I had a gentleman come by the Credo House the other day. I think he just came to argue. He was one of “them.” You know what I am talking about. You would think that we would get more of these types, but this was actually the first one in the eight month existence of the Credo House. Here was his basic argument: “If it does not make rational sense, we should not believe it.” In his view, we are obligated to understand something before we commit our belief to it. Therefore, this guy rejected some important doctrines of classical Christianity.

Christianity is often confusing. Reality is often confusing. There are certain things that we believe that simply must be, but they don’t “add up.” A good theologian needs to have worked through this. While we should be extremely diligent and committed to a task of understanding truth, a lack of understanding does not necessarily mean that it cannot be true. In other words, coherence is not the final and infallible test of truth.

It is interesting to me to see the charges of “incoherency” that we can often bring against those who oppose our perspective. Calvinist do so with Arminians and Arminians do so with Calvinists. Egalitarians to so with Complementarians and Complementarians do so with Egalitarians. “You view simple does not account for __________ and my view does. Therefore, my view is right.” Or, “If what you say is true, here is the crazy situation you find yourself in . . .” Formally, these type of arguments are called reductio ad absurdum and they are more often than not very effective in giving logical and emotional credit to your case.

Don’t get me wrong, much of the time this can be a legitimate charge that should give pause to the proponent. So I am not saying that incoherency is a position of value by any means.

However, I think that Christians must realize that there are some things in our world view that are going to be beyond our coherence tolerance.

Let me talk about this word “incoherency” for a moment. Here are some synonyms for what I am talking about: unintelligibility; inconsistency; incomprehensibility; discontinuity.

What I am talking about are those things that we believe which lack some degree of viability due to their confused nature. This confusion may be emotional or intellectual. It may be based on how we feel things should be or how we think things should be. In some sense, these things lack a degree of credibility due to our inability to coherently understand them and relate them to other things we know.

Here are some examples:

1. Calvinistic understanding of predestination: A belief that while God loves everyone, he only chose a few.

2. Arminian belief in libertarian freedom: A belief that an act of our will can be birthed from neutrality.

3. Christian belief in creation ex-nihilo: A belief that God created all that there is from that which does not exist.

4. Christian doctrine of the Trinity: God is one in substance, three in person.

5. Christian belief in the hypostatic union: Christ is fully God and fully man; one person, two complete natures which are neither confused or divided.

6. Christian belief in human freedom and divine foreknowledge: God exhaustively knows the future, yet the future is a result of free choices, including God’s.

7. Christian belief that God is transcendent and imminent: God, in his essence, transcends time and does not experience a succession of moments yet he truly interacts in time.

8. Jesus Christ’s incarnation and fellowship in the Trinity: The Second member of the Trinity, while in eternal transcendent immutable unity in the Godhead, becomes forever incarnate in a time-bound universe in Christ.

9. The atheistic view that there is no ultimate beginning (some atheists): An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed, yet we have somehow traversed an infinite number of moments to get here.

10. Christian belief in God’s universal foreknowledge and love and in the doctrine of hell: Although God is good and loving, he chose to create people who he knew were going to reject him and go to an eternal hell.

Now this is a large and varied list. Many of these I agree with and some I don’t. Some of these represent outright contradictions and analytical absurdities, and some are legitimate mysteries that possess no formal absurdity, but are incoherent from the standpoint of a limited observer. Some are a standard part of Christian orthodoxy and some are positions about which there is legitimate disagreement and alternatives. Obviously, not all are in agreement about which fits into what category. Christians would all agree that #9 presents a logical absurdity. I will leave it to you to decide on the rest for now!

Some people distinguish between a contradiction and a paradox. A paradox is something that may be true but beyond our understanding while a contradiction cannot be true by definition.

Let me focus on #10 for a moment. All branches of historic orthodox Christianity believe that 10 is correct. Whether you Roman Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian, Baptist or Presbyterian, all believe that God created people knowing that they would end up in hell. All orthodox Christians believe that it is biblical to teach these four things:

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Of course, there are solutions, but all of them require changing what seems to be a clear teaching of Scripture as well as sacrificing one’s standing in orthodox Christianity for the sake of coherence, emotional or logical.

Here is what the options look like:

Open Theism:

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Universalism:

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Pantheism (though I don’t know of any “Christian” pantheism)

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

Hyper-Calvinism

1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future

2. God created all people

3. God loves all people

4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God

In the end, I think it is best that we leave all four in place and recognize the paradoxical difficulty with this issue.

