Normally apologetics is a theological discipline which seeks to defend the faith to those who are outside our belief system. However, my fascination with apologetics is very personal. It starts with me and often ends with me. What do I mean? I suppose I mean that I engage in apologetics very selfishly. I seek to defend the faith to myself. I am continually wrestling with issues of faith and doubt that are spinning webs in my mind. Therefore, whenever I write about a topic that is docked in apologetics bay, it is normally a subject that I am either currently wrestling with or have wrestled with in the past. I often envy those who just believe. Sometimes I wish that I could flip a switch and turn the critical part of my brain off. It would allow me to get more sleep, that is for sure!

Don’t get me wrong. Most of the big issues (what Paul Copan just called the “main things”) are pretty well settled in my thinking. I have the battle scars to prove it. However, there are a lot of things that I am not settled on…secondary issues, mainly. For those things I have yet to wrestle with in a significant way, I usually put a place holder sign on the door entitled ”I will get to you later” or “what he believes.” I have a few people in my life whom I respect and trust so deeply that their view of an issue is enough for me. In such cases I am content with “referred belief.” Why? Because I will never be able to become an expert in everything. As a matter of fact, there will be very few things that I will ever be able to speak about with much personal authority. And there is just enough postmodern blood in me to realize that the human aspiration for exhaustive and authoritative knowledge on any one thing is simply self-deception. None of us are really “experts” on much. None of us are that smart. We never will be. I don’t care how many PhDs someone has, how many articles they have writen, or what school they teach at, the human capacity to truly understand what we are talking about is not anything to write home about. We are finite. However, this does not mean we throw in the intellectual towel. There are things about which we can have a great degree of assurance.

My personal apologetics normally takes a few steps that asks some very basic questions. While I believe that these steps can and should benefit everyone, I know that each of us comes to our faith in very nuanced ways. Your reasons for your faith may not parallel my reasons. But that is okay. Here are the big issues that I start with when my faith is stumbling:

1. Does God exist?
2. Has he communicated to us?
3. What has he said?

The personal avenue that I take (from an intellectual standpoint) when it comes to my Christianity breaks this down and looks at four things:

1. The existence of God
2. The reliability of the New Testament
3. The resurrection of Christ
4. The deity of Christ

1. The Existence of God

A transcendent and personal being is necessary to explain existence as we see it. Something does not come from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit, or “out of nothing, nothing comes”). Since something exists, a transcendent force is necessary to explain this something. At this point I call God a “force” since we have yet to establish personality. This force must be above and beyond time, space, and matter. If he were not, we would be left with the regression of trying to explain what created the force that created us, ad infinitum. You know, the “If God made everything, what made God?” argument. However, if something exists, there must be an ultimate explanation. Call this force the “unmoved mover,” the “undesigned designer,” or the “uncaused cause.” Whatever one names it, it has to be a se (Latin “of itself”) and transcendent to all the laws of nature so as to avoid the cause and effect relationship. Being outside of time, this force does not need an explanation, but is itself the explanation for all things. For me to deny such a force is completely irrational. A universe such as ours without a creator is as illogical as a four-sided triangle. It just cannot be.

This transcendent force must be personal for two reasons: 1) Personality/consciousness/self-awareness cannot come from non-personality. Being cannot come from non-being. Since mankind has personality/consciousness/self-awareness, that from which we came must share the same attributes (though to an infinitely greater degree). 2) Creation itself demands an act of the will. If this creative force did not have a will (an essential component of personality), creation would never have had a time when it came into existence. In other words, creation would have never been created or it would have always been being created. Those are the only two options. Why? Because there is no cause and effect relationship which, at some point in the finite past, could have compelled a force without a will or personality to create. Why create now rather than ten trillion years ago? Therefore, creation must have been a willful act sometime in the finite past. So we have a creator who is a being whose existence and personhood are both warranted and necessary. This is why we sometimes call God the “Necessary Being.” God, as I am speaking of him now, is not “that which we worship or give ultimate allegiance to,” but the necessary explanation for all of existence. Due to this, God must be one in essence. If his ontology (essential being or “stuff”) consisted of a plurality, then his essence would demand a transcendent explanation for its existence.

There. I have one God. But I don’t yet have the Christian God.

2. Reliability of the New Testament Manuscripts

If God exists, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that God has communicated to his creation. At this point, I look into human history to see if there is any evidence that this creator God has communicated with mankind. Of course, communication neither adds anything to, nor takes anything away from, the necessary existence of this transcendent being. Neither does the way he decides to communicate or how often this communication comes. All I am saying is that if God exists, then we have good reason to look for and, if necessary, excavate this communication.

First, I believe that God’s creation itself communicates information about God. I think there is much knowledge we can gain about God’s personality through creation (God is great, smart, powerful, and organized) and our conscious (God is moral, righteous, and possesses endearing emotions). However, this communication is not very specific and leaves some serious questions unanswered such as, “Why are we here?”, “Is there purpose?”, and “Is there something for us beyond this life?”

Christianity claims that God has communicated in history. Christianity is the only religion whose basic foundation is built on falsifiable historical events that communicate a specific and compelling message. Therefore, when I look across the spectrum of religious claims to “God knowledge,” I don’t find much worth pursuing in other religions. Most other religions claim communication from God coming very obscurely through individuals who have private dreams, angelic encounters, and/or ideas. I am entirely too skeptical to take seriously such subjective claims. They are too easily made up or mistaken and are not testable in any way. However, Christianity has foundational truth claims that are rooted in history. The main events which establish or demolish the Christian faith are claimed to have actually happened in history, in the public eye. Therefore, Christianity not only allows for but demands a historical approach to establish its warrant.

I have used these graphics before, but I think they contain the essence of what I mean.

The central historic events that I look to are the life, death, and resurrection of a man named Jesus from Nazareth. If the stories told about him (most importantly, the story about his resurrection) prove to be true, then I have good reason to believe that God has communicated most directly though him.

But in order to get to Jesus, I have to go through the source documents which tell the Jesus story. We call this the New Testament canon. Now when I am trying to establish my faith, there is no reason to call these documents the “New Testament.” That name carries too much religious baggage. It is best for me to look at these as twenty-seven independent (to some degree) source documents. While theologically, I believe these documents are the inspired, inerrant word of God, all I need right now is for them to be generally reliable historic documents.

The most important of these twenty-seven documents are those we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (the Gospels). We have enough manuscript evidence to date these documents fairly early, at least in the first century and less than a generation from when the Jesus story took place. This, along with the other documents of the New Testament and the writings of other Christians in the first century, allow me to be assured that these documents are close enough to the events they describe to be taken seriously.

3. The Resurrection of Jesus

From an apologetics standpoint, the most significant event to which these documents attest is the resurrection of Jesus. They claim that Jesus had a short ministry which ended when he was executed on a cross. While they speak of many of his miracles and give much attestation to his teaching, they all claim that shortly after his death he rose from the gave. This resurrection vindicated his claims to have communication from God.

Again, this is very significant. If they only claimed that he was a man of profound teaching and performed some miracles, I don’t think I would explore Jesus much further, much less devote my life to him. His resurrection is central to my faith. It not only establishes what he said to be true, but it creates purpose, destiny, and hope. My connection to God does not end with the resurrection, but it starts there and is intrinsically tied to it. All my theological dominoes fall from here.

Now, there are certain things that I would look for and expect if the resurrection of Christ actually took place. I will only name a few for the sake of brevity. I would look for evidence of historicity in the accounts which tell of this event, not the least of which an explicit or implicit claim to historicity (as opposed to myth or parable). Historic verification can come in many ways, but for an event of this magnitude (the omnipotent God sending his Son into the world so that many may believe in him and have eternal life) you would not expect these things to be done in secret. Therefore, I am encouraged to believe more when I see details like specific times, dates, places, and people provided. These details give the events in question falsifiability, by placing the events in historical settings. If everything happened in one man’s living room, a cave, or an unknown city, they would be nearly impossible to verify. But these documents tell of a public ministry, public death, and public resurrection. What I mean by “public” resurrection is that it is stated that Christ’s tomb was empty and that he subsequently appeared to many followers, showing himself alive.

I am also encouraged by the historical nature of the narratives themselves. The four Gospels tell the same story, with some variations. These variations never disturb the main events, but complement each other in many ways. As well, there are many internal marks of historicity in the documents themselves. Some were written to specific groups of people. Some to individuals. Luke wrote his account to an otherwise obscure man named Theophilus. They contain just enough incidental details to make it harder to believe someone (or four someones) made the story up.

