If Pagans Get Answered Prayer, Is Christianity False?

 Standing in the cold, March rain in Washington D.C. at the 2012 Reason Rally, a former Christian and now atheist mentioned to me the problem of religious pluralism, especially as it relates miracles occurring to folks of religions different than Christianity:  If only Christianity is true, how is it that people from other religions experience good things from prayer?  This is especially vexing in that the doctrine of original sin purportedly teaches that all people who are not in Christ by faith are under God's wrath.  As theologian K. Scott Oliphint says, "It is not a happy relationship."  No, indeed.  So, if the one true God is not going to bless idol worshipers with answered prayer for the healing of their sick child (so the argument goes), then how do we explain the fact that many people of different religions do in fact, experience healing, blessing, and so on?

Well, the simple answer is that God is a God of grace, and just because someone hasn't heard the Christian message, or even if they have but instead rejected it, this is not a reason to believe that God will refuse these people a dosage of mercy.  But for the skeptic riddled with the bullets of conjecture, this argument has one apparent weakness.  The weakness is stated this way: If God will bless those who are not Christians, then surely he must be merciful towards them, and surely this means that evangelizing them with good news of Jesus is a superfluous task, as God has already shown these people mercy without them believing the gospel, and if He did it once, He can surely do it again.  If that is the case, then we needn't worry about the "fate of the unevangelized," for God hears their prayers, accepts them, and blesses them.  And since we have evidence (and surely it is there) that people of other religions experience answered prayer, healing and so on, then religious pluralism must be true, and the exclusive claims of Christianity must be false.  Heck, maybe even Christianity is false, and Jesus is just an expression of the divine Mind at the back of the universe--sort of a Pantheism.

Of course, anyone who knows a thing or two can see there's a number of logical leaps in this detailed argument.  For the sake of argument, if Christianity is true, then God is, in fact, a God of grace, and he surely blesses people with life, goodness, food, and joy in their hearts.

"Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy," (Acts 14:17, NIV).  

So, even the Bible affirms that the Triune God blesses people all over the earth with good things.  But miracles?  This is the nature of the question the atheist asked me.  Wait a sec.  Isn't there a story in Exodus about Pharaoh's magicians turning their rods into snakes?  Yup, there it is.  Right there in Exodus 7:

Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. (Exodus 7:11-12, ESV)

So we can see from the biblical evidence that pagans have both the power of the miraculous at their side, as well as the blessing of God in terms of inner joy, food, and so on.  But still, we haven't seen the performance of a miracle for pagans in the Bible which results in the healing of someone.  And, I can't think of any.  But, I can think of healing powers among pagans in the Amazonian Rain Forest!

The Yanomamo people had shamans that use spirits to both kill and heal.  You can read all about it in the book, Spirit of the Rainforest.  This fascinating story of a Yanomamo shaman who later in life gives up his spirits for the one, true, spirit Yai Pada, tells numerous stories of spirits both killing and healing children in the villages of the tribes on the Orinaco river basin in the Amazon jungle.  All of this activity happens as the shaman commands the spirits to act upon friends and enemies.  The narrator, a shaman named Jungleman, later says that his spirits lied to him and his people.  He gave up his spirits for Yai Pada, who readers know is the one true God and Jesus Christ, though Spirit of the Rainforest is far from missionary propoganda.  On the contrary, but you'll have to read it for yourself.

So, I think the objection to the exclusivity of the Christian gospel based upon the answered prayers of pagan and adherents of other religions does nothing to squelch the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the only gospel for mankind.  Both the Bible and experience from people like the Yanomamo tell us that there are indeed other spirits out there, but there is one, great spirit, the true God, and Jesus Christ.

Calculus's Limit, the Leap of Faith, and Moral Reasoning

One time I was on a plane from Venezuela back to the U.S.  Complaining about school and taking hard subjects like Calculus, I gave the common quip, "I don't see how I'm gonna use it."  A student from the University of Michigan (Alex Sonkin) said, "It doesn't matter.  What matters is that it's a challenge for your mind."

That stuck.

Interesting, because in reading on the relationship between faith and reason, it is the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1885) who wrote about the "approximation process" in coming to beliefs about God.  He says that no matter how much proof we have, there will always be one more book, one more article, one more counter-argument to the argument.  Kierkegaard is critiquing the "internalist" approach to epistemic justification, especially concerning religious belief, and especially concerning Christian belief (also known as "strong rationalism").  Internalism is the view that one's epistemology (theory of knowledge) is constantly subject to argument, counter-argument and so on, ad infinitum.  Soren aint' gonna have none of it.  Hence, as a fideist (faith-ist), Kierkegaard advised that people must take a "leap of faith" which basically is a "commitment" to belief which involves risk, where risk is an essential foundation to having faith.  The Great Dane wants us to remember that we are, after all, human, and a life is wasted every moment it is absent of God.  The approximation process must come to an end some time, yes?  Kierkegaard gives a resounding yes.  What does the approximation process in the epistemic justification of religious belief have to do with Calculus?

You might remember "the limit" in Calculus: there are two points on a linear plane, equidistant from a "zero point" in between them.  As each of the points moves closer to zero by half their current distance, they ever and always move to zero for an infinite number (!) of moves, without actually ever getting to zero.  Kierkegaard says its the same with having faith in God: you can heap up the arguments as high as the tower of Siloam, but the earth will still look flat to you even from up in high.  At some point, you have to take the risk and trust in the Lord.  After all, you don't--and can't--know everything.  What would that make you?

But which Lord should you take the leap of faith to believe in?  Krishna?  Jesus?  Allah?  Yahweh? That's the problem with fideism.  Fideists eschew rational inquiry and evaluation of their beliefs, but the problem is that such evaluation is unavoidable.  This is because even a fideist will evaluate others' belief systems in order to cast doubt upon them and show why those beliefs are suspect or worse--even false.  Still Kierkegaard has a point, doesn't he?  Isn't it true that at some point, at some point, we have to hold to our beliefs about God, Christ and the world--no matter if those beliefs are Christian, Hindu, Judaic, Islamic or atheistic--and hold to them even though the arguments in favor of our beliefs are not "fool proof"?  There is no "silver bullet" as John Frame says, that will convince everyone of Christian belief (I write as a Christian).

We are reminded of epistemologist Linda Zagzebski, who has done much work in "virtue epistemology," which tells us of our motives in forming belief-structures.  Many times, we are morally motivated to believe or not belief certain things, especially when it comes to theism.  Usually, it is the case that theists are emotionally motivated (this is especially true in Charismatic Christianity), while atheists are morally motivated.  Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote in 1997 in a now beyond familiar moment of brutal honesty:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”(”The Last Word” by Thomas Nagel, Oxford University Press: 1997)”

Perfect.  Would that more atheists were so honest!  Jesus, of course, concurs when he says in John 3, "And this is the verdict, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deed should be exposed," (vv.19-20).

What Right Do You Have to Claim Your Form of Christianity as the Right One?

Questions like this are posed in different forms to historic, orthodox Christians today, and evangelical scholar Darryl Bock faced the dogged interrogation of agnostic scholar Bart D. Erhman in a debate not too long ago on the Unbelievable radio program, "The show that gets Christians and non-Christians talking."  Dr. Ehrman's point was that so-called liberal scholars like Elaine Pagels and others call themselves "Christian," even though they have an entirely different set of beliefs than Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant Christians who hold to the classic, historic, orthodox positions about the existence and nature of God, the atonement of Jesus, and so forth.  Erhman's point to Bock was basically, "Who are you to tell Pagels and others (John Shelby Spong, for example) that they're not Christian?"  (Now Spong is more of a pantheist than a classical theist in any sense).  A similar question fluttered in the face of Doug Wilson at Indiana University Bloomington by a young, teenage girl asking him "What gives you the right to tell others what to believe about Christianity (in this case, the Bible's teaching about marriage, sex and homosexuality) when you're just giving your side of the story?" 

