea.
And indeed they have to, as their investment will only be worth anything if they
carry on believing and can convince other people to believe. This makes it
necessarily anti-rational – evidence must simply be ignored and explained away.</p>
<p>A demonstration of Bitcoin faith at work is found in the closing lines of the
challies.com article:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are convinced that Christians will all soon agree that crypto is not a
curse to be feared, but a blessing to rejoice in, fully under the control of
the One who has overcome the world.</p>
<p>Take heart, we’re going to make it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would be easy to pass over the last sentence as a mere platitude. But it’s
actually a deliberate mashup of a Biblical quotation and <a class="reference external" href="https://medium.com/coinmonks/nft-dictionary-for-n00bs-68cb66430a07">Bitcoin lingo</a>. The
language is straight from Jesus’ words in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A33&version=NIVUK">John 16:33</a>, but
finishes with “we’re going to make it” (WAGMI or GMI), which, along with its
inverse NGMI, is a part of Bitcoin culture. “We’re going to make it” is how
Bitcoiners spur each other on to keep believing.</p>
<p>Of course, use of Bitcoin lingo is not necessarily wrong. There are many ways as
Christians that we consciously and subconsciously borrow from the culture around
us, and there may be nothing bad about that.</p>
<p>But it is worth reflecting on the nature of faith at work here. “We’re going to
make it” is a statement of faith without a reason or a rationale, or a promise
from God. It is a mantra that the Bitcoiner must keep repeating, and must
indoctrinate others with, or it will fail. It is faith in a man-made system,
faith in “technology”, and ultimately faith in faith itself. But certainly not
faith in God.</p>
<p>In addition, it seems pretty clear that the authors are using Biblical rhetoric
for their essentially political aim – the promotion of Bitcoin and
cryptoassets. This closing note frames the success of Bitcoin as if it was
aligned and united with the growth and triumph of Christ’s kingdom. Since they
believe cryptoassets to be a blessing to the world, I can understand why they
might do this. But this kind of appropriation of Biblical truths and language
for political ends is always extremely dangerous and destructive for the church.</p>
<p>In this instance, I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as <a class="reference external" href="https://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/vice-president-mike-pence-swapped-out-jesus-for-old-glory-in-his-rnc-address/">Mike Pence’s
idolatrous appropriation of Hebrews 12:1-2 for a political speech</a>,
for example. But it is the same mistake – you believe a certain cause is a good
one (which is fine, although you may be mistaken), but then go on to talk about
that cause as if it was itself the cause of Jesus Christ (which is not fine).</p>
</section>
<section id="faith-and-fomo">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-4" role="doc-backlink">Faith and FOMO</a></h2>
<p>The reality is that most crypto devotion is built on the back not of faith, but
Fear Of Missing Out. “If I don’t buy into Bitcoin/latest-new-alt-coin/NFTs/web3
maybe I might miss an amazing opportunity to get rich by doing nothing…” is the
fundamental mechanic at play for most people.</p>
<p>Of course, that doesn’t stop it being represented in exactly the opposite terms.
The challies.com article presents the crypto-skeptic as “fearing” crypto. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBC5TVdYT8">The
ridiculous “Fortune favours the brave” Matt Damon ad for crypto.com</a> likens gambling on crypto to
intrepid explorers of the past. But Biblical courage looks like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">Do not fret because of those who are evil</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">or be envious of those who do wrong;</div>
</div>
<div class="line">for like the grass they will soon wither,</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">like green plants they will soon die away.</div>
</div>
<div class="line">Trust in the LORD and do good;</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.</div>
</div>
<div class="line">…</div>
<div class="line">Better the little that the righteous have</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">than the wealth of many wicked;</div>
</div>
<div class="line">for the power of the wicked will be broken,</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">but the LORD upholds the righteous.</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2037&version=NIVUK">Psalm 37:1-3,16-17</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The “land” here refers to the promised land, the place of blessing, which
Christians understand in an expanded sense – the meek shall inherit not just one
land, but <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matt%205&version=NIVUK">“the earth”</a>. That
doesn’t mean Christians are to be passive and never take risks. Rather, it means
that we <strong>calmly and fearlessly do what is right</strong>, not worrying about losing
out or getting left behind.</p>
</section>
<section id="a-biblical-understanding-of-money-making">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-5" role="doc-backlink">A Biblical understanding of money making</a></h2>
<p>The essential thing that the challies.com article fails to provide is some kind
of theology of work and money-making, especially when it comes to investing.</p>
<p>To counter the accusation of gambling, the authors write:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some critics call crypto a “casino” for “price speculation,” but such
detractors may fail to recognize that their criticism can apply equally to
the Christian holding mutual funds in their company 401(k)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Do they mean that some (but not all) pension funds are run in unethical ways
that amount to gambling? If so, then this is just <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism">whataboutery</a>. Do they mean that <strong>all</strong>
pension funds or similar investment schemes are equivalent to gambling? Then
this is fairly basic financial illiteracy. It’s depressing to have to spend time
countering these classic Bitcoiner tropes and fallacies, but here goes…</p>
<p>Not everything that makes money is legitimate “work” (in the Biblical sense).</p>
<p>It’s clear from the Bible that some activities are “work” that should be
rewarded with money:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A labourer is worthy of his wages</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%205%3A18&version=NIVUK">1 Timothy 5:18</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>But not all:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and
sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and
does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 7 For you
yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when
we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On
the contrary, we worked night and day, labouring and toiling so that we
would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We did this, not because we do not
have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for
you to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule:
‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’</p>
<p>11 We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy;
they are busybodies. 12 Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus
Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. 13 And as for you,
brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+3%3A6-13&version=NIVUK">2 Thessalonians 3:6-13</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here the apostle Paul is addressing the problem of idle people within the church
family. They clearly have enough to live on financially, but they are not
<strong>earning</strong> it. Presumably they are living off the generosity of friends or
family, or accumulated riches, or are in some way scamming people.</p>
<p>None of these are God-glorifying work, no matter how much money you “make”.</p>
<p>Real work, that is worthy of wages, is distinguished by <strong>loving your neighbour
by doing something useful for other people or society in general</strong>. Work can
take many forms, but normally involves making things or providing services.
Sometimes work can seem quite detached from practical utility, like studying
pure mathematics. But we sponsor such people as a society because we’ve
recognised the value of increasing the sum of human knowledge as a good in
itself, and as something that often ends up helping people in other ways.</p>
<p>Now, investing money appears to be a Biblically legitimate way of making money
in general terms (e.g. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025%3A14-30&version=NIVUK">Matthew 25:14-30</a>).
But clearly not all investments can be approved of. Investing money in a
pornography company might get you a good return, but it is not legitimate for a
Christian. <strong>The companies or schemes that we invest in must also be doing
something good for society</strong>.</p>
<p>So, suppose there is a company that produces a new, more efficient system for
washing clothes (or whatever). Clothes need to be washed, and if it can be done
more efficiently, all the better. You invest in their stock, and you get back a
dividend from the profits that are made. If you get in early, you may also gain
from their stock going up in value as the company grows and succeeds. In both
cases, you have done something useful and worthy of being rewarded:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>in owning the stock, you are allowing your surplus cash to be put to use in
the world, for the benefit of others.</p></li>
<li><p>in recognising the value of what the company was doing, you have applied your
wisdom and understanding in choosing to invest in a company that would make
the world a better place. You have also done so at risk to yourself.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In this case, we have a <strong>positive sum</strong> outcome. It is not simply money going
round in circles. Some people paid money to have their clothes washed, and other
people put that money in their pockets (the company employees and the investors)
— but in addition, <strong>clothes got washed</strong>. Something good and useful happened in
the world.</p>
<p>This is in contrast to zero sum schemes, where all the money earned by some is
lost by others, and there are <strong>no other benefits</strong>. Or even negative sum
schemes, where significant overheads or other losses mean that overall the world
has become a worse, poorer place because of the transactions.</p>
<p>When it comes to pension funds and other investments, we may not have complete
control of the portfolio of companies being invested in. But to the extent we do
have control, an ethical approach to investment must involve choosing stocks (or
government bonds etc) where we have a reasonable confidence that the money will
mostly be put to good use. We might choose to delegate that decision to a
provider of ethical financial services, rather than attempt to become experts
ourselves. <strong>But at some level investing must involve the ethics of what we are
investing in, and not just the returns we make</strong>.</p>
<p>Piling schemes on top of schemes cannot render something ethical. If, instead of
investing in a porn company directly, I buy stocks in a financial services
company that specialises in investing in porn, or makes its money primarily off
that industry in some other way, I’m ethically no better off than I was.</p>
<p>Also, positive outcomes are not a justification for unethical investing. Such
positive outcomes might include:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>“I made a lot of money”. The large amounts of money that people put in their
pockets do not justify money-making schemes, even if they are technically
legal. On the contrary, these large amounts of money are the very thing that
needs to justified, because they’ve come from other people’s pockets.</p></li>
<li><p>“I made a lot of money, and I’m going to give it to the church or a charity”.
