More on God's Goodness

I was recently asked to expound on the nature of the goodness of God in a manner that describes what is meant by goodness, rather than what is not meant.

There is nothing one can point to other than God to illustrate what is absolutely good.  The reason stating what is not meant is easier than stating what is meant, is that we can point to things that are not God for an example, but to speak of what is meant, I can only point to God. 

Many would dismiss this as circular reasoning. What is good? God.  How do we know God is good? God.  To be true, it is something that cannot be proven by another measure. If God were not the supreme good, then if there is such a thing, something else would have to be that self-referencing standard. 

Humans certainly aren’t absolute references for ultimate good. This is a fact we know too well. And yet, if we know it, how do we explain that we know it? How do we have a sense that we aren’t doing what is right all the time? And yet, we do know this. We know we fail to be good even though most of us want to be good and beat ourselves up internally when we are not.  If we reject the Biblical reason for this conflict between our desire to be good and our failure to be thus, what are we left with?

Of course, there are many postulations by many different belief systems, but all religion puts forth the need for striving to be more moral, better people.  Prayers, petitions, penance, and priest are all a part of our attempt to be better than we are and to somehow qualify for something greater than we deserve.  Christianity is not exempt. In many people, churches, and cultures, Christianity is about doing the same thing – striving to be better on their own merit to earn God’s acceptance. 

It’s not really debatable any longer that across the board we know we fail to be what we feel we ought to be.  But where is this invisible standard that makes it impossible to do whatever we want without any guilt? Why are we guilt ridden?  Why do we call those who cannot distinguish right from wrong, insane?

The Bible says the truth of God is written all around us in nature so that we are without excuse. We all know we have fallen short. We all know there is a good that we do not measure up to.  Jesus came to show us the way out of our sins and guilt.  He came not to condemn us for we were in that place of condemnation already. We knew full well the guilt and He came not to heap more rules and condemnation upon us, but to remove it. He came to do all the “work” to qualify for us, because work would never get us there.  But He can get us there and He who was pure because impure (became sin) for us and took the wages of sin upon Himself.  He took it all to the grave and He rose again leaving it all buried so that we no longer have to strive to burry our sins, for He came to bring life to whosoever will step into Him and experience His life. 

The reason we fail to be good, is because we are separated from the good God.  Jesus dealt with the sin so that we could be transformed in Him and know the Father just as we know Him. For if we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father.  The good life is not something we can work for, but something we can be given by the good Father. 

This is the essence of the goodness of God.  His heart is turned towards us while we were yet sinners. We were unable to make ourselves good, because goodness was not something that is separate from God. So the only way to become good is for God to take us into Himself again and He did this through Jesus.  There is no other name, no other way, and no other life that will do it for us.  We have a full history from the beginning of time of man trying and failing to be good on their own.  We know this full well. 

Goodness is not definable because a definition denotes limitation and His goodness knows no bounds.  Goodness can only be known by personal experiential connection with God directly or indirectly. Sometimes the indirect experience precedes the direct. We see the goodness of God by seeing a supernatural love demonstrated by a follower of Jesus, or we hear testimony of a miracle that opens our heart towards Him.  Sometimes it is a direct experience where God covers us in His presence and we feel and know His amazing goodness and love.  There are many ways to witness the goodness of God, and once our eyes are open to recognize Him we see that He was there all along and His goodness never failed us.  

Following God

The nature of following God grows deeper in meaning the more one knows Him.  For many, following God is about believing and doing all the right things and not doing bad things.  It means reading your Bible, praying, and going to church on Sunday.  All the while there seems to be something missing, something that doing these things does not fulfill.

We try to circumvent that feeling of lack by heaping more spiritual activities into our lives.  We increase prayer, evangelism, reading the Bible. We attend more conferences, or serve more in our churches.  Still there seems like something ought to be different.  If anyone asked us if we were following God, we would vehemently affirm that we are.  The question offends us, but awakens an internal desire to know what is meant by this question. 

Too often, we equate following God with being a good church going Christian.  The thing is most of the Christian life as we commonly see it exemplified can be done without any supernatural strength.  Much can be done by natural effort. We do not need to have a supernatural relationship with Jesus to read our Bible, go to church, serve in the church, do moral things, and avoid immoral behavior.  The world is teeming with religions that do this quiet well. 

What then is the difference that comes from life with Jesus? If doing all these things is not the summation or even the essence of Christianity, how then do we follow God? 

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The Christian Claim of Truth

Christians, myself included, often make the statement that we know the truth. In a world of a multiplicity of competing truth claims that statement is incredibly and brazenly bold. However, what is meant by this statement, while still very bold, is not that we are deluded enough to believe we know the truth about every matter under the sun. We do not claim to have mastered such knowledge of the world. Though there are some who may act as if this were true. It is far from true.

What we mean when we say “we know the truth,” is that we know the Being of Truth. We mean precisely that we have relationship with Jesus. That He is the ultimate eternal absolute truth, being Himself God. We use the term “know” to mean “have relational experience of” not just “to know” something factually though that is included. You cannot have a relationship with Someone who does not exist. Included in the “know” is the intellectual assertion that this person of Truth does factually exist, but is more than a fact of life, but is Life Himself.

As my very first post to this blog explained, I use the term “Answer Bearer” as a name for my blog, not because I think I know all the answers, but because the one who is Truth dwells within me. And it is that Answer, the Answer of Life, of Truth, that is the one I bear forth. Therefore the title is not an arrogant claim, but a humble one. One that says that His Life is what it is all about.

I am just here to share what I have learned, and to learn what I have not yet learned by engaging in valuable and respectful conversation with people from various worldviews and experiences of life. I am thankful for each and every reader who uses their valuable time to read here and to converse with me here.