Question like these, while fun for arousing cheer and jeer as an "in-your-face" to the pesky Bible-thumper, are telling of the skepticism and suspicion of the postmodernism which eschews both on ethical and epistemological levels, the idea of metanarrative, which is "a large-scale theory that seeks to make sense of the world."  Metanarratives today are the Darwinian theory of evolution, the theistic claims of Genesis (in various forms: young earth [multiple views, including an ancient universe, and a old earth consisting of a young Garden of Eden], old earth, theistic evolution, etc.), pantheist narratives of an eternal universe found in eastern religions, and so forth.  Erhman asks Bock what right (ethics) he has to claim to know (epistemology) that his form of Christian belief is the correct one, when so many others (Pagels, Spong, etc.) also claim the name "Christian" while holding to a very different set of beliefs.  Well?

Well, Erhman's question to Bock is illustrative of the ironic arrogance of postmodernism.  It is ironic because the most prominent postmodern philosophers such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michael Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, decry the authority of texts to communicate metanarrative because such a construction would be arrogant due to the text's use to control and gain power over others.  Marx's opiate of the masses claim comes to mind, as does the popular-level claim that the early Christians wrote the New Testament in order to control people with their money (laughable, as they all paid for their testimony and texts with their own blood).  Huxley's Brave New World also mirrors the idea of religious texts or sayings used with the express purpose of giving people false hope in a hereafter in order to steal the would-be heavenly travelers of their hard-earned cash for the sake of the tyrannic power of the oppressors.  Hence, postmodernism says "No you di'int!  Ain't gonna control me with no metanarrative."  And the winner in this scene is supposed to be the person who rejects the metanarrative, because "it's arrogant to claim you have the truth, and that others do not."  Now, why is this rejection of metanarrative arrogant?

If a metanarrative is used as a power-structure to control others, then people rightly reject that metanarrative, provided the control in question is negative, and not positive, life-giving, and open to free inquiry, scrutiny, hard questions and yes...rejection.  In a word, a metanarrative that is true should encourage freedom for the individual to make his or her own decision about whether or not to believe it (here's some more irony: I just used "his or her" in this sentence in order to appease the "power structure metanarrative" of my own society which demands that we all recognize men and women as equals and commit to such even in our own texts.  I'm happy to comply, for I believe it's true).

But if a metanarrative is rejected ipso facto merely because it is a metanarrative and because believing it would mean committing the sin of arrogance on the part of the one holding such belief, then really the arrogance falls on the accuser, not the holder.  Postmodernists prize individualism as the sine qua non of the human enterprise, and this in the inevitable conclusion of rejecting a metanarrative, leaving as the only alternative a radical individualism that defines reality based upon one's own personal ideals.  And even if the personal ideals are constructed with the use of reason, logic, science and historical inquiry, the suspicion and skepticism of postmodernism precludes any bone fide influence upon the inquirer to arrive at truth--a metanarratival truth.  With suspicion, skepticism, and rejection of metanarrative, radical individualism ensues, and epistemological relativism is the only end-result consistent with such a "foundation."  So, what is the solution to holding on to individualism as a good, which includes a healthy skepticism, and a healthy suspicion of power-hungry dogs who promise Huxley's everlasting fields of clover despite it being a lie that such fields exist?

Humans, if they are going to ask the big questions, need first and foremost the humility to make real, rational inquiry.  In addition to humility, the worldview questions everyone must ask in order to have a coherent, comprehensive system of thought, include questions about origins, meaning, morality, destiny (as Ravi Zacharias regularly propounds).  Under theses rubrics fall questions of God's nature and existence (atheism, pantheism, monotheism, polytheism), the nature of truth and knowledge, the external world (am I in a dream?  Is this the Matrix?), and history (can history be known?  Does it have a telos, or goal?  Will it end, or keep going?), und so weiter.  Now the classical Christian worldview, according to philosopher Alvin Plantinga is 

to believe that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing, wholly good person (a person without a body) who has created us and our world, who loves us and was willing to send his son into the world to undergo suffering, humiliation, and death in order to redeem us.  It is also to believe of course, that no more than one being has these properties.  And Christian belief involves not only that there is such a being but also that we are able to address him in prayer, refer to him, think and talk about him, and predicate properties of him.  We have some kind of cognitive access and grasp of him.  We can refer to him, for example, as the all-powerful, all-knowing person who has created and upholds the world, and we can predicate of him such properties as being all-powerful, being all-knowing, and having created the world.  We can use a definite description like this to refer to this being, to pick him out, to single him out for thought; and we can give a proper name to the being thus singled out.  For example, we can use the term 'God' as his name.  

That's orthodox Christianity throughout the ages in a nutshell: the Triune, personal God, who atones for sin and has relationship with his people.  Now, in answer to the question heading up this post, one may reply with the fact that no particular individual is claiming her (you're welcome) form of Christianity as the "right one."  Oh, but she is.  Yes, she is.  But, here's the kicker: she's claiming it in a long, line of history that reaches back 2,000 years, a line paid for by the blood of martyrs, and those who risked family, livelihood, health, safety and yes--their own sanity--for the sake of the sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  And her claim isn't some concoction made up in 1972 when she was born.  No, she can point you to the earliest texts and creeds of Christendom right in the New Testament itself, asking you to take language for what it is, and setting your suspicion of texts aside and also your own arrogance that you, the 21st century Westerner, know so much more about how to interpret texts than any other non-Western culture, and any other culture throughout time.  For example, one of the earliest creeds of Christianity is found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, written by the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian Christians from Ephesus in A.D. 55:

Now I would remind you brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain.  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than fiver hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

There is also the creed or early Christian hymn in Philippians 2: 6-11:   

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.   Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Generally, New Testament scholars of all stripes recognize this as an early hymn, which is why many Bible translations print it in poetic form.  It's easy to see that the earliest Christians believed a metanarrative wherein God was reconciling the world to himself through the death and resurrection of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  In addition to the New Testament itself, one may read the writings of the early Church Fathers to garner this view as well.  Or, one might read the Apostle's Creed which dates back, one may infer with good evidence, to the early or mid 2nd century:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead and buried.  He descended to hell.  On the third day he arose again from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic (small c!) Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.  


That's a metanarrative, an' make no mistake, Samwise Gamgee. 



Is it the Christian who is arrogant in making a metanarratival claim?  Hardly, for she (you're welcome, again) stands in a long line of history, creed, confession dotted with the shed blood of many who confessed Jesus as the Christ of God.  She is simply submitting to the easy-to-understand metanarrative of Scripture clung to by millions just like her throughout 2,000 years of history, ranging over countless cultures, held to by scholars, businessmen, doctors, farmers, factory workers, taxi drivers, lepers, beggars, widows, orphans, imbeciles, fools, and wise men.  It is rather, the postmodern who is arrogant, in having a disdain through his (yup) suspicion and skepticism, that he knows who is and is not entitled to have a metanarrative.  It's as if one is saying, "I've investigated all the metanarratives out there, and I declare that they are indeed micronarratives, each one having no authority over any other one, and I, as an authority, say it to be so."  That's arrogance folks.  


A better witness is Jesus himself, who though he was in the form of god, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, giving his life on a cross so we can live.  




Works Consulted/Cited: 
1. Amy Orr-Ewing, "Postmodern Challenges to the Bible" in Beyond Opinion, Ravi Zacharias, ed. Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2007, pp. 3-20.
2. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, "Historic Church Documents: Apostle's Creed," by James Orr.  available online at CRTA.
3.  Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford, 2000.  p. 14.  available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/plantinga/warrant3.html

The Flat Surface of Lake Michigan & the Question of Being

It's like walking into a giant, baptismal font--the sand wooping and whipping under my feet--it's the only sand in the world, besides 6 other beaches, that sings when human feet scuffle along these happy grains.  That's what my 9th grade science teacher Mr. Taylor said.  I've passed it along to my daughters, this bit of knowledge; it's the unique sand that calls aloud with joy when we punch it with our swinging heels.  And you look up and out, and ah, there it is...Lake Michigan.  She sits in calm, cool, collection like a whole universe unto herself, waiting to be discovered, floated upon, washed in; she longs to surround with a bath of bliss the newly converted to her salt-free shores, blanketing them in her serenity.  People move to west Michigan just because of her.  She is the missing spoke in the wheel that makes up my life.