No, the ends don’t justify the means.</p></li>
<li><p>“I made a lot of money, so now I have more time to give to my
family/prayer/God’s work”. It’s the same thing.</p></li>
<li><p>“I made so much money, the sight of my bank balance causes my heart to fill
with overflowing praise to God!” Please stop. You love money, not God.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There is a lot more that could be said here, and what I’ve attempted above is an
outline. There are probably areas where Bible-believing Christians disagree,
such as on the degree of speculation that is legitimate when investing,
especially since it can be pretty hard to define the difference between
speculation and investment. But we can agree on some basics:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>To claim that all investment is gambling, because it all involves risk, is
just the <a class="reference external" href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy">continuum fallacy</a> and is ethically
sub-Christian.</p></li>
<li><p>Speculation can only ever have a net positive value for the world if the asset
involved is itself useful.</p></li>
</ul>
<section id="application-to-cryptoassets">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-6" role="doc-backlink">Application to cryptoassets</a></h3>
<p>So much for the general principles. When it comes to Bitcoin and other
cryptoassets, as far as anyone is able to analyse it, it’s a strongly negative
sum scheme. It is not a stock – Bitcoin does not exist as a company that
provides some useful service – and it pays no dividend. All the dollars that
come out of the system have come from other people paying in, and at the same
time there are massive losses.</p>
<p>The most well known is the amount of electricity wasted, especially for anything
involving “proof of work” consensus algorithms, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. If
you care about climate change, <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/">as every Christian should</a>,
then this should matter to you.</p>
<p>Even if you could solve climate and environmental concerns, wasting resources is
always waste, and always takes away from other, beneficial uses, for example by
driving up prices. This is economically inevitable.</p>
<p>And there are many more “negative externalities”, as <a class="reference external" href="http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/">this Stanford lecture put
it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This [huge electricity consumption] is far from the only externality the
cryptocurrency mania imposes upon the world. Among the others are that
Bitcoin alone generates <a class="reference external" href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105901">as much e-waste as the Netherlands</a>, that cryptocurrencies
enable a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/Financial%20Trend%20Analysis_Ransomeware%20508%20FINAL.pdf">$5.2B/year ransomware industry</a>,
that they have disrupted supply chains for <a class="reference external" href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/inside-the-gpu-shortage-why-you-still-cant-buy-a-graphics-card">GPUs</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278696-bitcoin-rival-chia-destroyed-hard-disc-supply-chains-says-its-boss/">hard disks, SSDs</a>
and other chips, that they have made it impossible for web services to offer
<a class="reference external" href="https://therecord.media/crypto-mining-gangs-are-running-amok-on-free-cloud-computing-platforms/">free tiers</a>,
and that they are responsible for a massive crime wave including <a class="reference external" href="https://www.osc.gov.on.ca/quadrigacxreport/">fraud</a>, <a class="reference external" href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/05/08/binance-hacked-largest-tether-exchange-cuts-off-withdrawals-for-the-next-week/">theft</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/05/20/biden-tax-compliance-treasury/">tax evasion</a>,
funding of <a class="reference external" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/17/north-korean-hackers-charged-in-massive-cryptocurrency-theft-scheme.html">rogue states such as North Korea</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/may/20/a-united-nations-of-how-marbella-became-a-magnet-for-gangsters">drug</a>
<a class="reference external" href="https://decrypt.co/7410/from-cocaine-to-crypto-the-new-escobar-family-business">smuggling</a>,
and even <a class="reference external" href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/crime/police-seek-suspects-in-canyon-meadows-home-invasion/wcm/0d61e468-bf25-430d-858d-5afe5f56a7d7/">armed robbery</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Financially, it is <a class="reference external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211231090443/https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html">in essence a Ponzi scheme</a>
— but <a class="reference external" href="https://www.ft.com/content/83a14261-598d-4601-87fc-5dde528b33d0">worse than a Ponzi, according to this Financial Times post</a> (paywalled).</p>
<p>Bitcoiners will even admit this:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Yes, it’s a Ponzi scheme. But who cares? So are the dollars in your pocket.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Crypto2022?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Crypto2022</a><a href="https://t.co/nBollZHpGB">https://t.co/nBollZHpGB</a></p>— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) <a href="https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1469677423423799302?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2021</a></blockquote><p>(Although, when someone can’t tell the difference between a currency and a
Ponzi, their assessment may not be worth very much…) Other Bitcoiners have also
spoken openly <a class="reference external" href="https://www.drorpoleg.com/in-praise-of-ponzis/">in praise of Ponzi</a>, and other crypto leaders
have been <a class="reference external" href="https://unherd.com/thepost/is-crypto-just-one-big-ponzi-scheme/">totally open about this</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to being an immoral way to earn money for ourselves, promoting
crypto is a huge failure to love our more vulnerable neighbours. Just like Ponzi
schemes and <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing">multi-level marketing</a> scams, the financial
structure of cryptoassets means that there is no source of money except new
investors or recruits. Eventually they will run out of “greater fools”, at which
point a large number of unlucky people will lose.</p>
<p>Some people can afford such risks. But these schemes, with their potential for
high (and unsustainable) returns, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/22/the-casino-beckons-my-journey-inside-the-cryptosphere">always attract the most vulnerable and
financially desperate</a>.
Like the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+21%3A1-4&version=NIVUK">widow in the temple</a>,
these people will put in their last pennies, all they have to live on. Jesus’
condemnation of the Pharisees who “<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+20%3A46-47&version=NIVUK">devoured widows’ houses</a>”
surely applies to anyone who promotes or encourages these schemes. “These men
will be punished most severely.”</p>
</section>
<section id="proof-of-waste">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-7" role="doc-backlink">Proof of waste</a></h3>
<p>In a healthy economy, money serves as a kind of “proof of work”. As a reward for
doing something useful for society, you are given money which you can use for
yourself or others you care about. <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#proof-of-work-and-the-rich" id="footnote-reference-1" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>1<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a></p>
<p>But the “proof of work” in cryptoassets turns this on its head. Bitcoin and
Ethereum miners are rewarded in proportion to how many calculations they do.