As well, there is no discernible profitable motive for someone to make up such a story in the first-century world. The crucified-messiah-rose-from-the-grave story is not the type of event one would fabricate, for it held no appeal for the Jews or Greeks. The Jews could not fathom a messiah hung on a tree, much less that same messiah telling his followers to spread his message to the Greeks. And the furthest thing from the aspirations of the Greeks was the resurrection of the body. It was the last story anyone would make up in that culture.

As well, the Gospels themselves did not identify their writers. If the writers were making this story up, why not fabricate a credible source? Why leave it blank? Falsely attributing a writing to another, more credible, source was on par for the culture of the day (pseudoepigrapha). Who would be more credible than the apostles of Christ? Yet the Gospels remained nameless (though early witnesses support the traditional view of authorship). Simply put, it is very hard to find evidence or rationale, internal or external, for the Jesus story to have been made up.

Finally, if the resurrection happened in the way these documents claim, one would expect there to be a tidal wave of impact. If all we had were these documents, without any immediate and lasting historical consequences, it would be hard to believe that a omnipotent sovereign God had intervened in history through the Jesus story. One would expect the resurrection event to immediately begin to evidence itself through the message being spread. And this is exactly what we find. Starting immediately after the resurrection, the “church” Jesus began through his resurrection has impacted the world in a significant way. People, cities, cultures, and eventually an empire were changed within just a few centuries after this event.

Could there be more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? Definitely. Jesus could miraculously appear to every individual ever born since then and show them his raised body. However, what we have is exactly what I would expect to have if Christ rose from the grave and then ascended into heaven like the documents say. When I examine alternative explanations for the resurrection, I find myself having to take much greater leaps of faith than a simple belief that God raised Christ from the dead. I have often said that when I begin to doubt the resurrection of Jesus all I have to do is read detractors’ alternative theories.

For this reason, I believe that God has communicated to us through Jesus Christ.

4. The Deity of Jesus

Finally, what did Christ say about God? The first three are significant apologetically to convince me that God not only exists, but has communicated to us most definitely through his “Son.” But now I must establish what that Son has communicated. First and foremost, Jesus communicated about Jesus. In the first century, Jesus became the central figure of the universe. Before this, we did not even know that God had a “Son.” Even now, we stumble to understand exactly what this means. Christ himself said that there is only one God (Mark 12:29). Yet both by his words and his works, Christ claimed equality and oneness with God. The central message of the Christian faith is that Jesus is Messiah, King, Lord, and Savior.

His unique identity came at his miraculous conception as Mary, his mother, was told by an angel that she would bear a son through the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). He was given a divine name (Matt. 1:23). Shepherds and wise men worshipped him as a baby (Matt. 2:11). Throughout his childhood, we see that his relationship with God transcended normal human experience. At the inauguration of his ministry, the Father spoke from heaven, informing us of Jesus’ unique identity (Matt. 3:17). Throughout his ministry, he said and did things that evidenced his divine status:

• He forgives sins (Luke 5:23)
• He promises blessings for those who are persecuted because of him (Matt. 5:11)
• He says that he has not come to abolish the Law and Prophets. Could a mere human even suggest that he has? (Matt. 5:17)
• He says that he determines who enters the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 7:21–23)
• He teaches others to give up their lives to follow Him (Matt. 16:25)
• He says that he will repay each person for what they have done (Matt. 16:27–28)
• The basis of judgment will be man’s relationship to him (Matt. 25:31–46)
• He speaks of “his angels” (Matt. 13:41; 16:27; 24:31)
• The only thing the rich young ruler lacks for eternal life is to follow him (Matt. 19:16–21)
• We are commanded to love Christ more than our own families (Matt. 10:37)
• Eternal life depends on belief in  Father and in Him (Jn. 17:3)

I agree with C.S. Lewis: these are either the ravings of a madman – or Jesus was God. Even the Holy Spirit does not draw attention to himself, but points to Christ (John 15:26; 16:13–14). At one point, Jesus openly proclaimed himself to be God and the leaders of the day were ready to stone him (John 10:33). The rest of the New Testament is filled with references to Christ’s deity (John 1:1 Jn. 1:1, 18 (not in King James Version), 8:58–59, 10:30–33, 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; 2 Thes. 1:12; 1 Tim. 3:15–16; Tit. 2:13; 2 Pet. 1:1; Heb. 1:3, 8; Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15–17, 2:9).

Why did God become man? For one, to communicate God to us (John 1:17; Heb. 1:1-2). What was his message? That he is the center of the universe and that the Uncaused Cause loves us and does not want any of us to be without him. But our sinfulness has separated us from God. For this reason also, God became man and lived a perfect life so that he could be a perfect savior. He is our ransom (Matt. 20:28). He did not come to show us the way to God, but to be the way to God (John 14:6). Eternal life with God is impossible without him. Without Christ, eternal death and judgement are all that await us (John 3:18). But to those who receive (trust in) Christ, he shares his life and glory as he was judged on our behalf (John 1:12). Jesus became man so that we might become children of God.

2 Cor. 5:21
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Jesus Christ is the God-man who takes away our sins and promises eternal life to all who trust in him.

Conclusion

Do I think God could be more clear than this? Of course. Could my faith be stronger than it is? Most certainly. And I hope it continues to grow. I have never heard God speak. I have never seen him with my eyes. I have never died and gone to heaven and come back again. I have never spoken in tongues. I have never even experienced a miracle that could not be explained outside of a belief in Jesus. There are times in my life when I think that the world functions just the way it would if God were not real. Often times I get frustrated with God. I doubt his love and his goodness. There are times when I entertain other worldviews. I have said before that if I were not a Christian, I am fairly certain I would remain a theist (believing in God). More specifically, I would probably be a deist since I don’t think any of the other religious options presented in world history are all that impressive or persuasive. When it comes to the big five parademic worldview options, I think deism (the belief that God created everything and has not communicated or intervened since) is the only option besides theism that is logically possible. As best I can tell, atheism, pantheism, and panentheism are all formally absurd. This means that they are not only less likely, but that they are logically impossible.

Again, this is my trek when I have my doubts. The points I provided above stabilize me. I am not saying they are going to stabilize you in the same way. These four points keep my faith anchored. There is a God. He has communicated. Jesus rose from the dead, demonstrating the truthfulness of his claims. And Jesus is God incarnate (“in the flesh”) who lived a perfect life, making life with God possible to all who put their trust in him.

I could believe more. My faith is not perfect. However, when my faith is challenged, these intellectual benchmarks serve as a powerful  immunity to doubt and disbelief. I could believe more. I hope each day that I believe more. Only in eternity will I have my faith fully vindicated. Only in eternity will my faith be perfect. But until then, these four points are sufficient for me not only to be a Christian, but to sacrifice every moment in service to Jesus.Similar Posts:

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The former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca once said: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”  This simple advice has wide-ranging application—whether we’re settling personal disagreements, planning our schedules, or trying to build bridges with non-Christians.

One area of bridge-building has to do with the creation-evolution “debate.”  In my book “That’s Just Your Interpretation” (Baker, 2001), I deal with a variety of philosophical and apologetical questions such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, Eastern monism and reincarnation, foreknowledge and free will, predestination, and the like. One question I address has to do with the Genesis-science issue.  I note that the fundamental question is not how old the earth is (although I do believe it is billions of years old); nor is the issue how long God took to create the universe (if we insist that God’s creating in six 24-hour days as more miraculous than a process of billions of years, this still wouldn’t be as miraculous as God’s creating in six nanoseconds…or just one!).  I also mention in the book that the fundamental issue to discuss with scientifically-minded non-Christians—the main thing—is not “creation vs. evolution”; rather, it is the question of “God vs. no God.”  There are, after all, evangelical theistic evolutionists such as theologian Henri Blocher and the late Christian statesman John Stott, and the theologian J.I. Packer seems quite open to theistic evolution (consider his endorsement of theistic evolutionist Denis Alexander’s book Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?).

Now I have my questions about evolution, but then again, a number of naturalists do too!  For example, the biochemist Franklin Harold writes: “We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity….but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”^[1] Hmmm…interesting.  At any rate, if evolution turns out to be true, then the Christian should embrace it as one dedicated to following the truth wherever it leads. This might mean reworking his interpretation of Genesis on the subject—much like Christians have had to rework their interpretation of biblical passages referring to the sun rising and setting, the earth not moving, or the earth resting on foundations.[2]

As I speak to secular audiences on university campuses and elsewhere, I don’t raise the creation vs. evolution issue.  Rather, for the sake of argument, I grant evolution and begin the discussion there. I don’t want people turned off to the gospel because I’ve lost sight of the main thing—the centrality of Jesus; unfortunately, a lot of well-meaning Christians do just that and end up running down this or that rabbit trail and never getting back to the main thing. Evolution is a secondary concern; we Christians should remember this when engaging with unbelievers rather than getting side-tracked.  Keep the main thing the main thing.