It's good to wade in slowly in the heat of July and watch your feet careen over the ripples in the sand on the bottom through the crystal clear water, where there is nothing to fear: no large animals or reptiles or things with sharp teeth.  Not even a wisp of seaweed.  A gentle haze rests upon the horizon meeting the sky in different shades of blue.  A blazing disk, pasted in the sky like a wafer, sits without word or thought, and all is silent.  Even my mind is at ease in this placid pool, whose shores travel as far as the eye can see.   At this moment, the windows of the world open and whisper in my ear, asking me questions about big ideas.

How did she, this mothering, aqua tranquil, come to be?  And how is it that the sphere in the sky is so perfectly round, and this everlasting spring we call a Lake, how is it that its horizon is so fair, kissing the line of the equally blue firmament above?  And how am I here, a thinking, reasoning animal, contemplating that which I am from?  Or am I from a different place?  Did I rise from the sea or the dust?  Am I part of the eternal storm and slow, calming march of evolution's progression and red teeth, or am I the mark of a creator's hand?  Either all of this celestial beauty is eternally ethereal, or it is indeed finite, and ex nihilo.  If that latter, how do I know the nature of this being?

Big Bang Cosmology and "God is love"

The Big Bang, in modern cosmological theory, asserts that at one, particular "zero point," there was no space, nor was there any time, calling this the "singularity." In other words, there was a time when time was not (this statement is an anomaly appropriate for a different discussion, as describing the singularity must make use of reference to time in order to describe it).

But what can we learn about the nature of God and the universe from the Big Bang, and what does "God is love," one of the most oft-quoted Scriptures have to do with modern cosmological theory? Stephen Meyer (PhD, Cambridge), researcher at the Discovery Institute in Seattle Washington explains in True U, a curriculum for university students and produced by Focus on the Family, that Big Bang cosmology, with its affirmation of the singularity, rules out naturalism and pantheism as viable worldviews, leaving deism (impersonal, uninvolved deity) and theism (personal, involved deity) as the only viable options.

Naturalism--the idea that nature is all that exists--is not a viable option, according to Meyer, due to the evidence of the singularity, because it provides no causal agent for what brought the universe into being. Recall that the "singularity" is a "zero point" where both matter and time were not in existence (I am aware that some cosmologists and physicists et al want to assert a "quantum vacuum" and other "cosmological constants" in order to avoid the inevitable conclusion that the universe is a created thing). Similarly, pantheism--the idea that God and matter are intertwined, mixed and one in essence, is also an impossibility from what we have learned about Big Bang theory. This is because in pantheism, matter and spirit are one in essence. But this cannot be, since matter (and time) did not exist at one time. For pantheism to be true, matter would have to exist from all eternity, but we know that the material universe is not infinite, but finite. Therefore, if a spirit did create the universe, it would have had to exist prior to it. This leaves pantheism (God is all) out as an unscientific religion.

Readers of the Bible know that Big Bang cosmology fits very well with what we read in the very first verse: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The Old and New Testament Scriptures therefore, are in complete line with what we read in our telescopes and on our mathematical charts: the universe came into being from an outside agent.

What this has to do with "God is love" (1 John 4:8) can be seen in the incorrect way this verse if often interpreted. Many times, "process" theologians, who believe God is evolving, progressing, and "in process" along with humans, read this verse in the reverse: "Love is God." (Maybe "Love is god" is more appropriate). Here is the SBL Greek text...

⁸ ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν θεόν, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν.

Where we read "God is love," God (theos, θεὸς) has the article "the" (ho, ὁ) and love (agape, ἀγάπη) has no article. Grammatically, "God is love" means that "love" is predicated on God. But notice that it is not the other way around. If the anarthrous noun (lacks the article) had been "God," we might have a notion of pantheism in John. But as a Hebrew, John would never affirm a pantheistic notion such as "Love is god." That would make love an abstraction, and a very Greek idea, and not a Hebraic one, where God is seen as a personal, infinite Being. Rather, the biblical idea is that love is an attribute of God, and an essential part of his nature. Greek scholar Dan Wallace writes, "The meaning is certainly not convertible: "love is God." The idea of a qualitative ἀγάπη (agape) is that God's essence or nature is love, or that he has the quality of love. Thus love is an attribute, not an identification of God" (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 264, 1996 edition). This is further evidenced by the context of the passage where John tells us that the one who loves is of God (same verse). Thus love is an action, and John is saying that when God acts, he acts in love. Moreover, John tells us that God is light (1:5), and that he is Spirit (John 4:24). The reverse of these ideas are not true, where the former would be pantheism, and the latter would be both pantheism, and cosmic dualism. Rather, John's point in 1 John 4:8 "God is love" is that when God acts, he acts in love. Yes, that includes his judgment, justice, and wrath. A good God judges evil!

John's statement "God is love" is about God's character and nature and is, according to commentator Stephen Smalley, an anti-gnostic notion, as Gnostics, who believed that matter was evil and only spirit was good, would easily accept that Jesus of Nazareth was divine "light" and "truth," as John says, but they would have a hard time believing that God's love was manifest in Jesus, because Jesus "came in the flesh" i.e. in a material body, and was crucified for our sins. "God is love" therefore, is a very concrete, real affirmation of God's activity, ultimately shown for us in the death of his Son, who was fully God and fully man in one person. John's context of "God is love" in verse 8 is continued in the same, concurrent thought in verse 10 and 11: "In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [sacrifice that bears God's wrath and brings favor] for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another."

Both science and proper exegesis of Scripture show us that God is infinite and personal, and not one in essence with matter. Nor are abstract ideas available to humans for ethics apart from the nature and character of God. Love, goodness, justice, truth--these all have their origin, meaning and apprehension for living within the character of God and are essential attributes of God. So, give pantheism and naturalism the boot! And bow to Jesus (we'll talk about deism later).

Logical Incompatibility of the God-Man?

I posted this comment on the Ratio Christi blog on facebook DEVELOPERS, in response to a question about how God could become a man, and the paradox and apparent contradiction involved.

Here is the question:

"Here's a paradox that actually comes from Christian teaching: To be human is to be imperfect and have limited knowledge. So how could an omnipotent God experience what it is like to be human? How could Jesus actually suffer like us when he knows that he is God?"


I would say that the alleged paradox confuses categories. You are confusing human perfection with divine omnipotence by assuming that perfection means qualities of infinitude; but in humans, imperfection means moral imperfection. Now, God's attributes are typically divided into communicable ones and incommunicable ones. His communicable attributes are the ones he instills in humans at the creation: goodness, righteousness, love, beauty. But his incommunicable attributes are the ones he has within himself, and does not share with humans i.e., omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, et. al., and these are subsumed in a perfect coalescence--including his moral purity, justice, love, holiness, and love (too name some, but not all). Further, God's perfection is thus different than human perfection is, and therefore to be a perfect human does not mean that the human needs to have an infinite coalescence of divine, incommunicable attributes. Adam was perfect at his creation, and this means he was without sin, but he was also finite. No problem.

Now it's true that humans have limited knowledge, as God has infinite knowledge (we may even grant that such knowledge is "perfect," as in exhaustive, but God's knowledge is both actual in infinitude and realized in time), and for God to become a man would indeed limit both his knowledge and his power (Jesus grew in stature and wisdom as a child).

The proper question would be, "To be human is to be finite, and have limited knowledge, so how could an infinite God experience what it is like to be human?" The councils of Nicea and Chalcedon tried to hash these things out: just who was Jesus of Nazareth? The conclusion drawn from Scripture and reason was that Jesus was (is) one person with two natures (God-nature, and man-nature). Theologians describe what happened: God, in Jesus, limited himself in his incommunicable attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, etc. His communicable attributes of love, goodness, holiness, etc. were not limited. How can this be? How did he do it? There are such things as mystery in our religion....

But the paradox mentioned is real: in his almighty power, he limited himself in that power. But paradoxes are not contradictions; we may grant that paradoxes are related to "mystery," and with this I am happy to affirm as true. But a contradiction, according to Aristotle, is that

• "it is impossible that the same thing can at the same time both belong and not belong to the same object and in the same respect."

Jesus, in his person, belongs to both his divine nature and his human nature, but we don't say that Jesus' human nature belonged and did not belong to his person; nor do we say that his divine nature both belonged and did not belong to his person. For both natures to belong to one person is not a contradiction, but for God to become a man is most certainly a paradox. And with this we can live.