Now, if the electronic ledger they were maintaining with the electricity this
requires were actually beneficial to society, then this might be reasonable. But
since these assets function only as “greater fool” schemes and not as money
(except for criminals, and a very small number of legitimate cases), it would be
better to call this system <strong>“proof of waste”</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Bitcoin and Ethereum reward miners for wasting natural resources. This makes
it probably the most unethical invention of the 21st century</strong>. It should be
deeply offensive to anyone who believes, as Christians do, that the planet’s
resources do not belong to us, but to Another, who requires us to steward them
wisely, and who will one day ask us to give account for that stewardship.</p>
<hr class="docutils">
<p>Are there are some other technological or social benefits that might somehow
offset all this? I’ll look at that in <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/">my second post</a>.</p>
<p>But first, there are some other angles we could look at this from a Christian point of
view.</p>
</section>
</section>
<hr class="docutils">
<section id="crypto-gnosticism">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-8" role="doc-backlink">Crypto-gnosticism</a></h2>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism">Gnosticism</a> (silent ‘g’) was a
movement that affected early Christianity, and still has influence. The name
comes the greek word “gnosis” meaning “knowledge”, and refers to the fact that
gnostics usually claimed some kind of higher level of enlightenment that came
not from a right understanding of God’s truth in holy scripture, or any other
rational source, but via direct revelation from God. You could call this
“crypto-gnosis” – <em>hidden knowledge</em> – if you wanted.</p>
<p>This is far from being something unique to Christian sects and movements. The
seductive belief that you have gained access to a higher, hidden knowledge that
other people “just don’t get” is <a class="reference external" href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180124-the-enduring-appeal-of-conspiracy-theories">a driving force behind many conspiracy
theories</a>
and cults. And it is certainly present in the Bitcoin world. For example:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It only starts to make sense after more than 50 hours of learning about <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> and starts being obvious after 100+ hours.<br><br>The problem is the world is full of people with strong opinions on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> with less than 10 hours.<br><br>People that do the PoW early, reap the benefits.</p>— ⚡Disruptive Innovation⚡ (@BitcoinAlrdyWon) <a href="https://twitter.com/BitcoinAlrdyWon/status/1470461453782204421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 13, 2021</a></blockquote><p>While this “you just don’t get it” idea didn’t come through that strongly in the
challies.com article, I’ve seen it from other Christian crypto-enthusiasts, and,
given the unfortunate inclination of significant parts of the Christian world
towards conspiracy theories, you are likely to see this new crypto-gnosticism
sometime soon in your local church.</p>
</section>
<section id="sound-money">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-9" role="doc-backlink">Sound money</a></h2>
<p>Another claim made by the challies.com article, often found amongst Bitcoiners,
is that cryptoassets are “sound money”. One of the central ideas here is that
the supply of Bitcoin, in contrast to fiat money, cannot be controlled by
centralised authorities such as governments. Putting aside the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html">many fundamental
failures in understanding of economics</a>, and the fact that
<a class="reference external" href="https://bankunderground.co.uk/2021/12/14/what-is-a-bitcoin-worth/">Bitcoin fails to be money at all by most definitions</a>, there is
a strong <a class="reference external" href="https://www.ft.com/content/eeeacd7c-2e0e-11e9-ba00-0251022932c8">libertarian, anti-government philosophy at work</a> (paywalled).</p>
<p>As Christians who believe in original sin and flawed human nature, some level of
distrust of human institutions is good and right. All our democratic
institutions are built on the understanding that “power corrupts, absolutely
power corrupts absolutely”. In addition, it seems pretty clear that the current
capitalist systems we live in have many problems and are failing many of the
poorer people in our society.</p>
<p>But that does not mean we reject governments or states. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2013&version=NIVUK">The Bible is pretty
explicit on this</a>.</p>
<p>Further, Jesus’ instruction to <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A15-22&version=NIVUK">“give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”</a>
is explicitly in the context of state-issued currency which was used for tax
collection. The crypto-proponent’s claim that governments should not be allowed
to control the money supply is simply not a position you can argue from the
Bible.</p>
<p>Even if the government shouldn’t have control over money, why would we prefer a
process in which bunch of entirely unaccountable techies and rich investors get
to decide how money works instead? There is nothing in Bitcoin that makes it
inherently fairer than fiat money, and in fact the system reproduces some of the
worst failings of capitalism in exaggerated form. Bitcoin doesn’t allow everyone
to “earn” equally – rather, it gives a big leg up to those already rich enough
to afford the hardware needed for mining, or to those who can afford the risks
of gambling.</p>
</section>
<section id="hope">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-10" role="doc-backlink">Hope</a></h2>
<p>There is so much more that could be said, but the more you explore, the more you
realise how far Bitcoin’s underlying philosophy is from anything Christian.</p>
<p>Bitcoin is often envisaged as representing <a class="reference external" href="https://www.hope.com/">hope</a>, but
in reality it is just hopium and an underlying despair is not far away. When you
challenge a Bitcoiner on some of the issues mentioned above, very often the
response is along the lines of “everything is a scam anyway”. (<a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/concodanomics/status/1492716698344083458">Here is a great
response to that</a>)</p>
<p>Hope in Bitcoin often comes from a deep, disillusioned, nihilistic rage at “the
system” – which is often understandable. But it is then used to justify
attitudes and actions focused on extracting as much for yourself as possible,
while you still can. This is fundamentally incompatible with true Christian hope
for the growth of Christ’s Kingdom and beyond.</p>
</section>
<section id="inevitablism">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-11" role="doc-backlink">Inevitablism</a></h2>
<p>The final note of the challies.com article, and the subject I’ll end on too, is
the idea that crypto is part of inevitable technological progress that we simply
have to get on board with. I’ll deal with the technology fallacy in my next
post. The other fallacy is that we can’t stop it. This is yet another staple
argument of the Bitcoin cult.</p>
<p>But this claim is not true. As Christians, there are some things we can be
certain about regarding the future. We believe in the return of Jesus, the
triumph of His kingdom, and judgement day – based on specific promises in the
Bible. There are also things we can say are certain, or almost certain, based on
a rational understanding of the laws of physics or human nature. But we have no
business believing or repeating claims about all kinds of other human inventions
or processes being inevitable when they are not.</p>
<p>If you claim “people are always going to want get-rich-quick schemes”, I will
agree with you 100%. However, going on to say “this particular scheme is
inevitable, and we should all join in” is self-fulfilling defeatism that is both
untrue and immoral.</p>
<p>If we want to talk laws of economics and inevitability, Bitcoin is a bubble that
is guaranteed to burst:</p>
<figure class="align-center">
<a class="reference external image-reference" href="https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1471878926045786121"><img alt="Cartoon with 4 squares: 1809: “The empire can’t fall, it’s too big”. 1921: “The ship [titanic] can’t sink, it’s too safe”. 2008: “The market can’t crash, it’s too large”. 2021: “The bitcoin bubble can’t burst, it keeps growing”" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/the_bubble_cant_burst_its_too_big.jpeg" style="width: 40em;"></a>
<figcaption>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1471878926045786121">(source)</a></p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, we don’t know when, and crypto might be with us for a long time – but
only if we adopt a passive, defeatist attitude. Many cryptoassets have already
been banned in various countries, and there is no reason why the same couldn’t
happen across the world – all we really need is for financial regulators to wake
up, as they are beginning to do.</p>
<p>So it would help if Christians did their part.</p>
<p>Next: <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/">Is blockchain a technological marvel?</a> (For
those who cannot stand the suspense, the answer is No.)</p>
</section>
<hr class="docutils">
<section id="updates">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-12" role="doc-backlink">Updates</a></h2>
<p>Mostly written at the beginning of 2022, this post was published on 2022-03-05
but has had various small edits and updates since then to keep it relevant and
correct.</p>
</section>
<section id="footnotes">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#toc-entry-13" role="doc-backlink">Footnotes</a></h2>
<aside class="footnote brackets" id="proof-of-work-and-the-rich" role="note">
<span class="label"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span><a role="doc-backlink" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-christian-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#footnote-reference-1">1</a><span class="fn-bracket">]</span></span>
<p>I would happily agree that most implementations of this concept have some
significant issues, especially in making it far too easy for the already
wealthy to go on accumulating wealth, without actually working. But there are
ways we can counter that. In the Bible, the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.theologyofwork.org/old-testament/leviticus-and-work/the-sabbath-year-and-the-year-of-jubilee-leviticus-25">year of jubilee</a>
was a 50-year reset button, to counter runaway generational poverty and
generational wealth. Today we have taxes and other forms of legislation.</p>
</aside>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></section>Sharing in Christ’s sufferingshttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/sharing-in-christs-sufferings/2021-11-11T16:12:00Z2021-11-11T16:12:00ZLuke Plant<p>What does it mean to participate in the sufferings of Christ? And what difference does it make to us to understand this?</p><p>In the Bible, there is such a thing as “suffering with Christ”, “participating”
(or knowing "fellowship") in his sufferings. (See <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%203%3A10&version=NIVUK">Philippians 3:10</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A17&version=NIVUK">Romans 8:17</a> and
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+4%3A13&version=NIVUK">1 Peter 4:13</a>,
for example).</p>
<p>But what kind of suffering does this refer to? It is clear that not all
suffering qualifies.</p>
<p>For example, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%204:15&version=NIVUK">suffering as a criminal or meddler</a>
is not suffering that can be commended in this way. Beyond this, however, it can
get difficult. If I fall ill, in exactly the same way that an unbeliever does,
is this “suffering with Christ”? What if my car is broken into? Does it count if
it is broken into while parked outside church?</p>
<p>I struggled with this question, but in the end I decided that for this post, it
would be more helpful to be cautious rather than expansive. Different types of
suffering need different kinds of Biblical “medicine” to treat them – for
example, many types of suffering benefit from truths about the suffering-free
world that awaits us in the resurrection. But in this post I want to focus on
those cases where we can definitely say “I am suffering with Christ”. My purpose
is that by being a little more limited in scope, we might be more confident in
recognising those times when we are in fact suffering with Christ, and benefit
more from that thought.</p>
<section id="characteristics-of-suffering-with-christ">
<h2>Characteristics of suffering with Christ</h2>
<p>So what are the essential characteristics of suffering with Christ? I think
answers to that are found in a number of passages that draw a close connection
between our sufferings and his. I won’t make too much of a distinction between
terminology like suffering “for him”, “with him”, and “sharing” in his
sufferings, which seem to very close in usage.</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>We suffer with Christ when we suffer for <strong>his name</strong>, or “as a Christian” —
that is, when suffering comes our way specifically because we follow him and
are targeted as believers.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+4%3A12-16&version=NIVUK">1 Peter 4:12-16</a>
talks about this very clearly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on
you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But
rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that
you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted
<strong>because of the name of Christ</strong>, you are blessed, for the Spirit of
glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a
murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler.
