Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength

Child-like or Childish

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

There always seem to be various parts of the Bible that just about everybody remembers...sort of. While many people mis-remember passages quite frequently, they even more frequently seem to mis-interpret passages.

Now, I am certainly not going to try to claim that I have arrived at the perfect interpretation of all scripture. I would say that I am at approximately .01% with respect to how much of the Bible I would claim to have the "right" interpretation of.

One of the concepts that I hear often used or talked about is the idea of Christians having a "child-like" faith. This seems to be one of those passages that really gets put through the ringer. So often, when I hear people talk about "child-like" faith, what I seem to hear them describing is "childish" faith.

Childish implies immaturity, impulsiveness, inexperience. (Like the alliteration with the "I's?") For example, I might hear someone describe some dogmatic resolve to hold to a very tenuous and ambiguous teaching of the Bible. Like whether it was Mary Magdelene that was caught in adultry in John 8.

Child-like faith is quite different. But before we get into that, I should first make it clear that, as a Christian, the term "faith" is essentially synonymous with "trust." (That is another idea that is mis-represented quite often, but I will not go there at the moment.)

When you think of a child's trust, what do you think of? While it is true that a child trusts his/her parents blindly and without regard to facts, this does not seem to be the idea that is being presented in scripture. Regardless of the basis for their trust, the fact is that a child trusts so fully and so completely that they are completely and wholly abandoned in their trust.

If I told my 5 year old son that I flew in an airplane to another country before he was born, he would not doubt it for a moment. If anything, he would ask me where I went and who I was with and could I show him a map of where I was among other questions. There would be no question in his mind as to the truth of what I had told him.

When my 2 year old daughter comes leaping off the couch toward me when I get home from work, she does not wonder if I am going to catch her. She trusts me so completely that such thoughts do not even get entertained. There is, in her mind, no danger whatsoever of falling and getting hurt. Daddy is going to catch me and hold me. That is all there is to it.

As I read about having a child-like faith, it is that sort of thing that strikes me as the concept. Certainly we should have justification for believing what we do about Jesus. But once we have determined that Jesus is the real deal, we should trust him with that kind of abandon.

That is how the Apostle Paul trusted Him. In 2 Corinthians 4:17, Paul comforts himself throughout his trials with the understanding that this is a "momentary, light affliction." He is completely sold out to the idea that he will spend eternity by Jesus' side in heaven. He throws himself into his ministry knowing that the beatings, shipwrecks, stonings, imprisonments, etc. are all worth it compared to what he is fully confident eternity with Jesus will be like.

How many of us can claim to be completely abandoned to Christ? How many of us can honestly say that we trust Him so completely that we would take any risk, face any obstacle, stand up to any persecution because we know that Jesus will be there for us in the end?

In my case....epic fail!

Grace, love and peace.

Design "Flaws"

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Anyone who is going to debate Dr. William Lane Craig on the topic of God's existence will generally know that they will have to defeat Dr. Craig's five arguments for the existence of God. Among these five arguments is what is called the "teleological argument" (or argument from design). I'll let you read Dr. Craig's work on this elsewhere on the web or in his book, Reasonable Faith.

For now, let's just say that the gist of this argument is that one piece of evidence in favor of God's existence is the fact that the universe looks as though it has been designed. The amount of matter, anti-matter, dark energy, the gravitational force, the "strong force," the "weak force," and many other constants and quantities in the universe all seem to be "fine-tuned" so that our universe exists and has the ability to maintain intelligent life.

A popular rejoinder to this argument is to point out flaws in the natural world. This, according to the critic, shows evidence that the universe was not designed because a designer would have avoided such "flaws." Questions arise about why God would create stars in a way that would cause them to eventually super-nova and be destroyed, thus causing much destruction to neighboring heavenly bodies. Why would God have designed us to be affected by illness and disease? These and other questions are used to show that perhaps there was no universal designer.

Being the egg head, techno-geek that I am, I was thinking about an analogy that could potentially be helpful to understand this. Hopefully I can do so in a way that doesn't require you to know too much about technology, either.

Imagine you have a user ID with which you log into your computer system at work. Not hard to imagine, these days. Your user ID is (ideally) set up in such a way as to allow you access to the files, folders and other resources that you need to do your job. A common way to handle access to network resources is to use "groups."

By setting up groups of users, access to a specific resource (printer, file, folder, computer, etc.) can be granted or removed simply by determining what groups you are a member of. If, for example, you are a member of the "Accounting" group, then any files or resources that Accounting has access to, you also have access to by way of being a member of the appropriate group.

Clear as mud?

Here's where things can get a bit more complicated. You see, many systems nowadays allow you to add user groups to other user groups. For example, you could be a member of the Accounting group, but the Accounting group can be a member of the Financial group. In this scenario, you would have access to everything that the Accounting and the Financial group has access to.

Another thing about how most systems work is that the most restrictive permissions to resources is always the one that wins. As an example, if the Accounting group is a member of the Financial group and the Financial group has access to a particular folder, you can set up that folder to explicitly deny access to the Accounting group. So, even the Accounting is part of Financial, because Accounting is explicitly denied access, they cannot access that particular folder. On the one hand, they are given access through the Financial group, but on the other hand they are denied access through the Accounting group.

I know...it's a little bumpy, but hang with me and just re-read all that at your own pace if you need to.

So, what happens if you are a member of several different groups, which themselves are members of other groups and so on? Things can get a bit complicated.

Now, let's say that you need access to a particular file on the network. Your user account is set up as a member of a group that has access to that file. But, when you try to access it, you get an "Access Denied" message. The system administrator looks into it and sees that you are a member of the appropriate group. They also see that the group "Denied Users" is explicitly denied access to the file, but you don't seem to be a member of that group.

Unbeknownst to you, and the system administrator, you are part of a group that is part of a group that is part of a group that is part of the "Denied Users" group. Therefore, the most restrictive access wins and you are denied access.

Now, why did I go into all that? Well, I'll fill in the gaps as to how this relates to the argument against design.

You see, one of the attributes associated with God is omnipotence (the idea that He is "all powerful). This is commonly misunderstood to mean that God can do anything. That is not actually what it means. It actually means that God is able to do anything that one can do using power. For instance, there is no amount of power that will make logical contradictions possible. No matter how much power you have, you cannot make a square circle or a married bachelor.

When we look at the "flaws" in design and start to argue that an omnipotent, omniscient designer would have designed things without that "flaw" we fail to recognize (due to our limited intelligence) that it is quite possible that that "flaw" exists because to not exist would result in a logical contradiction. Like the accountant who can't access the file because you can't be in certain groups and yet not be in some of those groups, certain things may be a necessary aspect of how the current world is set up. I'm willing to bet that many of the "flaws" are because the world must exist without the continual presence of God (at least in the way or to the extent that He was present before the Fall).

One example might be aging or disease. If we were not mortal (i.e. designed to eventually die), there would be a problem with over-population all over the earth. This probably seems a bit heartless, I know, but right now we're not looking at the emotional aspect of this, we are simply looking at the logical facts of the matter. And facts, by their very nature, tend not to have anything to do with "warm & fuzzy."

What it comes down to is, we are not in a position to know enough to come to the conclusion that the "flaws" in God's design could have been avoided by a better designer and therefore, if there is the possibility of a better designer, than God must not exist since He is supposed to be the "perfect" designer. The design in nature seems to not be perfect (according to our standards) therefore this perfect designer must be fictitious.

We simply cannot know such things in order to arrive at such conclusions without a great deal of speculation and unknown variables.

Unfortunately, all analogies fail at some point. In this one, the system administrator can eventually find the group membership that is causing the problem and figure out a way to grant the necessary access to the desired file. From that standpoint, the analogy fails. But, again, that assumes a well-versed understanding of the system (which we do not have with respect to the entire body of nature).

Does this analogy work for you? Why are why not?

Grace, love and peace.

The "Evil God Challenge"

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Welcome back from the "holiday madness" and I hope the new year finds you all well. It has been a little while since I have had an opportunity to write anything, but I suppose most people have been so busy over the holiday season that they probably did not have much time to read anything.

This week, I thought I would take a look at what is coming to be known as the "Evil God Challenge" that I have been hearing about via the Unbelievable? podcast. I first heard it during William Lane Craig's recent debate with atheist Stephen Law.

The most basic form of this challenge is the idea that any explanations one can offer to refute the Problem of Evil in order defend the idea of an omnibenevolent God can be "flipped" so that the same argument could be used in reverse to defend the idea of an omnimalevolent God.

So, when one says that the evil in the world does nothing to deny the existence of a good God by citing free will or the building of character. The same, according to this challenge, can be said in defense of the evil God. Any good in the world can be explained using the same logic, the same types of arguments.

According to Dr. Law, he feels a great deal of frustration at people's misunderstanding of this challenge. Many people argue that this challenge fails because all we need to show is that it is at least slightly more plausible that God is good than evil. Law claims that this is a fallacious view of the challenge.

If I understand Dr. Law's arguments correctly, I believe he is correct as far as people not correctly understanding his argument as he puts it. It was clear that the people view this argument as a scale of sorts, with evil on one side and good on the other. Dr. Law explained that, in fact, his argument is presented more accurately as two separate scales. One with good God on one side and no God on the other. The second with evil God on one side and no God on the other.

This seems to better represent what Law is attempting to argue. However, it seems to me this line of reasoning is fallacious. In the debate with Dr. Craig, Law did not ever address Dr. Craig's cosmological or teleological arguments because he argued that if he could show that the good God espoused by Dr. Craig was implausible, he did not need to show that a supernatural deity did not exist.

The problem, as I see it, is this...If Law is correct that the moral arguments cannot evidence the existence of God and the design and first cause arguments do not reveal the character of God, then one cannot use the moral argument to show the implausibility of God altogether. In other words, if you cannot prove the existence of God using the moral argument, you cannot disprove God with it, either. (Incidentally, I personally believe that the moral argument actually is quite strong evidence for the existence of God, but that is a topic for another time.)

While these two arguments do not tell us about the character of this entity, they do tell us other things. First, that such an entity exists. It also tells us that this entity is personal, enormously powerful, amazingly intelligent and exists atemporally (outside of time) among other things. Once the existence of such a being is established, we can look to the moral argument for the character of this being.

