Theology and Christian Apologetics Archives | CrossExamined.org

I recently came across this article “10 Things You Should Know About Scientism” by Christian philosopher JP Moreland, and he dropped a truth-bomb that is too good to not share. But let me give you a trigger-warning. This is sure to rankle a lot of atheists who seem to unquestionably accept the philosophy of scientism.

Contrary to scientism, there are things we know with greater certainty in theology or ethics than certain claims in science. Consider these two claims:

1. Electrons exist.

2. It is wrong to torture babies for the fun of it.

Which do we know with greater certainty? The second claim is the correct answer. Why? The history of the electron has gone through various changes in what an electron is supposed to be. No one today believes that Thompsonian electrons (J. J. Thompson was the discoverer of electrons) exist because our views have changed so much. It is not unreasonable to believe that in fifty to one hundred years, scientific depictions of the electron will change so much that scientists will no longer believe in electrons as we depict them today.

Regarding the second claim, someone may not know how they know it is true, but nevertheless, we all, in fact, know it is true. If someone denies that, he needs therapy, not an argument. Now it is not hard to believe that in fifty to one hundred years, most people will no longer believe the second claim. But it is hard to see what kind of rational considerations could be discovered that would render the second claim an irrational belief. Thus, we have more certainty in the second claim than in the first. And the same is true for certain theological assertions—like that God exists.

When I shared this quote on social media immediately, I was met with a lot of guffawing from certain atheists. I have to wonder if it’s’s because it strikes a nerve against one of their most dearly held doctrines — that science can answer everything.

The Virtues Of Science?

If you think about it for a minute, what Moreland is saying is hardly controversial. One of the things that skeptics will often say is that one of the differences between science and faith is that science is humble. This is because science is provisional – it’s constantly willing to be wrong and revise its theories in the face of new evidence. Popular astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson speaks of the virtues in the scientific method:

“This adventure is made possible by generations of searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules: Test ideas by experiment and observation, build on those ideas that pass the test, reject the ones that fail, follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.”

Faith, or so the argument goes, is the opposite. It’s often dogmatic in its assertions and not willing to change its stance in the teeth of evidence. It’s more of a “because I said so” vs. a “let me show you” type of thing. All of its arguments are appeals to authority, according to some skeptics.

So it should not be arguable that science, with all of its promises to give us knowledge, is something that should be held with a certain degree of tentativeness and a willingness to change its mind. The existence of gravity or the truth of quantum mechanics are empirical facts, but our understanding of the theories behind them is subject to change.

Right now, science doesn’t have a strong and confident answer for why there is consciousness or how life originated. And the answers in science regarding how human beings and animals evolved is constantly being revised in light of new discoveries. There are things that are unknown or are held with a lesser degree of certainty.

Moral Values: Not Scientifically Discovered And Not Created By Man

The statement “there is a vast moral difference between protecting the lives of defenseless, orphans, and using them for target practice” is not something that is going to ever be subject to revision. And here’s the kicker — science can’t begin to tell us why we should value one over the other, at best it can tell us about the brain states of the tortured versus the nurtured. It can’t tell us why we ought to care for the orphan and why we ought not torture them.

Ironically, science also can’t tell us why the humility of the scientific method is more virtuous than the dogmatism and exclusivism of religion! These are moral conclusions, not conclusions of science.

“If It Can’t Be Verified By My Physical Senses, I Can’t Know It.”

Some might argue that science gives us empirical knowledge — that which we can actually verify with our five physical senses. For example, we can verify with our eyes that spiders start having eight legs unless they lose a leg. That’s a scientific fact. But moral statements can’t be verified that way, so they’re not actually factual. We need to keep our moral jelly away from their scientific peanut butter.

But this is just the old, debunked philosophy of verificationism rearing it’s ugly head again. Verificationism had it’s heyday nearly a hundred years ago in philosophy departments, but it died out shortly after critics pointed out a fatal flaw: We can’t actually verify verificationism with our five physical senses. There’s no scientific experiment that you can run that shows that factual statements can’t be moral. Therefore, verificationism is self-defeating. And to say that there’s a difference between empirical facts and moral opinions just begs the question for verificationism. Somehow this flawed epistemology lives on among many modern skeptics.

But What About Moral Diversity?

Some might argue that morality is different in other cultures, and so, therefore, it’s’s relative and makes no truth claims. Science can at least tell us the facts eventually, while morality is just emotive. So, for example, in India, cows roam free because they’re considered to be sacred. But here in America, there’s a hamburger spot within driving distance for almost everyone.