A classic christological text is Philippians 2:5-10 and can be read here.

All Religions Are the Same

Let's think about the statement, "All religions are the same." That sounds pretty much spot-on doesn't it? I mean, if you think about it, all religions pretty much teach the same thing: love your neighbor as yourself. Well, let's take a closer look at that, from a simple, philosophical point of view, as a detailed look at particular religions here spoils the brevity of this post.

If all religions are the same, then they are all true. If they are all true, then--catch it--they are all false. Why? This is because the statement "all religions are the same" is equivalent to the statement "all religions are true" or "all religions reflect the truth about the ultimate reality of the universe." But if the latter statement is true, then all religious statements (statements about religion) are true. If all religious statements are true, then the following statement is also true: "all religions are false."

Therefore it makes no sense to say "all religions are the same," because one could also say "all religions are false," and both sentences could be true, but it is an obvious contradiction to say on the one hand that all religions are true, and on the other that they are all false. The pluralist statement "all religions are the same" violates the law of non-contradiction which states that
contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time. "My wife is pregnant" and "My wife is not pregnant" cannot both be true at the same time.

So when Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life, he was making a statement in accord with the law of non-contradiction. Either Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, or he isn't. We can't have it both ways.

Perhaps this seems a bit cavalier. I'm not taking pluralism very seriously. No, that's not the case. Pluralism has many good things to teach us, on an existential level. In other words, we should treat each other with dignity and respect and love, and not belittle each other or do violence to others because they are different. That's a horrible sin. I'm talking here about the epistemological value of making truth-claims. It really is rather simple: if all religions are true, then it is equally true, given the epistemological relativism implicit in such a statement, that all religions are false. But we know that the law of non-contradiction exists, and we know Jesus made the statements he made. So, we have to deal with Jesus' statements about himself. Be invited to read the gospels for yourselves, maybe even afresh if you've done so, but it's been a while. Be invited to investigate who Jesus is, and what he has to say about life, religion, and God.

Russell's Objection to the First-cause Argument

In Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian, he offers a brief quip in his dismissal of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. He notes that he had thought of the argument at the age of eighteen when reading John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, where he read: "My father taught me that the question, 'Who made me?' cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question 'Who made God?'"

Russell attempts to show the apparent fallacy of the argument from First Cause, which, he says, is this: "It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God." Russell's reasoning concerning the fallacious essence of this argument stands like an impenetrable wall, facing its opposition with a daunting, yet delicious smile: "You can't get past me." Who made God? Indeed.

It is a question that assumes the line of reasoning from Russell's set-up for us: if this is all the argument is, then of course it is fallacious. It simply begs the question, Who made God? On the one hand, Russell is correct; this argument is not all that powerful. However, one might argue that an infinite regress is impossible, and therefore there must be some "uncaused Cause that causes all causes." Why is an infinite regress impossible? Well, if the chain of events keeps going backwards and backwards and backwards forever, then it seems that this would make the beginning of time impossible. Since time exists, there must have been a beginning somewhere. But, as Russell says, "The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have. " Further, he notes "There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all." So, perhaps Russell would admit that time is merely a human invention, and not a metaphysical reality. But is that even possible?

Russell wasn't around long enough to see the latest developments in science, however. The Big Bang hypothesis began its developments in the early 1920's (and maybe the decade prior), but did not come full steam until later in the 20th century. Why I Am Not a Christian was delivered as a lecture in 1927. Today, Big Bang cosmology is used by philosophers and scientists to affirm that there indeed is a creator, the most popular of whom today is William Lane Craig.

But is the First Cause Argument a good argument? Well, the answer to that question depends upon which way the argument is formulated. Craig's argument will assert that "Whatever begins to exist has a cause." That's a world of difference compared to Russell's critique of "everything...has a cause." Since God, by definition (as theists claim) does not have a cause, God does not fit categorically within the first premise of Craig's argument.

In either case, it seems that both forms of the argument assume what Russell notes: "that the Catholic Church has laid it down as a dogma that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason." The idea of unaided reason, however, seems objectionable. Why? It is objectionable because one has to assume in the validity, power and authority of reason in order to make use of it. In other words, we may ask: "Why should we use our reason?" The answer is obvious: because is it right to do so. But this is a moral claim. It is an ethical ought to say that we should use our reason because it is right (and good!) to do so. In addition to making a moral claim, the other assumption in the First Cause Argument is the purity of the reason used by humans. Hence, it assumes certain things about us humans: that our use of reason is without flaw, as if reason itself were some abstract principle that we humans can tap into, or have as an inherent quality. So now we have assumed

1) a moral injunction to use reason
2) that our use of reason is pure

and we may have assumed that
3) it is an inherent quality in all humans

or, that
4) it is a "source" of which we can tap into.

But Russell notes well: "The "unaided reason" of the Catholic Church is used to affirm with dogmatism, the existence of God." But the questions remain as to the ethical ought behind the use of reason, and of its origin, and use, to boot. And, we must know the nature of this reason: how do we know if we are using it properly, and why should we trust it? If we say "because it works," then we are only resorting to pragmatism, which is basically the idea that "if it works, it's good" and "the ends justify the means." But that doesn't really prove anything.

It seems that Russell has a good point. The Argument for First Cause is weak. Russell opines that the reason for its weakness is that it cannot answer the question, "Who made God?" But there are other reasons for holding the First Cause Argument askance: It assumes too much. The Reformers (Luther, Calvin), in contrast to the Catholic Church, taught that believing in God is a comprehensive whole based upon faith, reason, revelation and the Spirit. Calvin taught that we know God as we know ourselves. For Calvin, it's a two-way street, as opposed to the "unaided reason" one-way street of the Catholic Church. Christians believe in a God who did create the world, yes. But, the Reformers taught the noetic effects of sin. That is to say, because people are sinners, even their reason is tainted with sin. This is expressed in the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity, that the whole person is stained with the sin of Adam, and that nothing in the human being in left unstained from sin--even her reason. That is not to say that humans are not able to achieve incredible leaps in the natural sciences. Not at all. According to Calvin, it is to say that humans, because they are sinful, cannot reason their way to God through reason alone (Luther is known famously for demanding that reason is a "whore". Hey--he was just affirming the superiority of Scripture). Reformed theology teaches that even our reason must be redeemed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Hence, we need faith, revelation and the Holy Spirit in the application of the redemption in Jesus Christ in our use of reason to affirm the existence of God.

Now of course, Russell would object to the circular nature of this aforementioned argumentation. But, Calvin may ask Russell a question: in our use of reason, do you assume its validity? Why, and on what grounds?

Faith and Reason

We've seen that the faith the Bible commends toward those who believe in Jesus Christ is never a faith without reasons or evidences. However, some contend that to have faith in the message of the Bible requires blind faith, because we are not in the first century as eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus and the Apostles. "If," we say, "we could only transport ourselves back in time and see Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, we would believe. But until then, all we have is a book, and while we believe it, we simply have to have a faith without good reasons. We have to have a blind faith."

The notion that faith is belief in something without evidence comes from many sources, most notably among current critics of Christianity is atheist Richard Dawkins. However, the notion of blind faith is attributed (wrongly, according to some) to Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard reacted to the Enlightenment thinking that pure reason and evidence were all man needed in order to build a house of knowledge. Many philosophers have since repudiated this idea, but the notion still runs deep in Western society: faith is irrational, illogical, without reason, and devoid of evidence, while reason and evidence, by contrast, are the tools which we use to prove things beyond a shadow of a doubt. We have certainty of the things we wish to know by using these tools, and faith is left to things "unprovable," such as belief in God, miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, and so on.

For example, when we think of archeology, biology, math, architecture, engineering, or whether or not there is a package of crackers in the pantry, we think of a principle by which we can verify the facts: check the evidence. Measure, experiment, hypothesize, draw conclusions. When we think of things like the Bible, belief in God, the life and ministry of Jesus, or even the nature of love, for example, we categorize these items under the "faith" category. There's not much evidence for these, and we must believe them on blind faith.