Experiencing Reality

Most mornings as I am getting ready to start the day I watch a few minutes of the weather channel in order to dress appropriately. The meteorologist will tell me what temperature it is outside, the humidity, chance for rain or storms, and even the pollutant level. The most precise details will be given of the conditions outside as the station’s expensive equipment gives him the latest facts about the weather. At this point, sitting on my couch, I haven’t experienced the truth of the report. I have been given purportedly true facts, but that’s all they are. If I never left my house that day that is how they would remain for me.


However, upon opening the door, stepping out into my yard, feeling the breezy 63 degree weather and the slight over cast of the sky I have now experienced the truth of the information given on the television. A new dynamic has taken place, I haven’t just a series of truth statements in my head, but my body has experienced them. I may not be able to tell its 63 degrees if the meteorologist hadn’t provided that information, but I could experience what 63 degrees feels like. I would then be experiencing the truth of 63 degrees on a cloudy day.


I recently went to see the movie Surrogates. In this movie all the people on the planet experience life through a robot. A person will purchase a very technologically advanced robot that looks like a perfect person with perfect agility and performance of all life’s work and pleasures. They will lay back in their chair or bed and hook up to a virtual system and live life without ever moving from their chair while their surrogate lives out their dreams each day. The idea was that no one would get hurt, if the surrogate got damaged sky diving a new unit would be purchased and the person would have experienced the virtual thrill of sky diving without ever leaving their bedroom.


Something goes terribly wrong and life as humanity knows it is shaken. I will leave out the details so as not to ruin the movie. At one point, however, as people emerge from their homes into sunlight they wake up from virtual reality. They experience touch and sound and feelings in the real world rather than through their virtual subconscious. Experience of reality occurs again as a novel thing and a man touching his wife’s cheek softly with his hand is so much more glorious than any of the greatest dreams lived out through a surrogate.


There is something innate to humanity that we have to experience life. Virtual experience is not good enough. We need to experience reality. We need not only to read books about adventures; we want to go on our own adventure. We need not only read about exciting places to visit, we want to go there. We don’t only want to decide on a spouse by reading a bunch of facts about who they are, we want to experience who they are and fall in love and enjoy life together.


The question is, then, why do we forget this when it comes to matters of God? Why is God only a potential fact that matters not either way? Why is He relegated to what we believe in our minds, but not understood as someone, if real, to be experienced in the depths of our person? It would be such a waste of time if all conversion or salvation was about was changing someone’s mind to believe a different set of facts about life as if that’s all there was to it. Some people have only experienced Christianity as a social club of people who believe a set of doctrines about life and try to live by them. Such Christianity is understandably found wanting and dismal. Such a reality would have nothing to offer anyone.


However, what if, it’s not just a series of facts akin to a meteorologist telling someone the weather report? What if it can be experienced like stepping outside your door and feeling the cold air of a coming blizzard or the warmth of a summer day. What if God isn’t looking for people to adhere to certain facts, but to know Him, experience His love and have a home in Him? What if our knowledge of Him grows not only in learning about Him, but in first hand experience? What if there is something amazing about life that is still left to experience that is greater than anything the natural world can offer a person?


Anytime I speak of the existence of God or the reality of Christianity, I am not talking only about a set of ideas that one needs to intellectually ascribe to and all their hearts desire will be satisfied. No, I am talking about ideas that lead to experiencing the reality of the glory of God. I am very much concerned about the reality of things, and the truthfulness of things, and if I hadn’t experienced God I wouldn’t be telling you it was possible. But I have experienced Him, I have seen His mighty works, I have felt the life that flows from Him into me and I have shared that love with others and seen them transformed. I come not with opinions, but with truth, truth I have experienced with awe and wonder as my soul leaps at the joy of His reality.

Christianity & Culture

Historically Christians have taken five views of how our Christianity should be lived in society at large.

One view is that our life with Christ ought to be completely separated from those who do not share our faith and thus Christians shouldn’t mingle with non-Christians at all. Such a view point was lived out in monastic life and also in communities like the Amish who live separate from the rest of society.

The second view that the Church has had is to assimilate into culture allowing the culture to set the standards and the church to adapt to whatever those standards may be. This view is usually associated with those who are often identified as liberal Protestants.

A third view is that is that Christ ought to reign above culture in such a away that often lends to the ideology of institutionalizing Christianity into society as was done by Constantine. The Reformation challenged this idea and yet some still maintain this way of thinking.

The fourth view is found in the writings of Martin Luther in that Christ and Culture are in paradox and the two worldviews are always at odds and one only has authority over certain aspects of culture and the other has authority over others but the tension always remains between the two. The Christian, Luther argues, is to live out Christian morality in private by self-governance through love, but the secular world will still need enforceable laws to keep it in order.

The last view on this topic is that Christ transforms culture. This view dates back to the writings of Augustine, but is mostly found in Protestantism as espoused by John Wesley, John Calvin, and Karl Barth, as well as the Great Awakening ministers. In the twentieth century this view was championed by a missionary named Lesslie Newbigin. This approach follows the idea that God’s truth works for all people and shouldn’t be kept to the Church, but given to society to help transform society very much unlike an institutionalized Constantine way of looking at it. It is the view that God has principals that can help any society work better to maintain freedom, peace, justice, and happiness.

These principals when put into effect can create a healthier culture. But this view does not impose these principals, but works to teach them and show their validity by example. This is not a view that seeks to merge church in state, but a view that seeks to give contribution from the church to the culture in which it serves.

This last view has not been practiced much in Christianity, but is now gaining momentum in the modern Church. This last view is one I agree with in that Christians have something to offer the world and that something cannot be forced or institutionalized, but it can be freely given to those who are interested to try it out. If we really do know God and really do hear from Him then we shouldn’t keep that locked up inside our private sector, but offer it to those seeking to make the society we all live in better. However, within this view is the idea that if someone is offering a solution to society that works really well that the church should champion that person’s solution even if that person isn’t a Christian. People can tap into God’s order and God’s principals even if they are not Christian and Christians should recognize and get behind anyone who is working to make our society healthier.