But both cultures agree that it is wrong to eat other human beings. In America, when Grandma dies, we don’t eat her; we bury her. Hindus don’t eat beef because they think the cow could be Grandma reincarnated! So the moral difference doesn’t arise because of conflicting values but facts related to common values.

Every culture that has devalued innocent, human life has done so by dehumanizing the other side. Just look at our modern abortion debate — one side stridently says that the unborn are not human, so it’s’s permissible to kill them. The other side holds that life begins at conception and will argue from science, theology, and philosophy for their position. But neither side will explicitly say it’s’s morally permissible to murder babies because they’re inconvenient to us, because both camps consider them to be human.

On the subject of moral disagreement, C.S. Lewis wrote: “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to—whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.”

Just because some objects in the moral landscape are harder to see than others, it doesn’t mean that we don’t see many moral facts very clearly. We clearly see that justice is to be preferred to injustice, kindness is to be preferred to cruelty, courage is better than cowardice, and that intellectual dishonesty is never going to be a virtue.

Ethical Truths Are More Certain Than Many Scientific Claims

If morality is just a matter of preference or expressions of our emotions, it becomes unclear why we should work to solve any moral “problems.” We could simply say, “Hey, this sense of distaste you have for genocide, kidnapping, sexually abusing children, rape, murder is just that — distaste. Let’s just agree that no moral problems exist and move on!” Obviously, that’s crazy.

The point is that there are universal moral values; they’re often glaringly self-evident and need no argument to support them any more than we need to argue for the laws of mathematics or logic. And science will never be able to tell us what they are.

Peter Singer, an atheist philosopher, says, “No science is ever going to discover ethical premises inherent in our biological nature, because ethical premises are not the kind of thing discovered by human investigation. We do not find our ethical premises in our biological nature, or under cabbages either.”

We come to science with this background belief as a properly basic foundation. And importantly, science depends on people acting ethically – like conducting their investigations safely and honestly. We take this for granted, just as much as take for granted the existence of the external world that we study in science. And ethics and science often intersect, like in questions about gene editing, population control, animal rights, and so forth.

To doubt the existence of the moral world is no more justifiable than to doubt the existence of the physical world. Many atheist philosophers agree with this — for example, Michael Martin, Russ Schafer-Landau, Erik Weilenberg, Louise Antony, GE Moore, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and many more, even if I and many philosophers think they run into a “grounding” problem. And because of that, Moreland is absolutely correct. The notion that the assertions of the hard sciences are greatly superior to claims outside science is false.

“A wise man scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.” (Proverbs 21:22)

Why We Can’t Know If The Universe Created Itself

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

In the beginning, was… not the Word …. but the singularity event occurring in absolute nothingness and timelessness that spontaneously created all we see in the universe around us. So said physicist Stephen Hawking anyway, in his popular book The Grand Design, where he explained that spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing. It is not necessary to invoke God; he concluded, “to light the fuse to set the universe going.” “All it takes is gravity and the existence of, well, multiple other universes.”

Soundbites like these can be disturbing for people of faith. More to the point, they can provide false comfort to those who prefer to suppress their innate knowledge of God. In a recent conversation with a skeptic who had heard of but not read the book, I was quickly confronted with a typical line of argument – reliance on the expert. “Look,” my friend said, “neither one of us can hold a candle to someone with the accomplishments and intellect of Hawking, so if it’s good enough for him….” The smile on his face told me the conversation was over before it began. After all, a response like this leaves little room for further discussion and no room for debate.

So what is the believer to do? Does recognition of one’s limitations, and a proper sense of humility, make it a fool’s errand to pit oneself against a world-renowned physicist such as Dr. Hawking? Or is there a way to appropriately examine and perhaps even challenge the reasoning of such an expert?

There is indeed a way. Thousands of times a year in courtrooms across America, expert witnesses take the stand to provide opinions to jurors on topics that are beyond the knowledge of the average person. But these opinions and conclusions can be, and often times are, rejected. The first step is to carefully consider the assumptions underlying the opinion, which oftentimes are not well thought out or are perhaps just incorrect. For example, a psychiatrist may conclude that the defendant she examined is suffering from a particular mental illness, but that opinion may be based upon the untested assertions of the defendant which if false – if the defendant is malingering and trying to fool the examiner – could easily lead to a mistaken conclusion. An accident reconstruction expert can conclude that one party was the cause of an accident by making incorrect assumptions about conditions he did not observe leading up to the accident. In short, despite being “qualified” to offer an opinion, even the impressive credentials of a physicist like Hawking do not give the expert a free pass. The expert’s opinions, like all evidence presented in court, must be carefully examined.