However, if you suffer <strong>as a Christian</strong>, do not be ashamed, but praise
God that you bear <strong>that name</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It seems the suffering focused on here is specifically that which comes due
to our connection with the name of Christ, which brings deliberate attacks
from other humans who hate him.</p>
<p>I think there is a broader if slightly weaker form of this, in which people
may not be consciously attacking us due to our visible association to Christ.
In the first instance, it seems that part of hostility described in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John15%3A18-19&version=NIVUK">John
15:18-19</a>
can be due to Christians simply not belonging to the world, and not being
like them, without the world necessarily being conscious of our connection to
Christ.</p>
<p>Going further, we could also think about passages like Revelation 12:17,
which describes the response of Satan to Christ's followers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against
the rest of her offspring – those who keep God’s commands and hold fast
their testimony about Jesus.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the rest of Revelation, we then see human beings being driven along by
Satan and demonic powers.</p>
<p>So when Paul and Barnabas are faced with a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2019%3A23-31&version=NIVUK">mob of Artemis worshipper</a>
who are essentially protecting their financial interests, can we say it is
because of the name of Christ specifically? They don't know anything about
Jesus, and care only about their loss of profits. But we are surely right to
see this as part of Satan’s rage against faithful believers, being worked out
through unwitting agents.</p>
</li>
<li><p>A second way in which we suffer with Christ is when our <strong>behaviour</strong> in
suffering is like his, especially in being patient and not retaliating
despite unfair treatment.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%202%3A18-23&version=NIVUK">1 Peter 2:18-23</a>
describes this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust
suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit
if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer
for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this
you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,
that you should follow in his steps.</p>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">‘He committed no sin,</div>
<div class="line">and no deceit was found in his mouth.’</div>
</div>
<p>When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he
suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who
judges justly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is a clear parallel to Christ's suffering and the kind of suffering we
are called to as Christians here, and the key elements are 1) the unfairness
of our suffering and 2) the patience and restraint of our response.</p>
</li>
<li><p>We share in Christ's suffering when the <strong>cause</strong> of our suffering is the
same as his – specifically, when the path of obedience and saying “no” to sin
brings suffering into our lives. See <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2012&version=NIVUK">Hebrews 12:1-4</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy
that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured
such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose
heart.</p>
<p><strong>In your struggle against sin</strong>, you have not yet resisted to the point
of shedding your blood.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The author is drawing a comparison between our sufferings and those of our
Saviour. He fought against sin, choosing the path of obedience and refusing
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4%3A8-9&version=NIVUK">Satan's sinful shortcuts</a>.
That path lead him through great suffering and ultimately to death. The
author tells us that we haven’t got to that point yet – we’re
still breathing! – but we are on the same path as him if our insistence on
obedience or saying no to sin makes life harder for us.</p>
<p>There are many ways that can happen. We might miss out on a promotion that
was rightfully ours due to integrity in the workplace. We might suffer
loneliness, and continue in it because we refuse the relief of an
inappropriate relationship. These things, and many more, can be a form of
sharing in Christ's sufferings.</p>
</li>
<li><p>We participate in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus when our <strong>purpose</strong> is
the same as his – namely, the good of his people, the church. In <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1%3A24-29&version=NIVUK">Colossians
1:24-29</a>
we read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my
flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the
sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by
the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its
fullness – the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and
generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God
has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.</p>
<p>He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all
wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this
end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works
in me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Paul here goes as far as describing his own sufferings as a fulfilment and
extension of Christ’s – not that anything can be added to what Jesus
accomplished, but it can be fulfilled in our lives. His sufferings come to
fruition in our lives when the same love that powered him powers us,
overflowing in labours and pains taken for the sake of God’s people. That
includes, as per Paul’s ministry, labours for those who are part of God’s
elect but don't know it yet, and need to hear the gospel for a first time,
and those who we are <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+4%3A19&version=NIVUK">labouring to see mature in Christ</a>.</p>
<p>When mentioning this type of suffering or labour, we should mention emotional
labour for Christ’s people, which to Paul was apparently worthy to be put
last and highest on his list of sufferings in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+11&version=NIVUK">1 Corinthians 11</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all
the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into
sin, and I do not inwardly burn?</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="other-parallels-with-christs-suffering">
<h2>Other parallels with Christ’s suffering</h2>
<p>I think the above are the main distinctive characteristics that separate
suffering in general from “suffering with Christ”. There are, however, many
other features of Christ’s sufferings that we might (or might not) see in our
own experiences. These details can be a special help to us in seeing the
parallels between Christ’s sufferings and ours, and I think it is right that we
use them in this way. They include the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Great physical pain, such as that which Christ went through at the cross.</p></li>
<li><p>Mental strain and emotional distress, for example in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+14%3A33-34&version=NIVUK">Mark 14:33-34</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply
distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point
of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Weakness, including the need of help from others, as Jesus showed in the
passage quoted above.</p></li>
<li><p>The pain of betrayal by close friends. We’re offered an insight into that in
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+55&version=NIVUK">Psalm 55</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">If an enemy were insulting me,</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">I could endure it;</div>
</div>
<div class="line">if a foe were rising against me,</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">I could hide.</div>
</div>
<div class="line">But it is you, a man like myself,</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">my companion, my close friend,</div>
</div>
<div class="line">with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">at the house of God,</div>
</div>
<div class="line">as we walked about</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">among the worshippers.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Feelings of abandonment. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”</p></li>
<li><p>The public humiliation and loss of reputation that was a key part of
crucifixion.</p></li>
<li><p>The disgrace of defeat, illustrated, for example, by the soldiers looting
Jesus’ possessions so casually.</p></li>
<li><p>A feeling of failure, captured by <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+49%3A4&version=NIVUK">Isaiah 49:4</a>
which I think should be understood in Messianic terms:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain;</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">I have spent my strength for nothing at all.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are probably many more things that could be added to this list!</p>
</section>
<section id="what-difference-does-it-make">
<h2>What difference does it make?</h2>
<p>If are able to rightly and confidently conclude that we are suffering with
Christ, then I think it can provide us with immense comfort, and great strength
to persevere.</p>
<p>For example, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12%3A2&version=NIVUK">Hebrews 12:2</a> is
worth meditating on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy
that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When we are suffering with Christ, we can remember that his present glory is our
certain future. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+4%3A13&version=NIVUK">1 Peter 4:13</a> makes a similar point, as does <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A17&version=NIVUK">Romans 8:17</a>.</p>
<p>As well as great promises for the future, I think we also need to know that our
suffering with the Lord Jesus and for his sake is something very pleasing and
precious to God in the present. For example, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+2%3A19-20&version=NIVUK">1 Peter 2:19-20</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering
because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you
receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing
good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+4%3A14&version=NIVUK">1 Peter 4:14</a>
adds to this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the
Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s important to note that the truth of this verse – that glory rests on us —
is something that has to be accepted by faith, and usually will not be at all
apparent to our natural feelings. Insults do not make us feel great! They hurt
precisely because they humiliate, and if we are suffering from humiliation and
disgrace then by definition it will not feel like glory. It’s at this point that
we have to accept God’s very different assessment of the situation, and
recognise the amazing glory we share – right now in the present, as well as one
day in the future – with Jesus Christ himself.</p>
</section>Who owns your Bible?https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/who-owns-your-bible/2021-03-10T06:33:47Z2021-03-10T06:33:47ZLuke Plant<p>In which I rant about Bible licensing.</p><p>Or, to put the question in the heading more specifically, who should have access
to God's Word, and who has the right to prevent someone from using God's Word?</p>
<p>If you are an heir to Protestant values like I am, your instinctive answers to
the above two questions are probably “everyone” and “no-one” respectively.
Unfortunately, the answer is not so straightforward.</p>
<p>And, again unfortunately, this is not a theoretical question.</p>
<p>But let's back up a minute and explain why this matters to me, and why it should
to you, both right now and as a general principle.</p>
<section id="the-background">
<h2>The background</h2>
<p>I run a Bible memorisation website – <a class="reference external" href="https://learnscripture.net/">learnscripture.net</a>. It provides a cutting edge system for
scheduling, learning and reviewing Bible verses for memorisation. It's been
running since 2012, and now has about 12,000 signed up users.</p>
<p>The service is entirely free, and also free of ads or any other means of making
money, because none of these would help with its purposes, and my aim is a site
that excels at helping you memorise God's Word. The modest running costs are
paid either out of my pocket or from donations – although the real cost is my
time, which I give for free, and happily so.</p>
<p>A range of Bible versions are available, one of which is the ESV – a very
popular version, and with good reason. For most of the Bible versions I have, in
fact all the others, there is a complete copy of the Bible text in my database.