What if we agree with Dr. Law that the moral argument could point to an evil God just as easily as a good one? Well, we can certainly tip the scales in favor of a good God based on "special revelation." Based on other arguments (that I will not outline here) we can view the scriptures as historically reliable documents. If that is the case then it would appear that God has revealed His nature and character to us as a good God. In addition to biblical texts, there are other historical texts that point to the resurrection of Jesus and therefore corroborate and reinforce the reliability of scripture.

While it could still be argued that it may possibly be an evil God who is simply lying to us, we do not really have any reason to believe that such is the case. In fact, while to some degree this argument could have some force behind it, that force is relatively weak in light of events such as the sacrifice of Christ. Once we take the atoning sacrifice of Christ into consideration, the plausibility of God being evil begins to significantly diminish while the plausibility of a good God gets stronger.

If God were evil, there would be no need of atonement to bring us back into relationship with Him. The idea of separation from Him would be irrelevant because an evil God could endlessly torture souls no matter "where" they were. The concepts of heaven and hell are useless. If that were the case, why bother trying to get us into heaven? In the case of a good God, the atonement is necessary in order to restore our relationship with Him for eternity. With an evil God, such restoration is unnecessary.

What would you say about the "Evil God Challenge?" Do you feel that it has any significance? Why or why not? What would you say about this proposed response to this challenge?

Grace, love and peace.

Getting Even

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Throughout the Bible, there are a number of passages that seem to be known to even those who seem to know virtually nothing about the Bible or what it says. One of the more popular passages is the "Judge not, lest ye be judged." (Mat 7:1 KJV) This one gets thrown at Christians quite a lot by critics of Christianity.

There is another passage that seems to be pretty well known as well by the biblically illiterate. This one is from the Old Testament and it has to do with revenge. Yes, you probably have already figured out what I'm referring to. It's Deuteronomy 32:35.

It is mine to avenge; I will repay.

When was the last time you read Deuteronomy, anyway? All those old ceremonial laws from Moses seem so dry and antiquated. Besides, it is in the New Testament that we read about Jesus. That's the "good stuff" right? In fact, I think that this passage alludes to the New Testament and the salvation that God had prepared to be offered through Jesus.

Let's break this down...

According to the orthodox Christian doctrines, those people who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and put their faith in Him are justified before God as righteous. That means, upon accepting Christ, we no longer have a debt to pay for our sins. With me so far?

So, what is it, exactly, that we might seek retribution for with respect to other people? Well, I suppose if we are seeking retribution (a.k.a. "revenge") it would seem that this would be for some perceived sin that this person committed against us. Let us also remember that all sin is against God. So, if someone sins against us, that person sins against God as well.

If the accused, then, accepts Christ and God forgives them their sin....all their sin...why then do we suppose that we are in a position to exact justice for the sin committed against us? Think about this for a few moments. If we attempt to avenge a perceived wrong against us that God has forgiven, we are essentially exacting vengeance upon one to whom God Himself has imputed His own righteousness. It would be as if we were attacking God!

You may ask, "Then what about those who do not accept Christ? Aha! I can seek my vengeance against them, can't I?" Well, no. It does not work that way. You see, while that person may not currently accept Christ, you (unlike God) do not know for certain the ultimate, eternal disposition of that person's relationship with God. Only God knows if that person will one day accept Him and be forgiven. Meanwhile, while they are still alive, we are to treat every single human being as if they will one day be saved and forgiven.

How good are you at letting the Lord take care of justice? I know that I tend to be less than stellar in this area. In fact, there are many times that I get so frustrated with someone that, knowing it is the wrong thing to do, I feel as though I simply can not move forward until I make that snide remark or make a rude comment or whatever. My own wrath insists upon satisfaction. I must have justice! The offender must pay!!

Hopefully, you are better than I am at this.

Arguably, there are situations which call for justice in the "worldly realm." I do not want to get into some of the more complicated things like capital punishment and the whole system of justice as it pertains to our legal system. I am focusing more on those personal affronts and offenses that our friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers, neighbors, etc. may be guilty of on a day-to-day basis.

When it comes to refraining from revenge, how are you doing? Are you able to defer to God for vengeance, or do you find that you need to see justice done?

Grace, love and peace.

Train Up a Child

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:30:00 +0000

The Bible tells us about a number of different promises that God has made to us. Unfortunately, there are many passages within the Bible that people claim as promises that do not seem to be intended to be promises. Alternatively, some of these passages may have been promises, but they were not made to us.

One passage that I have heard people lament over is from Proverbs. Now, this should immediately tell you something. Proverbs is not, by its very nature, a book of promises. Rather, it is a book of advice. This advice is made up of general principles and guidelines rather than hard and fast promises. A proverb is something that is a good idea to follow, but it does not promise to always bring a specific result.

The particular verse in question comes from Proverbs 22:6 which reads as follows:

Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. (NASB)

There have been several people I know who have brought up this scripture after they have raised their children to adulthood only to find out that they have done something to indicate that they are not following "the faith" quite so closely as their parents had imagined. In most cases, the parent(s) will inflict upon themselves guilt and shame as they see that they have failed as good, Christian parents.

So, what is it that is wrong with this perception? It is simply this...they are attempting to claim a promise from a proverb. The next question is, how do we know that this proverb is not a promise? Let's take a look at it and see if we can figure that out.

First of all, we can take a look at an underlying assumption that one has if this is taken as a promise. If this passage were a promise, then what it is saying is that we, as parents, have the ability to ensure our own childrens' salvation. It is our responsibility to raise them in such a way that they will follow, love, and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The Bible, however, teaches that it is the Holy Spirit that draws, not all, but the elect to Himself. Who decides which people are the elect? Their parents? Or God? I'll let you consider that one on your own, but I'll give you a hint....His name rhymes with "Yahweh."

If we think that we can do something that will cause our children to love and accept Christ and the promise of salvation, then we are essentially claiming a works-based faith. This, it seems to me, would be somewhat insulting to Christ because if our works are necessary to attain salvation then this would mean that Christ's work on the cross was not sufficient. I'm not going there.

We do not determine the eternal fate or faith of our children any more than our parents determined ours. As a matter of fact, if we thought this was the case, then we would have to say that our own salvation was determined by our own parents. But wait...they only accepted Christ because of their parents, so our faith and salvation is because of them. No, not quite. We would have to go back generation after generation until we found the first person in our family tree that did not receive their faith from their parents.

In some people's cases, that might only be one or two generations. But for many, it could go back several thousand years.

The more we look at it this way, it seems the more absurd the idea becomes. Our parents are not responsible for our salvation and we are not responsible for our childrens'. We are simply responsible to teach them what we believe to be true, teach them to make good choices and think clearly and then we basically can do nothing but sit back and pray that the Holy Spirit will draw them to Himself as part of the elect.

In some cases, we may never know. We may see our children fall away, but then after we pass away, they may get drawn back. We may see them grow strong in their faith and then reject Christ before they die. We simply do not have a way to know, with certainty, the state of relationship any other person has with God. That is not our business.

So, let us not take Proverbs 22:6 and try to hold God's feet to the fire if we see our children reject their Christian upbringing. If you taught them what you knew and practiced your faith for them to see and lived it out as best you could, answering tough questions if/when they asked, then you have done your part. (Well, daily prayer probably wouldn't hurt, either.)

Have you ever beat yourself up using this passage? Or known someone who has? Please, comment below and share your story.

Grace, love and peace.

Faith and Public Life

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Perhaps more than in any other presidential election in this country, this one seems to be bringing in the topic of faith / religion into the discussion, particularly with regards to the candidate of choice for the GOP. While this seems to be the topic of many headlines around the country in light of the pending election, there are many who believe that one's faith should not enter into discussion in the public sector.

Now, if you ask many people who seem to be "anti-religion," many will tell you that they do not have any problem with people exercising whatever faith system they would like...as long as they keep their faith out of the public arena. Basically, they will claim that they do not want to interfere with people's faith, but people of faith should not allow that faith to inform other areas of their lives, their priorities, opinions, values, behavior, etc.

What is the problem with this view? Well, part of the problem is a gross misunderstanding of what a person's faith is all about. For one thing, and I'll use the Christian faith (surprise!!) as an example, Christianity is not simply a set of rituals that are performed on a weekly basis in a building that smells like burning incense. It is not a set of prayers or a list of rules.

It would be more accurate to say that Christianity is a "world view." A world view is a filter of sorts. It is a paradigm, or lens, through which we observe, understand and interpret everything that we see, learn, act on, etc. It is basically a way of understanding our reality. A world view that most closely approximates the real world is one that could be considered more "correct" or "truthful" or "accurate." Our world view is comprised of all the various beliefs that we hold about everything.

For example, if part of my world view held a belief that tigers in the wild were nothing worse than large, cuddly cats, this belief could be very dangerous and would not be a good belief to have as part of one's world view. On the other hand, if it held a belief that it is my duty to love and care for my children, then I will hug them, teach them, keep them safe, play with them and enjoy the process of watching them grow.

To a certain degree, many of us have a large number of the same beliefs that make up our world view...touching hot things is painful, driving in one lane at a time is safer than not, the day is approximately 23 hours and 56 minutes long (Yeah...I know...Some of you actually thought it was 24 hours, huh? That's why we have Leap Year!). Because of this, people with different world views can coexist quite peaceably, without a great deal of difficulty.

The problem is, when someone basically tries to tell you that if you run for public office, you should not incorporate your world view into your politics, values, priorities and, most especially, your votes. When you think about it, how is this even possible? And why is it only people of faith who are not allowed to have such decisions informed by their world view? Who, then, gets to decide which beliefs are acceptable to bring into public office and which are not?

While I will certainly accept the idea that a public official should not use their position to proselytize people, I would expect that any public official would be guided by their faith and the values that are informed by that faith when making decisions on public policy. It seems ludicrous to me to think that an anti-abortion public servant should vote in favor of abortion just because not everyone he represents is against abortion.

That may cause some people to respond with something like, "Well, what's wrong with that? If elected officials are supposed to represent the will of the people, then that's how they should vote!" To an extent, I agree. The problem is in how we achieve such ends. It seems to me that, rather than force an individual to vote against his own strongly held beliefs on a given issue, each elected official should have a responsibility, to the best of their ability, to disclose their values and priorities to the voters who can then elect the candidate who best fits with the most important values and ideals of the voter. Then, whoever wins the election can vote with their own conscience on certain matters because the people have decided that they adequately represent the people. If that turns out to not be the case, the next election can resolve the problem.