If absolute coherence, emotional or logical, is your goal, then you will never find a system that is completely satisfying. Never. Even in science, room must be left for anomalies (things that don’t make sense under the current paradigm of data). More importantly, I think it is vital to recognize that while coherence is indeed something we should diligently strive for, it is not the highest priority in the Christian faith. The highest priority for the Christian is to let rightly interpreted Scripture be our ultimate source for truth. Emotion and reason are not unimportant, it is just that they must be submitted to Scripture. Anyone can twist and manipulate Scripture to make it fit their idea of coherency. I see this done every day. Anyone can come up with a more palatable solution and force the puzzle to create a new picture, but palatability is not the final test of truth. Scripture is.

However, I don’t want it to sound as if incoherency is the highest ideal. I have also seen this “I-believe-because-it-is-absurd” mentality. We should never adopt such an irresponsible stance. While a modernistic ideal of perfect harmony in understanding is not our guide, harmony is more often than not a characteristic of truth. Disharmony and true incoherency are, more often than not, a hallmark of error.

As well, it is important to realize that just because something does not seem to have coherence, this does not make it truly incoherent. Often we are too limited to find coherence, even though it is actually present. In other words, just because something may seem incoherent to us, this does not mean that it is incoherent to God. While the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery to us, it is not a mystery to God. Some things in Christianity do not seem to have coherence, but this does not mean that they are truly incoherent. (And yes, this does make the title of this article misleading.)

In this, we must realize that there are some things that God has withheld information about for his own reasons. Could God have made everything perfectly understandable and emotionally satisfying? Most certainly. The fact that he has not does not make his truth any less true, it just mean that he, for some reason, from time to time, wants us to believe something even though he does not want us to understand it.

A very particular Scripture comes to mind here:

Deut. 29:29
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

The “secret things” are those things that God has, for whatever reason, intentionally withheld. But, thankfully, the emphasis in this passage is on “the things revealed,” and they belong to us forever.

God may never clear everything up. And he might make it all clear someday. I don’t know. As a Calvinist, one of the seemingly incoherent things that I believe is that God could have elected everyone, but he did not. Why? I will ask him one day. Will he tell me? I don’t know. Either way, I know that he is righteous and he is good. These missing pieces of the puzzle gives me no right to doubt him when he has already proven himself in so many ways. I know that if I dare to judge him by manipulating the truth to make it more palatable, he will prevail (Rom. 3:7).

While there are so many things we can understand, we must recognize that there is true mystery to which we must submit. When we get the temptation to judge God by manipulating the truth, let’s pause and learn to find stability even when things are not as palatable or coherent as we would like them to be.

There are many words and concepts in theology that suffer from misunderstanding, mis-characterization, and misinformation. “Predestination,” “Calvinism,” “Total Depravity,” “Inerrancy,” and “Complementarianism”, just to name a few that I personally have to deal with. Proponents are more often than not on the defensive, having to explain again and again why it is they don’t mean what people think they mean.

The concept of “free will” suffers no less with regard to this misunderstanding. Does a person have free will? Well, what do you mean by “free will”? This must always be asked.

Do you mean:

1. That a person is not forced from the outside to make a choice?
2. That a person is responsible for his or her choices?
3. That a person is the active agent in a choice made?
4. That a person is free to do whatever they desire?
5. That a person has the ability to choose contrary to their nature (who they are)?

Calvinists, such as myself, do believe in free will and we don’t believe in free will. It just depends on what you mean.

When it comes to the first three options, most Calvinist would agree that a person is not forced to make a choice, is responsible for their choices, and is the active agent behind those choices. They would reject the forth believing that a person is not free to do whatever they desire (for example, no matter how much one desires, he or she cannot read the thoughts of another person, fly without wings, or transport from one location to another just by thinking about the desired location). Continue Reading »

Three types of Christian scholarship:

1. Exegetes (study) - Level one studies 

original research; learning; data; facts

 These are the type of people who are continually doing research. They primarily involve themselves in first hand resources. In biblical studies, they are concerned with original language, backgrounds, historical criticism, and textual issues. They are often (though not always) very timid to take theological stands due to their realization of the complexities of the issues involved. Because of this, they are sometimes accused of “academic agnosticism.” They are very precise thinkers and normally find it difficult to teach because they are always qualifying everything.  More often than not they limit their studies to very particular areas.

They find all the pieces of the puzzle.