But for the ESV the only legal access I've been able to get to use this version is
via their “API” – an online service that my website connects to retrieve verses
of the ESV as they are needed. There are quite a few restrictions on this API,
such as not being able to cache more than 500 verses in my database etc.</p>
<p>On their website and in various other places, Crossway <a class="reference external" href="https://www.esv.org/translation/">claims</a> (emphasis added):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Suited for personal reading, public worship, in-depth study, and <strong>Scripture
memorization</strong>, the ESV is available in hundreds of print editions on
Crossway.org and free digitally via mobile apps or online through ESV.org.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For a text to be appropriate for memorisation, it's clear that continued access
to the text is a basic requirement. But for many of the users of
learnscripture.net, the text that they were memorising will soon no longer be
accessible: the <a class="reference external" href="http://www.esvapi.org/">v2 API</a> will be closed in April and I
will have to move to the <a class="reference external" href="https://api.esv.org/">v3 API</a>, and along with it the
text will change from the 2007 edition to the 2016 edition.</p>
<p>(I knew for a while that the former was deprecated, but the dedicated web page
for the v2 API has never given a date it would be stopped, and I was notified
less than a month ago of this termination, which isn't a huge amount of time).</p>
<p>As well as the API, there are other options for licencing the text if you have
some money, but from my exchanges with them so far it seems that under no
circumstances will they permit use of the older versions of the ESV text.</p>
<p>Now, I do not object to updates to the text – I don't believe any translation is
perfect, and it's absolutely right that we continue to strive to produce better
translations, as both our understanding of the original improves and English
itself evolves. But continued access to old editions of the text is essential if
the Crossway wishes to claim that this version is suitable for memorisation —
and, in the digital age, “access” means “digital access”.</p>
<p>So to me, as I try to remove every hindrance as my users attempt to memorise
God's Word, this is extremely disappointing, and also very worrying as a matter
of principle. How is it that some people have the right to hinder others in
their memorising of the Bible?</p>
</section>
<section id="objection-1-it-s-just-one-translation">
<h2>Objection 1 – it's just one translation</h2>
<p>You might respond by saying that they are not blocking access to God's Word,
just their own translation of God's Word. People can still access the Bible:
they can use the original languages; they can use another translation; or they
could make their own. What right do I have to demand access?</p>
<p>I think these responses fail on a number of levels:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>As Christians we believe that any sufficiently accurate translation of God's
Word can itself rightly be called “God's Word” or “the Bible”. We don't have
the Muslim view of the Qu'ran that says that only the original Arabic is the
Qu'ran.</p></li>
<li><p>Many of the other popular translations are at least as restrictive as the ESV
is in terms of the things that you are freely allowed to do with them. The
NIV, for instance, managed by Biblica, is even harder to get permission to
use for my kind of service.</p></li>
<li><p>The overwhelming majority of people can't use the original languages well
enough to be able to use them for Bible reading.</p></li>
<li><p>As a Christian community we really don't want loads of people coming up with
their own translations! We've already recognised that this is a really bad
thing, because most people who want to write their own translations are not
qualified, and they come up with very poor attempts that unfortunately get
more support than they should.</p>
<p>(Please note the restraint I used in not mentioning them by name! But I have
disappointed some of my users in not even attempting to add some
“translations”).</p>
</li>
<li><p>As individuals and churches, we are slow to change our preferred Bible
translations, and that's a good thing. We want church Bibles that everyone has
access to in the pew and at home. If we do switch translations, it will be on
the basis of which translation we think is the very best, most accurate or
helpful translation. Perhaps naively, we don't think about continued access to
the text when we make these decisions.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>For these reasons, I think it is perfectly reasonable to frame this debate as
being about “the freedom to use God's Word”, rather than “the freedom to use one
particular translation of God's Word.”</p>
<p>With that in place, when it comes to the question of “rights”, the correct
question must surely be this:</p>
<p>What right do Bible translators have to restrict access to a Bible text,
especially after they have encouraged the use of that text by the general
Christian population for a wide range of purposes? Their legal right is clear
(copyright law), but hopefully I don't have to explain that legal rights and
moral rights can be very different.</p>
<aside class="admonition admonition-aside-copyright-law">
<p class="admonition-title">Aside – copyright law</p>
<p>Actually, I may need a note about copyright. In recent decades copyright has
often been represented as if it were a moral right – especially by
“intellectual property” lawyers, who have a vested interest in persuading the
world that there is such a thing as “intellectual property” which can be
“stolen”. Copyright law and patent law are not based on moral rights,
however, or the idea of property – you can't own an idea. <a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4">Copying is not
theft</a>. Rather, copyright laws
and patent laws are things invented by humans, based on the idea of promoting
the overall good of society by promoting creativity and innovation.</p>
<p>As such, they may have their place, but simply assuming that you have the
moral right to exercise control via copyright law would be a mistake. This is
especially true of the Bible, because the Bible is not just any book.</p>
</aside>
<p>So the question is, on what moral basis can you restrict access to God's Word?</p>
<p>And following on from this, who is able to override the decisions of the ESV
copyright holders? Is it appropriate, as the Christian community, that we hand
over this decision to a non-accountable para-church organisation who can choose
whatever terms they like?</p>
<p>If you attempt to talk licensing with Crossway, you'll find a process that
is completely opaque and in which you have no right to appeal or complain. Is
this as it should be?</p>
<p>If you want to memorise part of Shakespeare's works, or even an ancient
Christian creed or a less ancient confession (<a class="reference external" href="https://learnscripture.net/catechisms/">which you can also memorise on
learnscripture.net</a>), you will have
greater freedom in how you choose to do that than if you want to memorise the
Bible. Am I the only one who thinks this is a disgrace?</p>
</section>
<section id="objection-2-a-labourer-is-worthy-of-his-wages">
<h2>Objection 2 – a labourer is worthy of his wages</h2>
<p>This is an important Biblical principle, and I think some people might assume it
means that it gives copyright holders moral permission to do what they like.</p>
<p>It's true that copyright law has often provided a way for people to make a
living from their work, which might have been difficult any other way. But it
really doesn't follow that this particular method of getting a wage for your
labours is either Biblically justified or the best way of handling God's Word.</p>
<p>In practice, basing remuneration for work on copyrights is a rather indirect and
often an extremely ineffective way of fulfilling "the labourer is worthy of his
wages".</p>
<p>Take authors of Christian books, for example. It's pretty safe to say that the
large majority of these authors will not have come close to being paid a living
wage for hours spent on books they have written. There are big exceptions of
course – the most popular authors will do much better, but they are few in
number. The fact is that the publishing industry is built to make profits for
the publishing industry, and not for book authors.</p>
<p>On several occasions I've been approached by publishers and asked to write a
book (about software, not theology, I should add), and one of them had the
honesty to admit to me that writing a book is a "labour of love" that is done
for the community! Of course I don't object to helping the software community,
and in fact <a class="reference external" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/development-work/#projects">have done so for free in many ways</a>, but I can do it
without the help of publishers, and with far greater freedoms.</p>
<p>In reality, as a Christian community we don't actually expect Christian authors
to make a living from book sales, and in fact usually sponsor their writing work
in other ways, like paying a pastor's salary. In this context, a publishing
model that involves signing over complete distribution rights to other people,
when we have paid for the work, and we could distribute ourselves pretty much
for free via the internet, is pretty ridiculous.</p>
<p>What I'm saying is that the principle of paying people for their work doesn't
mean that any method of doing so is sensible or appropriate, especially when it
comes to the Bible and the needs of the kingdom.</p>
</section>
<section id="objection-3-not-many-verses-are-affected">
<h2>Objection 3 – not many verses are affected</h2>
<p>The changes made in the 2011 and 2016 updates affect 291 verses, at my count.