I typically highlight the following two points when speaking with naturalists.

1. If humans evolved from a single-celled organism over hundreds of millions of years, this is a remarkable argument from design!  Indeed, a lot of naturalists themselves utilize design language when referring to biological organisms—“machines,” “computer-like,” “appears designed” (a point I’ll address in a future blog posting). As believers, we shouldn’t be surprised to see God’s sustaining and providential hand operating through natural processes—though unfortunately even some believing scientists are reluctant to acknowledge this.  Alvin Plantinga’s recent book on God and science, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford), points out that the conflict is between naturalism and science, not God and science, even if this involves guided (not unguided) evolution. 

Now, the atheist Richard Dawkins has claimed that Darwin made it possible to be a fulfilled atheist.  Well, that’s not quite right. For one thing, Darwin himself didn’t see God and evolution in conflict with each other.  Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species (1859), “To my mind, it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes . . . .” And again: “There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one . . . from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”^[3] But there’s more for the atheist to consider.

2. Several significant steps or hurdles must be overcome before evolution can get going:  Many naturalists claim that “evolution can explain it all.” For example, Daniel Dennett asserts that Darwinistic evolution is a “universal acid” that eats through everything it comes into contact with.  The problem, however, is that a number of massive hurdles must be overcome before self-replicating life can even get a running start.  Here are the key hurdles:

• The origin of the universe from nothing: evolution’s no good without a universe in which it can unfold, and the universe began a finite time ago; it hasn’t always been around.
• The delicately-balanced, knife-edge universe requires many very specific conditions for life;
• The emergence of first life (and eventually consciousness): how life could emerge from non-life (or consciousness from non-conscious matter) continues to stump scientists; moreover, if humans could somehow produce life from non-life, this would simply show that this takes a lot of intelligent planning! Just because we have a life-permitting universe, this is no guarantee that it will be a life-producing universe.
• The continuation of life in harsh early conditions: even if life could come have into existence on its own from non-living matter, there would have been immense obstacles to initial life’s continuation, development, and flourishing.

When we’re looking at the odds in terms of probabilities, this is what we have:

Many naturalists will simply deny design at every stage (and for all of them).  It seems that no matter how much the odds are ramped up, design would never be acknowledged—an indication that the issue isn’t scientific after all.  This is a theological and philosophical issue.  At any rate, from the literal outset (the beginning of the universe) the falsity and folly of an “evolution did it all” explanation is apparent.

So the main thing is to keep the main thing: God vs. no God—not creation vs. evolution.  And if evolution turns out to be true, why couldn’t this be one of the means by which God brings about his purposes on earth? Indeed, God has revealed himself and his nature through two “books”—God’s Word and God’s world—and Christians should view them as ultimately in concord with one another.

Similar Posts:

• Expelled: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design – A Review
• Inferring Design from Anti-Design Scientists
• The Creation-Evolution Debate in a Nutshell
• The Language of God: Some Reflections on Francis Collins’s Perspectives on God and Science
• Six Views on the Creation/Evolution Debate

I have been a believer for quite sometime – since I was eight. It’s a miracle, however, that I believe at all. I grew up in a Oneness Pentecostal home that was very legalistic and rigid. Since then I have changed a great deal in regard to my beliefs. I very much believe in the Trinity, justification by faith, etc. So you could say I’m pretty much orthodox now. But with all that said, I have been having a bit of trouble with my faith. I’m kinda having a hard time believing in God or praying to him because I just don’t see the point in it anymore because I feel like he doesn’t answer. In fact I feel as if it pointless because he isn’t here – right here, spatially – to speak with me. I dunno I just feel like with all that I have happening in my life a face to face relationship – a person to person to person conversation – is what I need from him. And I can’t have that. I mean it is as if God is a distant uncle to whom I send letters (prayers), and he sends a postcard. Is it enough to just say that God has spoken through his word so he doesn’t need to speak now? I don’t feel like it. Why couldn’t Jesus have just stayed here, albeit in a ubiquitous form? That way I could talk to him. I know he is the Father’s representative to man and for man so why not stay here where he can be physically accessible?

__________________________________

My friend,

Thanks so much for writing and for your honesty. Your thoughts, it might comfort you to know, are not uncommon. The problem you speak of is called the “hiddenness of God” in theological circles. Why is God so hidden? It is hard to know exactly why, but the fact of his hiddenness is something the Bible speaks to very clearly. In Acts 1 the angels say, “Why do you stare into heaven. . . He will come back just as you have seen him go.” In other words, you will not “see” him again until he comes back. Christ told his disciples in the upper room before his death that it is “better for you if I go because I will send the Comforter.” I often think “it is NOT better for you to go because I cannot see or hear the Holy Spirit.”

I believe that naked belief (i.e., without empirical experience) is what God calls on us to have right now. We do have to “limp” through this life without having seen God or Jesus, yet believe in him. I don’t have any perfectly sound theological reason why God is not more empirically evident in our lives (though I will give some thoughts below). My more charismatic friends would disagree, as you probably know. However, I have called and called to God to show himself to me. In my darkest times (and against my better theological judgement), I have groped for a sign of his presence, love, even his very existence! Angels, Jesus, a sound, or some type of miracle would be sufficient. I remember two years ago when I was going through my depression. I stayed up all night crying, sitting in my car in the garage yelling at God, asking him to just do something - anything! The silence at that time was deafening. It was painful. It hurt my feelings at a very deep level that the all-powerful God would not perform the simplest of tasks. I thought, “God, if you are so great and love me so much why are you so silent? Why now? Why when I am this depressed? Just do something!”

But I think the empirical silence of God is normative for the Christian life. Philip Yancey says that we have to work with “rumors of another world.” In fact, ironically, if God were not empirically silent, the Bible would be in error. Peter says, “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:8-9; emphasis mine). You see, Peter here assumes that those in his day – even those so close to the life and death of Christ – have not seen Christ (or God or the Holy Spirit). Peter’s point would be moot if he did not mean to include all other forms of experiencing God empirically. The fact is that when Christ ascended into heaven, that was the last we have seen or heard from him in such a way. The door to the “other side” was shut.

If Peter’s statement was not enough, the Apostle Paul also says that the Christian life is a life following after the unseen: “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). He goes on by telling us that we “live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). Christ even told Thomas, who needed to see him before he believed, ”Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29; emphasis mine). The “those who have not seen” are us, and we are many. John could not be more clear here: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20, emphasis mine). John does not say, “whom he has probably not seen.” He works under the assumption that everyone reading his letter has not seen God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and (if I can be so bold) the “other side.” Finally, the author of Hebrews defines faith as something hoped for which is not seen: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1; emphasis mine). The very definition of our faith is that we have conviction about truths that cannot be empirically verified. This does not mean that faith is irrational. It just means that we should not expect to have it verified through our senses.

I am not saying that I have not seen God work in my life. I certainly have. However, my thinking and interpretation of his “movements” is possessed by my belief that he is moving in my life in non-dramatic ways. I see him in everything. I see him even in this email you sent to me. I believe that it is a “God thing.” Why? Because I am convinced of the central truths of Christianity and the reliability of the Bible. I feed off of this (even though I would rather have a periodic conversation with Christ face to face). We work with what we got: trusting God knows what he is doing.

However, I do believe that the silence of God serves a definite purpose. God’s silence, ironically, may serve to keep us productive in this life. It may keep us from (and I am getting dramatic here) committing suicide. Let me illustrate (as I have done before) by referencing my favorite show Justice League! It was an episode where Flash went so fast that he actually began to die and cross over to the “other side.” The molecules in his body were completely unstable and he was stuck between this world and the next. When prodded to come back, Flash had a hard time. He said, “But it is so beautiful over here.” Watch it here:

You see, the lines were blurred between this life and the next and Flash wanted to go to the next. He could not concentrate on this world any longer due to his exposure to the next. In other words, he wanted to die due to his empirical experience on the “other side.” He needed to have an experiential breach between this life and the next in order to remain here and accomplish his mission (gettin’ them bad guys). When “rumors of another world” turns into “experience of the other world,” we lose sight of this world.