What it comes down to is this...you cannot ask people to keep their faith out of public life. It would be like asking a professional baseball player to hold back his swing and not try to hit the ball so hard. Yes, we know, that's the whole point, but we think you should try your best to fit in with the average Joe and not deviate from the norm.

People's faith, in most cases, informs every aspect of their life. It is not something that can simply be put on a shelf and then picked up at the end of the day to take home and then left on the shelf again the next time they have to come into the office. It doesn't work that way.

Would the naturalist like to be told, "You are not allowed to use natural explanations for anything except in the privacy of your own home?" Should we tell the atheists, "You must suspend your disbelief in the supernatural when dealing with matters of public policy?" Which beliefs should or should not be allowed to inform the decisions of our public servants? And, again, who gets to decide?

Why not put the people in office who most closely match our own world view and then let them represent those who put them in office for deciding that they most closely represent the voters values? Is there a better way? I'm all ears!

Grace, love and peace.

All Good People Go to Heaven?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:30:00 +0000

You probably hear it all the time. At some point, we have all heard some form or other of the following claim..."I believe I am going to go to heaven. After all, I'm a good person." If you haven't heard that before, you probably need to get out more.

This belief has been refuted often in the past and pastors and teachers can quickly point to a number of biblical passages to show that this is not the teachings of orthodox Christianity. But, rather than go down that road, I was thinking about this type of claim earlier and stumbled upon something a little more subtle that seems to be going on, here.

As I got to thinking about this, it seemed to be that there were some assumptions being made that I wanted to highlight. The first, of course, is the assumption that our eternal fate comes down to whether we do at least one more good thing than bad. Many of the scriptures that get brought up tend to focus on showing that this is not the case. We learn from the body of scripture that the only thing that gets you into heaven is faith in Jesus Christ.

Here is another assumption that I had not really noticed before. The assumption seems to be that "good" things earn you "credits" and "bad" things earn you "demerits" or some such thing. So, you get a point for helping an old lady cross the street and lose a point for stealing a candy bar. Maybe you earn or lose more points if what you did was really good or really bad.

If any married men read this, perhaps you can relate to something, here. You see, when you buy flowers and a card for you wife on Valentine's Day, do you "score points" for that? Not really. It is expected. That is what you are supposed to do. You only get points if you also plan a surprise romantic evening for the two of you where you can get away from the kids and just enjoy some quality time together. You went above and beyond and, when it comes to these types of situations, "above and beyond" is the only thing that you really get any kind of "credit" for.

Please do not get me wrong, ladies. I am not trying to make you sound ungrateful for the "little" things. Besides, my guess is that if you think about it for more than a few seconds, you can find a similar example that shows how guys do the same basic thing. But, I digress...

As I said, it is the "above and beyond" that makes the difference. You score no points for average. You get no credit if you just toe the line. However, anything that you do that is bad earns you an immediate demerit. You may not sweep your wives off their feet, men, by getting her a birthday card. But, if you do not get a card...well...let's just say you might need to be prepared to spend a night on the sofa. (OK. Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.)

Now, let's get back to the original point. Those who believe that heaven is a matter of more good than bad in our life are basically thinking that each bad deed is counter-balanced by some good deed. The problem is, as good as our deeds are, they can never get "above and beyond" and so have no ability to earn credits to make up for the bad deeds. Every bad deed, however, takes us further and further into the negative.

You can probably see where this is heading.

In the end, we just keep getting further and further away from God. That is where Christ comes in. It is He who wipes out all the "ethical debt" in our lives. Our own good is never good enough. Only the good of Jesus Christ actually went above and beyond and got us back in good standing with the Creator of the Universe.

Hopefully, that will give you another angle to think about when it comes to whether or not "good" people will go to heaven on their own merits. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?

Grace, love and peace.

Making Biblical Arguments in a Secular World

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:30:00 +0000

There almost always seems to be some sort of heated debate in our society that pit people of faith against people who want to keep faith out of the government. Many on the Christian side of these arguments seem to rely on arguments that center on what the Bible says about a certain situation or behavior or value or what have you.

As I see it, this has the effect of further polarizing the Christian and secular communities. The debates escalate into emotion-laden, heated arguments and descend into hatred and venomous diatribe at one another. The two sides are so busy shooting fiery arrows at each other that they stop even hearing what each other is saying.

While it would be tantamount to folly to claim that I have the be-all, end-all solution to this problem, I do believe that I know of a way to perhaps minimize how bad this can get. I wish I could say that this is my own insight, but to be honest, so very little of what I know has anything to do with my own insights.

Basically, what it comes down to is this...Christianity is, in a certain sense, a world view. A world view is simply a way we view, interpret and understand our reality. The more our world view accurately depicts our reality, the better we understand what is Truth. As a Christian, I believe that the orthodox beliefs that are taught in the Bible are what most accurately represents reality and so everything that I see, hear, etc. gets viewed through that "filter."

Unfortunately, when debating issues and ideas with those who are not Christians, we must understand that they do not hold the Bible as authoritative and therefore are not going to submit to the teachings of the Bible simply on the basis that the Bible teaches a particular ethic. The more we attempt to force them to comply with biblical teachings, the more resistent they will be and the more they will distrust those who use the Bible to ground their position on any given issue.

If Christianity accurately represents reality and the Bible communicates Truth to us, then this is something we can take advantage of. That is, we can use arguments and evidence from the real world, not the Bible, to make our case for issues and ethics. If what the Bible teaches is how the world really is, then we should not be afraid to base the arguments for our values and positions on secular ideas and facts.

This might be easier if some examples are given. As I have shown previously, there are many arguments that can be made against abortion that do not rely on Bible passages. There are arguments to defend traditional marriage that have nothing to do with quoting the Bible. These are just a couple of examples.

The point is this...We can't use the Bible to argue with non-Christians (or basically anyone who does not submit to it's authority) on any issues or differences in values or ethics. Not abortion. Not marriage. Not embryonic stem cell research. None of that. The reason is because they will feel no obligation to change their point of view based on what the Bible says or doesn't say. But, we may be more persuasive if we argue using logic, science, physics and things that they do put their trust in.

I am not saying that we should abandon biblical arguments or values. I'm not saying that we should, ourselves, use science and physics to learn and understand ethics and values and moral obligations and such. All I am saying is that we should only use biblical arguments when discussing things with others who submit to the Bible.

Because we believe the Bible is factual and based in reality, I believe when we engage a secular audience, it is not only better to use secular arguments, but I think there is a secular way to argue any biblical value or point in a persuasive and powerful way that they will actually be more likely to be well received. While it may not always persuade every non-believer, I believe it will give us a far better chance at bringing them to the point of view we hold even if it is not for the same reasons that we hold them.

Do you think there are any ethical issues that could not be argued for using secular methods? What are some examples?

Grace, love and peace!

The Cultural Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Last week, I shared a discussion I was having on Facebook with a couple of people regarding what the Bible does and does not say about traditional marriage. During the course of this discussion, I had asked a question (I can't take credit for it, I listen to Greg Koukl a lot) about whether or not we, as a society, define marriage or whether it is something that we simply describe.

After those in the discussion indicated that we define marriage and we can re-define it as our society decides to do so. Upon making that statement, and following the logic as Koukl has pointed out, I decided to "take the roof off" and ask whether or not they would support someone who wanted to marry their daughter or their brother or a plant.

This, of course, was met with the charge that such a thing was ridiculous and that the difference between what they were asking for and my example was that there are not a half million people wanting to marry a plant. So, in the interest of following that line of logic, it seemed to me that numbers were the issue. One of the people in the discussion even indicated that if there were a half million people wanting to marry a plant, then we could discuss that scenario.

It seemed to me, then, that the distinguishing factor between a ridiculous idea and an idea worth discussion and consideration, on this persons view, comes down to the number of people advocating for a position. In light of that, I probed to identify where that line was drawn. If only 499,999 people advocated for their position, does it not yet merit discussion? Perhaps it's fewer than that. What if it was only 10,000? It seems that the "magic number" must be between one (where it is deemed "ridiculous") and 500,000 (at which point, it seems almost a moral imperative, on this person's view).

When asking for such clarification on where these lines are drawn I was accused of being "deliberately obtuse." My example was asserted to be logically flawed, but nothing was offered to explain how this was the case. Also, when discussing this "debate" with a Christian friend, I was met with a somewhat surprising response. "Don't you believe that God is the only one that can change people's minds and hearts? Is what you're doing effective?"

In the end, something finally occurred to me (I'm not that bright...it sometimes takes me a while). Somehow, the combination of the failure on the part of those I was discussing this with to understand the arguments and points I was offering, coupled with the Christian response that I should basically not engage people in these areas and allow God to handle it reminded me of something that I had heard in my studies with Biola University's Certificate of Apologetics program.

I'm going through this program and one of the audios is titled "Christianity and the Problem of Popular Culture" which is a lecture given by Dr. John Mark Reynolds. In this lecture, Reynolds discusses the problem of how our culture is becoming less "literate" in the sense that people no longer spend time reading and learning to use rational discourse. Because our culture is watching more movies and television and doing less reading, we are losing the ability, Reynolds claims, to do logical, left-to-right rational thinking in a manner which allows us to make logical and rational decisions.

He gives an example of his grandfather who was poorly educated but read quite a bit (usually the Bible). He talks about how, in his grandfather's day, a political candidate would offer their views, values, priorities and strategies and people would, on the basis of such things, decide for whom they would cast their vote. He then points out that, in today's society, most politicians rely heavily on rhetoric and people vote for who they find the most "likeable." (Forgive me, Dr. Reynolds if I'm way off...this is a very loose paraphrase.)

Essentially, what he seemed to be saying was that by using rational discourse, one could actually allow their world view and important decisions to be affected by such discussion of ideas. Today, either people dogmatically hold to their world view regardless of how flawed it is shown to be and they just live with the "cognitive dissonance" or, if their world view is somehow shown to be inadequate, they will simply go and adopt some other world view that does not cause them to have to alter their lives or beliefs significantly (or at all).