Some people think this isn't worth bothering about. Certainly the person I
emailed regarding ESV licensing thinks so:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the changes were pretty minor in those two rounds so it is unlikely that it
would affect a memorization program in any significant way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My first response is this: do you get to make the decision about what is
“significant”, or should you leave that to people who are doing the memorising?</p>
<p>Second, it should be noted that although it’s a small fraction of the total
number of verses in the Bible, it’s a much larger fraction of the kind of verses
that people tend to memorise – the changes are concentrated in better known and
used verses.</p>
<p>Further, I'd like you to consider the way that word-for-word memorisation works,
and <a class="reference external" href="https://learnscripture.net/">learnscripture.net</a> especially.</p>
<p>The system in my website manages the whole schedule of your verse learning,
along with tests that adjust the schedule according to the progress you are
making, using the tried and tested principle of <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition">spaced repetition</a>.</p>
<p>If you do well in your tests, you will see a verse approx 20 times in increasing
intervals over about 1 year, until you finally retire a verse for good. Now,
suppose you've almost finished learning Philippians 2:14, for example. You are
on 97%, and need just one more high scoring test to finish it forever. You are
quite sure the text says: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning” (ESV
2007). But the website now insists that last word is in fact “disputing” (ESV
2016). It marks you down, moves your progress backwards, and leaves you
wondering if you've lost your sanity, or who you should be angry at.</p>
<p>By default, you would then see the verse again several months later. Of course,
the next time, exactly the same thing happens – after 19 reviews, “questioning”
is firmly embedded in your mind as the last word. One might argue that God's
will in this extremely annoying situation is to perfect you in the grace of
patience! One might also argue that when learning that verse in particular,
grumbling about it is in fact the last thing you are allowed to do.</p>
<p>But humanly speaking, the most likely outcome is significant demotivation to
continue learning God's Word. For those reading this, I hope you are serious
about memorising scripture, and so I hope you will understand the issue.</p>
<p>Whether you are or not, some of my users are extremely dedicated to their Bible
memorisation. One of our top users recently hit a milestone of having started
learning a new verse every single day without a break for 3 years. Many have
completed learning hundreds of verses, and are learning hundreds more.</p>
<p>Of the 12,000 signed up users, about 6,000 have chosen the ESV as their
preferred version, and over 1,400 are affected by changes in the ESV text due to
verses that they have already started learning. For most of these it is just one
or two verses, but around 100 of my users have 5+ verses affected, and for some
it is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50+ verses that are affected. When it comes to friction
when memorising something, this adds up!</p>
<p>Others may not care about these people, but I do, especially as I cannot say
that I come close to matching their dedication to learning scripture. I do not
feel I have the right to put any hindrance in their way.</p>
<p>In addition, we also have to think to the future. With the way that Crossway
licence their text, we have no guarantee that, having had to update to the 2016
version, we won't have to update again, or that we won't be denied the kind of
access we need for any other reason. As the Christian community, we hope that
Crossway's decisions won't put us in too much difficulty, but we have no
guarantees.</p>
<p>It is not ridiculous to worry about this. I'm already suffering difficulties
with licensing restrictions, and could give you more examples. For one, I've
never been able to get the New King James Version for my site. I had to
negotiate with Hodder and Stoughton in the UK, a secular publisher who have the
distribution rights, and they said at least £1,000 was required to even draw up
the contract I would need, let alone ongoing fees. NIV is another translation
I'd love to add, and have made attempts over several years, but it's not easy.
(With some changes to the way learnscripture.net is owned, hopefully bringing it
formally under <a class="reference external" href="https://100fold.org/">100fold</a>, I may yet make progress).</p>
<p>Those in the software world recognise this problem as “vendor lock-in”. You have
a dependency on a certain organisation for a certain service, and the difficulty
of removing that dependency means you are kind of forced to accept whatever
terms they give you in the future. It's why people like me prefer “<a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source">Open Source</a>” software which give you greater
freedoms and guarantees. For access to God's Word, which is far more important,
surely we should be looking for something similar, or better?</p>
</section>
<section id="it-doesn-t-have-to-be-this-hard">
<h2>It doesn't have to be this hard</h2>
<p>Non-English translations usually give you no problems if you want to use the
text, and some English versions are the same. The <a class="reference external" href="https://www.lockman.org/">NASB</a> (New American Standard Bible) gave me no such
problems, nor the <a class="reference external" href="https://csbible.com/">CSB</a> (Christian Standard Bible). The
<a class="reference external" href="https://netbible.org/">NET Bible</a> were very helpful, and are a particularly
good example – they have thought ahead and given you <a class="reference external" href="https://netbible.com/copyright/">the freedoms you will need
if you depend on their text</a>, no matter what
happens to the organisation in the future. They've realised this is an important
safeguard for the future.</p>
<p>In many secular business sectors, many people have long figured out that making
your business model depend on enforcing copyrights is actually bad for
business – see the Open Software world that I already mentioned, for example.
Other people have spent the time needed to come up with a range of licences that
protect the things you do want to protect while still giving enough freedoms —
like the <a class="reference external" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence</a>, for example.</p>
<p>So what I'm suggesting is really not very radical, and shouldn't be this hard.
When I started this project in 2012, in my naivety it never occurred to me that
the hardest and most draining part of this work would be trying to get
permission from some of God's people to allow others among God's people to
memorise God's Word without hindrance.</p>
<p>At some points in trying to sort this out, I got the impression that the
difficulty of administering these things might be behind some of Crossway's
decisions. If that is the case, there are a few things to say:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Should there not be some transparency around what the problems are?</p></li>
<li><p>Shouldn't “permit” be the default, rather than “deny”, with something as
important as God's Word?</p></li>
<li><p>Could there be a radically simpler (and more liberal) method of giving
permissions that would reduce the load on Crossway?</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="what-can-you-do">
<h2>What can you do?</h2>
<p>My immediate need is nothing more than this: to have permission for my users to
continue memorising the ESV verses they have already started learning, with the
2007 text they started with. I'm very happy to ensure that for newer users, only
the newer 2016 text will be available, if that is required.</p>
<p>I can use the existing version 2 API to download the ESV 2007 text (before it
shuts down), so this costs them literally nothing – the only thing they have to
do is say yes.</p>
<p>If you agree this is important, you could drop a note to <a class="reference external" href="mailto:licensing@crossway.org">licensing@crossway.org</a> and politely add your voice to mine. I've only got a
few weeks left before I'll have to make the switch otherwise. You could also
alert others by social media if you think this is a worthy cause.</p>
<p>The principles are bigger than this immediate need though. What safeguards do we
have for the future? As the Christian community, do we need to include these
things in how we choose Bible translations in our churches? Can we make sure
that the next generation isn't having to face these same problems?</p>
</section>50 reasons why Christians should take climate change seriouslyhttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/2020-01-02T17:43:00Z2020-01-02T17:43:00ZLuke Plant<p>This post is a response to the fact that, from my limited perspective (which may
be reflective of just the Christian circles I'm in), it seems that denial,
down-playing, defeatism and, perhaps overwhelmingly, silence, are the main
reactions to climate change that you'll see from Christians.</p>
<p>There are some <a class="reference external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/sunday/climate-change-evangelical-christian.html">great exceptions to this</a>,
however, and I'd like to join my voice to those. Christians should be taking the
climate crisis at least as seriously as others are, if not far more so.</p>
<p>Rather than write in essay form (or a series of essays!), I decided to condense
this into a list of reasons, roughly grouped into categories, to make it more
digestible. But this article is not meant to be an easy read. If you are already
convinced of the seriousness of this issue, and suffering from anxiety, I hope
the reasons in the last section on God's character will be helpful to you.</p>
<nav class="contents" id="contents" role="doc-toc">
<p class="topic-title">Contents</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#the-situation" id="toc-entry-1">The situation</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#science-and-revelation" id="toc-entry-2">Science and revelation</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#the-biblical-basis" id="toc-entry-3">The Biblical basis</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#love" id="toc-entry-4">Love</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#wisdom" id="toc-entry-5">Wisdom</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#judgement-day" id="toc-entry-6">Judgement day</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#fallacies" id="toc-entry-7">Fallacies</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#witness-influence-and-evangelism" id="toc-entry-8">Witness, influence and evangelism</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#repentance" id="toc-entry-9">Repentance</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#theological-objections" id="toc-entry-10">Theological objections</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#god-s-character" id="toc-entry-11">God's character</a></p></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<p>So why should Christian take climate change very seriously?</p>
<section id="the-situation">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-1" role="doc-backlink">The situation</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>Because climate change is <a class="reference external" href="https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/">real</a>, and
it is happening at a rate unprecedented in history to our knowledge.</p></li>
<li><p>Because it is, according to our best estimates, likely to have <a class="reference external" href="https://www.livescience.com/37057-global-warming-effects.html">devastating
consequences</a> on the
environment if we do not take action, including “<a class="reference external" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50302392">untold human suffering</a>”, the loss of
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.livescience.com/64535-climate-change-health-deaths.html">millions of human lives</a> and
hundreds of millions in poverty, as conservative estimates.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the science behind this is not some newly invented fad - it has been
known <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science">since the late 1800's</a>, and
there have been warnings for over 100 years. For example, this 1912 article:</p>
<img alt="The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries." class="align-center" src="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blogmedia/climate_change_1912.jpeg" style="width: 400px;">
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/">Fact checked</a>)</p>
</li>
<li><p>Because we have every reason to believe the predictions of experts on this —
recent predictions from mainstream scientists have <a class="reference external" href="http://theconversation.com/40-years-ago-scientists-predicted-climate-change-and-hey-they-were-right-120502">turned out to be accurate</a>,
even those made long before we had the computational power we do today.