I don’t think this story is too far from reality. You and I also need an experiential (empirical) breach from the “other side.” We need not to see Jesus. We need not to talk to Jesus. We need not to hear Jesus.

Let’s look at the example of the Disciples of Christ. The Disciples, understandably, did not want Jesus to die. When he spoke of his death, they were so bold as to desire to die with him. When Thomas - doubting Thomas, of all people! – thought Jesus was going to die, he said to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him” (John 11:16). I love it! A call for death in the name of the Lord! What a simple faith this expresses. Peter was no different when he said “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!”(Lk. 22:33). All who were with Jesus had empirical evidence of the “other side” in the person of Christ and they were not willing to let that go, even to death. In Acts 1:6, they still had hope that Christ had blurred the lines permanently: “Is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” But they had to watch as Christ was taken into the sky, never to be seen again until his second coming (Acts 1:9-11). The point is that the disciples would have gladly gone on a suicide mission with Christ if it meant a continuation of their exposure to the “other side” in the person of Christ.

You and I would do the same. Were God to show himself in the ways we so often think he should – were he to do things the way we would do them – we would probably never be able to accomplish our mission. We would continually be wanting to die in order to cross over. We would be like Flash, having empirical involvement in the world to come, but still having one foot in the current world. However, unlike Flash (who had Superman and Wonder Woman pulling him back!), we most definitely would cross over. Why wouldn’t we? The mysterious would be unmysterious. The lines between this life and the next would be so blurred that we would not hesitate to take that extra step of death, even by our own hand. At the very least, if God were to talk to us face to face, we would never get enough.

While I don’t claim to have all the answers as to why God does not allow us to experience him in such empirical ways, I suspect there is some truth to what I have said here. It is odd to say, but God’s silence may actually preserve his mission for us. The ability to be stable here in this life is actually facilitated by God’s (empirical) silence. I am not saying this is the only reason God is silent, but it does make sense.

Most importantly, while we should not expect to see God with our eyes nor hear him with our ears, God is not ignoring us. His presence is evident and he is not silent. He just moves in very unconventional ways!

Keep the faith my brother. If Christ rose from the grave, then we will one day see him face to face. Until then we must fight the good fight and run the race with our eyes set on the future.

 Similar Posts:

• Why is God So Silent?
• Questions I Hope No One Asks: Why Is God So Silent?
• The Anatomy of Belief (7): Real Life Conviction
• The Christian Message in 9 Words
• The Anatomy of Belief (8): First-Hand Conviction or “God Things”

Of course this is not the reason I had to put on my bulletproof vest. The post turned from a ”ho-hum” reminder to a slanderous “how could you?” when I used Roman Catholicism as an illustration of an institution that limits freedom. Further, from this, I suggested that true Roman Catholics cannot be good scholars. In order to qualify as “good” scholars, they have to be a bit rebellious.

I have been quite taken aback by the responses. Part of me is glad to see so many Protestants coming to the defense of Roman Catholics. It tells me that our readership is made up of those who are kind and gracious, not wanting to make unnecessary divides and not liking harsh rhetoric (which does nothing to advance our cause and does not honor Christ). Though I don’t think I made any overstatements or used sensationalistic rhetoric to make my point, I am glad to see pushback, so long as it is thoughtful. As well, I believe I have earned the right to write a “wounds of a friend” post every once in a while. Those of you who are regulars of this blog know that I don’t engage in polemics very often. I feel I have written in a balanced way over the years, even if it has not been perfect. But every so often I will write something that cuts to the quick. Looking back at this post, it would have done me well to preface it with a study on the Roman Catholic view of authority. This might have served as a reminder (to those of us who are Protestants) why we don’t believe in an infallible Magisterium, and why we do believe this body ultimately does much more harm than good.

My History with Roman Catholicism

When I was exploring the Roman Catholic faith many years ago, I did not do so as a mere outsider who was trying to gather apologetic ammo. I did so prayerfully and respectfully, wrestling with the Lord concerning every detail and doctrine. After nearly a year of daily engagement with Catholicism (sometimes for 4-5 hours a day – my whole family remembers that time!), reading and talking with the “best of” Roman Catholics, I came to understand Catholicism at a whole different level. My fellowship with many Catholics became so close and sweet that many of them approached me and said that they all knew that it was simply a matter of time before I converted. However, this was not to be.

During this time I reshaped my understanding of Catholicism in many ways. For example:

Prayers to Mary and the saints: I used to think that these amounted to worship of Many the saints. While this might be true of some Roman Catholics, it did not represent the true teaching of the Church on this matter. When Catholics pray to Mary and the saints, it is not unlike when you or I ask someone to pray for us. We are not worshiping the one we ask to pray for us, are we? When a Roman Catholic prays to a saint, they are simply asking them to intercede on their behalf the same way as when you or I ask a friend to pray for us. And from their perspective, who better to ask to pray for you then Mary, Jesus’ mother!

Yes, I still disagree with this practice, but I don’t view it as saint worship anymore.

Purgatory: I used to think this was a doctrine which expressed a wholly deficient view of the atonement. What Christ did was not enough. His payment was insufficient, so we must spend some atoning time in Purgatory. While this is the view of some Roman Catholics, others merely see it as “washing up before dinner.” In other words, all of us believe in some type of process that completely sanctifies us after death. We all believe that Christians die imperfect and fallen, but something happens between death and the presence of God, which makes us actually and totally free from all sin. What happens? What cleanses us? Catholics call this Purgatory. Many see it as a timeless (almost instantaneous) event. It is like our last surgery.

While I strongly disagree with any type of atoning event which uses suffering as its means of cleansing, I can live with this “modified” understanding of Purgatory without getting too bent out of shape these days.

Doctrinal Development: But hasn’t Catholicism changed so much over the years? How can they claim to be a stable entity when they have contradicted themselves so often? Those who are serious about understanding Roman Catholic theology as it stands today must engage An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Newman. In my opinion, it is the most important Roman Catholic apologetic work of the last two centuries, and possibly since the Reformation. In essence, Newman gives Rome an articulated defense of how and why Roman Catholic doctrine develops (i.e., it develops, but does not change).

Again, I disagree with the work’s final implications (that Rome has not really changed), but I can now understand how one can still have their historic integrity and their Catholicism, too.

My journey in and out of Roman Catholicism was an incredible struggle, filled with the fostering of new friendships, appreciation, and some degree of anxiety as I returned my visitor’s pass and sailed back across the Tiber. There are so many things to say, but I must move quickly to a justification of my last post concerning their scholarship.

Can Catholics Disagree with Rome and Remain Catholics?

As many of you know, my primary training is in New Testament studies. I love and respect theology, philosophy, and church history, but when push comes to shove, I want to know what the text says. I love to study commentaries. I love to read them cover to cover. Although I could do a much better job of it, I love to keep up on my Greek. Nothing persuades me of truth more than discovering it in the Bible. In short, I love exegesis.

Issues related to interpretation became a major focus of my conversations with Catholics. My primary question was this: What if I have an interpretation of a text that does not agree with Rome? Is that okay? What you have to know is that there is quit a bit of freedom to interpret in the Roman Catholic system. Wait. I know what you are thinking. Doesn’t that militate against what your previous post argued – that there is not academic freedom in Rome? Well, it depends on what you mean. You see, contrary to popular opinion, Rome has not spoken directly and dogmatically to many passages of Scripture. Even the Pope rarely, if ever, speaks infallibly. He is just as fallible as you or I 99.999% of the time. It is only when he speaks “from the chair” that his words are infallibly binding. And there is quite a bit of debate among Catholics as to when Popes have actually exercised this privilege. In other words, there is not a “Dogmatic-Required-by-Rome-Commentary” out there. The Pope and councils have not laid out how understand every text of the Bible. Therefore, there is some degree of freedom.

However, there are some passages, such as Matthew 16, that have been dogmatized (you know, the whole “Peter and the keys to heaven establishing the Papacy” thing). More importantly, theology has been dogmatized. In other words, however one reads the Scripture, in the end, the reading must fall in line with Roman Catholic theology.

So…can one interpret the Bible in a way that conflicts with Roman Catholic theology? The answer is no.

In my attempts to understand Roman Catholicism, I looked and looked for loopholes.

What if I come to the conviction that Mary was not ever-virgin? Can I teach accordingly? No.

What if I come to the conviction that missing mass on Sundays is not a mortal sin? Can I teach and act accordingly? No.

What if I came to the conclusion that the Bible teaches against the doctrine of Purgatory? Can I teach my kids this? No.