Viewpoint: TREES

• Why they might dislike theologians: “They often lack the precise information and are sloppy with the facts.”
• Why they need theologians: To process the data and come to conclusions from a broader understanding.
• Possible problems with exegetes: Truth often dies the death of a thousand qualifications. They can lack common sense. Their precise studies can blind them to the obvious.

2. Theologian/Philosopher (think) – Level two studies

systematize; reflect; theories

 Theologians are the thinkers. They are not so much concerned about researching and discovering original data, but with the bigger picture of what the data means and exploring original ideas. They spend their time reflecting on issues and coming to conclusions about truth. They systematize the data in order that creeds can be reasoned, established, and defended. They are much broader in their thinking and studies, having to be familiar with many areas of scholarship in order to provide a systematic understanding of the complete truth. They are concerned with biblical studies, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, logic, and the like.

They put the puzzle together.

Viewpoint: FOREST Continue Reading »

I’m excited about a new book that was delivered to my door two days ago, God Is Great, God Is Good, co-edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister (InterVarsity Press).  Of course, I’m pleased to have contributed an essay for the volume, “Are Old Testament Laws Evil?” 

The book contains a wide-ranging response to the arguments of the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and so on). The list of contributors includes fine thinkers across a range of disciplines such as Alister McGrath (theology), Charles Taliaferro and Paul Moser (philosophy), John Polkinghorne (physics), Gary Habermas (history), Michael Behe (biology), Scot McKnight (New Testament), among others.

Here’s the blurb from InterVarsity Press’s website: Continue Reading »

In a recent debate on the topic of design, I expressed amazement at all the huffing and puffing by anti-design proponents. Though they assert that a design hypothesis is “unscientific,” they say things in other places that make me suspicious. That is, many of these naturalists express profound astonishment at the universe’s precision-tuning for life, life’s emergence from non-life, or at the remarkable “engineering” of biological organisms, organs, and cells. Why then do scientists of all stripes and disciplines repeatedly use design language while repudiating design as a legitimate interpretation of the evidence? 

Let me hasten to add that one doesn’t have to oppose the process of evolution in order to defend design.  Indeed, if evolution from a bacterium to homo sapiens took place, then it would be an excellent argument for design!  Noted cosmologists Frank Tipler and John Barrow calculated that the chances of moving from a bacterium to homo sapiens in 10 billion years or less is 10^-24,000,000.  What kind of numbers are we talking about?  A decimal point with 24 million zeros to the left of 1.! [1]  We’re not even addressing the origin of the universe (something coming from absolutely nothing—whose chances of happening are exactly zero). Nor are we speaking of the fine-tuning of the universe (non-theist Roger Penrose calculates this as being one chance in 10^10(123)).[2] Nor are we speaking of getting the precise DNA sequence of the necessary 250 proteins to sustain life (whose chances have been calculated as 1 in 10^41,000).[3] We are stacking such outrageously remote possibilities on top of more outrageously remote possibilities on top of still more. The naturalist must stake everything on an anti-design random process to produce what we see today in all its beauty and complexity. Never before have I seen such faith!  If the design idea is a live option, however, all the shock evaporates.  After all, getting from nothing to homo sapiens in 13.5 billion years isn’t a problem if design has taken place. 

Let’s set that all aside now. Let me just focus on how naturalistic scientists actually help support that idea that design and science in nowise conflict.  Here is a sampling of quotations.

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Atheist Steven Weinberg (physicist): “sometimes nature seems more beautiful than strictly necessary.”[4] 

Pantheist Eugene Wigner (physicist): The “uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts” in the natural sciences is “something bordering on the mysterious” and “there is no rational explanation for it.”[5]

ORIGIN OF LIFE

Alfonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szostak (in a recent Scientific American): “Every living cell, even the simplest bacterium teems with molecular contraptions that would be the envy of any nanotechnologist….It’s virtually impossible to imagine how a cell’s machines could have formed spontaneously as life first arose.”[6]

Atheist Francis Crick (Nobel Prize winner, biologist): “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which had to have been satisfied to get it going.”[7]

Jacques Monod (biologist): “…we have no idea what the structure of a primitive cell might have been…. the simplest cells available to us for study have nothing ‘primitive’ about them.”[8]

BIOLOGY IN GENERAL

John Wheeler (physicist): “When I first started studying, I saw the world as composed of particles. Looking more deeply I discovered waves. Now after a lifetime of study, it appears that all existence is the expression of information (my emphasis)” [9] Continue Reading »