In discussing the idea of what the Bible presents as marriage and whether or not we define marriage, I started to realize that these very well may be the types of situations that Dr. Reynolds was shedding light upon. They simply could not understand that by pointing out an undesired scenario that is consistent with the beliefs they claimed to hold should then encourage them to re-investigate what they believe, why they believe it and what could the be consequences of those beliefs.

Instead, they rejected out of hand the scenario I offered, seemingly on the basis that it was unlikely. They failed to recognize that, while unlikely, it did fit with what they espoused to believe. I found that, when I offered this example, I was met with responses that attempted to draw conclusions about what I was saying that were so out of left field, the discussion was getting exhausting because I had to spend so much time disputing what I hadn't said.

For example, when I first offered my scenario of a person wanting to re-define marriage so that a person could marry a dog or a tree, the first response was that this would be offensive to homosexuals because I was using an analogy of dogs and trees against them. After picking myself up off the floor, I then had to spend time distinguishing between an "analogy" (which would certainly, then, make such a comparison) versus simply offering an example of where their logic could potentially lead. My example wasn't at all analogous to anything. It was a hypothetical situation that I was presenting so that they could see the type of absurdity that could result from a belief they claimed to hold.

In the end, I had to decide whether to continue trying to have a rational discussion with people who did not seem to understand how rational discourse worked or simply bow out of the conversation and allow them to have the last word. I opted for the latter, but with a good deal of regret because there was so much about their thinking that I felt was flawed and I always feel bad about letting people continue on with such bad thinking.

On the other hand, I have to ask myself whether or not my methods need to be re-evaluated. Perhaps I could be more discerning with such conversations and avoid getting into them to begin with. I do know that, at least at the beginning of the discussion, my manner was not exactly becoming. There was a good deal too much sarcasm and my manner began in a very polemic fashion. Eventually, I eliminated much of the polemical attitude and attempted to rely on questions. clarifications and offering ideas that seemed to fit their espoused beliefs.

I suppose that means that I need to polish my own approach more (Greg Koukl likes to say that if either party gets angry, he failed) and more quickly identify the level of ability (not to mention willingness) to discuss things in this manner so that I can avoid myself or others to become frustrated or angry. While I do think that we should not avoid such discussions, it does seem vitally important to comport ourselves appropriately in them. Yes, God is the only one who can change hearts and minds, but God also uses means, one of which is us.

What are your thoughts?

Grace, love and peace.

Traditional Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Recently, I have been engaged in a discussion on Facebook regarding traditional marriage. Someone had posted a link that referenced several Bible passages and Bible stories to attempt to make marriage in the Bible look horrible. I assume that this is in reaction to much of the controversy surrounding marriage in the political arena these days.

While I do not want to get involved at the moment with such political hot potatoes, I do want to address the type of rhetoric being used in these scenarios. This isn't the first time I have seen people attempt to attack the Bible by using such tactics as straw men, taking things out of context and mis-representing the text.

On such claim from this link was that the Bible says that marriage is between a man, his wife (or wives) and his concubine(s). People such as Abraham, Solomon and Jacob are referred to in order to back this up. This accusation is a type of equivocation fallacy. In other words, they are saying that because the Bible describes a behavior, that this somehow means that this behavior or practice is prescribed by the text.

In fact, the Bible is simply reporting a historical event that took place. The men described had a wife (or wives) and, in some cases, concubines. Just because they did so does not mean that the Bible or, by association, God condoned these practices. If you read the accounts of these people who took on multiple wives or mistresses in addition to wives, you will notice that things did not go well for them with respect to their relationships. Solomon, for example, was led astray and began allowing altars to be built to false gods and even began to worship these false gods.

Take a look at Abraham. He slept with Hagar and had a son with him because his wife, Sarah, could not have a child. How did that turn out? Well, it caused strife and turmoil until Abraham finally had to separate them by sending Hagar and Ishmael away just to keep the peace.

What about the whole thing with a widow being given to her deceased husband's brother? Well, genealogies were very important and if a woman was widowed before she could have children, this was done to allow the deceased husband to carry on his heritage. That is why it fell to the brother to fulfill this requirement...he was of the same blood. Not only this, but then the widow would be cared for because women in middle-eastern cultures at that time were not able to provide for themselves. (Not because they were incapable, but because the culture did not allow it.)

This brings up another fun one. Another arrow that gets fired at the Bible with regards to marriage is from Deuteronomy 22:28-29. Here, the accusation is stated, in cleverly rhetorical fashion, that a "virgin who is raped must marry her rapist." That's a very disingenuous way of putting it as it makes it sound as though the poor victim is to be punished by marrying her attacker. In fact, that is not what the Bible says.

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.

First of all, it is not that the woman is commanded to marry her attacker, but the other way around. While that may seem to be splitting hairs, this is significant. As I mentioned above, women of that time, in that culture, relied upon a husband for provision and protection. A young, unmarried woman who was raped would not likely find a man to marry and thus would probably continue to live with her parents. People in those times were not as long lived as today, so after her parents passed away, her best way to provide for herself would either be to sell herself as a prostitute or take up begging at the temple and hope she could be given enough money to buy food and such.

This was not a very good prospect for someone who had just gone through such tragedy. If anything, it seems to me, that would be the crueler punishment... to allow such a destiny. Instead, the attacker was ordered to then take her in as his wife, provide for and protect her and, notice the last part....he was not allowed to divorce her....ever. Once put in the proper context, it suddenly seems like it is the attacker who is taking the punishment for his crime, not the victim. She gets provided for and protected and cannot be divorced. He, on the other hand, now has to marry a woman whom he probably had not intended to marry.

With all of this, it just is basically to show that opponents of biblical Christianity will do everything they can to undermine such faith. They will erect straw men, they will twist things around, they will take things out of context, they will use powerful rhetoric...all to try to show how terrible Christianity is. The fact is, I have not yet come across an opponent of Christianity who has accurately portrayed the Christian faith as I know it...And not just me, but any pastor, author, speaker, writer, blogger or other Christian that I am aware of, for the most part.

There are a handful of "Christians" who are not normative of the Church but who are viewed as such by those outside the Church in order to make the Church seem far worse than it is. We are not perfect. We have committed terrible atrocities throughout our history by people who have abused power. But such things are a very small and regrettable group who fall outside the boundaries of what would generally be considered "orthodox Christianity."

Have you heard of the types of accusations like I've described? Do you agree with them? Why or why not?

Grace, love and peace.

The Dangers of Biblical Inerrancy

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:30:00 +0000

One of the most popular reasons that I hear about why people lose their faith has to do with the "Problem of Evil" as it is commonly known. I've written about this issue already, so I will not get involved in that here. Another popular reason people loose their faith has to do with something known as "Biblical Inerrancy." This has to do with the idea that the Bible, being the Word of God, is without error.

The idea of inerrancy is a bit tricky as there are many understandings and interpretations of what that means. For example, some people would claim that anything the Bible states must be indicative of exactly what God wants. In other words, not only are there no errors in the Bible, but this concept would view every story, every verse, every scenario as be prescriptive rather than descriptive. In other words, if the Bible states that someone does some thing, then that must mean God willed (or commanded or desired) for them to do that thing. They believe that, since it is in the Bible, we should do the same thing.

It seems that this is a very unorthodox (to say the least) way of understanding scripture. After all, the Bible tells us many things that happened that seem to be obviously counter to what God would want. However, since these events are part of the history of the Church, the Bible reports them to us so that we might learn a lesson from them (often, the lesson being what not to do).

Another way of understanding inerrancy is a bit less rigid. That is that some believe that every single letter of the Bible is exactly perfect and correct just as it is written. This eliminates concepts of differing literary styles such as allegory, poetry, songs, history, parables, creeds, etc. There is difficulty with this view because if we take the Bible literally to such a degree, we will run into trouble when we reach passages where Jesus claims to be "the door" for example (John 10:7) or a vine (John 15:5).

Still a different understanding of inerrancy is the idea the everything the Bible says is true. Again, this can be taken too far. Finally, there is the idea that the Bible is true in everything that it teaches. There is some debate in this area because some people believe that every verse in scripture is written for the purpose of "teaching" something. This seems to be dependent upon what one means by "teaching."

Without getting further bogged down in defining terms (not that I generally mind doing that), this was mainly to lay the ground work. As I mentioned at the opening, people often lose their faith because of the idea of inerrancy. I have attempted to give a brief overview of the various ways this is understood and each has a different way of being "falsifiable." This is a technical term and it refers to the idea that any theory, to be valid, has to have some way or some set of conditions which, if shown to be the case, falsifies the theory. While it may sound somewhat counterintuitive, to prove a theory true, one must first show how it might be proven false.

One must be careful with this as what I am not saying is that it has to be false. For example, if I said that I was born on August 22nd, 1973, there is a way to prove this false. You could look up my birth certificate and see the date of birth. That does not mean that the claim of my birthday is true or false, rather that it can be shown to be either true or false. Got it?

So, with all this, what would happen if the scripture is shown to have errors? Does that mean Christianity is false? Many people would say that is the case. I, and many others, would disagree. It is important to understand that, as important as the Bible is for Christianity, our faith does not rise or fall on whether the Bible contains errors or not. Christianity rises and falls on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ by his disciples.

Personally, I believe in inerrancy. Every time I've heard someone attempt to point out an "error" in the scripture, I have been able to reconcile the "error" once I take into consideration the social, historical, cultural, textual, linguistic contexts, the "error" seems to pretty much disappear. With all of that, if the Bible is shown to have errors, that does not show Christianity is false. It only shows that the Bible is not inerrant. To claim Christianity is false because you believe the Bible to contain error(s) is throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

Whatever you believe about biblical inerrancy, it does not essentially effect the truth value of Christianity. It might mean that we would have less confidence in some of the details about the early Church and teachings of Christ. But it wouldn't change the fact that Jesus Christ died, was buried and was raised from the dead.

Do you believe that the Bible has errors? Why or why not?

Grace, love and peace.

The Power of Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Both Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger have cited “prayer experiments” as evidence against the existence of God. According to these experiments, they selected various people with similar medical conditions and separated them into groups for which some would be prayed for and some would not.

According to Stenger and Dawkins, the results of these experiments did not show any sort of favorable outcome for those who were prayed for. This, they claim, leads us to the “inevitable” conclusion that prayer is ineffective and therefore is evidence against God’s existence.