What if I disagreed with the doctrine of transubstantiation, believing that John 6 was not to be taken literally? Could I teach and believe accordingly? No. Well, not if I expect to be a true Roman Catholic.

What About Hans Kung?

In response to my last post, many people brought up the fact that there are many within the Catholic Church who have disagreed with the Church and are still in good standing. Therefore, they believe this invalidates my last post. Hans Kung is always the example in these cases! While it is true that Rome has not formally excommunicated Kung, this does not serve as a good illustration, as any good Catholic will inform you. One does not have to be formally excommunicated to have lost their standing in the Church. Think about it. I am sure that there are many everyday dads and moms and brothers and sisters who have never been formally “kicked out” of the Church, yet hold incredibly aberrant views. They are not “safe” simply because the institution has not formally recognized their apostasy. Apostasy is defined very clearly and happens upon the subject’s departure, not the Church’s recognition of this departure. So one should expect to find thousands, indeed millions, of examples of those who hold views different from Rome’s, but are still “members in good standing.”

Again, this was such an important question for me: Can one study the Bible and come to conclusions that are different than what has been dogmatized by Rome, and still be a true Catholic?

Let me quote Rome:

“23. When the Magisterium of the Church makes an infallible pronouncement and solemnly declares that a teaching is found in Revelation, the assent called for is that of theological faith. This kind of adherence is to be given even to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium when it proposes for belief a teaching of faith as divinely revealed.

When the Magisterium proposes ‘in a definitive way’ truths concerning faith and morals, which, even if not divinely revealed, are nevertheless strictly and intimately connected with Revelation, these must be firmly accepted and held.(22)” (emphasis mine; Source)

Accepted and held. This is more than a mere “I will not teach against this” like we have in the documents of membership at Stonebriar Community Church. This doctrines much be accepted and held. And this is not a passive acceptance, but one that must be firm.

Doesn’t Evangelicalism Have the Same Limits?

Finally, a word about Roman Catholicism compared to Evangelicalism. Many have objected to me using Rome as a punching bag, believing that if Catholicism lacks freedom, then the same must be said of Evangelicalism. In a way, I see where people are coming from. However, this does not really work. Evangelicalism is not an institution. It has no creeds, documents of incorporation, headquarters, president, or pope. In theory, Evangelicalism is descriptive of a movement with which like-minded believers network or identify. One cannot be “kicked out” of Evangelicalism. One does not become an Evangelical by vowing to submit to the authority or even the idea of Evangelicalism. Therefore, the comparison does not work.

I even had someone complain by saying that since I was a 5-point Calvinist, the same restraints were upon me. They said that I did not have the freedom to interpret the Scriptures outside of my 5-point Calvinistic paradigm. Again, this is in no way parallel. Not only is 5-point Calvinism not an institution to which I submit, it is merely a description of my beliefs. I am free to become a 4-point Calvinist tomorrow if I so desire. (And this  often happens!. Every time I study the book of John, or talk with Dr. Hall Harris III, I become more 4-point.)

Again, the end is the same. Becoming a Roman Catholic amounts to a submission of your beliefs to the authority of Rome. I think one can be a fine philosopher, sociologist, epistemologist, and ethicist and still be a Roman Catholic. However, when it comes to theology and, most specifically, exegetical studies of the Bible, I don’t think he or she can be a scholar, since they lack the academic freedom to disagree with Rome.

Contray to what many people have said, I don’t hate Rome. Maybe I should have used Mormonism as the example. You think there would have been less push-back if I did? I probably shouldn’t have used any illustration at all! Just left it as “Embracing Doubt.” Oh well, damage done.Similar Posts:

• In Defense of Sola Scriptura – Part Eight – What about all the divisions?
• Walking Away from Protestantism: Francis Beckwith Converts to Catholicism
• Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism: Has the Battle Ground Begun to Change?
• Essential Differences Between Catholics and Protestants
• Embracing Doubt or Why ‘Roman Catholic Scholarship’ is an Oxymoron

We’ve been engaging the thinking of Richard Dawkins, and more recently we’ve touched on the counterintuitive nature of (Dawkins’) naturalism.  I’ll be looking at the topic of naturalism’s counterintuitive claims regarding morality, but first the historical question of naturalism’s alleged link to human rights.

Dawkins, Human Rights, and Historical Connections

When Dawkins spoke Nova Southeastern relatively recently, he talked about how Enlightenment secularism gave rise to human rights.  This is a common claim made be naturalists, but it is simply false.  As human rights scholar Max Stackhouse of Princeton writes:  “intellectual honesty demands recognition of the fact that what passes as ‘secular,’ ‘Western’ principles of basic human rights developed nowhere else than out of key strands of the biblically-rooted religion.”^[1]   These rights are rooted in the biblical language of the “image of God”—and natural law (in the Middle Ages) and natural rights (in the modern world).  The two leading documents of the eighteenth century refer to God as the basis for human rights: the Declaration of Independence (which speaks of humans being “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (affirming human rights “in the presence and under the auspices” of God, “the Supreme Being”). 

More recently, the chief movers establishing a Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1948 (which speaks of humans being “endowed with reason and conscience”) were primarily church coalitions and individual Christian leaders who worked closely with some Jewish rabbis to create a “new world order” of human rights.^[2]

Jürgen Habermas is one of Europe’s most prominent philosophers today.  Another fact about Habermas: he’s a dyed-in-the-wool atheist.  Yet he highlights the inescapable historical fact that the biblical faith has had a profound influence in shaping civilization.  Consider carefully his assessment:

“Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than just a precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and a social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.  This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation.  To this day, there is no alternative to it.  And in light of current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage.  Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.”^[3]

Even non-Westerners have come recognized the remarkable impact of the Christian faith in the West.  TIME magazine’s well-respected correspondent David Aikman reported the summary of one Chinese scholar’s lecture to a group of eighteen American tourists: 

“One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world,” he said.  “We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective.  At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.  Then we thought it was because you had the best political system.  Next we focused on your economic system.  But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion:  Christianity.  That is why the West has been so powerful.  The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics.  We don’t have any doubt about this.”^[4]

This lecturer was not some ill-informed crackpot.  To the contrary, he represented one of China’s premier academic research organizations—the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

This isn’t surprising.  Intrinsic human dignity and worth make sense if we have been made in God’s image rather than being mere molecules in motion.  Biblical theism has the metaphysical capital to sustain the concept of human rights.  Our law courts and legal system assume that humans don’t simply dance to the music of their DNA.  The criminal’s excuse (“Your honor, my genes made me do it”) flies in the face of what we all know of human nature and our presumption of moral responsibility.  Human value and moral agency make better sense if we have come from a supremely valuable being beyond nature.  We certainly have no rational justification to anticipate the emergence of intrinsic human dignity and worth if we are simply the products of mindless, deterministic, valueless material forces in a purposeless cosmos.

Many Naturalists Themselves Acknowledge No Room for Objective Morality

Another point that undercuts objective morality and human dignity given naturalism is that many naturalists themselves see the logical outcome of their own metaphysic.  Naturalism, they argue, simply lacks the metaphysical equipment to account for objective moral values.  Many naturalists admit that natural material processes without God cannot bring us to moral responsibility and human dignity and worth.  These features of reality—which we routinely assume—don’t square well with naturalism.  Here’s a sampling of key naturalists on this topic:

• Friedrich Nietzsche: “Moral judgments agree with religious ones in believing in realities which are no realities….There are altogether no moral facts.”  Indeed, morality “has truth only if God is the truth—it stands or falls with faith in God.”^[5]
• Jean-Paul Sartre: “It [is] very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him.”^[6]
• Bertrand Russell believed that “the whole subject of ethics arises from the pressure of the community on the individual.”^[7]
• E. O. Wilson locates moral feeling in “the hypothalamus and the limbic system”; it is a “device of survival in social organisms.”^[8]
• Jonathan Glover considers morality a “human creation” and calls on humans to “re-create ethics.”^[9] 

We could add lots more leading naturalists—J.L. Mackie, James Rachels, Peter Singer, and the like; these acknowledge that nature can’t get us to objective moral values and human dignity. 

Science’s Inability to Move Us from “Is” to “Ought.”

Dawkins admits, “Science has no methods for deciding what is ethical.”^[10]  The study of natural processes can’t get from the way things are to the way things ought to be.  Yet why does Dawkins consider religion   “the root of all evil,” as his BBC documentary affirms?