(Source for Historical Data: Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution by Alister McGrath : Oxford Professor, theologian, historian, and biochemist)

Tenets of Basic Christianity

Just to clear up some confusion I adhere to the truth of the following: (there is no need to respond to each point, this is just for clarification and is not exhaustive)

• The Bible from Genesis to Revelation is true in what it covers.

• There is an eternal good God who created the universe including life on earth.

• He created man in His own image.

• He made woman to have relationship with man as we are designed for relationship just as God is a relational being.

• He said man and woman were good.

• He said all of creation was good.

• He gave man freedom.

• Man used his freedom for ill and took sin into his nature.

• Man now needed cleaning to restore his relationship with God to its perfect potential.

• Mankind began a journey that would bring man to the place where God comes down in the flesh to live the life of man, while still being God.

• Jesus is that eternal Son of God who showed us how to live life properly related to God.

• He took on his shoulders all the sin ever to have been or ever to be in this world and it was buried with Him once for all.

• He rose again with victory over all death, decay, and sin. That same victory was accomplished for mankind.

• He returned to dwell with God in heaven until the time of His return.

• He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and empower us to live the life He lives.

• Anyone who puts their trust/belief in Jesus, the Risen Lord, they enter into the reality of their sins having been buried with Christ and they rise with Christ now cleansed from their unrighteousness.
  

• This includes all who died before Christ came and all who ever lived. Meaning that there were people who had this kind of relationship with God because of what Christ was going to do in time before it was done in our time.

• Scripture also tells us that Jesus preached to all the captives already dead in eternity so that none would be denied that opportunity to know the Lord.

• Those who are now in relationship with Christ are walking this out in process upon this earth as individuals and as a community of believers that encompass all who are united with Christ no matter the denomination or church affiliation.

• One day Jesus will return for His Bride, the Church and all sin and death and decay left in us will be no more and all of creation will be fully restored. All of the redeemed humanity and all of creation will live in the Kingdom of God a fully restored reality in abundant joy lavishing in the love of God for all eternity.

Atheism: A Religion?

Atheism seems to have evolved over the years. Ironically, the first atheists were those who rejected the Greek and Roman pantheon of gods for the monotheistic Judeo-Christian God. Thus, its first use was not in the context of being a non-theist, but a non-polytheist. Later, about the time of the Reformation, atheism was birthed out of a reaction to the injustices of the Church. From this reaction a philosophical atheism was developed largely by Nietzsche and other prominent atheists of his day. . .

This is the first paragraph of an article written for Helium. If you are interest in the rest please click here.

More Thoughts On God's Goodness

I have noticed a trend of sorts in the discussions regarding the goodness of God that I think needs further examination. There seems to be a common agreement that if a God existed, He ought to be good. Hence, if the best candidate for God is shown not to be good by reason of His acts recorded in the Bible, His failure to end suffering in the world, or His plan of salvation is found to be flawed, then He doesn’t meet the qualifications of goodness nor Godhood.

Is this a fair assessment of the charges levied against His goodness and existence? I will continue on the assumption this is fair and I am sure you will all correct me if need be in the comments. At any rate, this is what I am hearing from all the discussion in the comments.

The idea of a “good” is resonate within us however we arrived at this construct. We value the good. We have standards for good. We differentiate good from evil. From what I see, the debate revolves around how we came to these constructs more than whether or not these constructs are part of humanity. Few argue that we don’t comprehend a difference between the two. I think most accept this dichotomy as obvious.

Can you put yourself in my shoes for a moment? Can you think about what the existence of an eternal God who is the author of all life means for the world? Is it possible for you to imagine with me a world where an eternal God created all? If such a God exists and is goodness personified eternally all He creates would naturally be good. This is the story of the Christian God. He created a good world with good people in it and He said it was all good. But we object that it cannot all be good we know there is evil, there is suffering, and there is disease and tragedy. We see natural disasters and not so natural ones. We see war, brutal violence, murder, destruction. We are appalled by what we see, so we, if a naturalist, can deduce we have evolved to have this natural indigence within us towards such cruelty. But what if there is another answer. What if when good was created, that which was not good was made possible. Man being created good, but with freedom sees what is not good and chooses to try that out for size. Man was warned not to do what is not good, but the not good was available to him, not because it was created, but because it is the absence of good or sometimes a distortion of good. The non good defiles the man who was warned it would not be a good thing to do. A course of events was set in motion to bring about the redemption of man to righteous goodness found in God that he became separated from through sin.

The evil and suffering in the world, is thence, a product of the gravity of sin causing corruption in man and in creation. But man has been on a journey ever since to become the great people of righteousness who will reign in a world where sin and evil has been conquered once and for all. God paid the debt for us, and as that reality is lived out in His Church in the world a great restoration will take place and is taking place. He waits and seems slow about bringing it to fruition so that more rather than less will find life in Him. He tarries to allow the fullness greater time to grow and more hearts and lives be brought to life through Him through the work of those who are in Him and are bringing Him to others.

I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis’s books The Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe you have seen the new movie The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this mystical land of Narnia the land had been subjected to constant winter weather due to the reign of the White Witch in the land. However, when four children come into Narnia they set out on a journey with the great lion Aslan who ends the curse upon the land. His presence begins to melt the snow and end the winter whilst the children lead a battle to purge the land of the Witch and her followers. Aslan journeys throughout the land with the children breathing life back into Narnia. Lewis wrote this as a fanciful supposal of the truths of Christ depicted in a semi-allegorical manner.

The longing we have for the good is thus explained as a desire to find this restoration that all for which creation longs. We know intuitively that things ought not to be like they are, that violence, and suffering seem out of place to the way things ought to be. Could it be that there is meaning in it all and that our yearning to set things to rights is because there is a right to set it to? We can give up, so to speak, on our journey and accept things are simply the evolutionary pattern of life that we may or may not evolve past. But it would appear that even in terms of evolution we still have this nagging since of “rightness” and “oughts” and “the good.” It lingers despite evolutionary theories. So much so that we know that if a God exist He “ought” to be a good one or else He’s not worth bothering about.