Prediction failures have typically been <a class="reference external" href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/ipcc-report-climate-change-impacts-forests-emissions/">underestimates</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the need is urgent. Due to <a class="reference external" href="https://climate.nasa.gov/nasa_science/science/">multiple positive feedback factors</a>, the longer we delay
action, the more likely we are to hit <a class="reference external" href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/earth-tipping-point/">tipping points</a>
and lose any chance of controlling climate change.</p></li>
<li><p>Because responses to date have been entirely inadequate – we cannot simply
act as if someone else will sort this out:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Few countries are meeting <a class="reference external" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/11/few-countries-are-meeting-paris-climate-goals-here-are-ones-that-are/">even the modest targets set at the Paris
agreement</a>.
This should not surprise Christians, because we understand that the primary
obstacles we face are those rooted in the human condition – namely, human
fear, greed, selfishness, pride and folly – and so change will naturally be
far too slow.</p></li>
<li><p>It is looking increasingly like that we are facing a situation as bad as
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming">hundreds of millions flooded by 3⁰C warming</a>
or even <a class="reference external" href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609620/global-warmings-worst-case-projections-look-increasingly-likely/">global warming’s worst-case projections</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2018 <a class="reference external" href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/2018-will-show-record-carbon-emissions/">we broke all previous records in carbon emissions</a>,
and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-warming-co2-emissions-will-hit-record-high-2019">again in 2019</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It's like we are driving the world's population in a giant bus towards a
cliff edge, and, at the global level, we've still got our foot pressing on
the accelerator.</p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="science-and-revelation">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-2" role="doc-backlink">Science and revelation</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="7">
<li><p>Because we follow the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2014%3A6&version=NIVUK">One who is the truth</a>,
and so Christians should be people of the truth, and therefore all of the
above should be more strongly persuasive for us than for unbelievers.</p></li>
<li><p>Because ‘science’, in Christian terminology, is part of ‘general revelation’,
and part of how God is speaking to us. Those who refuse to listen to it where
it speaks clearly are guilty of ignoring God himself.</p></li>
<li><p>Because God holds people accountable for their response to general
revelation. (For example, in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%201&version=NIVUK">Romans 1:18-19</a> and
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2014&version=NIVUK">Acts 14:17</a>)</p></li>
<li><p>Because “<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%204%3A17&version=NIVUK">judgement begins with God's household</a>”.
This means that we as Christians will be held even more responsible than
unbelievers for failing to listen to what God is saying via general
revelation.</p></li>
<li><p>Because, unlike with other branches of science, especially the science of
origins (Darwinism etc.), we do not have foundational differences in approach
and epistemology that allow us to disregard the findings of experts in
climate science.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="the-biblical-basis">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-3" role="doc-backlink">The Biblical basis</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic" start="12">
<li><p>Because looking after the planet is part of the original job that God gave
mankind, and this has never been revoked. For example, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen%202&version=NIVUK">Genesis 2:15</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it
and <strong>take care of it.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Because the Christian understands that planet earth is not our property – it
belongs in its entirety to God:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,</div>
<div class="line">the world, and all who live in it;</div>
<div class="line"><br></div>
</div>
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2024&version=NIVUK">Psalm 24:1</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Because, unlike the deist, for a Christian the owner of this planet is not a
stranger, but a Father, a Friend, and a Saviour. So when we trample on and
destroy His property it is a very personal matter.</p></li>
<li><p>Because there is a place in hell reserved for those who destroy God's world:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">The nations were angry,</div>
<div class="line">and your wrath has come.</div>
<div class="line">The time has come for judging the dead,</div>
<div class="line">and for rewarding your servants the prophets</div>
<div class="line">and your people who revere your name,</div>
<div class="line">both great and small –</div>
<div class="line">and for destroying those who destroy the earth.</div>
<div class="line"><br></div>
</div>
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2011&version=NIVUK">Revelation 11:18</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="love">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-4" role="doc-backlink">Love</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="16">
<li><p>Because the first and greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your
strength, and love to God means that we should take great care of the
wonderful world He created for His own glory.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbour as
ourselves, and love to neighbours requires that we look after the planet they
depend on.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the poor, as always, are <a class="reference external" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/11/19/were-on-pace-for-4c-of-global-warming-heres-why-the-world-bank-is-terrified/">most likely to be worst affected</a>.
In arguments based on economics and GDP, the people in the world's poorest
countries are <a class="reference external" href="https://www.thebalance.com/gdp-per-capita-formula-u-s-compared-to-highest-and-lowest-3305848">hundreds of times</a>
less valuable than those in the richest. But that should never be the case
with anyone who understands God's concern for the poor, as portrayed in the
Bible.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="wisdom">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-5" role="doc-backlink">Wisdom</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic" start="19">
<li><p>Because wisdom combined with simple self-interest says that we should look
after the planet that sustains us physically.</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">My son, do not forget my teaching,</div>
<div class="line">but keep my commands in your heart,</div>
<div class="line">for they will prolong your life many years</div>
<div class="line">and bring you peace and prosperity.</div>
<div class="line"><br></div>
</div>
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+3&version=NIVUK">Proverbs 3:1-2</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even some of the stupidest of animals know not to soil their own beds, or how
to <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+6%3A6-8&version=NIVUK">prepare for the future</a>.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Because Christians understand that all of us are made in God's image, with
far greater intelligence than animals. Therefore to fail to act with wisdom
brings disgrace on our Creator.</p></li>
<li><p>Because Christians have been re-made in the image of Christ, who is “<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+1%3A30&version=NIVUK">wisdom
from God</a>”
to us. To fail to act with wisdom brings further disgrace on the one who is
not only our Creator, but our Saviour.</p></li>
<li><p>Because even if we would rather be stupid, the Bible commands to at
least have a small amount of common sense when it comes to looking after the
environment we are going to live in and which we need to sustain us. For
example, in Old Testament law:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to
capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because
you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that
you should besiege them? However, you may cut down trees that you
know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city
at war with you falls.</p>
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+20&version=NIVUK">Deuteronomy 20:19-20</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Because the heart of climate change denial is often a “wiser than thou”
scepticism, an “everyone else has fallen for this, but not me, I'm smarter
than all the experts” attitude, which, according to the Bible, is the very
height of folly:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">Do you see a person wise in their own eyes?</div>
<div class="line">There is more hope for a fool than for them.</div>
<div class="line"><br></div>
</div>
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%2026%3A12&version=NIVUK">Proverbs 26:12</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="judgement-day">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-6" role="doc-backlink">Judgement day</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="24">
<li><p>Because the Christian knows that they will give account to God for how they
have used the resources He has loaned us, which includes the planet itself.
(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=NIVUK">Matthew 25:14-30</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2014%3A12&version=NIVUK">Romans 14:12</a>).</p></li>
<li><p>Because on judgement day <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%205%3A10&version=NIVUK">when we face God's scrutiny</a>,
if we claim a general scepticism of modern science as a justification for our
refusal to listen, there will be a thousand witnesses who stand up to expose
us – all the times we've put our lives in the hands of engineers and
scientists, whether it is accepting medical treatment or flying in an
aeroplane.</p></li>
<li><p>Because when God examines our actions, he does so according to what we have
and not according to what we do not have (<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%208&version=NIVUK">2 Corinthians 8:12</a>).
This means that if, despite our very best efforts, doing anything to deal
with climate change turns out to be impossible, God will not hold us
accountable for what we do not achieve. But if the knowledge and power is in
our hands, and we fail to act, we will be held responsible.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="fallacies">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-7" role="doc-backlink">Fallacies</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic" start="27">
<li><p>Because the many fallacious (and increasingly creative) arguments that people
often come up with to avoid facing the truth about climate change are, in
themselves, sinful abuses of the minds that God has given us. Even if the
consequences were not serious, as Christian we should make efforts to avoid
such things.</p></li>
<li><p>Because to claim, without credible specific evidence, that thousands of
climate scientists are involved in some deliberate conspiracy to fool us is
slander, which is a sin:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger,
rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.</p>
<p>(<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A8&version=NIVUK">Colossians 3:8</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Because to dismiss the testimony of thousands of scientists on the basis that
they may be motivated subconsciously by any number of wrong motivations is
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4pKQiraFSg">Bulverism</a> (<a class="reference external" href="http://www.barking-moonbat.com/God_in_the_Dock.html">text version</a>), which is perhaps
the greatest intellectual illness of our age. Christians ought not to be
prone to Bulverism because they ought to read C.S. Lewis.</p></li>
<li><p>Because Christians ought to read their Bibles, and in that way escape from
Bulverism. A Christian is someone who knows “<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2017%3A9&version=NIVUK">the heart is deceitful above
all things</a>”,
and has learnt to apply this to their own heart before they apply it to
anyone else's.</p></li>
<li><p>Because if we insist on playing the Bulverism game, we can just as easily
come up with reasons why we Christians might be psychologically predisposed
to not believe in climate change or take it seriously, despite the evidence.