The popular writer Michael Shermer affirms that our remote ancestors have genetically passed on to us our sense of moral obligation within, and this is reinforced by group pressure. Ultimately, to ask, “Why should we be moral?” is like asking, “Why should we be hungry or horny?”^[11]   But this doesn’t mean that I have a moral obligation to eat.  I just have this inclination, and I do it.  If I don’t eat, then I starve.

C. S. Lewis was familiar with such reasoning.  He argued that given such naturalistic conditions, moral impulses are no more true (or false) than “than a vomit or a yawn.”^[12]  Thinking “I ought” is on the same level of “I itch.” Indeed, “my impulse to serve posterity is just the same sort of thing as my fondness for cheese” or preferring mild or bitter beer.^[13]  All naturalism can do is describe human behavior.  It can’t prescribe human behavior, nor can it ground moral obligation.  How do we move from the “is” of the natural world to the “ought” of ethics?  Naturalism doesn’t inspire confidence that we really have duties and that we ought to be virtuous.

If ethical beliefs are simply hard-wired into us for our fitness and survival, we have no reason to think these beliefs are true or that we ought to act in a certain way; these beliefs simply are. If, as Francis Crick argues, human identity (“you”) is simply “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules,”^[14] then such a perspective is only accidentally correct. After all, this belief itself is the result of “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules”! 

At his talk at Nova, Richard Dawkins said that everyone knows that rape is wrong.  How can he say this from a “scientific” point of view?  And what if rape is completely natural—that it enhances survival and reproduction?  The book A Natural History of Rape^[15] (coauthored by a biologist and an anthropologist) maintains that rape can be explained biologically: “[Rape] is a natural phenomenon that is a product of the human evolutionary heritage” comparable to “the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck.”^[16] 

How does this work?  When a male cannot find a mate, his subconscious drive to reproduce his own species pushes him to force himself upon a female. Such acts happen in the animal kingdom (e.g., male mallards or scorpionflies). Now the authors do not advocate rape; in fact, they claim that rapists are not excused for their (mis)behavior. But we have to ask:  why oppose an act that is as “natural” as granola?  Why stop an act that may enhance survival and reproduction?  To appeal to a standard outside nature suggests that a transcendent realm exists—that nature is insufficient to account for our opposition to what is natural.

Given naturalism, it appears that humans could have evolved differently and inherited rather contrary moral beliefs (“rules”) for the “chess game” of survival. Whatever those rules, they would still direct us toward surviving and reproducing. Ruse (with E. O. Wilson) gives an example: instead of evolving from “savannah-dwelling primates,” we, like termites, could have evolved needing “to dwell in darkness, eat each other’s faeces, and cannibalise the dead.” If the latter were the case, we would “extol such acts as beautiful and moral” and “find it morally disgusting to live in the open air, dispose of body waste and bury the dead.”^[17]

According to Ruse, our awareness of morality (“a sense of right and wrong and a feeling of obligation to be thus governed”) is of “biological worth,” serves as “an aid to survival,” and “has no being beyond this.”^[18]  He has claimed, rather, than morality is a corporate illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.

The theist doesn’t have to take such a counterintuitive positions and metaphysical gymnastics.  He is properly placed to affirm intrinsic dignity and moral duty rooted in a supremely valuable, worship-worthy Creator.  Such a moral perspective flows more naturally from theism than from naturalism.

Similar Posts:

• God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality
• Reason, Personal Responsibility, and Naturalism’s Counterintuitive Claims: Response to Dawkins, Part IV
• The Moral Indignation of Richard Dawkins
• Richard Dawkins: Advocate of Science or Self-Refuting Scientism? – Response to Dawkins, Part III
• The Language of God: Some Reflections on Francis Collins’s Perspectives on God and Science

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Though I am not too comfortable once we, as fallen, ill-informed humans, began to incorporate a “greater-good” theology into our lives, practically speaking it seems anything can be justified when the door is open for us to find a “greater good” that might come from any particular unrighteous action. Of course, it is not always cut-and-dry. Often, when people seek my advice on these matters, I want to hide. Some things are just too hard to give advice on. Take marital issues, for example:

1. A wife comes to you and says that her marriage is falling apart. She and her husband have tried and tried, but their marriage is, according to her, beyond hope. They fight continually in front of the kids. They bring out the worst in each other. The marriage has changed both of them into bitter, unhappy people. Their kids are suffering greatly due to their unhappiness and seeing a terrible example of marriage.

It is a sin to get a divorce. However, the attitudes that they continually bring out in each other are terribly sinful as well. Not to mention that they are hurting the kids. Which is the greater evil? Which is the greater good?

2. A wife comes to you and says that her husband is crazy. Although he has never cheated on her, he is completely controlling. He tells her she has to stay at home all day and be a “good housewife.” He does not allow her to have any friends. She cannot decorate her home. He has a private eye watching her to make sure she is obedient when he is not around. He has a gun and has threatened her with it before. The kids are exposed to all of this.

It is a sin to get a divorce. But she wonders what kind of effect her husband’s life and attitude is having on the kids. She does not want them to grow up to be like him. Which is the greater evil? Staying with him, or leaving? Which is the greater good? Staying with him and enduring, or leaving and protecting herself and her children?

This is real-life stuff. Both of these examples are true (slightly modified). Both women approached me for advice. Obviously, the second one is much more difficult than the first.

Is it legitimate to seek a greater good? Is it biblical? If so, how do we draw the line? Can’t we always justify things by finding some “greater good”?

Some people believe that God, through example, implicity demonstrates a greater good approach many times in Scripture. For example, Samuel was supposed to anoint David as king. But if he did, Saul would kill him. He asks for the Lord’s advice and the Lord tells him to say he is going to go sacrifice (i.e., leave out the part about anointing a new king). Here is the account:

1 Samuel 16:1-2
The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” 2 But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” The LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’

Was it a greater good to lie so that a new king could be crowned? Would the greater evil have been to tell the truth?

Then there is God’s implicit approval of the Hebrew midwives who lied about giving birth to Hebrew sons (Ex. 1:17). It even says that they lied because “they feared God”! Rahab is also honored for lying about the presence of Israelites in her apartment (Josh. 2:4). Rahab even made it into the great “hall of faith” for her lie (Heb. 11:31).

Are these examples where “greater-good” morality is not only approved but prescribed? If so, doesn’t this open Pandora’s box? How can such morality be regulated? Who determines what the greater good actually is? Sure, there are easier and “harmless” examples, like speeding to the hospital when someone is injured. But most are not so easy.

BTW: On the second example of the two women, I advised the woman to do everything she could to “remain faithful to the Lord,” trusting him for the outcome. She did. Then she killed herself about a year later.Similar Posts:

• Is the Threat of Divorce Ever Justified?
• Is Divorce Ever Biblical?
• How My Passion for Ministry Almost Ended My Marriage
• Doing missions when dying is gain
• God as My Husband?

Let me begin by explaining libertarian freedom, and the reason why most Calvinists deny the concept. (Just scroll to the end if you already know what libertarian freedom is.)

Libertarian Freedom

Libertarian Freedom is often described as “the power of contrary choice.” In other words, the one who believes in libertarian freedom believes that in any given circumstance, when a choice is made, the chooser had the “power” or ability to choose differently. For example, even though this blog is already written, I could have chosen not to write it.

That seems self-evident and rather intuitive as our days are made up of the sum total of all our choices. We make thousands of conscious and unconscious decisions every day in which there are multiple options present. As well, we hold people accountable for their choices because we assume that they could have done otherwise. We tell our children to clean up their room. If they disobey, we discipline them, believing that they had the power of contrary choice (i.e. they could have obeyed!).

As easy as this concept is to accept from a very practical standpoint, from both a philosophical and theological point of view, it is hardly so cut and dry. If you ask me whether a person has the power of contrary choice, I would answer “no.”

Hang with me. The basic argument would be this. Any given choice that a person makes is not made in a vacuum. In other words, none of our choices are birthed out of neutrality. It is a person who makes the choice, not some innocent bystander called “free will.” By the time any given choice is made, the person making the choice will already be, by nature, predisposed to make that choice. This does not mean that the outcome is determined by an outside agency (determinism) nor does it mean that the choice in inevitable (fatalism), but that it is self-determined. Simply put, a person’s nature makes up who they are. Who they are determines their choice. Therefore, people always choose according to who they are at the moment. There is no “power” of contrary choice, for we cannot identify what or who this “power” might be.

Arminians such as Roger Olson believe that when we reject God, we do so out of a neutralized will (total depravity + previenient grace).

Calvinists such as myself believe that when we reject God, we do so out of a fallen will (total depravity).

