“If God doesn’t judge America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah,” Huh?

Singing the Blues With Jesus

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Fighting for the Faith

Radical Grace

If I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry, and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. And this to me is the final test. This is how I distinguish between dreaming and waking. When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. The dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams; I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner; I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world; the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I can see it, but because by it I see everything else. – C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry” in The Weight of Glory

HT: Tabula Plena

I have had the pleasure of engaging dialog on things of faith and science with atheist friends and family on more than one occasion. Either the conversation has centered around the evidence for a Creator, or it has centered on the foundation of morality. I am, in this post, more interested about atheism and inferred foundations of ethics and morality.

A while back, there was an advertising campaign in London, if I recall correctly, that questioned the need to believe in God to be ‘good.’

The question that should follow is this: why be good for goodness’ sake? For the sake of argument, let us assume a materialistic world-view: suppose there is no God. All that exists is matter that has collected itself into different forms by natural processes without any intervention outside of nature. This matter either created itself ex nihilo, from nothing, or has existed for eternity. Those options are all that is reasonably available to the materialist without regard to the cosmological flavor to the day.

Following that matter is all there is, then life must be a product of natural forces and processes, some inferred to be random, and is imbued with no special significance other than that found in the unimaginable enormity of the odds stacked against life rising from said undirected natural processes. We are here, to reiterate, due only to natural selection driven by random mutation and environmental pressures.

The bottom line is this: all there is…is matter. Following inexorably is death. All life ends in death and the annihilation of self, of consciousness, for the self-aware. All that remains is the decayed flesh and the memories of self carried by those who briefly remain after one departs, dies. Those memories, too, will be eventually be erased by time as will every edifice, every proud monument, constructed by the defiant, hairless ape. To assert otherwise is shear irrational romanticism, perhaps itself a survival mechanism born in light of consciousness, of self-awareness aware of death, before a vast, uncaring universe.

So then, we courageously exhort one another, given what ultimately lies before us, to be good for goodness sake. Again, why? How can anything be called evil, or good, in light of mere insensate matter being the ultimate arbiter? Do we call the actions, the effects, of tornadoes, chipmunks, and supernova good or evil? No, we do not. In a materialistic context, we can only say we prefer one action over another. We can only say some things are better for the functioning of society than others. Common good of society becomes the arbiter of good and evil. Again, why? Why should I care about the common good of society? Pragmatism, utilitarianism fail here. Who decides what is the common good? Society, a majority?   What about societies with differing standards?  Why should I, as an individual, even care about the common good? Is survival of the species the most important moral imperative? The earth, the universe, does not care on whit if humanity lives another moment or a thousand millennia. To state otherwise is, again, unabashed, irrational romanticism. Ultimately, there are no consequences for behavior if one can get away with it. Death is the common leveler and materialism is the ultimate reducing agent of morality.

The bottom line is this: humanity has no intrinsic value if we are only products of blind natural forces and process; there is no firm foundation for morality. Atheism, in its reductionism and when honestly examined, places a value on humanity that is tenuous and at very best utilitarian. The question that follow is this, who, or what, imbues us with this utilitarian value? Progressive, secular, egalitarian, compassionate societies in the west engage abortion on demand, infanticide, and euthanasia. Do you remember the circumstances that bought about the death of Terri Schiavo?

I can’t let others off the hook. Just any theism won’t do. Pantheism -belief in a impersonal ‘all is god, god is all’ – , foundational to much of New Age spiritualism, and deism – belief in an uninvolved, impersonal ‘watchmaker god’-, what many embrace, acknowledged or not, in actual function, are really in little better, if any, condition to provide intrinsic value to humanity. Too, what of that errant offspring of orthodox Christianity, the progressive Universalist, those who assert that eventually all go to heaven? Essentially, this is just a weak-kneed flip-side to atheism. In some respects, I would love for Univeralism to be true, but if so, there would be no accountability for moral actions if there is no punishment, no retribution for evil, no justice. Here is an undemanding god of love, but without the absolute holiness of the triune God. Is Stalin in heaven with the god of Univeralism?