These charges levied against Him can only be discussed in a framework of “a good” and if we imagine a world with no God I see a world where only humans make up what is beneficial to life based on evolutionary patterns to promote the continuation of our people and yet that doesn’t satisfy me. If that answer is good enough for you, then I can’t argue with that. We can say a God that destroys life for whatever reason under the sun cannot be good because life is good. But how do we determine life is good or valuable? How do we charge this Christian candidate for God with violating morality if He is our Creator and goodness is His nature? Or how do we charge Him, if He doesn’t exist and our morality is a product of evolution? There would be no one to charge, and nothing to charge Him with.

Unless you are talking about the finite gods of the Greeks and Romans and other ancient cultures, no one believing in God posits a God who is less than good. It seems to be a prerequisite for Godhood. We use our own standards to question it, but we are obviously not a perfect standard of good. So I question our appeal to ourselves to have grounds to question Him.

I realize I have not given some awesome argument that defeats all objections to His existence or His nature. But I hope I have left you with some things to consider. I’m not offended or threatened by such questions. I think they need to be asked and the questioners deserve to be taken seriously with great time and consideration taken in forming responses. You will find I do write on the same topics repeatedly because I am trying to have something worth your time to consider and I want to keep at it and keep reading and learning and inquiring. So I give answer, and then study some more, and listen some more, and engage in conversation some more, then write once again. So for today, this is where my musing pauses for you to consider.

Book Review

I just completed D’Souza’s book, “What’s So Great About Christianity.” Overall it was a good read. I appreciate his scholarly response to the popular new atheism books. To get a feel for the book from a skeptic’s view point one of the endorsements, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine reads, “As an unbeliever I passionately disagree with Dinesh D’Souza on some of his positions. But he is a first-rate scholar whom I feel absolutely compelled to read. His thorough research and elegant prose have elevated him to the top ranks of those who champion liberty and individual responsibility. . .”

I must say D’Souza tackled very scholarly subjects and presented them in a readable fashion. I would say his book is by far intellectual enough for those who want to think deeply and basic enough for those who are trying to get a hold of some of these issues for the first time.

I did not agree with all of his positions, but I enjoyed the book immensely. He dived deep into historical, philosophical, and scientific territory to give a viable answer to skeptics. Some of the common questions I hear from atheists were regrettably not addressed or were not addressed as well as I would have liked in his book. But other matters were thoroughly addressed that still have me contemplating his research.

I think his book is certainly worth reading for Christians, theists, skeptics, and atheists alike who want to keep up with the popular debates of culture in our times.

Origin of the Moral Sense

I have been expending a great deal of thought regarding the common contentions I hear from atheists, agnostics, etc. regarding the matter of the origin of morality. My concern is that when I hear an atheist give the “Christian” reason for the existence of moral understanding it is not really the Christian argument at all. Then they proceed to give response to this and fail to give a response to our real assertion. I would think if we want to further understanding and dialog we really need to understand each others position much better and fully address it adequately.

Many of the apologists I am familiar with often spend time getting to know real people of other beliefs and seeking out the expert representatives of those beliefs to truly understand their position. Moreover, when they write a book they give a copy of their manuscript to said experts to ensure that they have fairly and adequately presented their beliefs. This way they can give the counter response to legitimately held beliefs without setting up an unfair straw man.

When I listened to The God Delusion Debate, Professor Richard Dawkins summed up why God is not needed to explain morality. One point that he made was that we don’t need a holy book to give us the rules of morality for we are able in and of ourselves to realize what things a book tells us are good and what are not good. So there must be something outside of reading of a book by which we use to judge morality. This is a very good point, and I concede the point. There is indeed something beyond reading a book even if that book is the Bible by which we know right from wrong. Someone who has never read the Bible still has the ability to differentiate between right and wrong.

Next Dawkins asserted that the only reason a God based morality is needed is to create a fear of punishment by God if one behaves badly or to provide a system of rewards for good behavior. I can understand his reasoning. To him it is complete lunacy to believe God exist. Thus his argument assumes God’s non-existence. If God didn’t exist and God was an invention of man it would follow that somewhere in the past the powers that be used this myth to make people behave out of fear or hope for rewards. All very logical, expect there is one problem. He hasn’t answered the Biblical Christian argument for the reason for morality.

Before I present it, let me reiterate that Dawkins admits that humanity universally accepts a moral right and wrong. He said, “its common sense.” His brief explanation of its evolution is that it probably began with the hunter-gather tribes that formed a value of good things and sympathized with suffering passing on this value from generation to generation. He cited that attitudes towards women and slavery have changed to support that morality isn’t fixed, it is evolving. Again, he only had a few minutes to give a response to such a matter and I am sure he has or could write entire books on the subject.

Now let’s turn to the Christian argument for the reason for morality for Biblical Christianity does not teach that one ought to be good to avoid punishment or to earn God’s favor. In fact, the Bible teaches that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The Bible further teaches that we cannot earn righteousness by good deeds. Nor can we lose righteousness by bad deeds in and of themselves. Our righteousness comes as a gift from God for those who look to Him for eternal life. I am not seeking to insert a salvation message. I am merely illustrating that Christianity isn’t about doing good for the reasons aforementioned.

The Christian argument as best as I know how to state it is this:

A good God exists. He created us good. In actualizing the good into creation, all that is not good became possible, but not actualized into being in creation. For instance, before there was light there was nothing, but when light came into existence darkness became the absence of light. Similarly, the actualization of the good gave that which is outside of the good a potential of becoming something actualized. Moreover, man had freedom to choose between what is good or leaving the good and entering something unnatural so to speak. When the non-good was chosen over the good the non-good came into existences gaining a reality of evil. Thus, man now knew good and evil. This altered the good. This changed the creation, corrupting it, subjecting it to a foreign contaminant so to speak. Now all mankind had in their nature the understanding of a difference between good and evil. It is common sense, as Dawkins says. It is universal. It is in man’s nature. That is why all men, except a few with physiological problems, internally know right from wrong. A struggle between the two natures exists to this day. The good news is that there is a solution to that struggle and it is not found in human efforts to do good things to please a dictator God. It is found in coming back into alignment with our created nature through redemption. God paid the debt to this corruption of sin for us so that we can step forward into a redeemed nature that doesn’t struggle with the corruption of sin. We grow into becoming people who do what is right because of the righteousness that flows through us as one of the many byproducts of knowing the Lord relationally.