The past few weeks I’ve been teaching an adult Sunday school class on the relationship between the Christian faith and science. We’ve reviewed what the Genesis text says—and what it doesn’t say. We’ve also noted how two twentieth-century discoveries—the universe’s beginning at the Big Bang and the universe’s astonishing fine-tuning for life—offer dramatic support for God’s existence. In the midst of some discussion, Jim spoke up in class: “A friend of mine at work recently gave a lecture on Galileo. He’s been telling us in the office that Galileo disproved the Bible.” One thing led to another, and last week Jim, another work colleague, and I had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with Al (whom we affectionately call “Alileo”).

Al, a lawyer, has done quite a bit of research on his hero, Galileo (1564-1642). Al told us lots of interesting behind-the-scenes facts about Galileo as well as his historic significance. As the discussion went on, I pointed out that Galileo was no enemy of Scripture. He said that the Scriptures and science, when properly understood, will not conflict with each other. God’s self-revelation in the “books” of nature and Scripture—God’s works and God’s Word—will be harmonious. He wrote of this conviction in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in 1615:

I think that in disputes about natural phenomena one must begin not with the authority of scriptural passages but with sensory experience and necessary demonstrations. For the Holy Scripture and nature derive equally from the godhead, the former as the dictation of the Holy Spirit and the latter as the most obedient executrix of God’s orders; moreover, to accommodate the understanding of common people it is appropriate for Scripture to say many things that are different (in appearance and in regard to the literal meaning of the words) from the absolute truth…. I do not think that one has to believe that the same God who has given us senses, language, and intellect would want to set aside the use of these and give us by other means the information we can acquire with them, so that we would deny our senses and reason even in the case of those physical conclusions which are placed before our eyes and intellect by our sensory experiences or by necessary demonstration.

In the same letter he affirmed: “the holy Bible can never speak untruth—whenever its true meaning is understood.”

Incidentally, long before Galileo, Augustine (whom Galileo quotes in this letter) wrote along these lines in The Literal Meaning of Genesis (1.42-43):

it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn….If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

I mentioned how Genesis 1-2, the latter chapters of Job, and Psalm 104 (a creation psalm) doesn’t speak with scientific precision, but often creates certain pictures or images for us without giving the technical details. For example, Genesis 1 speaks of the greater and lesser lights, but this doesn’t mean that there aren’t larger bodies in space. The Scriptures often use phenomenological language—the way things appear to us—just as meteorologists speak of “sunrise” and “sunset.” Continue Reading »

We are looking at what is God? Not who is God? or what has God done? We are looking at what his essential nature must be in order to qualify for the title.

One thing I am going to do throughout this series is something that many of you might be very uncomfortable with. You should not be, but you might. However, if you have studied the history of Christian doctrine and are, like me, standing on the shoulders of giants, you will have no problem with what I am advocating necessitating for this study. I believe that we must look to nature and philosophy in order to understand the nature of God. This means that I believe that extra-biblical information is required, yea demanded, by God himself.

My reasoning is simple. There are certain things that the Bible assumes. In other words, there is an information base that God requires before we can handle the Scriptures and biblical doctrine with integrity. These things are areas that are presupposed. For example, the Bible does not teach anyone how to read. It simply assumes such an ability. The Bible does not define its words. It assumes a knowledge base that is equipped to handle the vocabulary. Epistemologically (the justification of knowing), the Bible does not argue for the the law of non contradiction (i.e. that A cannot equal non-A at the same time and in the same relationship) or that propositions have meaning. It simply assumes that you know that. Theologically, the Bible does not make a case for God’s existence, it simply assumes that there is a sufficient base from which to make such a conclusion. There are other things as well, but these examples should suffice for you to understand and follow. (I hope!)

When it comes to making a case, such as I am going to make, about the “what” or “stuff” of God, I am going to be drawing as much from natural theology as I am from biblical theology—and for this I make no apologies. Natural theology is the theology that comes through nature or general revelation. It is a theology that is rationally based and relies much on philosophical deduction.

Continue Reading »

In the next issue of Philosophia Christi, I will be revisiting the topic of Yahweh wars and the killing of the Canaanites. This article appears with two essays critical of the divine command to kill the Canaanites. This journal’s issue also contains articles discussing the topic of the moral status of Canaanite society and its religious practices as well as the alleged negative influence of religion. (To see abstracts of the articles, go here.)