The philosophical name for the fact-checking culture we live in is Empiricism, which is in a field of philosophy called epistemology, and has to do with observing the facts by means of the senses. But, let's ask some questions:

1) Why trust the senses? How does a person know the senses are working properly, and that the observations are rightly understood?

2) How does the knowledge of something that happened in the past require that we believe it will happen again in the future? Take pouring out a glass of water, for example. How do you know the water will come out when you tip the glass?

Well, empiricism, like other branches of epistemology, must be accepted as true from the start (a priori), in order for it to be used to draw conclusions about the way the world works. As reformed theologian John Frame says, "Those who believe in the ultimacy of sense-experience must presuppose it in arguing for their philosophy (empiricism)." This means that empiricism is believed upon by faith, and that those who believe in "evidence" use circular logic in order to support their claims. Faith is therefore foundational to all evidential claims and is the ground (or basis) of reason. Reason rests upon faith, not the other way around.

How do you know the water will pour out of the glass when you tip it? Because you assume that the future is like the past, and you take that on faith. So, Christians should avoid using language that says faith is belief without evidence, because evidence cannot be understood without using faith.

Faith has its Reasons

People often talk about faith as belief without any evidence. Oddly, some Christians as well as atheists recognize this proposition as true. Sometimes when Christians get together to discuss matters of faith that seem unanswerable, or encounter objections that, on the surface, pose a serious problem toward belief in the Christian religion, they fall back on this quip that faith is belief without any evidence. To the mind of many well-meaning Christians, this absolves them of having to do any legwork or intellectual wrestling with pressing issues, for faith is beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond argumentation, and beyond evidence. Perhaps faith is even opposed to it….

However, this is not the type of faith that is espoused in the biblical corpus. Faith always has an object, and the object of faith—God himself, or more specifically the person and work of Jesus Christ, is given in circumstances where the person called upon by God to have faith is given sufficient reasons for doing so.

For example, Abraham, when he offered up Isaac, had faith in God that God would raise Isaac up from the dead. The author of Hebrews notes that Abraham had the objective revelation from God that Isaac would be the seed of the covenant promise. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.” Abraham reasoned within himself. He thought about the promise of the covenant, the objective, divine revelation, and made a rational decision to follow the Lord’s call. That is faith. Abraham’s whole, thought-out process here is faith.

When Jesus chides his disciples for reasoning amongst themselves for not understanding his statement to “beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod,” he appealed to the evidence of his miracles of feeding the five thousand. (They had stepped in to a boat with him after the miraculous feeding with only a single loaf of bread). He also appealed to the evidence of the left over baskets full of fragments. The disciples did not understand what Jesus meant by the “leaven of the Pharisees” and of Herod. Jesus is asking his disciples to have faith in him to provide for them. In fact, they missed his whole point about the “leaven” of the Pharisees and of Herod (their teachings), and were focused on physical needs. Jesus therefore appeals to the evidence of his miracles and his ability to love and care for his disciples. He calls for them to have faith in him, based upon what he had done for them in the past. When Jesus calls someone to faith, it is not without reason, nor without evidence.

In John 10:38, Jesus says, “But if I do it, even though you (the unbelieving Jews) do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." The purpose of the miracles serve as evidence for belief, and a reason to have faith.

In Romans 15:18-19, Paul says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit.” Paul ties the Gentiles’ belief in the gospel with the evidence of his miraculous sign gifts done in the power of the Holy Spirit. These miracles serve as evidence, and as good reason for a person to put faith in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and adoption into God’s family.

The faith that the Bible commends, therefore, is one of a belief based upon evidence. Faith is not a blind, irrational leap in the dark in the Scriptures. On the contrary, it is the fruit of eyewitness accounts of the preaching, teaching and miraculous sign gift ministry of the apostles.

However, you may be saying: “Sure, in the first century, the first Christians believed in Jesus based upon the evidence of the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles. But we don’t have that today. We have a Bible which tells these stories, and we have to believe the stories on blind faith.” That is not true, really. First, Peter says the word of God is better than any mountain top experience (1 Peter 1:16-21). And Peter saw Jesus transfigured on a mountaintop. Secondly, evidence is something that can be examined, and the Scriptures can indeed be examined: have they been transmitted accurately over time? Is there any archeological corroboration to support their claims? Do non-biblical writers of antiquity mention Jesus or the Christian religion? Have any prophecies written in the Bible come true? Is it unified in its message about God, man, salvation, etc.? There are these evidences, and these evidences serve as good reasons for faith. (These evidences don’t prove Christianity to be true, but that’s for another essay). Do some Christians have blind faith? Yes. Do they have to? No. Faith always has its reasons.

Book Review: Deepest Differences: A Christian-Atheist Dialogue

Sire, James W. and Carl Peraino. Deepest Differences: A Christian-Atheist Dialogue, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. Pp. 203. $15.00.

Two friends from a book club “chance” upon one another with their respective wives at an arboretum, striking up a conversation about a popular author’s obituary (Kurt Vonnegut) which contains a reference to God. Deepest Differences discusses the crux of the atheist/Christian debate which boils down the issue to that of either chance (atheism), or purpose (theism). Further discussion reveals how these ideas emanate throughout all of life’s grandest questions. Sire, a Christian (PhD., University of Missouri, English, 1964) and Peraino, an atheist (PhD., University of Wisconsin, Biochemistry, 1961), are both retired, but their minds are as keen and ready for battle as a Spartan army.

What follows is an exchange of over seventy emails, formatted in this book according to logical and thematic sequence in ten chapters. Some of the themes of interest to readers are: the basis of morality, the character, existence and acts of the Christian God, evolution and intelligent design, and the problem of evil (with a brief discussion on free will). This book is the second in its class published by InterVarsity Press, the first of which is a similar email exchange between a Christian professor of church history, and an evolutionary biologist/punk rocker (title: Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?).

With an informal style suitable for both atheist and Christian readers at the popular level, these two veterans aim to convince each other and their readers of their precommitments: Peraino of his naturalism, and Sire of his supernaturalism. Peraino is also committed to monism, the idea that there is no “mind/body” problem. That is, humans do not have any immaterial aspect to their being, and therefore humans have no need to invoke the supernatural in order to explain origins, morality, meaning or destiny (Ravi Zacharias' paradigmatic system of argumentation). Sire, on the other hand, is committed to the doctrine of creation-- intelligent design being a more plausible approach than either Darwinian evolution on the one hand, or six-day creationism on the other. Peraino believes the basis for human morality is grounded in propagating the human race (population growth/survival), while Sire affirms morality is grounded in the transcendent, good, character of God. The style of the book allows readers to engage in meaningful dialogue without getting bogged down in minutiae, and a study guide and recommended reading list promoting both atheist and Christian views on the aforementioned subjects will enable the dialogue to continue at a deeper level, whetting the appetite for further reflection and diaglogue.

Where this book succeeds is that it engages in real, “coffee table” discourse over technical subjects, so it approaches detail at a conversational level readers will find amiable. The layout of the book coheres as a unified whole by delineating what the title suggests: the deepest differences, or presuppositions of each authors’ worldview. Point and counterpoint are given with clarity and in concise fashion, and yet, thoughts are not always fully developed. For example, the debate over Intelligent Design (ID) covers less than ten pages, and basically is a multi-tiered rejoinder by Sire to Peraino’s snide remarks concerning ID theory (for which he graciously apologizes). Sire answers Peraino’s statements concerning the apparent silliness of ID point-by-point, but the discussion is rather limited to public and private school controversies regarding ID proponents Michael Behe and William Demski, rather than any foundational and any apparent, scientific aspects of the theory. While Sire is happy to admit he is agnostic toward ID theory, he would have done well to at least offer the following enthymeme:

1) Design is observed

2) Design requires information

3) Information requires mind

4) Therefore, there is a mind as a cause of the observed design (see Nancy Pearcy's book Total Truth for this argument).

Sire does offer Peraino a few texts for reading on ID theory, but Peraino declines, admitting that he is too far gone to muster up the strength for heavy-duty texts (p. 82).

It is yet interesting to see these two, older, gentlemen hash out their objections to each others’ worldview, while attempting to present a positive case for their own. As noted earlier, the easy-going style of email exchanges is laudable, as the tome is imbued with candor, wit, and humor while hashing out the weighty matters of science and religion and all the issues ensuing from this particular debate.