To recap, the reason for our knowledge of good and evil is that there is a good God that created a good creation and when by the choice of human will evil entered the picture that knowledge increased to include awareness of what is not good. The struggle in every human between doing what we know in our hearts and minds as good and what is not good is a direct result of the corruption that entered creation. Yet that is not the end of the story, and the way of redemption was provided by God for all who will enter life through Him and the fullness of the glory of creation will be redeemed as well.

I understand that many religions have their own explanation and science has its. I think we need to take a look at them to see if they logically answer these questions of the origin of morality and the reason we have moral understanding. Compare and contrast the different explanations. Scrutinize the atheists’ argument the same as you would the theists’ argument. The truth can stand up to investigation. Most of all be sure you know the position of the one you discount and have researched it fairly and present a response that actually corresponds to the argument given. Don’t set up a non-good God scenario that is not given by theists. Actually respond to what is given. Thank you for your time.

Review: The God Delusion Debate

I watched the “God Delusion” Debate between Professor Richard Dawkins and Dr. John Lennox both esteemed scientists from Oxford University. The debate touched on six of the main arguments Dawkins gives against the existence of God in his book The God Delusion. I regretted that the debate format did not permit much freedom for back and forth dialog. Instead it focused on concise discussion about certain particulars of the book. While I understand this choice of style for the debate, I agree with Dawkins frustration at not having more time to delve deeper into the very important issues discussed. I was glad to see that the Christian organization hosting the event gave Dawkins the first and last slots in the debate.


I did notice that Dawkins and Lennox agreed on several key assertions of Dawkins. Dawkins raised the point that religion ought to withstand the test of science and not be afraid of scientific investigation. Lennox wholeheartedly agreed that there should not be a division between the two and that Christianity is able to be verified or falsified by historical science. Dawkins and Lennox both agreed that science was birthed out of theism. Dawkins was the first to make that assertion in the debate and then Lennox agreed referring to the Whiteheads Thesis.


Dawkins asserted that children should not be taught faith, but skepticism on the grounds that saying “that’s my faith” removes objective thinking and debate and provides an avenue for extremism. Lennox agreed, as he should, that children ought to be taught to be critical thinkers and that they ought to learn how to think and understand the evidences for what they believe. However, Lennox rightly maintained that Christianity is based on evidences some objective some subjective. Moreover that biblical Christianity does provide a framework for scientific investigation, knowledge, thinking etc.


Dawkins has a list in the beginning of this book The God Delusion of wars and atrocities that would not have occurred, he asserts, if there was no religion. Lennox responds, speaking only on behalf of biblical Christianity, that Christianity does not support this kind of thing in the world and gives a counter argument of Stalin, Mussolini and Mao atheistic beliefs rooted in Marxism. I was surprised that Dawkins granted that these men, if Marxist, were products of atheism, albeit as Lennox granted not the sort of atheists Dawkins and other atheists proponents support. I think that Dawkins was saying that it still had to be proven that they were operating out of their Marxism in committing these atrocities, but if it could be proven to come from their Marxism then he agrees it also stems from atheism. I don’t do their arguments justice in this post, please watch the debate yourself.


Lastly I wanted to touch on the issue of God based morality. Dawkins asserts that one does not need God to be moral. Lennox grants that atheists certainly can be moral without believing in God. Dawkins, however, gives two main arguments of why we don’t need God for morality. One is that we don’t need a holy book to give us morality because he says that we pick and choice what is moral from the text. Two he asserts the only reason to need a God based morality is out of fear of God’s retribution or out of a desire to earn His favor and be divinely rewarded. He then says humanity universally accepts a moral right and wrong. It’s common sense, he claims. He posits the development of morality coming from the relationships of small hunter gatherer groups that valued good and sympathized with suffering and as time evolved this concept was passed on through the generations. He said there seems to be “something in the air” that gives modern consensus of morality. He says that attitudes towards slavery and women have changed, thus morality changes therefore it is not based on a fixed system.


Lennox responds that indeed we have moral understanding, because we were created with it by God. Our behavior can mirror good actions without knowing God, but we cannot support the foundation of what “good” is without God. He quotes from Dawkins previous books that he grants that we are merely products of our DNA in a world with no good and no evil. From there he asks Dawkins how he can then discuss good and evil if there is no such thing. Dawkins said the two don’t contradict; it is true that there is no real good and evil and yet we experience a humanity who has a moral construct.


I will close this post without adding my own thoughts to Dawkins discussion on morality. However, I will write another where I address them. I do wish that such a debate happens again with more time for dialog on these and other issues. I feel it is very profitable to have such discussions.

Bible's Treatment of Women

It is stereotypically asserted that all religion usurps the rights of women and makes them second class citizens. Only a gross misinterpretation of Scripture can lend itself to supporting this idea with regards to Christianity.

When God created Adam and Eve and in the Garden of Eden, He vocalized that what He had created was good. Differences in attributes do not equate to differences in equality. Some schools of thought try to equate sameness to gender differences to promote equality. However it is not necessary to stifle diversity to create unity.

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Moving Forward

History is replete with stories of governments becoming abusive to the people they are fashioned to serve. One merely has to read the newspaper to find many instances of modern day abuses and usurpations brought about through governments. No matter the form of government, abuses can be found.

Governments are brought down and replaced by new governments with new ideals. Sometimes this is done for the good of the people, sometimes for the good of the new regime taking power.