The abstract for my article is as follows:

The divine command to kill the Canaanites is the most problematic of all Old Testament ethical issues. This article responds to challenges raised by Wes Morriston and Randal Rauser. It argues that biblical and extrabiblical evidence suggests that the Canaanites who were killed were combatants rather than noncombatants (“Scenario 1”) and that, given the profound moral corruption of Canaan, this divinely-directed act was just. Even if it turns out that noncombatants were directly targeted (“Scenario 2”), the overarching Old Testament narrative is directed toward the salvation of all nations–including the Canaanites.

My article is available here.

Acts 16:31, after Paul and Silas are miraculously released from prison, the jailer obviously impressed with fantastic occurrences that freed them asks the simple question “what must I do to be saved?”  To which they gave an equally simple answer, “believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”.  Simple.  And isn’t that in line with modern day prescriptions?  No need to break down the 10 theological points or the 4 spiritual laws or taking them down the Romans road.  For it is a simple belief in Jesus that will unite you to God and that’s all that’s needed.  Or is it?

I think we live in a day where it is easy to confess Christianity, to say that I believe in Jesus.   When asked “are you a Christian”?  Response…yes, I believe in Jesus.  One may even go so far as to claim the sinner’s prayer as their rite of passage into Christianity.  I believe in Jesus because he died on the cross for my sins and I’ve asked Him into my heart.  Well, then it’s a done deal.

But I think a further examination of what believing in Jesus entails and also what transpires in the Acts account of the jailer.  For it is interesting that, despite the simple prescription that Paul provides, vs. 32 indicates that they spoke the word of the Lord to him.  My Expositor’s Bible commentary indicates that speaking the word of the Lord to him was to explain the good news of redemption in Christ for them in terms they can understand.  It sounds like there was more to believing in Jesus than just saying, yes I believe in Him.  The had to break it down for him and unpack  what believing in Jesus meant.

I think this is significant.  It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that in an effort to accommodate seekers of Christianity and not make salvation invitations too burdensome, that we’ve lost this very important explanation process.   They just need to know that Jesus died for their sins.  Why bore them with details.  What is even worse are the “altar calls” that I have heard that doesn’t even include this basic point.  Your life is not going right?  You know something is missing?  You want to get right with God?  Come to the altar.  Now I am not saying that every situation is going to warrant a long diatribe, but if an offer of salvation goes forth, isn’t it fair for people to know what we are asking them to believe?  Are even professing Christians aware of the basis of their belief?  Does the simple message of  Jesus dying for sins really get the point across, especially to an unchurched, badly-churched or other world-view person? Will it really get to what is being asked of people to put their trust in? Continue Reading »

Mark Juergensmeyer’s book Terror in the Mind of God claims that religion is violent by nature. It tends to “absolutize and to project images of cosmic war”—even if the ultimate goal is peace and order. To prevent violence and bloodshed to get to this point, religion needs the tempering influence of “rationality and fair play that Enlightenment values give to civil society” (U Cal Press, 2000 [242, 159, 243]).

Three years earlier, Regina Schwartz wrote about the “violent legacy of monotheism” (which includes Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) in the book The Curse of Cain (University of Chicago Press, 1997). Belief in one God and exclusive truth claims will mean that those embracing the “one true God” will reject, hate, and remove all who do not embrace their God or worldview (63). It creates an “us-them” mentality. To preserve our identity and religious purity, they must be removed.

The “New Atheists” make the same sorts of claims. Indeed, they have been emboldened by the September 11 terrorist attacks to launch an all-out rhetorical assault on religious belief—an effort that has a religious zeal all its own!

Have these 9/11 attacks vindicated the claims of Juergensmeyer and Schwartz? Yale theologian Mirsoslav Volf’s 2008 essay “Christianity and Violence” offers a superb response to such criticisms. (It was published in War in the Bible and Violence in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Richard S. Hess and Elmer A. Martens [Eisenbrauns]). I’ll follow his discussion as well as offer some of my own comments.

For starters, we’re not denying that the Crusades, Inquisition, and Europe’s religious wars are a tragedy in the history of Christendom. But do these events reflect the essence of Christianity? Why pick these anti-Christian events as the focal point of one’s criticism? Why not look at the example of Jesus—not to mention Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and other Christian peacemakers? Indeed, violence carried out in Jesus’ name flies in the face of Jesus’ own teaching and example. Continue Reading »