Think about all that goes into making who you are. We are born in the fallen line of Adam. Spiritually speaking, we have an inborn inclination toward sin. All of our being is infected with sin. This is called “total depravity.” Every aspect of our being is infected with sin, even if we don’t act it out to a maximal degree.

But even if this were not the case—even if total depravity were a false doctrine—libertarian freedom would still be untenable for humans. Not only are you who you are because of your identification with a fallen human race, but notice all these factors that you did not choose that go into the setup for any given “free will” decision made:

• You did not choose when you were to be born.
• You did not choose where you were to be born.
• You did not choose your parents.
• You did not choose your influences early in your life.
• You did not choose whether you were to be male or female.
• You did not choose your genetics.
• You did not choose your temperament.
• You did not choose your looks.
• You did not choose your body type.
• You did not choose your physical abilities.

All of these factors play an influential role in who you are at the time of any given decision. Yes, your choice is free, but it has you behind it. Therefore, you are free to choose according to you from whom you are not able to free yourself!

Now, I must reveal something here once again that might surprise many of you. This view is held by both Calvinists and Arminians alike. Neither position believes that a person can choose against their nature. However, Arminians (such as Olson) differ from Calvinists in that they believe in the doctrine of “prevenient grace,” which essentially neutralizes the will so that the inclination toward sin—the antagonism toward God—is relieved and the person can make a neutral decision.

However, we still have some massive difficulties. Here are a few:

A neutralized will amounts to your absence from the choice itself.

Changing the nature of a person so that their predispositions are neutral does not really help. We are back to the question What does a neutralized will look like? Does it erase all of the you behind the choice? If you are neutralized and liberated from you, then who is making the choice? How can you be held responsible for a choice that you did not really make, whether good or bad?

A neutralized will amounts to perpetual indecision.

Think about this, if a person had true libertarian freedom, where there were no coercive forces, personal or divine, that influenced the decision, would a choice ever be made? If you have no reason to choose A or B, then neither would ever be chosen. Ronald Nash illustrates this by presenting a dog who has true libertarian freedom trying to decide between two bowls of dog food. He says that the dog would end up dying of starvation. Why? Because he would never have any reason to choose one over the other. It is like a balanced scale, it will never tilt to the right or the left unless the weight (influence) on one side is greater than the other. Then, no matter how little weight (influence) is added to a balanced scale, it will always choose accordingly.

A neutralized will amounts to arbitrary decisions, for which one cannot be held responsible.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that libertarian choice could be made. Let’s say that the dog did choose one food bowl over the other. In a truly libertarian sense, this decision cannot have influences of any kind. Any decision without influences is arbitrary. It would be like flipping a coin. I chose A rather than B, not because of who I am, but for no reason at all. It just turned out that way. But this option is clearly outside a biblical worldview of responsibility and judgment. Therefore, in my opinion, the outcome for the fight for true libertarian free will comes at the expense of true responsibility!

Bottom line:  while I believe people have free will, I don’t believe people have libertarian free will. We make the choices we make because of who we are. We are responsible for these choices. God will judge each person accordingly with a righteous judgment.

Is there tension? Absolutely. We hold in tension our belief in God’s sovereignty, determining who we are, when we live, where we will live, who our parents will be, our DNA, etc. and human responsibility. While this might seem uncomfortable, I believe that it is not only the best biblical option, but the only philosophical option outside of fatalism, and we don’t want to go there.

Acts 17:26-28
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.”

Does God have libertarian freedom?

Now we come to the question of the hour. Roger Olson asks, in essence, Does God have libertarian freedom?

You see, pantheism believes that God (an impersonal being) created the world out of necessity. He did not make a choice, much less a libertarian free choice. But Christians are not pantheists. We do not believe that God was compelled to create the universe, but did so out of his own freedom. In other words, he could have chosen not to make the universe. Therefore if you are a Christian, no matter what tradition you are from, I think you must believe that God has the power of contrary choice. God has true freedom in a way that we don’t.

However, this does not mean we believe that God has the ability to choose against his nature. Roger Olson asks, “Is God the prisoner of his own wisdom (or of anything)?” “Prisoner” is loaded term. I could load it another way: “Is God faithful to his own wisdom (or to anything)?” The answer must be qualified.

God’s wisdom cannot be separated from who he is. We call this the doctrine of simplicity. God is a simple being. No, this does not mean that he is easy to figure out. It means that God is not composed of parts. It means that God is one. It means that God is indivisible. We cannot separate God’s wisdom from his nature. Though we often distinguish between God’s attributes in ways that imply separation, we need to be careful. God is righteous. God is love. God is holy. God is wise. But these are not separate attributes, as if the sum total of them define his being or essence. They are all who he is. He is wise-loving-holy-righteous. They are the same in essence.

Therefore, when we ask if God is a “prisoner” to his wisdom (or any one of his attributes), it is like asking “Is God a prisoner to who he is?” The answer is an unqualified “yes.” If he is not, then all of Christianity is in jeopardy and our salvation is contingent upon God’s submission to outside principles such as wisdom and faithfulness. But God is wisdom. God is faithful. His very nature defines these concepts. God could no more act unwise or unfaithful then he could cease to be God. God is who he is, eternally and immutably (unchangeably).

So when we talk about libertarian freedom with regard to God, we must distinguish between two aspects of it:

1. Could God have chosen differently than he chose (say in making the universe)? Yes. God, being transcendent to cause and effect relationships—being beyond time—does not have any prior causes to his actions. He has no parents, events, or culture which influences any decision. All his actions are birthed out of the “eternal now” and are, therefore, truly free. We are not pantheists. We are theists. God’s transcendent nature necessitates a freedom that we don’t experience.

2. Can God act against his own nature? No. God always acts according to who he is. By definition, God will always remain faithful to himself. 2 Timothy 2:13 puts it this way: “He cannot deny himself.” He is righteous and will always act accordingly when justice is on the table. God is love and will always act in accordance with his love. God is wise and cannot ever make an unwise choice. Therefore, when the choice involves God choosing or not choosing in accordance with his character, he will always choose according to who he is.

Was the creation of the universe necessitated out of his character? No. God did not have to create this universe. He did not have to create me. He did not have to choose you for salvation. He did not have to send his Son to die for us. These are true free will decisions.

So, I am willing to say that God has a qualified libertarian freedom: God has the power of contrary choice so long as it is not contrary to his nature.

While I don’t think that this is a “soft-ball” question, I do think it is something that Calvinists can answer with some degree of confidence. Understanding God’s decisions in relation to his eternality is inscrutable. We can only explain what must be. Now, if I were asked where Satan’s decision to rebel came from, I would have no satisfying answer as a Calvinist.

That is the best I’ve got, Dr. Olson. Love your stuff.Similar Posts:

• A Calvinist’s Understanding of “Free-Will”
• Why I Reject the Arminian Doctrine of Prevenient Grace
• Why Calvinism is the Least Rational Option
• Some Misconceptions about Calvinism
• Do Roger Olson and I Worship the Same God?

• Nature is all there is.
• All reality is comprised of or rooted in matter.
• There is no supernatural—no Creator, no miracles, no souls,
  no angels, no life after death.
• Science becomes the only (or best) means of knowledge. 

Richard Dawkins is a four-point naturalist.  Such a position, however, defies our most basic intuitions and assumptions about human experience. Naturalism’s logically leads to:

• the impossibility of knowledge;
• the unreliability of reason;
• the denial of free will and personal responsibility;
• the undermining of human rights and dignity

I’ve already touched on the first two points (on the impossibility of knowledge and reliable reason) in a previous post, but let me review before addressing the matter of free will/personal responsibility.

Knowledge is warranted true belief.  It’s not enough to have true belief, since you can believe something that’s true but in a totally fluky way.  And Dawkins is right—that we just dance to the music of our DNA—then he himself is dancing to his own DNA.  Dawkins has accidental true belief, but that’s not knowledge. If our beliefs are determined and we believe that determinism is true, then this is just a lucky coincidence—again, not knowledge.  Those who reject determinism are still determined to believe what they do.  Yet Dawkins claims to know his view is true and that he is more rational than the theist.