It is because of such conclusions that there are people in the world who recognize the necessity of having philosophers of science. Scientists themselves make such poor philosophers and end up making silly claims like this. The fact is, the conclusion simply does not follow from the experiment for a couple of reasons.

One popular objection to such “prayer experiments” is the idea that God is not a “show pony” that will just play along and jump through the hoops that we have set up for Him. While I tend to agree with this concept, I am not entirely certain that this argument is powerful enough to overcome the “evidence.”

Before we get to what I believe to be a stronger argument, I have to take a moment to bring up a couple of ideas that many will probably feel is quite obvious. Still, it seems important to get this into the forefront of our minds so that we can see the connection as we move forward.

Of all of the “Christians” in the United States (we’ll limit it to that since that is where many of the experiments took place), the vast majority of them would be what some have referred to as “Cultural Christians.” These are people who:

Claim to believe in Christ but do not go to church at all
Claim to believe in Christ but only rarely go to church
Claim to believe in Christ and go to church but show no life change

In all three cases, we are talking about people who would tell you that they are Christians, but apart from such a claim, there is no way to distinguish between their own life and the life of a non-believer. Their “faith” does not inform their behavior or their world view. It makes no impact on their daily life. For all intents and purposes, they are functionally atheists.

On the other hand, there are people in the church who genuinely believe in God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, etc. There lives are marked by such attributes as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. These are people who are sold out to the creator of the universe and spend their lives working to glorify God by loving Him and loving their neighbors.

Here is where we get back to the prayer experiments. My main contention here is that there does not seem to be valid controls on these experiments. How would the experimenters know, for example, if there were people praying for the group of people that were not supposed to be receiving prayer from their group? Do they think that these people’s families are simply not going to pray for a family member just because a few people lab coats asked them not to?

What about the group of people that they had praying for the other group? How many of them were “cultural Christians?” These people’s prayers, it seems to me, would not be heard by God. After all, Jesus even says that there are some who will say “Lord, Lord” to whom He will say “I never knew you.” It seems quite plausible, to me, that a group of people willing to participate in this type of experiment would likely fall into this category.

On the other hand, those who were “not” prayed for may very likely have been receiving prayers from family, friends, other church members, etc. These would more likely be prayers from faithful Christian believers whose prayers would reach the ears of the Lord and be heard. Perhaps not all, but enough to account for some of the experiments where the results were completely opposite from what might be expected (the “non-prayed-for” group showed better results).

Regardless of the sincerity of the faith of those praying, the main point here is the fact that there really is not a good way to identify which group of people received and which did not. Well, specifically, it cannot be discerned whether or not the “not prayed for” group was really not prayed for. That fact alone invalidates the “experiment.” Even if we do not take into consideration the sincerity of the faith of those praying…that is just icing on the cake, as it were.

What do you think of such “prayer experiments?” Do you think they are valid? Why or why not?

Grace, love and peace.

State Sponsored Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:30:00 +0000

The United States is a secular nation. Even our President says so. "Whatever we once were, we are no longer..." There is so much effort to keep religion and faith out of the public square. There seems to be such fear over "state sponsored religion" (whatever that may mean). There also seems to be an almost tangible fear that such a thing would cause all sorts of terrible things to happen.

Not that some of this fear is not justified, but I feel that this would simply depend entirely on how one understands this concept of "state sponsored religion." In one sense, it could mean something near what we often seem to see in Muslim nations where Sharia law rules and it is actually illegal to accept another religion. In that case, I would agree that this would be wrong.

On the other hand, one need only look across the Atlantic Ocean to our "mother country" of Great Britain to see another way that state sponsored religion can affect a society. England has an "official" state religion in the Anglican Church. Contrary to the effect that many people in America fear when it comes to state sponsored religion, in England it has had apparently none of the negative effects Americans assume it will have.

That, however, is not the end of it. England is not only not a place where it is illegal to be anything other than Anglican, it is a place where Christianity seems to be failing. It seems to be stagnant at best and shrinking at worst. This in spite of the fact that Christianity is the "official" faith of that nation. It is not kept out of school. It is not kept out of government. It is not kept out of the public square.

This brings us to ask the question...do we, as the Church, want in our own nation? Would we want state sponsored religion in the same way England has it? I guess my answer is...I'm not entirely sure. While I cannot say that the state of the Church in England is because it is sponsored by the government, such a situation does not seem to be helping it much. Or is it? Would Christianity be completely blotted out of England if it were not the official faith? Or would it be stronger?

What about if there were a middle of the road? What about if Christianity were not the "official" religion of the United States, but it was at least accepted and allowed to be heard, practiced and taught in public schools. What if government buildings were not forced to remove plaques containing the Ten Commandments from their walls? What if people were not trying to prevent government officials from taking part in faith-based events, praying before meetings, etc.?

What if there were a state sponsored religion and it was not Christianity? It seems awfully presumptuous to say that if there were a state sponsored religion that it would be Christianity. Not that it would be surprising, given that it is the majority faith. Still, why couldn't it be Islam, Judaism, Latter Day Saints, Buddhism or Hinduism? How would that effect our society? Would it be better? Worse? The same?

Whatever the case, I believe that the separation of church and state, to the degree our society seems to take it, is divisive and destructive. The types of heated, and sometimes violent, disagreements we see here in America do not seem to occur in other countries with regards to these issues because America is one of the few societies that attempts to have a fully secularized government.

Do you think that ending the war against public religion would be good or bad for our society? Why or why not? What about state sponsored religion? Do you think that is why Christianity is doing so poorly in England? Or is it only lingering because it is the official church?

Grace, love and peace.

Definition: Death

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Without trying to be morbid, it does not seem like people think about death much. Not that people should necessarily dwell on the idea of death to the exclusion of all else or anything like that. In this case, I’m not even really referring to thinking about death and dying in the common sense. It is more about the idea and concept of death…what it is and what it means.

For the purpose of this writing, I am going to approach this from what I believe to be a biblical world view. That means that there will be certain assumptions about the fact that what Bible says is true and I do not intend to spend a great deal of time defending why I believe these things to be so. Suffice to say, if the Bible seems to say it is true, I will address it as being true.

The short definition of “death” in the Bible seems to be “separation.” While that seems to be a pretty accurate way to describe it, it also does not seem to be thorough enough and leaves a lot of things undefined and unexamined. What exactly does this idea of “separation” mean, exactly?

The first, most obvious thing is a separation of the soul from the body. When we “die,” what is actually happening is that the body and the soul are torn apart from one another. While the soul seems to be able to survive this separation, it seems that the body cannot. One thing regarding this aspect of separation that many people do not think much about seems to be the fact that human beings were created as body and soul. Therefore, when someone dies and we hear people talk about them being in a “better place,” while this may be true to some extent, it seems to ignore the fact that the separation of body and soul is not the way things are supposed to be. It is a better place, but it is not the best place.

Another separation is the separation between us and our families. We become separated from those whom we leave behind. It is perhaps a temporary separation, but a separation nonetheless. We are separated from our relatives, our spouses, our children, etc. We will be reunited, after a fashion, in heaven although the relationship will be somewhat changed.

In some cases, unfortunately, there are people who use the idea of death to separate themselves from their problems. People in this situation see death as an escape. They believe that their life could not possibly be any worse and/or that it can not possibly get any better. It is a reaction to despair and despair, by definition, is the total lack of hope. And we know what happens when you do not have hope (Proverbs 13:12).

More than anything else, the most severe type of death is the separation from God. Sin separates us from God. Our rebellion separates us from God. Only the person and work of Jesus, the Christ, can restore that relationship. By turning down that free gift of grace, we continue in our sin, we continue to live in separation from the Creator of the universe. Biblically, this is sometimes referred to as “the second death.” Basically, what that means is that after we die physically, we also are separated from God spiritually.

Acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of God is the only way to reconcile all the separation…from one’s body, one’s family and (most importantly) one’s God. This is the only way to repair the rift. It is the only way bridge the enormous gap between us and the Creator. By crossing that bridge (Calvanists, don’t get on me…I’m not suggesting a works-based salvation….just making an analogy with the bridge), we close the separation. By staying on our side of the bridge, that separation remains for eternity.

Have you crossed that bridge? Have you been invited to cross that bridge? If you haven’t, consider this your invitation. Cross that bridge.

Grace, love and peace.

The Science of Intelligent Design

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

In an effort to catch up on my listening to the Unbelievable? podcast, I'm finally into the 2010 episodes. In this episode, Peter Atkins was refuting the ID (Intelligent Design) theory as legitimate science. This was not the first time that I've heard Prof. Atkins and each time it strikes me that he is...well...not a very nice person. But, this isn't about my personal feelings about anyone in particular.

What strikes me about his technique is that he seems to refute a carefully articulated argument by saying, "That's nonsense" or "Ridiculous" or "That's wrong" or some such retort. In every case that I've heard this, I never once heard any kind of actual argument from him. It was all just assertions and claims about the superiority of science.

The main defender of ID was Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell. Dr. Meyer carefully laid out the facts that he followed the very same type of scientific study methodology used by Charles Darwin. It was an acceptable method when Darwin used it, but not when Meyers uses it...apparently because it leads him to an unpopular conclusion. It was almost amusing when Atkins tried to refute Meyers by talking about how old that methodology was. As if the age of a methodology has anything to do with its validity.

One famous argument that evolutionists like to use is that ID prevents "real" science from doing its job. They say that by positing an intelligence as the source of life, this somehow causes science to just stop in its tracks. I have yet to hear any scientific test or experiment or question that is prevent from being performed or asked by concluding that the origin of life comes from a mind. By concluding that life was designed, does this prevent us from learning about the physical makeup of the cell? Does it prevent us from studying DNA? What does it prevent us from studying?

The last "refutation" of ID that I hear over and over from not only Atkins but from most anti-ID people is the "It's just Creationism in disguise." While perhaps a vast majority of IDers are theists, it is not all of them. Most of them, certainly, are Christians though there are Jews, Muslims and others included. But the claim that it is Creationism in disguise or religion in some way is a complete mischaracterization of the entire idea. It is a version of a straw man.