Also, I absolutely do not infer that atheists are better or worse than theists in their ethics and behaviors. All I am saying is that their moral foundation is, consciously or not, second-hand, pirated, derived from that which they have rejected. Also, I do not infer that belief in God equals high morality in practice. People obviously act in opposition to what they profess to believe all the time. That many have done evil in the name of religion does not invalidate the assertion that a personal, transcendental God is foundational for morality.

It is only the fact that mankind, even in our fallen state, is created in the image of the personal, holy Triune God of the Old and New Testament that we find any intrinsic value and worth.

I want to end on the following, on the day before Christmas, with these words from an earlier post:

As profound and foundational are the doctrines of the trinity and the physical resurrection of the Messiah, and absolutely in no means do I intend to diminish their import, it is the incarnation of our Savior that leaves me most breathtakingly at a loss for words. That Christ, fully almighty God, immutable and fully in transcendence over creation, Who spoke into existence, ex nihilo, the natural order, should step out of eternity and condescend to take on flesh, a sinless human nature, and, out of love, subject Himself to a fallen creation, leaves me wanting for words. Christ, God almighty, His incarnation realized by His conception and virgin birth to Mary, was obedient to Father God to the point of death on the cross to provide propitiation for sin and, after defeating death, will for eternity forward, walk with us as we behold His cross-scarred body. Here we find incomprehensible truths that followers of the Messiah will feast on for eons.

How unbelievable is this grace to the ears of those who think that God grades us on a curve. How odd to the ears is this grace to those we engage some sort of concept of karma. How unbelievable is the transcendent God is to those who engage a the fuzzy self-deification of new-age, neo-pagan pantheism. How daunting and unbelievable is the true, utterly independent and omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God of the Bible to those who engage those strains of liberal protestantism who travel with the impotent, dependent god of panentheism. How simply unbelievable it is to so many that we simply cannot approach and commune with the absolute holy God of creation on our own devices, on our own righteousness, but only through the cross of Christ.

Here is hope for a broken, sin ravaged world: Repent, acknowledge and turn away from your sin, your rebellion and disobedience to God, and believe, trust, in Christ, fully sinless man and fully God, who physically rose from the grave defeating death, for the forgiveness of sin so that God counts to you the righteousness of Christ when He looks upon you that you may spend eternity with Him. That is the Good News.

Wishing all a Merry Christmas!

Stephen Snobelen Assistant Professor of History of Science and Technology,
University of King’s College,
Halifax, Canada

Here is a final paradox. Recent work on early modern science has demonstrated a direct (and positive) relationship between the resurgence of the Hebraic, literal exegesis of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of the empirical method in modern science. I’m not referring to wooden literalism, but the sophisticated literal-historical hermeneutics that Martin Luther and others (including Newton) championed. It was, in part, when this method was transferred to science, when students of nature moved on from studying nature as symbols, allegories and metaphors to observing nature directly in an inductive and empirical way, that modern science was born. In this, Newton also played a pivotal role. As strange as it may sound, science will forever be in the debt of millenarians and biblical literalists.

HT: Creation on the Web

Some brief thoughts, skeletal in scope, on the above quote:

I have participated in more than one conversation wherein the assertion is made that Intelligent Design (ID) is no more than a sophisticated ‘God of the gaps’ argument. Further, I have been told that ID has no practical application; it predicts nothing, and, in fact, science could not have arisen from a milieu where religion, inferred to be synonymous with superstition, predominates.

In counterpoint, I find it interesting that many of the fathers of modern science were Christian. They inferred that natural laws pointed towards a Law Giver. They understood on a fundamental level that the universe was coherent and, given time and application of proper methodology, understandable because there was a Divine origin to the material world. Indeed, could science, dependent on, among other things, repeatability of phenomena, have risen in a milieu where the universe was understood to be random and driven by chaos? Quite frankly, much of modern physics seems so counter-intuitive and bizarre (to me), but, and again, I do not think we could not have gotten to where we are in our understanding of the created order without a foundational inference of a Creator. Could ramble for hours and flesh these thoughts out more (and, given I will have some time off for the holidays, perhaps I will), but it is 4:00AM, I am sick, and the cold and sinus meds are kicking in. Becoming soooo sleepy……..