Deepest Differences, at the end of the book, finally offers the crux of the matter, and that is the epistemological relationship of faith and reason. Those who have studied the atheist/Christian dialogue know to look for this as the heart of the issue: “How do we know what we think we know?” William Lane Craig has recently written that Western culture is still very modernist, and Peraino proves Craig’s point as a scientist bent on logical positivism (that nothing seen in a lab is to be believed as real) as an epistemological paradigm—-a scientist who represents a vast constituency around the world. Readers familiar with this issue will breathe a sigh of relief when the discussion finally immigrates upon the scene.

In addition to a close-encounter “real” dialogue at the popular level, the study guide and recommended reading list at the back of the book make it definitely worth having. In fact, if it were not for such aids in this publication, it would lose much of its value. The study guide, which contains penetrating questions regarding the issues and arguments, is even-handed, and one envisions subsequent, real conversations between honest skeptics on both sides of the debate, each having a copy of the book in hand. In Deepest Differences, readers are pointed to 49 books and/or articles arguing for both Christianity and atheism on a great number of themes. Sire and Peraino contribute a cordial, meaningful, and sometimes witty dialogue that surpasses much of the vitriol we see in debates between atheists and Christians today. The book, for only $15.00, is recommended as a primer for this newly rekindled debate radiating throughout Western society.

Religious Arrogance

One of the cardinal sins in Western culture today is arrogance. Not the kind of arrogance that boasts of financial, material, or other type of success, but the so-called arrogance associated with truth claims, especially regarding religion (the other is ethics, and of course, the two are interrelated). "I'm right," says someone regarding their religious views, and upward looks with rolling eyes fill the room. Afterward, an odd silence envelops the room. Someone's just spoiled the party!

For the most part, the religious landscape in the west and in America is wide open. In America, and especially in university settings and among the more educated in cities around the country, the idea that someone could know the truth as an exclusive item makes onlookers upset, and even angry. Why is that?

We'll have to veer off the path a bit, and take a look at some philosophy. Renee Descartes tried to obtain epistemological certainty with his cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am," and built a whole system of knowledge from mathematics to the existence of God with it. Subsequent philosophers like David Hume denied any kind of certainty however, noting that since one has seen neither the past nor the future (the past could just be a false memory), then on strict observation alone, no one could know anything for certain. Immanuel Kant tried to solve Hume's dilemma, known as the problem of induction, by producing a dichotomy between that which is available to the five senses, and that which is not. Hence, his phenomenal realm and noumenal realm sought to bridge science and faith. And, although Huxley coined the term "agnostic," it is Kant who produced it.

Today we live without epistemological certainty regarding religious affairs, but we live with certainty regarding the hard sciences. We know that photosynthesis stores light energy into chemical energy, storing it in the bonds of sugar. We know that apples fall from trees because of the law of gravity. But the existence of God? That God has revealed himself (or herself, or itself) to us? Hardly.

But this is exactly what religions say about themselves. Hinduism asserts the fact that Brahman is the one true God, and although unknowable, has created over 300 million deities who run the world. Similarly, Islam asserts "There is one God (Allah) and Muhammad is his prophet." The argument from the modern western person is that while we have certainty that the hammer will drive the nail into the board, there is no certainty whatever of these various religious claims. Kant's dichotomy still lives on in our minds: only that which is subject to observation, repetition, and testing should be believed. Certainly this is true!

But hold on. How do you know for certain that the hammer will drive the nail into the board (barring no obstacles)? "Well," you say, "because I've done it in the past. I mean, I've seen it happen. Shoot, I've even done it!" Ah ha! So--you believe the future is like the past? says Hume. But this is precisely what he countered: that we have no certain reason to suppose that the nail, for example, will be driven into the board by the hammer. Why? Because the past, as an epistemological ground, is not reliable. You haven't actually observed the past. You only have a memory of it. Can you really prove that you hammered a nail three hours ago? Hume would tell you therefore, that you have no other choice but to be skeptical about knowing things. He says that we have come to expect the future to be like the past because it helps us live our lives, but we have no rational reason to do so. After all, your memory could in fact be false. Couldn't it? Yes, it could. Our memories deceive us all the time. Especially if we did drugs in college.

Where does that leave us? Do we carry on with life, using can openers, driving nails, flipping lights on and off, having no real certainty that we can expect results from our actions, but doing so anyway in some nebulous, irrational way? Not only do we not know things about God and religion, but about cars, molecules, and nails, too? Perhaps there is a better way...

We still believe in truth. Everyone believes in some kind of truth. Whenever someone uses the word "is" they are making a truth statement. Even the catch-phrase "There is no such thing as absolute truth" is a statement of truth. The word "is" from the "to be" verb group, is a grammatical term used in what is called predication. "The sky is blue," is predication at work. We live with predication all the time. We couldn't function without it. And we couldn't function not knowing if the stove was really turned off (then we'd all be OCD), or if the hammer was really going to force the nail into the board. I would dare to say that we live by faith. We live by faith that our experience of the world is real, and we live by faith that the future is like the past. Faith is not irrational, then--it is essential.

Faith is unseen, and comes from within us as we observe the world and life. We have faith. Faith is necessary for daily living. The idea that faith is essential opens the door for a divine foot to enter our rooms. If that is the case, then we should be able to know the truth as well. When Paul said, "We live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), perhaps this statement bears weight upon our discussion. So too, when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," he was making a categorical statement of truth (Ravi Zacharias). For Jesus, the truth is real, and the truth is a person. Jesus said he and the truth were one and the same. That's odd, why would a person say that about himself? Isn't that a bit arrogant?

Of course, I wouldn't say Jesus is arrogant. The point here is that those who use the "arrogance" argument against exclusive claims of religion are just as guilty at making truth claims as anyone else when they make use of predication. Since truth does in fact exist, and since we do in fact live by faith, we should pay very real attention to Jesus and what he says about God, himself, us, the world, the forgiveness of sins, the end of empires, and on and on. If truth exists, and if Jesus is right that he is the truth, then all of history hinges upon the man from Galilee.

Genetic Information from "Nowhere"

This brief article mentions David Deamer, origin of life researcher at UC Santa Cruz, who asserts his idea from where genetic information arose....

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/09/leading_origin_of_life_researc.html

Conceptual and Ontological Necessity of the Trinity

Christian philosopher Michael Butler affirms in his article that conceptual necessity does not guarantee ontological necessity. In other words, we basically need more than a "conceptual scheme" to provide knowledge; we need an "actual" (ontological) scheme as well. Reformed apologists espousing the Transcendental Argument for God's existence (TAG) employ the idea that the Christian God as well as his revelation, the Bible, are the preconditions necessary for knowledge.

TAG tries to prove Christianity indirectly by the "impossibility of the contrary" by showing the absurdity of the non-christian worldview (religion, or or theory of life), and showing how only the Christian worldview can make sense of science, logic, and morality, and indeed--all of life. Too much is to be written to defend TAG at this juncture, for the criticisms abound against this argument both within the Christian world and without it (the "classical" arguments for God's existence also have this 'back-and forth' in common with TAG i.e. the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments).

Often proponents of TAG show how it is conceptually necessary to have a personal, triune God who controls the universe, gives uniformity to nature (metaphysics), holds comprehensive knowledge and shares portions of it (epistemology) and serves as moral law-giver, standard and judge of morality (ethics); where they sometimes fail is to show how this concept is ontologically necessary. In other words, the unbeliever may finally 'cry uncle' and admit his worldview does not support absolutes, because he espouses a relativistic concept of morality, and he may admit that morals only make sense if there is a personal God (an actual Person) who gives moral commands to humans and serves as a transcendent, ultimate authority and standard. So, the concept is the only one acceptable, the unbeliever admits. However, does this mean the Christian has convinced the unbeliever of the ontological necessity of of Christianity?