Opponents of ID claim that it is not science and that science is about the pursuit of "truth." But if, in fact, the origin of life is an intelligent source and the "scientists" refuse that explanation a priori, they are putting themselves in a position to make the acquisition of truth impossible. It would be like refusing to believe that your lost wallet was on top of your dresser, so you refused to look there and just continually searched everywhere else and assumed that it must just be that you haven't looked in the right place yet...but you won't look on the dresser...because it's just not there. Meanwhile, it sits on top of the dresser just waiting for you to stop being so close-minded.

What do you think about ID? What do you think about the arguments against ID?

Grace, love and peace.

Defining God

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

There have been times in the past when I have heard people argue that Christians are begging the question when we describe God as omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, etc. They claim that this is circular reasoning and count it against Christianity as if it were some sort of evidence that God does not exist. If you have heard this type of argument before, feel free to share your experience with it.

It seems to me that when I hear this argument, what they appear to be doing is falling victim to the fallacy of equivocation. Equivocating between what, you might ask. Equivocating between the idea of "defining" and the idea of "describing" or "discovering." You see, there is a very distinct difference between these things and they should not be used interchangeably as seems to often be the case.

When we describe something, we are observing the attributes about what we are describing and putting those observations into words or thoughts. The idea of defining a thing means that we determine what those attributes are rather than discovering what they are. See the difference? In the latter case, we get to control what something is and in the former the thing is already something regardless of whether or not anyone even observes it.

An example of this would be the difference between a tree and a game. In the case of a tree, we do not get to decide the properties of the tree. We observe that it has things such as roots, a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. We may get to decide the names (or "labels") used to describe the three, but that does not mean that we get to decide whether the thing we know as a "tree" has these attributes. A game is defined in that we determine the rules of the game, the object, the method of playing, how many people can play, etc. The game did not exist until someone defined what it was.

This brings me back to the point about God. Is God something that we describe or something we define? If He is something we define then the entire Christian enterprise is wide open to any number of varying (and perhaps even contradictory) definitions. Just like with the example of the game earlier, many games have somewhat different rules depending upon who you ask. Often, the main objective of the game and many of the rules are very similar, but there are often differences in some of the details.

If we define God, there is little point in discussing the different concepts of God. The "orthodox" Christians, the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses and other different groups seem to all have a lot of the same basic premises, they just differ in some of the details. (Never mind that some of these details are crucial for the overall understanding of one's faith.)

On the other hand, if God is something that we describe, this is much different. This would mean that it is possible that people could hold multiple understandings of God and not all be correct. When these differing conceptions and descriptions of God do not correspond (or they contradict), then not all points of view can be correct. It would not be possible for contradictory views to be correct (see the Law of Non-Contradiction). All views could potentially be incorrect, but they cannot all be correct.

When we describe, rather than define, God, we put ourselves in a position to be able to discuss, debate and learn Truth. Truth, in this instance, is not a subjective idea. For something to be true, in this sense, it requires that a given proposition (e.g. "God is omnipotent.") would have to match reality. If it does not, it is not true. That would not necessarily be the case if God were a matter of our own definition.

How does this play out, practically speaking? Basically, if God is something that we describe, then when we claim that He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal, etc., we are merely putting into words what we observe to be true about Him. It is not circular reasoning because, when approached this way, we can see that these attributes are descriptive of God whether we apprehend Him or not. In other words, we are not determining that God has these attributes, we are recognizing the fact that any entity that does not have these attributes could not be God!

When you think about God, do you believe we define who He is, or is that something that we discover and describe as we apprehend Him?

Grace, love and peace.

Rivals, not Enemies

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

While catching up on listening to past episodes of the Unbelievable? podcast, I came across a quote from one of the guests on the show that really stuck with me. It was from an episode from about two years ago, so I do not recall exactly who the guests were or even, off the top of my head, what that week's topic was.

It seemed like such an off-the-cuff comment that I am not entirely certain that the man who spoke it did not likely imagine that it would have had an impact on someone thousands of miles away, two years after he said it. It seems to me that he succinctly and eloquently articulated the very heart of what I have, for some time now, believed about how Christians should interact with non-Christians.

All he said was, at the beginning of what was to be a discussion between himself and a non-Christian, that we can be rivals without being enemies. It was that simple. It almost seems too simple, in fact. But it most certainly explains exactly how I feel about how Christians should comport themselves.

I remember a few years ago reading a book called unChristian. In this book, the author reports on his market research in the area of people's perception of Christianity in general and Christians in particular. In the book, David Kinnaman shows that Christians are not very well thought of outside of the Church.

Why is that? Why do people outside the Church seem to have such a low view of us? Well, it is most likely because we can be insufferable jerks We can be the most judgemental, bigoted and harsh group of people to those who do not hold our own views. I have even heard some discussions between people who both claim faith in Christ but disagree on some particular point. Even for brothers in Christ, these discussions can become extremely polemic.

There have been many times that I have overheard discussions with Christians or seen interactions where I feel embarrassed by how the Christian behaved or talked to another person. It is as if I hoped that I could rewind the scene for a do-over so that grace and respect could be shown. So that we could show love and treat people with the dignity deserved of a human being created in God's image.

I certainly do not want to beat up my brothers and sisters in Christ.That is not my intention. In fact, I can only wish that I could be an example of what I am talking about. Unfortunately, I have the very same tendency to, at times, allow frustration to take over and be less than the exemplification of a loving Christian.

By showing respect for others and treating them with dignity, even in the midst of the most vehement disagreement, we show more of what it is like to recognize the image of God in every human being. We cannot hold people accountable for a set of standards that they do not believe is authoritative for them. I believe that the best method is to start by bringing them to Jesus Christ and then letting him change their lives once they accept him as the authority.

When we see someone being unloving or disrespectful who professes to be a Christian, hold them accountable for their behavior. We cannot simply stop at the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?). Instead, we need to point out what Jesus did.

Jesus was not rude. He was challenging. He was not mean. He was penetrating. He did not shame people. He gave them hope. We should be doing the same thing. We should show love. We should show grace. That, I believe, is what Jesus would do.

Grace, love and peace.

False Dilemmas?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

It is not uncommon for people to criticize Christian moral values by describing them as “absolute.” By that, they usually mean that behavior that is wrong in one set of circumstances is wrong in any set of circumstances. It is a view that Christian morality is very wooden and inflexible.

Perhaps one of the most common examples given to illustrate this concept is the story of Corrie ten Boom. For those who may not be familiar with this lady, she was considered a hero during the Holocaust because she helped to hide Jewish families from the S.S. troops.

When the Nazi’s would come to people’s homes to look for Jews, they would interrogate the residents with regards to their whereabouts. Typically, people like Corrie ten Boom would lie to the soldiers and claim that she did not know of any Jews even when they were hiding in their basement. Regardless of the accusations of such absolute moral values, many Christians would argue that, in this type of situation, the end (the saving of innocent lives) justifies what would otherwise be a sinful action (lying).

In the spirit WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?), I sometimes cannot help but wonder about this type of situation. What would Jesus have done? If Roman soldiers were to come to a house where Jesus was staying, looking for some innocent person who would be executed, would Jesus have told them that the accused was not there even if they were?

In most of the narratives that I can think of, when Jesus was challenged with some seemingly difficult dilemma, Jesus did not have to be deceitful to prevent a greater evil. Instead, He would turn things around on His accusers in some way that most people would probably never imagine doing prior to hearing Jesus’ response.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” – John 8:7
“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Render unto God that which is God’s.” – Matthew 22:21
“I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times.” – Matthew 18:22

Just for a few examples.

So, this leaves me wondering…in situations such as that in which Corrie ten Boom found herself, would there been another way to respond to the Nazi soldiers that would have simultaneously protected the innocent Jews and was completely honest? Or perhaps, as Jesus would often do, perhaps there was a response that would have struck at the very core of the issue (“[S]ell all your possessions and give to the poor…” – Matthew 19:21).

What do you think? In these “moral dilemmas” do you think that perhaps there is a way to respond that does not require us to do so in a way that would be honest and yet not jeopardize the well-being of an innocent person? Could it be that the reason Jesus was able to do this was because He had the benefit of such close communion with the Holy Spirit? Could it be that we simply do not listen closely enough to the Holy Spirit for such responses that Jesus might offer?

Grace, love and peace.

Land of the Totalitarian

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Usually, I tend to stay away from political topics. It is not so much that I am afraid of controversy or anything like that. Mainly, the reason is because I simply do not follow politics very closely and so I feel that writing about political issues is a bit out of my ken. Today, I am going to give it a shot.

I do this primarily because this is something that is at a high enough level that I do not believe it requires a great deal of detailed political knowledge to address this issue. So, this is based on my own observations, what I recall from my high school government classes and other conversations that I have taken part in, overheard, read about, watched on the news (no, not just Fox) and basically any other way that one hears about the goings on in the world of politics.

Most people who know me know that, while I may not be overly political, I tend to lean toward the conservative side of the spectrum. Now, once you have restored your heart beat to a more regular cardiac rhythm and slowed your breathing again, you can pick yourself back up off the floor after that shocker and we can move on.

One of the reasons I tend to lean to the conservative side is because, the way I understand the conservative ideal has a good deal to do with governmental structure. The federal government should be lean and much of the legislation should be handled at more localized levels. To legislate at the Federal level seems to me to get us closer to totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism: adj.

Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed

Thinking back on my history classes, it seems that communities were formed by people with similar ideals, values and priorities. These types of things drew people together into communities that then became villages, towns and even cities. That being the case, it only made sense to allow those more localized communities to decide upon the legislation of those communities.

What I have observed over time is more and more activity and legislation at the Federal level. As a result, I have seen more and more divisiveness among the political parties and more violent disagreements between people with differing political ideals. It hardly seems reasonable to ignore these two things and not put them together.

It seems to me that by legislating so many controversial topics at a Federal rather than a local level, the result is more polemics, more heated debate, more violent opposition, more oppression and far, far less tolerance. The more certain groups of people try to push their idea of "tolerance," the more clear it is to me that the definition of "tolerance" is very different from the traditional understanding of that term. But I can get more into that another time.

So many of the current hot-topics in the political realm seem to have caused so much division amongst the American people because by legislating them at the Federal level, we are using a "one-size-fits-all," totalitarian approach for what behaviors, actions, values, priorities and ideals everyone is obligated to accept...or face the legal consequences.