Naturalistic evolution is interested in survival, not truth. As naturalistic philosopher of mind Patricia Churchland puts it: 

“Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principal chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive….Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”^[1]

The late atheist philosopher Richard Rorty echoed Churchland’s analysis of the implications of Darwinian theory: “The idea that one species of organism is, unlike all the others, oriented not just toward its own uncreated prosperity but toward Truth, is as un-Darwinian as the idea that every human being has a built-in moral compass—a conscience that swings free of both social history and individual luck.” ^[2]

If naturalistic evolution is interested in survival rather than truth, I may believe a lot of things that help me to survive—human dignity and worth, human rights. But these beliefs may be completely false.  On the other hand, if we are truth-seeking beings (a reflection of what the Bible calls “the image of God”), this makes a lot better sense if a rational, intelligent being created us to think or reason—to have genuine knowledge. Being made in the image of a rational God means we have good reason to trust our minds as generally reliable rather than malfunctioning or systematically misleading us.

So much for review.  Another implication of naturalism is that it must deny free will or personal responsibility.  If matter is all the reality there is, how could free will emerge?  Our beliefs are the necessary result of certain physical inputs.  It’s like a prism of colors that is inevitably formed when sunlight is refracted through mist or rain.  Certain physical inputs lead necessarily to certain outputs.

On naturalism, there is no self that makes decisions, and no “decisions” really matter.  The buck doesn’t stop with the agent since “no one” is making those decisions.  “Choices” are not up to me.  They are the product of material forces that impose themselves on each of us—forces over which we have no control.

Atheist philosopher of mind John Searle of Berkeley makes this quite clear.  “Physical events can have only physical explanations, and consciousness is not physical, so consciousness plays no explanatory role whatsoever. If, for example, you think you ate because you were consciously hungry, or got married because you were consciously in love with your prospective spouse, or withdrew your hand from the flame because you consciously felt a pain, or spoke up at a meeting because you consciously disagreed with the main speaker, you are mistaken in every case. In each case the effect was a physical event and therefore must have an entirely physical explanation.”^[3]

If you look at the website, www.naturalism.org, many noted atheists like Daniel Dennett are on its advisory board.  This site claims:  “From a naturalistic perspective . . . [h]uman beings act the way they do because of the various influences that shape them, whether these be biological or social, genetic or environmental. We do not have the capacity to act outside the causal connections that link us in every respect to the rest of the world. This means we do not have what many people think of as free will, being able to cause our behavior without our being fully caused in turn.”^[4]

Naturalist Michael Ruse tells it to us straight:  we merely think morality is objective and binding upon us—but that’s totally false.^[5] We believe the illusion of moral realism and moral obligation; without this strong impulse, Ruse declares, we would disregard or disobey morality. “If you think about it, you will see that the very essence of an ethical claim, like ‘Love little children,’ is that, whatever its truth status may be, we think it binding upon us because we think it has an objective status.”^[6] This is a corporate illusion that has been “fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.”^[7]

When we are assessing a worldview and whether we should accept it, one of the criteria we should use is whether the worldview can be lived out consistently or if we have to systematically live at odds with it.  Does our worldview disallow us to practice what we preach?

Richard Dawkins confesses: “As an academic scientist, I am a passionate Darwinian, believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in evolution, certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of purpose which so strikes all who contemplate nature. But at the same time as I support Darwinism as a scientist, I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs.”^[8]  Why, if Darwinism creates the illusion of purpose, has Dawkins been able to see clearly?  Why isn’t he under the illusion of purpose?

Theism doesn’t have to resort to such metaphysical hypocrisy. The theistic context—of a personal agent who freely creates—affords a setting to anticipate or expect creaturely agents who can freely make decisions.  Even if environment and genetics influence choices, they do not determine them. Unlike Dawkins and his naturalistic views, we can be passionate theists both in theory and in practice.

Similar Posts:

• Richard Dawkins: Advocate of Science or Self-Refuting Scientism? – Response to Dawkins, Part III
• Morality and Naturalism’s Counterintuitive Claims: Response to Dawkins, Part V
• Richard Dawkins: A Philosophical and Theological Lightweight? Responding to Dawkins, Part II
• My Recent Interaction with Richard Dawkins
• Expelled: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design – A Review

PLEASE NOTE: this is in no way attempting to be prophetic.

click on graphic to enlarge

My primary goal here is to show my developing perspective on the history of the church. Protestants believe in “development.” Unlike the Eastern Orthodox, we are not trying to get back to the beliefs and the practices of the first few hundred years of the church. While we, as the graph shows, believe that there are wonderful “states of being” in every life-stage, our desire is to learn from the past and mature.

DNA: DNA is the basic building blocks of life. Everything you are has been encoded on your unique DNA from your conception. In the church, the DNA never changes. Further life-stages are merely a working out, maturation, and development of this DNA. When God’s special revelation was finalized at the completion of the canon of Scripture, the DNA code was manifest and ready for development. While the church goes through maturation, the basic doctrinal components will always be recognizable and reflective of its DNA. The DNA determines the orthodoxy and catholicity (universality) of the church.

Infancy: Like when a child is born and just beginning to discover and experience the world through sense perception, love, and intimacy, the earliest church, after the death of the Apostles, is birthed into a time of self-realization. On the run from persecution and attempting to find its place in a very diverse world, the church experiences a time of innocence. Words are just being formed. Though the concepts are present, the church lacks the sophistication to articulate itself well. Doctrines such as the Trinity and Atonement are present in seed form, but have yet to find a definite expression.

Adolescence: Like a child who is now out in the real world, expression and discovery are greatly realized. The church, being free to worship due to the civil toleration of its faith, begins to mingle with others, both believers and unbelievers. The purity of the fellowship experienced previously begins to give way to differences and corruptions in the real world. This forces the church to more precisely discover and define itself for the purpose of self-preservation. The great creeds and councils of the church are realized during this time.

Teens: Moving out of adolescence, people enter into the time of life where they are increasing in knowledge, but their lack of wisdom, which can only be gained through experience and critical thinking, creates attitudes and dispositions that can be very immature. Knowing the basics of life and how to express them, we turn into bigger-than-life know-it-alls. The church seems to have gone through its teen years during the “Dark” or Middle Ages. If “Dark Ages” can be used of teens, it seems to fit well with the church. The church over-defines itself and begins to take on an air of arrogance leading to the need for dramatic change. While the DNA is still present, it is during this time that we experience physical, mental, and emotion distortions more than any other.

Twenties: During our twenties, a transformation and maturation takes place that saves us from our rebellious teen years. We often think of our twenties are the “red-faced” era where we are redeeming, restoring, and reforming our lives (which almost ended during the teens!). Experience and mature thinking produce stability and hope. Our parents become “pretty smart people” for the first time. In the maturation of the church, we look to the time of the Reformation for such redeeming stability. The Reformation presented the church with a time of doctrinal reflection, stabilization, and maturation.

Thirties and Forties: During this time, we have a good ten to twenty years of “the real world” behind us. Reflection on ideals, hopes, and dreams presents us with a time of adjustment. Often, unmet expectations, difficulties of marriage, paying bills, and children of our own bring us to the brink of disaster. We call this a “mid-life crisis”. The fork in the road is definite. We have been climbing ropes for a long time. We now either decide to find new ropes or hold on to a certain few more tightly. This seems to where the church is at now. Much doubt, depression, and disillusionment. Many adjustments are being made. Some are abandoning traditional Christianity alltogether, rejecting those things that have been a part of the DNA for tw0 thousand years. Others are losing their grips on the weaker ropes and tightening their grips on the stronger. Either way, we seem to be at a fork in the road.

Fifties and beyond: Though I am not there, I see the fifties and beyond (so long as people make it this far with their sanity in tact!) as a great time of maturity. Here, decisions have been made and values established through both knowledge and experience. We call this “wisdom.” The church, as a whole (in my opinion) has not made it here yet. The “mid-life crisis” that we are in will, hopefully, move us in this direction soon. I pray that we hold on to the right ropes (though I know we will—Matt. 16:18).

Again, please understand, this is not prophetic or predictive in any way. Also understand that this concerns the church as a whole, not necessarily every individual in the church. I could expand on this quite a bit more, but then I would be forcing things too much into these categories (the analogy can only go so far). That is not what I am trying to do. I am merely presenting this as a “philosophy of Church history” that can help people understand the maturation process of the church while accounting for and appreciating the change and difficulties that arise along the way.

May God be glorified through the maturing of the church and may the Holy Spirit give us wisdom to continue to grow as the Body of Christ.Similar Posts:

• “How People Become Evangelists of Unbelief” or Leaving (Christ)ianity – An Evangelical Epidemic
• Not “Something on a Stick”
• Doing Philosophy Under the Cross
• The Anatomy of Belief (3): Belief Without Conviction
• Orthodoxy, Theological Maturity, and the Development of Doctrine: From Theological DNA to Maturity