Psalm 19:1 (English Standard Version)

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

(After a quick read prior to posting the following, I feel compelled to briefly qualify the opening statement. I am not, in any way, shape, or fashion, intending to marginalize the import of the death of the Messiah on the cross. Without Christ’s death, without His sacrifice, I affirm there is no atonement for sin. )

Let us open with a controversial statement: it may be argued that the cross is not central to the Christian faith. Not only is it not central to the Christian faith, the impact of the symbol has been diminished by popular American culture to the point that it is almost meaningless. If this symbol, long revered by Christians as evidenced by all the church steeples capped by the obligatory cross, is not central to the Christian faith, then what is? It is the event that proceeds from the cross, the physical resurrection of the Messiah. The cross symbolizes death – the Roman cross was a horrific death, torture, and punishment machine; the resurrection event shouts life, shouts boldly victory over death. However, the resurrection event of Christ does not lend itself to simple forms or images; it cannot be apprehended by a simple symbol. It can hardly be comprehended by the most supple of minds. Without the physical resurrection of Christ, though, our faith, as the Apostle Paul wrote, is in vain and we, the followers of Christ, are to be the most pitied of all people.

The question that should follow the aforementioned statement is thus: did the resurrection of the Christ actually occur in time and space, and if so, how can we know? Many sincere followers of Christ, though, may ask why one needs evidence? Is not this religion thing about faith, the belief in things unseen? Is not asking for evidence counter to the need for faith?

Let us answer the second question first and begin the answer with a question or two. What kind of faith is required of a Christ follower? What do we mean by faith? First, I assert that the word ‘trust’ is perhaps a more accurate term for our relationship with Christ than the word ‘faith’. If I have more than adequate evidence to believe that Christ exists and that He did rise from the tomb, can I trust Him? Does what I know of His character and power lend credence to His claims even when, at times, my immediate personal circumstances are painful? Do I have a solid foundation for the times when God seems distant? If I can reasonably validate that Christ is who He and his followers say He is, then I have an objective foundation that is independent of malleable, subjective, and emotional experience.

When I was a child, I believed certain things unconditionally that brought joy and excitement to my life for a time, but upon later investigation, I found them to be false. I had been easily mislead because I did not, nor could not at my young age, critically examine the evidence. Needless to say (and said with tongue in cheek), I can no longer believe in Santa Claus. Many are brought up in a ‘church-going family’, but upon leaving the safe, cloistered confines of home and entering into and increasingly post-Christian world, they find their belief system questioned. Because they may not be equipped with answers, because they may have never had their faith challenged, they may be left with limited options: they may they must either sacrifice their intellectual integrity and continue to believe blindly or they may feel they must abandon their faith. Even worse, they cannot answer sincere questions about our hope. Their ability to carry out of the Great Commission may be compromised.

Moving on to the first question, is there evidence for the resurrection? The short answer is yes. What, then, is the nature of this evidence and can the resurrection be proved? The nature of the evidence is circumstantial and, no, the resurrection cannot be proved. Proof lies only in the realm of mathematics. Neither can the scrutiny and verifiability of the scientific method be applied to the resurrection event due to the non-repeatable nature of history. What we can do, however, is apply the standards of historical analysis to the evidence regarding the resurrection of Christ.

Let us look at the consequence of claiming faith in Christ in the early years of the church. Indeed, it is the bold commitment of the first evangelists that speaks loudly to the veracity of the resurrection claims made for the Messiah. To be intellectually honest, we must admit that we do not have complete historical knowledge of the lives and deaths of all the apostles. Much is based on early church traditions, some of which is admittedly a bit ambiguous and fanciful in the details of, for example, martyrdom, though it seldom contains outright fabrication. We do know with reasonable certainty that Peter, for example, was crucified, upside down at his request, in . He did not think himself worthy to be crucified in the manner of his Savior. In the New Testament (Acts 12:2), the death of James is recorded. Herod has James killed by the sword, most likely beheaded. Matthew was martyred by in Ethiopia; he died from a sword wound. Bartholomew, known also as Nathanael, was martyred for his preaching in Armenia. He was flayed to death under the whip. Thomas, the doubter, was killed by a spear in India . He was on a missionary trip to establish a church. The great apostle Paul was tortured and beheaded by Nero in Rome in A.D. 67. Mark was dragged to his death behind horses on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt.
How did these men, finding, at the foot of the cross, their grand cause crushed, in ruins, summon the courage to die horrible deaths rather than recant their bold proclamation? The remarkable transformation was the result of something the happened in time, in history. They did not die for a story they knew to fabricated. They did not die over a cleverly devised myth. They were eyewitness to the risen Savior.