Despite so much injustice coming from the hands of those in governmental authority or the institutions of government no sensible people argue that government ought to be abolished altogether. No one wants a return to anarchy. No one trusts human nature enough to unleash a people with no governmental restraints and protections. It is precisely because people have the tendency towards corruption that balances of powers are put in place in democratic governments. It is because of the waywardness of humanity that government is required and yet the governments themselves contain some of this corruption, hence the checks and balances. We don’t argue to abolish government because of the abuses, nor do people leave to go and find a nation without a government when there is a problem with government.

However, when it comes to the Church, people see abuses of power or other problems in a particular church or the Church as a whole and their response is to give up on church, and sometimes on Jesus as well. But many are still alright with Jesus, but disappointed or burned by the Church. We forget that the Church is made up of people like ourselves. Real people who have bad days, make mistakes, do wrong things sometimes, and disappoint people. We forget that being in a church is being a part of a diverse community of people from all different places in their walk with Christ. If we were all the same, I think there would be greater cause for concern and questioning of authenticity.

I am not writing this to make an argument for the existence of God or the validity of Christianity. I am simply attempting to put things into perspective for we often can see things more clearly when we substitute a different example. If people have left church because of matters of truth seeking versus abuses then I am not talking to you at all. Nor am I judging anyone who has been burned and took a hiatus from Church community life. All I am saying is that we are often quicker to give up on Church than we are on a favorite restaurant or even something as corrupt as government. We can’t put church community life into a category that demands it to be all good all the time, for it will fail as much as we fail and yet we miss all the good if we focus on the failures. It is so easy to allow negative things to cloud our vision so much so that we forget all the joys of being in a Church community. We forget the friendships, the love, the family atmosphere, the encouragement, the joy of working as a group toward growing in Christ. We loose more than we think by leaving, but we forget what we are missing by focusing on whatever injustice we observed or of which we were a victim. Being in Christ isn’t just about being in relationship with Him alone, but in being in relationship with other believers; iron sharpening iron, in good times and bad, and even in the midst of failures and disappointments. We also rob our fellow believers of our friendship and aid when we stop fellowship with them. We all need refreshing, but that refreshing comes only from resting in Him. Even in community with other Christians we must live in a place of rest in Him. If our strength does not lie in Him, we work in our own strength, and that will wear on us quickly. That will rob us of our peace and joy.

Maybe as we enter this New Year we can look at Church differently. We can start fresh and remember that we are all part of this family together and we all need each other and the fastest way to learn to work together in the Body of Christ is to do so. The most assured way of having lasting relationships in the Church is to build them in Him and build them as covenant relationships going through all together. Love endures all things. It always hopes, always preservers, always trusts. It keeps no records of wrongs. It will never fail.

Church isn’t an organization. It’s a living organism. It’s a family. It’s a beautiful family, the bride of our Lord.

The Substance of Faith

The etymology of the word “faith” commences circa 1250 and it meant "duty of fulfilling one's trust," and it derived from the Latin root word fied which essentially means "trust". Trust comes from the Old Norse word traust meaning confidence circa 1200. We use these words everyday, but sometimes we use them with a misconceived idea about them.

True faith should be built on trust and confidence in that which you have faith. We use faith/trust everyday. We have faith that brushing our teeth will reduce risk of cavities. We trust that our employer will supply our paycheck at the end of the pay period or else we would not be working for him. After repeatedly being rendered our paychecks we have confidence that we will continue to get reimbursed for the hours worked. We utilize faith, trust, and confidence in a myriad of ways everyday. However, our use of faith is not without reason. We have plenty of reasons to believe that brushing our teeth is advantageous. We have plenty of experiential reason to have confidence we will receive our due paycheck unless something gives us reason to cease having faith that we will receive our paycheck.

Why, then, when we step into the area of spirituality, do we not understand the use of faith and reason? Faith is not blind adherence to someone or something in the absence of evidence and reason. Faith is trust in someone or something based on the substance of the evidence that supports that faith. I have often observed a child leaping off the side of a pool into his father’s arms. The child has faith that daddy will catch him. He doesn’t absolutely know that nothing will prevent this from happening, but he knows daddy loves him and will protect him because daddy is that kind of person. A child like faith is not one of ignorance, but one of trust greater than many adults because adults have learned fear and that often rules their intellect more than their trust. To live a life not bound by fear and distrust is a wonderful freedom that can only come from being in the truth and love of God. Love, trust, faith all go hand in hand. Sure someone can put their trust in the wrong place; we see this happen all the time. But we also see those people who are so afraid that they trust no one and live a life bound to fear.

It is often said in Christian circles that it takes more faith to be an atheist because there is a greater leap to accept proof of a negative than proof of a positive. The only way you can know a negative is by knowing all things and being omniscient yourself. But the way you know a positive is by knowing that particular thing and not all things. I really don’t want to hear about unicorns and fairies in response to this statement. That doesn’t really address the matter. Nor am I using this an argument for God’s existence but more so an illustration of the leap of faith employed.

However, even in saying this it reaffirms the misuse of the word, faith. It isn’t really faith in the real sense of the word that is employed in believing in nothing, except maybe faith in one’s own intellect. It is a skepticism that leads to atheism, not really a faith. Faith and trust is absent, not because of lack of evidence, but because of skepticism. Atheists deny what they have not experienced even to the extent of discounting the experiences of others because they haven’t shared them.

The Christian puts his faith in God because he has come to know God is real, not as some would suggest, to come to know that God is real. Many think that faith is employed to posit God’s existence, but in reality it is employed after knowing God is real. An encounter with God doesn’t take faith, it’s the most real thing in the world when it happens and no one can shake that knowledge. It is then that faith rises for when you have come in contact with the living God you know that you know that He is real. Faith in Him can lead to deeper relationship with Him, but it is not a major factor in knowing He exists.

Proof that He is real is more an experiential matter than simply an intellectual matter. There is a plethora of intellectual arguments for and against His existence, but once you’ve encountered Him all arguments are secondary to the reality of that encounter.