This is why Butler and others (Bahnsen, Van Til, Frame, Schaeffer--sort of) in the reformed apologetic school of presuppositionalism assert that not only is revelation from God necessary as a concept but also necessary ontologically. This ontology, this "actuality" is found in the Bible itself. Butler, in his article is trying to refute the idea that the Christian apologist has done his service by only showing the concept of Christian theism as being necessary for knowledge, morals, and science. Rather, said apologist must assert the Bible--as special revelation--as the "proof in the pudding," the ontological answer to our queries concerning the aforementioned fields in philosophy.

I was thinking about this needed congruence between conceptual and ontological necessity the other day while digging up rocks in the front yard because the landscaper didn't give us enough(any?) topsoil when he planted the grass. I remember my physics teacher in high school teaching that for sound to occur, there have to be three aspects present: source, medium, receiver. This made me think of the Trinity, as it has a lot to do with TAG in the area of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Such natural triads, in this case, concerning the necessary preconditions for noise to occur, are found throughout our natural world: water is solid, liquid or gas; education has the trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric); the human body is broken down to bone, tissue, liquid. (There are many other triads listed in John Frame's Doctrine of God).... So, I wondered about the significance between the necessity of the three requirements for sound as it relates to the three persons of the Trinity. In the redemptive work of God, the Father initiates, the Son accomplishes, and the Holy Spirit applies salvation to people.

But does that mean that sound, or thought required the ontological Trinity? If there were only two persons in the Trinity, eternal counsel could still be had because there would be a source and receiver, while the medium would be space. But, if God is the creator of everything, then he is the creator of space as well. It could be argued that space did not exist as a medium until it was actually created. Furthermore, in the Christian concept of Trinity, God is three persons in one God, not two separate gods. The concept of the Trinity as three-in-one lays the perfect foundation for not only unity and diversity in the community of the Trinity (Ravi Zacharias), but also as a paradigm for us to view the natural realm, in this case, that of the necessary elements required for sound to occur. In the Trinity and the eternal counsel of God, their is indeed a source, medium and receiver. However, the "lack of space" argument may not work, as God is a spirit, and requires not space. If it is argued that God does not require space, then a two-person Godhead may suffice to explain discourse. Even so, I think Frame is right by saying the triads in the natural realm do not prove the Trinity as ontologically necessary, but rather reflect the glory and design of the Triune God. The trick here is that this type of information usually only 'clicks' with people who already affirm belief in the Trinity. I don't know if triads in the natural realm show the preconditions of the ontological Trinity as necessary to make sense out of human experience as much as they reveal what God has done. And, not everyone believes the Christian God has done anything. But, I was just picking rocks when I thought of this, so I'll have to hash it out some more...

Nevertheless, the idea that a concept can be required without an ontology to go with it is repudiated by Butler. This is most likely because, not only such an idea fails to prove TAG with any emphatic scope, but rather because it is possible that concepts in and of themselves may not exist apart from an ontological reality. A similar problem may be the "mind/body problem," but the real objection here is that merely proving Christianity as the precondition for the intelligibility of human experience as a concept does not force the unbeliever to accept Christianity ontologically--as the actual truth in existential terms.

The Moral Argument for God's Existence & the OT Genocides

I could have made the title to this post longer, "The Moral Argument for God's Existence Submitted According to Presuppositional Transcendentalism in Light of the Old Testament Genocides: Is Arbitrariness a Contingency Factor in Determining Ethics?"

Right. Why not just pound that out like a sheet of malleable metal and submit it as the thesis sentence? But what I'm asking here has to do with all of the above: when using the Transcendental Argument for God's existence (TAG) in the moral phase of it, good questions are often asked regarding how morals are determined, even if God is necessary for us to make sense out of them.

TAG and other moral arguments for God's existence attempt to show that, unless there is a God who gives us a moral law, then there is no justification for moral precepts at all. In fact, Fyodor Dostoevsky said the same thing in The Brothers Karamazov, which I posted about earlier. So, taking for granted that it is true that we need a transcendent, moral law in order to justify our morals, the question remains as to how those morals are obtained. Can God change his mind arbitrarily regarding what is moral? Is something moral because God commands it, or does God command it because it is moral?

There is a difference in answering these questions between the standard Moral Argument and TAG. The standard MA gives a general idea of a transcendent need for a moral lawgiver, while TAG aims to assert the particularity of the Christian God as the necessary precondition for morality. In other words, the MA will say, "If there is no God, there are no morals," whereas TAG will say, "The Christian God, and only the Christian God, is the necessary precondition for morality." MA is general, while TAG is particular.

Let us take for granted that someone accepts TAG in its uniqueness and responsibility. An external critique has been made, in that all other worldviews have been rejected for the sake of the Christian worldview. Now comes the internal critique. And the internal critique of the Christian view of God can be very challenging. Indeed one of the major objections to the Christian view of God as an internal critique regards some of the things Yahweh commanded the Israelites to do in the Old Testament--in this case, the genocides.

Questions asked are: "Why kill the children, and even the women? Why kill at all? Isn't this a contradiction to the 7th commandment (you shall not kill)? Can the genocides be used to justify action against other nations, people groups, today?" These questions are all important, but I have found the most popular one regards the killing of innocent babies in the Canaanite city. We'll have to answer this later, as I have to sand the mud on the drywall. Time to get to work!

Ok. Taking a break, and brushing off the dust...

The program involved in Israel's history in this instance is that of claiming the promised land. God had rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt through many signs and wonders, and now gives them the land God promised to Abraham in Genesis 15: 12-21. The Lord tells Abraham that the "sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure," and that after 400 years of slavery, the Lord would give Abraham's descendants the land of Canaan.

So, now in Joshua's campaign, we have the fulfillment of the promise, and the 400 years is up. 400 years is a long time for the Lord to have patience with a culture steeped in demon worship, child sacrifice and idolatry. In Genesis 19, the Lord destroys Sodom and Gomorrah with burning sulfur after Abraham pleaded with God to not destroy it for the sake of his nephew Lot, and his family, which the Lord did rescue them. We ask, we could not the Lord have done the same with the Canaanites?

Part of the reason I think the Lord uses war in the annihilation of the Canaanites is so that the surrounding nations would fear Israel, and not be tempted to invade them. Furthermore, the Lord would use the surrounding nations to test Israel's faithfulness to God's covenant. But, back to the annihilation of an entire people...

Why not rescue the babies, at least? But then someone could ask, why not rescue the children as well as the babies? And another, why not the women and the children? And, at what age does one qualify as no longer being a child? We can imagine the innocence of the baby in the most vile, evil culture in the world; couldn't it be rescued? Indeed, it could, as Rahab and her family were rescued when the Israelites invaded Jericho. However, no one repented in Canaan. There was no one to represent the innocent children. Moreover, the Lord has the right to create life and to take it away--he is the Lord. He often did save cities, such as Nineveh, which did repent of their sins. Still, it is a hard thing to accept, this annihilation of every living thing. Nevertheless, the Canaanites polluted their land (Numbers 35:34) with their bloodshed. Also, God commanded Israelite soldiers who killed to be cleansed of their bloodshed as well (Numbers35: 33-34).

We can say that the annihilation of every living thing in the Canaanite cities was immoral, but are we justified in doing so? On what grounds do we make such a claim? If there is no God, what is moral? What is immoral? If there is a god, but we don't know this god personally, and this god has not told us what is moral and immoral, we are in the same position: what is moral? what is immoral?

But, if there is a personal God who interacts with history and tells us what is moral from what is not e.g. the Ten Commandments, then we have grounds for our belief. We are then justified in our assertions as to what is moral or not. The internal critique, however, against Yahweh and his alleged immoral act in destroying cities and judging nations for their sin, is not one so much of a logical question as it is an emotional one. (There is a logical "problem of evil," but that problem differs from the topic under discussion). Again, Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov admits that it isn't that I don't believe God exists and created the world, it is that I do not accept the world he has created, nor the actions (or lack thereof) he has taken in it.

This emotional problem is a real one. However, to despise Yahweh for his actions is to make oneself judge of him; this temptation is easy for us, especially as we live so many thousands of years away from what happened according to what is written, and we have a deep sense of justice and mercy in our culture. The Bible teaches that the Lord is merciful, and good. The Bible also teaches that God is holy. God waited 400 years for the Canaanites to repent of their sins of idolatry, child sacrifice, orgies, and the like. They didn't. So, he punished them. He had mercy on them for a while, while the Israelites groaned in Egypt under slavery. Then he punished the Canaanites, in order to show mercy on Israel to give them freedom and blessing.

anything wrong with being Agnostic?