For example:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>The difficulty we have, just like everyone else, in admitting we've been
wrong, especially about important things – things we may have even said
from a pulpit.</p></li>
<li><p>The difficulty of facing truly terrifying possibilities in the future, and
the idea that we may have caused them.</p></li>
<li><p>The lifestyle changes we will have to make once we admit we're wrong.
Including, even, changing who we vote for, and admitting that to friends.</p></li>
<li><p>The ‘religious threat’ that we as Christians feel from environmentalists,
in terms of a message that contains moral content, and an existential
threat that demands a response, just like our own (the kind of thinking
that is evident, for example, in the article <a class="reference external" href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/thinking-green-the-new-religion/">Thinking Green – The New
Religion</a>).</p></li>
<li><p>The Christian narrative that likes to see Christians as the greatest force
for good in the world (William Wilberforce etc.), and therefore struggles to
accept a scenario in which Christians are not leading the way – in fact
many seem to be doing quite the opposite.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>While this may be a useful exercise to check the biases that might be
influencing our thoughts, none of this tells us whether climate change is or
is not happening. We have to actually look at the evidence.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Because to <a class="reference external" href="http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/09/16/on-research/">go and search the internet</a> for the tiny
fraction of climate scientists (or <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/rustneversleepz/status/1188176908644696071">very confused economists</a>) who will
say something you want to hear is what psychologists call <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias">confirmation bias</a>. But, for moral and
theological issues such as this, the Bible puts it more starkly - it is
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy%204%3A3&version=NIVUK">gathering round teachers to say what your itching ears want to hear</a>.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="witness-influence-and-evangelism">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-8" role="doc-backlink">Witness, influence and evangelism</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="33">
<li><p>Because, if we cannot show ourselves to be people of truth when it comes to
measurable realities in the present, how on earth do we expect people to take
seriously the unlikely claims we have about the resurrection of a man two
thousand years ago?</p></li>
<li><p>Because, if we are unable to act with the basic common sense required to stop
our planet from heading into disaster, how on earth do we expect people to
believe we are in possession of <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+3%3A17&version=NIVUK">heavenly wisdom</a>?</p></li>
<li><p>Because if we cannot accept the facts when it comes to climate change, we
lose all right to appeal to ‘science’ or ‘reality’ when it comes to abortion
or gender issues.</p></li>
<li><p>Because if we are unconcerned about the lives of millions of people, we
destroy the credibility of our claim to be pro-life.</p></li>
<li><p>Because if we dismiss the existential threat of a impending climate disaster
as ‘nonsense’, we demonstrate that we've never taken seriously what the Bible
says about judgement day, and we will encourage other people to say
‘nonsense’ about that too.</p></li>
<li><p>Because Christians, especially Christian leaders and preachers, occupy a
position of great influence when it comes to this kind of social issue (see
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-global-poverty/">9 Things You Should Know About Global Poverty</a>,
point 9), so to fail to speak on this issue is a huge dereliction of duty.</p></li>
<li><p>Because when we deny climate change, we are doing the work of greed-fuelled,
lying corporations for them, <a class="reference external" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/">who have been spending millions to spread
misinformation about this for decades</a>.
This is not a good look for those who, in everything they do, are
representatives of Christ.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the impacts of climate change will likely cause havoc and great
setbacks for the worldwide work of the great commission, and we should be
doing all we can to solve this problem so that we will have more resources
for gospel work. It will be <a class="reference external" href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/banking-giant-hsbc-gives-shocking-warning-of-us10-trillion-a-year-climate-health-bill-76138/">far more expensive</a>
if we put this off until later.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="repentance">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-9" role="doc-backlink">Repentance</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="41">
<li><p>Because, if anyone is able to say “I was wrong” and change their mind,
Christians ought to be, because we had to do that about much more important
matters when we became Christians.</p></li>
<li><p>Because, if anyone is able to face the lifestyle changes that will be needed
to attempt to deal with carbon emissions, Christians ought to be, because we
are daily repenting and changing our life to fit with what God wants. (Aren't
we?)</p></li>
<li><p>Because, if anyone is able to make sacrifices for other people's good,
Christians ought to be, since we follow a crucified Saviour and are daily
taking up our cross.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="theological-objections">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-10" role="doc-backlink">Theological objections</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="44">
<li><p>Because there is no Biblical teaching – whether the doctrine of God's
sovereign care over the world, or the doctrine of Christ's return (to an
inhabited planet), or the promise that God won't flood the whole world —
that in any way allows us to ignore the possibility of environmental
disasters. History already has <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters">many examples of disasters partially or
primarily caused by human activity</a>, and if
we've read the book of Revelation at all, metaphorical language
notwithstanding, we cannot escape the conclusion that we should expect
physical disasters of huge proportions this side of glory.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the fact that these things may be a part of God's judgement on the
world does not excuse us, nor does it make mitigation attempts futile. For
example, when David was clearly under <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+12%3A7-12&version=NIVUK">God's judgement for his sin</a>,
he still <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+15%3A14&version=NIVUK">planned</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+15%3A31&version=NIVUK">prayed</a>
and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+18%3A1&version=NIVUK">fought back</a>
against the ungodly attacks he faced. All of us live under <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A17-19&version=NIVUK">God's judgement
on Adam</a>,
but that doesn't mean we give in to the thorns and thistles, to the first
signs of human mortality, or indeed to our sinful nature.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the fact that God has given us “all things richly to enjoy” cannot be
used as a justification for carelessness towards the planet. We would never
use it this way for small matters (e.g. claim it's fine to litter because
cleaning up is such a chore and diminishes our enjoyment); it would be
ridiculous to use it for a matter of global proportions.</p></li>
<li><p>Because the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+3%3A10&version=NIVUK">fiery end of the universe we expect God to bring</a>
does not give us permission to destroy the world. He is the owner of the
planet, we are not. The same false logic would argue that our treatment of
our bodies doesn't matter since we'll get new ones, but the Bible says the
opposite – see <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+6%3A12-20&version=NIVUK">1 Corinthians 6:12-20</a>
and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+15&version=NIVUK">1 Corinthians 15</a>
for example. Our present bodies are likened to a seed of our future ones, and
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A18-25&version=NIVUK">Romans 8:18-25</a>
leads us to think of the rest of creation in the same way.</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section id="god-s-character">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/50-reasons-christians-should-take-climate-change-seriously/#toc-entry-11" role="doc-backlink">God's character</a></h2>
<ol class="arabic simple" start="48">
<li><p>Because we believe in a loving God who has promised to be with us even in
the worst of circumstances, which means that there is no room for the fear
that leads to denial of these issues.</p></li>
<li><p>Because we believe in a God who is bigger than the huge climate problems we
face, and therefore there is no room for a defeatist attitude that leads to
inaction.</p></li>
<li><p>Because we believe in a God of infinite forgiveness, who has dealt with all
our sin at the cross of Jesus Christ. This means as Christians we ought to be
able to face the otherwise potentially crushing guilt regarding the many
years we have denied or ignored the problem, and the terrible results that
may be coming. This does not mean we can say “God has forgiven it, it doesn't
matter”, but rather that we have the courage to face reality.</p></li>
</ol>
<!-- Comments, unused material
Uncategorised
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
#. Because, although we are only at the beginning of the potential changes the
planet may see, we are already experiencing huge changes. For example,
recent studies in Germany have found `75% drop in flying insects in just 30
years <https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46194383>`_, with climate
change considered to be a key suspect. Talk of "mass extinction" is entirely
warranted.
#. Because we are required to look after our children.
If nothing else, simple, self-interest and care for our progeny
should motivate us to action.
* pro-life
* pantheism
Links
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/11/19/were-on-pace-for-4c-of-global-warming-heres-why-the-world-bank-is-terrified/
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/impacts-global-warming/l-2/1.htm
275 million people flooded by 3⁰C
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming
Poor most affected
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/11/19/were-on-pace-for-4c-of-global-warming-heres-why-the-world-bank-is-terrified/
Global Warming’s Worst-Case Projections Look Increasingly Likely
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609620/global-warmings-worst-case-projections-look-increasingly-likely/
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806
https://twitter.com/DoctorVive/status/1188142680263528448 -->
</section>