I know a God who is in pursuit of humans with His love. He points to Himself in creation, in reason, in logic, in history, in revelation, in our emotions, in our desires, in our morality, in our creativity. He affirms who are we are and does not detract from who we are. The supernatural affirms and enhances the natural.

I am not merely asking that people accept only intellectual arguments for Christianity and join the club. I am suggesting that people can authentically truly experience the living God for themselves and come to know that Christianity is true. I don’t know God as a mere set of intellectual ideas and assumptions, I know him personally and relationally.

Faith isn’t something you muster up to believe in something unbelievable. It is the substance of trust in that which has become believable. I pray that you can find the way through the seas of uncertainty and set down your anchor into the firm foundation of truth that is knowable both cerebrally and experientially.

What's Everyone Searching For?

The world is full of religion. Every where you look someone is worshiping something. There are the major religions like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. The New Age movement is widespread as is Wicca. Thousands of cults exist in the world that are subsets of some of the larger belief systems that have broken off to do their own thing. What truly explains the plethora of religions in the world? Atheists argue that none of them are true for there is nothing beyond nature. What is everyone looking for then? Why all the interest in a world beyond nature if none exists?

Would it not make more since that there is something out there that explains our natural world better than naturalism? Could it be that everyone is looking for something because something exists to be known? It is far more plausible that one truth exist and all else is a distortion of that one truth then that there is nothing to know beyond nature.

Atheists think it arrogant for a person to claim one truth over all other possibilities. However, I have never met an atheist pluralist. Atheists typically see all religions as absurd and thus by default they believe in nothing. That seems to me to be a belief in one way of thinking opposed to all others. Believing in nothing, they claim that they have nothing to prove whereas those who believe in something have the burden of proving something. They claim no one can know anything for certain. But are they certain of that? If so, they exempt themselves and are thus the only people on the planet who can claim certainty. If not exempt and they are uncertain that atheism is the way of things then they use faith to bridge the gap between what they can know and what they accept as truth.

To me, belief in nothing, explains nothing. Even most atheists if not all atheists at one time in their lives did seek to know God. I continually hear atheists claiming to be de-converted Christians. They were seeking to know God, but found only religion and left it behind to embrace atheism.

Religion is not what knowing God is about. Some of Christianity in some circles has become only about following the rules and doing church. It has become devoid of the reality of the Kingdom of God. If this is what you experienced as Christianity you have been cheated. Religion is man trying to find God man’s way instead of God’s way. Man’s way is about doing good works to earn God’s favor, as is evident in all religions. God’s way is about God paying the debt of sin for man Himself and extending an open door to coming into relationship with Him and having all our sins forgiven through Jesus. All He asks is that we step through the door of Jesus Christ. He made the way; He revealed the way to man, and He waits patiently for man to enter the way. Once man steps through that door by trusting in Jesus Christ a whole new world awaits that’s called the Kingdom of God.

Birth of Science

Science, contrary to popular thought, did not arise out of secularism, but out of Christianity. Moreover, Christianity provided the only stable worldview on which science could develop. I know this may be a shocking statement and there will be those who tell me it’s a completely unsubstantiated claim. However, let me expound.

Historically you have the age of the ancient Greeks and Romans followed by the Middle Ages and then the Modern Era. The Middle Ages are often referred to as the Dark Ages. It is said that because the Church was in power in those days that creativity and human reason was stifled. This is not entirely true. Science is often solely attributed to rise of the secular Modern Era. However before the word “scientist” was coined there were parson-naturalist studying nature during the Middle Ages. Additionally, most all the scientist from the 1500’s to the 1800’s were Christians and many of them major contributors of renown.

Many of the contributors to the foundations of science adhered to the Christian worldview such as:

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) established mathematically that the planets revolved around the sun.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627) known for establishing the “scientific method”.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) a brilliant mathematician and scientist. He came close to discovering the universal gravitational pull before Newton ever came on the scene.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) a mathematician and scientist known as the “father of modern philosophy.”

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) a genius and great contributor to science and chemistry. Also known as a devout Christian.

Robert Boyle (1791-1867) a scientist known for “Boyle’s law” in chemistry. He is also known as a devout Christian and defender of the faith.

Johann Gottlob Frederick von Bohnenberger (1765 – 1831) gave us the electroscope, commencing the development of scientific electrical devices. He was a learned theologian and Priest.

Christianity provided the firm foundation on which to birth such great scientific discoveries. How so? Christians believe that the natural world is real and orderly. Christians believe God has given humanity sufficient cognitive abilities to learn about the real world including the ability to logically reason deductively and inductively. The ancient Greeks did not birth the sciences because they believed that nature was evil and disorderly. The orient countries believed nature to be an illusion and thus nothing of substance to discover. The pagan societies deified nature giving it a place of awe and respect which did not lend itself to scientific intrusion upon it.

Secularism was not rampant in those days and did not develop as a cultural thought until later in the Modern Era. It may have adopted science as an acceptable means of knowing the world, but it did not birth it as such. However, secularism has produced a view of science that disrobes it from its foundation. Secularists teach that nothing exists outside of nature and all that can be known can only be known scientifically. Thus, the logic, reason, and trustworthy cognitive abilities all are unproven scientifically and the rug is pulled out from under meaningful science.

Christians today often take one of two positions with regard to science. Either we dismiss it as secular and appeal to unsubstantiated “faith” alone or we try and fuse modern scientific theories into our Christian worldview. The former choice communicates that Christianity is devoid of evidentiary substance and must be accepted on blind faith. The second communicates that the Bible is in error and in need of scientific revision.

Let me suggest a third more legitimate position. Science is what needs an overhaul. It needs to be returned to its proper foundations in order to produce adequate science. When one works from a faulty worldview all that follows is tainted. There exist scientists who do have the proper worldview foundation and do produce science that does indeed confirm the reliability of Scriptures, but those scientists are often suppressed and discounted because their worldview is simply not accepted in today’s scientific community. The media and the schools only show the world the science that’s congruent with the culturally prevalent secularism. Do not settle for what you have been taught in school or learned through television.