Well, no, not really. Unless you want to be able to really give answers about life. If you are content to have a pure emotional situation, then you are fine. In fact, that is all you have, really. Just emotion. I recently spoke with someone very close to me who said belief in God seemed silly to him, and that he is agnostic now. He has decided to go to church in order to please his wife and children, but as for believing in what he was raised with--historic, orthodox Christianity, he has decided to suspend his belief.

"I feel better," he said, referring to his decision to no longer wrestle with asking God to help him to have faith. "For a long time, I asked God to help me have faith, but it never came. Then one day, sitting in church, I looked around at everybody and said to myself, 'This is silly.' So I decided I didn't believe anymore." When pressed further, he told me that the doctrine of hell influenced his decision. Furthermore, he said, the Bible has too many contradictions."
"Such as?" I asked.
"Well, I can't name any off the top of my head."
"Oh."

He posed other evidential problems to me like Jesus' apparent mistake in saying the Son of Man would return before "this generation passes away." I suggested that he give himself a different interpretation: Jesus was predicting his coming in judgment before his disciples' generation would pass away, and this actually happened in A.D. 70 when Titus and his Roman army sacked Jerusalem.

But the doctrine of hell was his big issue. And, believing in God just seemed 'silly.' Besides, he had asked God repeatedly for a stronger faith, had read the Bible, and that stronger faith was never felt, and never came.

I failed to ask him what he meant by this request.

But here's some things for him to ponder....

Agnosticism was coined by Aldous Huxley, which simply means that we cannot know religious truth for certain. Huxley asserts that we have epistemological uncertainty. Immanuel Kant summed up the same point in his bifurcation between the phenomenal realm (the realm of our sense experience) and the noumenal realm (that which is beyond our sense experience: ideas like God's existence and so forth).

Now, it may seem quaint to some, but agnosticism as an epistemological system makes a certain claim that certain ideas cannot be known with any kind of certainty. But how can a system of thought make a claim about the nature of knowledge and truth that denies that certain truths cannot be known? It is as if to say, "You see that fence over there?"
"Yeah," you reply.
"Well," Mr. Agnostic says, "I'm telling you that you cannot know what is beyond that fence."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"How do you know that?"
"It's just not feasible that we can know anything beyond the fence. You can't go there."
"Well, have you gone up to the fence and peered over it, or under it, or tried to look through it?"
"No, of course not! For the simple reason that we believe it is impossible to know what is beyond it. In fact, it's silly to think that you can."
"I see."

You see. If agnosticism is true, then it is also false. It is a contradiction. But, my friend the agnostic isn't an epistemological agnostic. He's more like Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan refuses to worship the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, not because he believes in a philosophical system that purportedly defuses the intellectual rigor of theism. No. He refuses to bow the knee to God because he is dissatisfied with the way God runs the world. Ivan points to the ineffable suffering and evil humans inflict on each other and says that he chooses not to worship God because of the suffering and evil that He allows. And Ivan, I think, speaks for many of us. We ask "why?" and we question God's goodness.

Now my friend should really ask himself some additional questions however: Am I going to get up and go to work today? Am I going to stay with my family? Am I going to be honest on my taxes? Will I still give to charity? And on and anon. Because if there is no transcendent, overarching person ruling the universe and giving us meaning and motive, what is there?

Christopher Hitchens vs. his brother Peter

Apparently, Christopher's bombastic personality was too much for his brother Peter, sources say (friends of mine). The two debated each other on many topics (mostly Christianity) at Fountain St. Church in Grand Rapids recently. My friend says about 2/3 of the audience was atheist, a GVSU professor praised Chris's work and said he uses it in his philosophy class, and Peter, while a good writer, was not able to handle his brother's tough persona, and apparently espoused a mere probability that a god exists.

Since I was not at the debate and have not read any reviews yet, I'll depart here by dealing with at least one argument I know Christopher Hitchens and friends ("New Atheists") use explicitly against Christianity. One of his arguments is an attack on the character of Yahweh, especially as it concerns his activity in the Old Testament, with particular focus on the genocides during Joshua's campaign. Hitchens also claims that to be moral, humans do not need God (an old argument, actually); but the newness of his argument lies in the claim that the God of the Bible is actually immoral and anyone who claims this God as their own is the same.

The genocides deserve more attention that what I can give here, but suffice it to say that the New Atheists deem this an incredible act of immorality (it does not sit well with me either, actually), which alone should steer anyone away from ever wanting to be a Christian. Would-be converts may take no comfort in a "new set of laws" under the dispensation of Jesus, because Jesus himself said he came to "fulfill the law" (Matt. 5:17). Jesus therefore acknowledges the Old Testament law as good (as does Paul in Romans 7:12), and by default says the genocides were good, too. So if you follow Jesus, you must acknowledge that the genocides were good. And if you do that, says Hitchens, you, as a Christian, are an immoral, cruel hoax on mankind!

Briefly, if I were Peter (I've been called worse), I would have replied with this: if one disavows Christianity because of something that happened in the past, then one must apply the same principle to ones self. Hence, there is a rejection theism in general and Christianity in particular because of this act in history.

However, this fails to consider the actions taken by atheists in history. Stalin is a prime example (there is also Pol Pot, the French Revolution, and Hitler [some dispute whether Hitler was actually an atheist]). These systems of govenernment were fueled by an atheistic paradigm of social order and reform. All bent on murder and eradication of dissenters. Hitchens of course would object to the evils committed by Stalin and others. But, on his own principle, why not reject atheism?

If one rejects Christianity because of the genocides, one must, to be logically consistent, also reject atheism because of the evils done in its name as well. One objection to this line of reasoning may lie in saying that while it was Yahweh himself who made the command in a theistic paradigm, Stalin, et al. were fueled by more than a mere atheism. After all, one might argue, humans are complex beings and one personality trait (or more) or perhaps a bit of misinformation or misapplied information may have fueled Stalin's murderous regime. For example, Stalin's greed and paranoia got in the way of what a truly humanistic, goodwill atheism should have been. But the historical fact is that it happened the way it did. Also, this argument fails to take into consideration that Yahweh is a person, too, who is not a monolithic automaton.

Rather, Yahweh is one who is seriously offended at sin (the Canaanites who were annihilated were guilty of child sacrifice, and demon worship, for example [the apparent non-innocence of the infants and children taken for granted at the moment]). Yahweh has many character traits and is privy to all kinds of information and has certain goals for mankind: political, economic, educational, agricultural, cultural etc., just as Stalin had many character traits and had ideas and plans for his society. So the two are not monolithic automatons, but are influenced by many different ideas and passions with the purpose of creating a society after their image.

In any case, Hitchens should reject atheism for the maladies committed under its auspices just as he rejects Christianity for the apparent evils committed under the auspices of the rule of Yahweh. Hitchens would object to this demand on my part, saying that Stalin's atheism was a bad atheism, and that a good atheist (I know some and love them, actually) would never do what Stalin did. But a good Christian should at least acknowledge that what Yahweh and the Israelites did was evil. Therefore, Hitchens' version of atheism is superior to Christianity (and Judaism).

The problem with Hitchens' argument is that his atheism is one version and Stalin's atheism is another and ne'er the twain shall meet. So, who's version should prevail? But this is the problem. This is indeed, the problem. And we should discuss it further elsewhere. The problem Hitchens must overcome is how to arrive at an ethic without it resorting to relativism. If Hitchens says the primary goal of humans is to be happy, then who defines happiness? If he says we should define ethics by means of cultural consensus, then which culture is correct?

We have not answered the accusation of the apparent immorality of the genocides, and Christians need to do this (1 Peter 3:15; 2 Cor 10:5). But Hitchens must answer these questions if he is going to accuse Yahweh of immorality, when atheists have done evil also. The final question for Hitchens is why humans commit evil in the first place. Boiling our maladies down to the foil of "ignorance" and "lack of education" do not suffice, for it is readily apparent that many educated people still do evil, sometimes greater evil than those less educated.