What seems to be happening is that the majority is cowing to the minority and allowing them to dictate their version of morality, usually based on relativism and their brand of tolerance (which is tolerant of anything as long as they agree with their own ideologies). One the one hand, I do not believe that it should be a "majority rules" type of government by any means. On the other hand, I also do not think that the minority should have so much control, either.

Better, I think, to allow local communities to determine how those communities should decide what is allowed or not. (I know...I'm going to get some flack for that from both sides, I'm sure.) It is not that I do not believe in objective standards for morals and duties. I certainly do. However, I do not see how any group of people can force their morality upon another group of people unless one follows a "might make right" ethic. Ironically, while many liberals will say that this is their ideal, in practice they seem to want to impose their values on everyone else.

So, let's not use litigation, legislation and angry, violent rhetoric to attack one another. Let's allow communities who share certain ideals to live according to those ideals and allow other communities with other ideals to live according to those. The Federal government can still be there to enforce values that are shared amongst the entire nation (I'm not saying that we should allow communities who make pedophilia, kidnapping or murder legal). Sure, as Christians we should reach out to communities with whom we disagree. But, if you recall, 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to do this "with gentleness and respect." In other words, with "tolerance."
Why do you think so many controversial issues are being legislated at the Federal level these days? What repercussions do you foresee from this practice?

Grace, love and peace.

Leaving the 99

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:30:00 +0000

There have been a number of posts that I have written based on blogs that I have read, news stories that I've heard about, books that I've read and those sorts of things. Given the nature and purpose of this blog, I am ashamed to admit that relatively few ideas for blog posts have come from actual conversations that I have had with real people.

After all that, you might be thinking that this one is the exception and that I am about to write a post that came up as the result of a dialog between myself and someone else. You would be wrong. Although, I suppose it is a step closer to that than usual. Actually, this one came about as I overheard something at church this last weekend from a couple sitting behind me. I truly wanted to turn around and respond to the couple and offer my thoughts but it was between worship songs, communion and the offering and I felt it would have been a very poor time to get into this with a couple people I had never met.

Nonetheless, that overheard conversation is where this posts comes from. The current series at church is called "Red Letters" and is focusing on Jesus' parables. This past weekend was about the parable of the lost sheep. During the communion time, the passages were displayed on the screens in order to prepare the congregation for the message. It was also because of this that the couple behind me had their conversation. So, first, let me start with the passage:

¹Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. ²But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
³Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' ⁷I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Luke 15:1-7

The short conversation behind me was with regards to that last bit in Verse 7. The young lady leaned over to the man next to her (I have no idea if they were married, dating, friends or what have you) and said something to the effect of, "I don't get it. Why would there be more rejoicing over one repentant sinner than 99 righteous people?"

Throughout the course of the message, there were a number of things that were covered and unpacked with regards to this passage, but nothing that I felt really addressed this specific question. I don't say that to find fault in the message as there were a lot of things that were covered about this passage and one cannot expect a rigorous theological discourse to take place during a normal Sunday morning service.

The first thing that came to mind was an analogy that I would have liked to have shared with this couple:

Imagine you have three children. You are at the mall and looking around when suddenly you realize that only two children are with you. Your heart starts racing, blood pressure shoots up, hands start to sweat and you set into a full-blown panic. You first try to look calm as you look around, your mind racing, questioning yourself as to where/when you last noticed all three were by you.

The more time passes, the more difficult it is to maintain any semblance of calm. You begin walking faster, calling their name. Depending upon the ages of the other children, you ask them to help you look. The adrenaline is pumping and you start to become so focused on finding this one child that virtually everything else fades into the background. You don't notice other people, the racks of clothes, the sounds of the store, etc. The only things you see and hear are anything that may possibly lead you to the whereabouts of that single child.

When you finally find the child, you are so overcome with relief you grab them and hold them tight, fighting back the tears so that you don't frighten them. You silently admonish yourself for allowing this to happen while at the same time rejoicing over the fact that they are here with you, safe and sound.

Now, let me ask you a question...do you love that child more than the other two? For any normal parent, I would say that the obvious answer is, "No!" However, your joy over having found this one far surpasses the joy you may feel (and perhaps take for granted at times) with the two that were not missing.

I believe that this is the same type of scenario that God goes through when one of us goes astray and then come back to Him. He loves all of us, but rejoices when one of the lost is found. It causes Him grief when we stray away from Him. It is the removal of that grief upon our return to Him that causes such joy, just as the grief of a missing child is alleviated when we find them again and we feel so relieved.

It is doubtful that the couple sitting behind me in church last weekend are going to see this post. But, if you have ever wondered the same thing that young lady did, perhaps this will help put things into perspective.

Have you ever felt the relief of finding something that was very important to you that you thought was lost? Have you ever rejoiced over it?

Grace, love and peace.

Science of the Gaps

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:30:00 +0000

In a recent discussion I had regarding Intelligent Design, I was told that ID always "seems to end up in some form of God of the gaps" argument. Although I am not entirely sure whether this is normative for those who buy into the neo-Darwinian synthesis (natural selection & random mutation), it seems to be pretty common from my own personal experience.

It seems as though I have been using this word a lot lately when discussing the arguments and beliefs of non-theists, but this type of argument seems inconsistent and even self-defeating. Ironically this argument, if applied to the Darwinian model, would fail its own test. As you likely ascertained, I will take a few moments to explain that a bit further.

First, let's take a closer look at where this argument comes from. When investigating the claims of ID, the evolutionist seems to imply that it is a huge leap of logic to go from the signs of design to the God of the Bible. It seems to me that they use double-standard reasoning in that when it comes to almost any other way that information is identified, they are willing to concede that there was an intelligent source. But, when it comes to the information stored in DNA, for example, they seem to be entirely committed to denying an intelligent source.

Why is this denied? Because all we have is what appears to be information. Perhaps it is just the result of natural, materialistic processes. Why the need to invoke a divine designer? Since we do not have a way of knowing for certain where this "information" came from, to posit a God is to simply say "since I do not know any other way that this could have come to be...I will give the credit to God."

So, how can I claim that this is inconsistent or self-defeating? Quite simple, really. What many evolutionists fail to realize is that we all have the same data. We all have access to the same fossil record, the same archaeological evidence, the same geological, paleantological, biological information.

The difference is that we do not make the logical leap from similarities in physical attributes to ancestral connection. Just because organisms or creatures exhibit similar physical features does not necessarily indicate any sort of common ancestry between them. All that follows is that they have similar physical features. To conclude evolution from such evidence is a non sequitor. It simply does not follow, logically.

In fact, it would seem to me that such physical similarities are at least as strong evidence in favor of theistic creation as it is for evolution. After all, if the creatures and plants and other organisms in the world exhibit such similarities, one could easily infer a designer who used the same design for things that would be necessary in the same environment.

For example, for creatures that breathe air, lungs will work. Why invent a different organ for each creature when lungs can accomplish the job. There are some relatively small "tweaks" to make depending upon the other physical characteristics and such. However, many land-dwelling animals have legs, hair, fur, lungs, eyes, ears, teeth, etc.

Perhaps the reason I look at it this way is because of my background in IT. When a programmer is writing the code for a software application, if they know that they will continually need to perform some set of operations on data, and it's the same operation regardless of the data, they will write a single function that they can call and refer to instead of rewriting the same lines of code over and over again. Why would that not be the case with designing animals, plants, etc.?

We all have the same evidence. We all have the same data. What we don't all have in common is our world view. Our world view is what determines how we will interpret the data. Perhaps we'll cover world view later. for now, suffice to say that it is the sum total of our knowledge, experience, values, priorities, etc. that informs how we see and interpret reality.

Those with a naturalistic world view simply will not be able to bring themselves to consider supernatural realities. Is that you? Why or why not? Do you believe that evolution is as much a science of the gaps as ID is a God of the gaps?

Grace, love and peace.

Willing to Commit

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:30:00 +0000

With all of the various philosophical, cosmological, historical and experiential evidence for the existence of God, one wonders why there are some who still do not believe in such a being. Often, one response is that all of this evidence is circumstantial and is therefore insufficient to commit to such a belief.

There are basically two things that I find intriguing about this position. The first is the fact that it is inherently inconsistent throughout the lives of those who take this stand. In almost every other area of their lives, they are willing to fully commit to things for which they have even less evidence for.

As an example, how can one be certain that an aircraft is fit for flight with such a high degree of certainty? While I would agree that there are people whose jobs require such things to be the case, we have absolutely no evidence that the appropriate people are doing their jobs, nor are we given any reason to believe that they are doing their jobs thoroughly and effectively. The only evidence that we have for such belief is that (for most of us) flying has never resulted in a catastrophic failure of the aircraft. That hardly seems like sufficient reason to believe that every single member of the flight crew is having a good day...particularly first thing Monday morning.

Yet, we demonstrate a complete commitment to the belief that all of the people involved in ensuring the safety of the aircraft have done their jobs thoroughly, accurately and completely the moment we step on that aircraft, take our seat, fasten our seat belt and taxi down the runway. While there is certainly the potential for us to be wrong about how well these people have done their jobs, we nonetheless are willing to make that commitment to the extent that we are willing to wager our lives on it.

There are many such situations, though that seems to me to be a far more obvious example, in which less than 100% certainty is enough for us to make a 100% commitment to put our trust in something or someone. Riding a bus, getting on an elevator, having a surgical procedure...the list can go on and on.

The other interesting thing about this position is the fact that so many who hold to it are basically committing the very thing that they accuse theists of doing. These people will claim that theists are, at best, un-intellectual and at worst, anti-intellectual. We are accused of having "blind faith" in something that we cannot know to be true. How are they any different? Is there such a glaring distinction between the idea that we commit to belief in a God based on certain data versus the fact that others dogmatically assert that there is another explanation out there that we just have not yet discovered?

It seems that both beliefs require faith. One that God is the answer. The other that there is some other, undiscovered answer that is not God. A major distinction between these two groups is that those who have taken the time to study the evidence and conclude that God must be real are probably more willing to admit that they are wrong if such evidence were to present itself. Those opposed to the existence of God do not seem as though God will ever be a sufficient explanation for anything because they will continue to search for some other answer.