We cannot substitute the infallible authority of Scripture for the fluctuating scientific discoveries. Exciting discoveries that firmly support Scripture are being made all the time; you just have to do a little digging to find them.

A View About Human Value

I like to watch The Antique Roadshow. People bring in their family heirlooms or a great garage sale purchase and the appraisers tell them the history of the item and attach a monetary value to the item. The monetary value given is an estimation of what people will pay at auction for such an item. Most of the time, when the item is a family heirloom, the monetary auction value cannot overcome the sentimental value of the item. When the item is merely a great garage sale purchase the value assessed comes solely from the amount of money a collector is willing to pay for the item. The item might be a campaign button from a presidential election and have no intrinsic worth. It only gains worth because people collect them and are willing to pay high prices to obtain it. If someone is willing to pay $1,000 dollars for it, it gains that value.

An object only obtains the worth that someone is willing to place on it weather the value be sentimental, practical, or monetary.

People, however, do not obtain worth in this manner. Now, we have all heard someone talk about the net worth of Bill Gates, but they are referring to his bank accounts and not his person. So how does a person obtain value?

There is a degree of value that is placed on a person through relationships between family members and friends. Employees are worth something to employers. However, with humans we cannot look at human value as we do objects. The value of a person does not come from their productivity in society, their ability to love or how much they are loved, or any such performance based value system. Humans are not valuable simply because other humans value them. If a human needed another person to give them value then the lone homeless person on the street would have less value than the person ensconced in relationships that value the person. Each person regardless of their abilities, capabilities, handicaps, friendships, performance, etc. has intrinsic value. No matter if no human on this planet loves that person or cares about that person or gains anything from that person that person is priceless.

Human worth doesn’t come from the value the rest of humanity places on the life. It comes straight from the Creator of that life. If no one else on the planet knows that person and values that person, God still has given that person value. He is the one that breathed from His life into the human life and gave life and He said it is good. He said man is fearfully and wonderfully made. No matter the handicap, no matter the age, mental capacity, or physical capacity or how many humans love a person, each person is uniquely special and valuable because God created him/her.

Moreover, because we are made in his likeness we know human life is valuable. That is why we know slave trafficking is absolutely wrong and murder and abuse and injustice is wrong. We have been stamped with knowledge of the intrinsic value of humanity. That is why when we do things that devalue humanity we feel the guilt, we feel the injustice. The famous scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth when Lady MacBeth is washing her visibly clean hands of blood over and over as the guilt suffocates her is so telling of our knowledge of the value of human life.

LADY MACBETH
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!

DOCTOR

Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,

Lady Macbeth was overwrought with guilt from her murderous deed. Soap and water would not remove the memory as she slipped into near insanity. The doctor watching her condition adequately assessed her need for relief that can only come from divine forgiveness for her deed was not one only against humanity, but against the author of life. And it was He and He alone who could remove from her the guilt of her transgression.

As a Christian I bear the responsibility of loving people like God loves them even though I cannot do it as perfectly as God does. God calls me to love those who are in Christ and everyone else and even my enemies. He says that not a sparrow falls from the sky without Him noticing. He says that He knows how many hairs are upon our heads. He sees every tear and every laugh. He asks us to live a life of love, not of our own strength, but empowered by Christ. We are all created equal and we are all precious in His sight.

Evolution of Reason????

I have just read an essay by an atheist giving argument for the evolution of humanities ability to know truth without appealing to the existence of God. The writer puts forth that only those traits and thoughts that lend toward survival will continue and those thoughts which are harmful to survival and fail to line up with reality will not survive. Therefore, as the argument goes, we are evolving into something more true to our environment and our thoughts likewise will line up with truth.

So as to not misstate the author the following is two excerpts of his argument:

A creature that could not respond correctly to its environment, or that did so only imperfectly, would be at a significant survival disadvantage compared to one that could perceive more accurately. Therefore, it should be obvious that, all else being equal, evolution will always favor greater accuracy of sensory perception - both the ability to sense the environment with greater fidelity and the disposition to respond correctly to those sensory impressions.

Though it is not perfect, it is more than obvious that evolution will produce at least generally reliable mental tools for environmental perception, pattern recognition and abstract reasoning in any intelligent being. In light of this, the burden of proof is now on the presuppositionalists to explain why an evolutionary naturalist should not consider their own beliefs reliable.

If evolution is generating minds that think more and more truly then why do billions of people ascribe to religion and spiritual worship that atheists claim are illogical practices? If evolution is producing reasonable truth thinkers why are there so few atheists in this world? Are atheists claiming to be superior to the rest of the world? Atheism, despite the few popular books in the end caps at Barnes and Noble is not the wave of the future. Postmodernism is actually the current ebb and flow of the today’s world which does not ascribe to the knowablity of truth nor the supremacy of science and reason. Why is one more popular than the other if atheists are the more evolved humans? Most postmodern thinkers are very much into spiritualist thinking versus dogmatic reason. I’m not advocating postmodernism. I am only pointing out that it is fast becoming a cultural norm as modernism is quickly being transformed to postmodern thinking. Atheists are still behind the curve if we are truly looking at what is new and surviving as the most reliable human thought. So if evolution is producing true thinking as time marches on, why is culture moving away from science and reason to experience and spirituality?

If this explanation of evolutionary truth development were true then atheists would be the most ascribed to worldview instead of one of the least believed worldviews. It would appear that the argument for evolutionary establishment of truth in the human mind is actually self-defeating for atheists.

Author's Note: Please see comment exchanges to see that I was not understanding the nature of the argument I was addressing before I made this post. I am in dialog with those of the atheist worldview in the comments to learn more about what their position truly is so that I do not falsely represent it. I would delete this blog, but I would lose the comments and the lessons learned attached. So I invite my readers to read the comments for more on this topic.