I do not think it is hyperbolic to assert that there is as much evidence for the resurrection of Christ as there is for most any event in ancient, and not so ancient, history. I have only scratched the surface of the supporting evidence the historicity of the resurrection of Christ Jesus with this modest essay. Given the weight of evidence available for the resurrection for those who wish to examine it, I believe the resistance to the supporting evidence is more one of presuppositions and personal bias than one of absolute intellectual tension. I believe the cross is an offense to the world in that the cross convicts the world of its sin. The crux of the matter is this: what do we do with this undeniable Easter Event?

• 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)
  but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
  
• 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 (ESV)
  Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Within our confession of faith as followers of the Messiah, there are truths, necessary, profound, and most often apprehended with some measure of difficulty, without which the redeeming work of Christ on the cross has no coherency. While natural revelation, the revealing His divine attributes and His power through His created order, holds the world accountable to God in the world’s falleness and suppression of truth, there comes a point, as our Father calls us to Him, where we reach the limits of usefulness of natural revelation.

Our Father calls us by His Holy Spirit to step onto revelations found in the words of the authoritative and inspired Old and New Testament canon. Though, as aforementioned, God reveals some of His characteristics and truths in nature, foundational doctrines, the doctrine of the trinity of the Godhead, for example, cannot be found in observations of nature, in natural theology. Even common analogies used to illuminate the concept of the triune nature of the Godhead are often, at best, vague, and sometimes, at worst, may unintentionally lead to heretical concepts of the trinity such as that of modalism. However, the triune nature of God is revealed clearly in the New Testament, and though I may not be able to fully grasp and understand this truth, I accept it, one, because I hold the Bible as authoritative, and two, as previously mentioned, without it, the Gospel looses coherency and effectiveness. I hold to the truth of the trinity, in all its mystery, without much tension. Too, the concept of the trinity seems almost impossible to have been born in the minds of men.

The historicity of the physical resurrection of Christ, unlike the concept of the trinity, is a doctrine that can be reasonably validated by accepted methods of historical inquiry. I do not intend to construct an apologetic defending the physical resurrection of Christ. Others have done so far more convincingly than I am able. I affirm, however, that it requires no giant leap of blind faith to validate the physical resurrection of the Messiah. What I do with this formidable knowledge is another matter. I think of the early followers of Christ finding at the foot of the cross their grand cause crushed, in ruins. How did they summon the courage to die horrible deaths rather than recant their bold proclamation of a risen Messiah? After the cross and before Easter, they succumbed to fear. Post Easter, they left the paralysis of fear behind. Their remarkable transformation was the result of something the happened in time, in history. They were eyewitness to the risen Savior. We, two millennia later, marvel at what they beheld with their eyes. We read of Thomas, after he touched the wounds of the risen Christ, giving words to his wonder: “My Lord and My God!“

As profound and foundational are the doctrines of the trinity and the physical resurrection of the Messiah, and absolutely in no means do I intend to diminish their import, it is the incarnation of our Savior that leaves me most breathtakingly at a loss for words. That Christ, fully almighty God, immutable and fully in transcendence over creation, Who spoke into existence, ex nihilo, the natural order, should step out of eternity and condescend to take on flesh, a sinless human nature, and, out of love, subject Himself to a fallen creation, leaves me wanting for words. Christ, God almighty, His incarnation realized by His conception and virgin birth to Mary, was obedient to Father God to the point of death on the cross to provide propitiation for sin and, after defeating death, will for eternity forward, walk with us as we behold His cross-scarred body. Here we find incomprehensible truths that followers of the Messiah will feast on for eons.

• Romans 1:18-21

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

• John 20:27-29

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

• Ephesians 1:16-23

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

By “Germans”, we mean those who have sincere questions about our hope.
By “crush with your mind” we mean how not to do apologetics……
By “U.S. Dept. of Psy Ops”, we mean…..well…..ah…….um…….

Anyway……the image just struck me as funny for some reason.

1 Peter 3:15
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,