No matter how long it takes, we know that humans will never know everything...so they will always have this card to play. The "we just don't know....yet" card gets pulled out any time they need it. How can one explain this apart from saying that they have "blind faith" that one day science will discover a naturalistic explanation for everything? While they will accuse theists of using "God of the gaps," I suppose what they have is a "question of the gaps" or "ignorance of the gaps" that can never be completely answered and therefore will be ever-present.

At the risk of being dismissed as "Pascal's Wager," I cannot help but think that it would be best to take the evidence and the data that we have, make the commitment to trust that God truly does exist and then if that proposition is falsified at some point in the future, one can change their position in that regard. And, if it turns out to be the case that God doesn't exist, one need not fret over any eternal consequences of changing positions from theism to atheism.

Alas, we all know that this is a mere fantasy. Psalm 14:1 plainly states the problem we face. As does Romans 1:20. But, I can still dream. I can still hold out hope that someone, somewhere will recognize that the evidence exists and faith is not blind. Not any more blind than trusting that the person driving next to you on the freeway, going 70mph, is going to stay in their own lane and not run you off the road.

Is your faith blind? Do you believe that theism is a blind faith?

Grace, love and peace.

OT God; Mean and Nasty?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaIn the latest interview from Apologetics315, Brian Auten spoke with David Lamb, author of “God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?” Right out of the gate, it’s a fairly provocative title. It certainly seems to be a popular topic nowadays what with the “new atheists” and their diatribes about theism in general and Christianity in particular.

I really enjoyed the interview and the insights that Lamb shared regarding this book. It is one that I will most certainly be putting on my “To Read” list. According to Lamb, the book is targeted toward the average person, rather than being a more academic work. So, hopefully, it will be a good starting point for many people to begin looking into further study to help them answer some of the tough questions that may be offered to us regarding why we believe what we believe.

Because the “wrathful, vengeful, mean, capricious” God of the OT seems to be a popular target these days, this book will help the average Christian become equipped to handle some of the accusations non-believers may have in this area. Paul Copan and Clay Jones have offered their thoughts on this, as well, though they tend to be a bit more on the academic side, so some people may find them somewhat more difficult to digest unless they have a good understanding of some of the philosophical and/or theological ideas being presented.
One illustration that Lamb gives in this interview comes from 2 Samuel 6, when David was having the Ark of the Covenant brought to Jerusalem. If you don’t recall the details of that passage, this should help:

¹ David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all. ² He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. ³ They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart ⁴ with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. ⁵ David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD , with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.
⁶ When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. ⁷ The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.
⁸ Then David was angry because the LORD's wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.
2 Samuel 6:1-8

Lamb points out that this seems like a difficult passage in and of itself. While he does agree that this passage should not be responded to flippantly, there is, at least, more to the story than just what is written in this passage in 2 Samuel. For that, he brings us back to the books of Moses.

First of all, let’s look at how the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to be carried. We find this in Exodus 25:

¹² "You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. ¹³ "You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. ¹⁴ "You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them. ¹⁵ "The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it.
Exodus 25:12-15

Now, let's take a look at what the Israelites were told regarding approaching the Ark. This, we find in Joshua 3:

³“When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. ⁴ Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.”
Joshua 3:3-4

Two thousand cubits is roughly 3,000 feet, by the way. So, when we look back on this we can see that they were not following the rules that God had specifically set out for them regarding the Ark. Some might say that instant death is still a bit harsh a penalty for Uzzah. I mean, the poor guy was trying to keep it from falling over. Sure, he was carrying it wrong to begin with, but wasn’t keeping it from falling a good thing compared to the initial mistake of how it was carried. If God is going to kill someone over something like this, shouldn’t He have just killed all of them for carrying the Ark on a cart?

You could even go one further…how capricious is it to kill someone just because they didn’t carry a box the way you told them to? I suppose, when one puts it like that, it does seem a bit extreme. But, let’s remember…this was no ordinary “box.”

²¹ "You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony which I will give to you. ²² "There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.
Exodus 25:21-22

This was where God Himself would meet with His people. It represented the very presence of God. And what do we know about the presence of God?

⁴ You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;
with you the wicked cannot dwell.
⁵ The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;
you hate all who do wrong.
Psalm 5:4-5 (emphasis mine)

The fact is, there were very clearly laid out rules about how the Ark was to be handled, transported, kept, etc. In the case of Uzzah, this is a great picture of how our actions and decisions have consequences. Think about it…sometimes, we may do something or choose something that may seem like it is working out well. But, when push comes to shove, and the ox stumbles, you have to react. You are reacting on the foundation of the choices you have made. If those choices were bad, your reaction could be deadly.

Obviously, there is no way to tell, but I think if the Ark were being carried properly and one of the people carrying it stumbled, nobody would have been killed. Perhaps not even if they had reached out to grab the Ark. I can’t prove that, certainly, because it never happened that way and we may never know for sure.

Regardless, there is a lesson in this passage. That lesson seems to be that you should just start off doing things God’s way to begin with and things will work out much better. If you start of doing things apart from God’s way, even if you have the best of intentions, things will not always turn out so well.

What are your thoughts? How do you respond to the challenge that the OT God is mean and cruel?

Grace, love and peace.

Faith and Obedience

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Reading the epistles of Paul can be a mind-numbing exercise. He gets so deep and the way he writes often causes me to have to read the same sentence four or five times in a row just to figure out what he is saying. But, I’m not writing today to talk about Paul’s writing. Instead, I want to take a look at James.

Paul is deep. He is theological. He is cerebral. But, James? Wow! Talk about laying it on the line! Not that Paul doesn’t do that. But James is not very wordy and does not sound complex. With his one epistle, he just comes out of the gate swinging…hard…and he does not let up.

One area that confuses people is the difference between Paul’s and James’ thoughts on faith and works. Rather than get on that right now, though perhaps in a later post, I want to focus on something else with respect to James. Obedience.

During James’ discussion in Chapter 2 on faith and works (deeds), If we are to understand James’ thoughts on works as being a sign of one’s faith in the sense that works show our obedience to the Lord, rather than just stating a belief (faith) in Him without actually obeying or doing something from that belief, it is clear how James feels about that in James 2:19:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.

Do you shudder when you think of God? Do you shudder when you try to understand His majesty? His awesomeness? His power? His eternal being? The gravity of His sacrifice of His Son, the Christ? His knowledge? What about…His justice?

How often do are we underwhelmed by what we think of God? They say that “familiarity breeds contempt.” Perhaps when we go to church week after week, attend our small groups, read through our Bibles, say our prayers, etc., we begin to somehow trivialize Him. We don’t always take two steps back and take a good hard look at His majesty. A look where we recognize Him to the extent that we just fall the floor, trembling in awe of Him.

I wish I could say that I’m writing this from a position of success. It would be great to say that I tremble when I think of God. I would love to say that I don’t take Him for granted. Unfortunately, if wishes were nickels, I’d be a rich man by the world’s standards.

What about you? Do you believe? Do you have faith? Does your life show it? Do you have works? Do you tremble?

How would your life change if you completely sold out to God, lived your life for Him, lived a life where you put your best foot forward and did something to show your faith? After all, remember that “faith” isn’t just about believing about God, it’s about believing in God. Putting your trust in him. That is what faith is.

Do you trust Him? Or is it just a blind hope that you believe in like you believed in Santa Clause until someone spilled the beans? (Sorry if I just spoiled something for you.) I wish I could say “Yes!” Sometimes I can.

Grace, love and peace.

Free Will and Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Carrington) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:30:00 +0000

One of the most common questions that is asked about the Christian faith is, perhaps, “What will heaven be like?” To answer this question, I will not presume to claim any special knowledge or insight. I will simply let the Bible speak for itself. While it may not be as clear as we might like, I don’t have any more information than what we all have access to in the scriptures.

I have been thinking, however, lately about a particular aspect of heaven. Probably because after listening to several debates and questions about Christianity from people such as Bart Ehrman and others. The question that has been coming up with respect to heaven is something like this:

If the evil in this world is the result of Free Will, and there will not be sin in heaven, will there not be Free Will in heaven? And, if there will be Free Will in heaven, how then will there be no sin?

This is, to me, one of the most difficult questions to address as a Christian. Even as I write this, I do not claim to have come up with a definitive answer. This is more of an attempt to get my thoughts, as they currently are, down in order to help sort them out with respect to this question. I am certainly open to feedback and look forward to hearing others’ thoughts on the issue and critiques of my own ideas that I’m putting forth.

When it comes to this issue, I do think that there is a way to reconcile these two things. It starts with something I was thinking when listening to “Theology Unplugged” recently. The guys at Credo House Ministries, at least the three guys one hears on the aforementiond podcast, are Calvanists. During a recent series of podcasts, they when through a number of points regarding Calvanism based on the acronym TULIP.

While I don’t have time to go into much detail, I will just at least give the breakdown of the TULIP:

T – Total Depravity
U – Unconditional Election
L – Limited Atonement
I – Irresistible Grace
P – Perseverance of the Saints

When discussing the idea of Irresistible Grace, questions arose about how this idea can be reconciled with the idea of Free Will. As I listened and was thinking about it, I couldn’t help but wonder if the way God does this is, rather than “causing us” to think or feel a certain way about Him, instead perhaps He merely allows a small “portion” of Himself to be “seen” so that we see some aspect of His glory and are then drawn to Him.

That’s a very quick and dirty explanation and probably could be an entire post in and of itself. But, hopefully you get the idea.

Based on this kind of idea, as I think about the idea of Heaven, this same type of concept comes to play. So, if when God reveals something of Himself to us, it draws us to Him and we are willing to submit to Him in response to the glimpse He gives us, when we are in heaven, we will more fully “see” His glory and will therefore, in our glorified bodies (no longer subject to Total Depravity) we will have the ability as well as the desire to be 100% obedient to His Will.

This, I believe, also addresses one of the earlier questions I had when thinking this through which is based on James 2:19:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

So, obviously, just seeing God’s glory is not enough to explain full obedience. But, if, in seeing His glory, we are drawn to Him, this works. If we see His glory and are defiant, we are like the demons in James 2:19.

It may go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway…This line of thinking has not been thoroughly thought through and I still have a lot of questions about it. But, so far, this seems like it may have some merit. Then again, someone may offer one comment or perspective that will cause this whole theory to crumble to the ground in a heap of dust.

What are your thoughts? Does this have merit? Does it even make sense? Is there some obvious thing that I am blindly overlooking?

Grace, love and peace.