What is the mistaken assumption underlying Hawking’s approach? Simply this: you cannot use science to prove what occurred prior to, and outside of, the universe. Though many invoke the term “science” as a club, using it to convey that their position is somehow unassailable, science is not a book of wisdom. It does not contain the answer to all of life’s questions as if it were an encyclopedia of all there is, or was, or ever will be. It is instead a method for using our senses, and reason, to learn how and why things occur or why they are the way they are. Implicit in science is testability. The scientist’s hypothesis must be subject to repetition and testing so that others can confirm that the methodology is sound and the conclusions logically justified.

When it comes to examining the origins of the universe, there is a starting point some 14.6 billion years ago before which there was neither time nor space. There was the complete absence of anything. Science cannot reach back beyond that point. If there are indeed a multitude of other pre-existing universes that in no way intersect with our own, which are therefore undetectable to us, how can a scientist simply assume they exist? If our universe needed a pre-existing “law” of gravity to light the fuse, how can one assume that such a law appeared without the need for a creator, for a “lawgiver?” For his conclusions to be testable, Hawking would have to first demonstrate what conditions existed “before” time and space came into existence. If we sprang from another universe, how can science prove that such a place, beyond the reach of any of our sensing equipment, exists? In short, if his conclusions are correct, there is no way for anyone to know. Hawking has moved from science to speculation at this point. He has moved from physics, wherein his expertise lies, to philosophy, where it does not.

Positing a multiverse or a pre-existing law of gravity may provide an alternative to God as the “uncaused cause,” but it also demonstrates that even skeptics share that powerful sense that most people have that you just can’t get something from nothing, that before a thing can exist there must exist before it an adequate source. Moreover, believing in a multiverse or law of gravity cannot explain the really interesting questions we also ponder, that have little to do with physical creation and impersonal laws: how did life emergence from nonlife? What is the source of the information coded into DNA that is capable of producing not just life but consciousness and intelligence? The physical world does not provide examples of intelligence and language, so what can explain the information-rich “blueprints” that we know of as DNA? Why are there “laws” of nature, and why are order and design built into things if there is no designer? Why do we all recognize concepts like beauty, truth, and morality?

There is a certain hubris in asserting that God is unnecessary. Consider an analogy: a programmer writes a computer simulation in which a virtual soldier is given artificial intelligence, and a set of missions to perform. If the soldier uses its intelligence to begin inquiring as to the nature of the computer in which he is housed, what information would that provide him about the programmer? Only such information as the programmer wanted his creation to know. Regardless of how clever this soldier became, he could never know what the programmer wished to accomplish with the program, or what motivated him to write it unless the programmer gave him that information. What stunning arrogance it would be for the soldier to nonetheless conclude from his inquiry that he self-assembled, that he knows the sum total of what occurred before he became conscious, and most strikingly that there was no programmer at all.

This, too, is Hawking’s problem. As a scientist, he no doubts understood that theories must be tested in some fashion to give them scientific weight. How can a theory about multiple universes which do not intersect in any fashion with our own ever be tested? How can he demonstrate that gravity was not first created by someone immensely powerful and completely outside of our physical reality?

Why then write a “science” book that is itself a foray outside of science, setting out to prove something that science cannot prove? The Bible warns that the wisdom of the world is folly to God. Perhaps this is what it means.

How Jesus “Emptied Himself”

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Few biblical texts receive as much attention as Philippians 2:5-8. It reads:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Theologians have spilt much ink over this text. After all, it’s a rich Christological text which proclaims significant truths about the nature of Christ. But far and away, the most controversial part is the phrase “but emptied himself.” What does this statement mean?

The Dilemma

Does this mean that Jesus emptied himself of his deity, thus ceasing to be God during his incarnation? After all, if he was fully God, how could he also be a human at the same time? This seems like a logical contradiction.

Or, perhaps the phrase means that he set aside certain divine attributes while maintaining others. In other words, he still kept some of his divine nature — holiness, love, wisdom — but willingly set aside other parts of his divinity — omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience — in order to be human. This view has attracted many supporters because it seeks to reconcile how an all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere God could also possess qualities such as limited wisdom and limited spatial presence.

Or, does this phrase mean something else entirely? In fact, I do believe it means something else entirely, and I think I have good reasons for believing this. Allow me to explain.

The Deity Of Christ

There’s little doubt that this text proclaims Jesus as the pre-existent God of the universe. This text gives us two reasons for reaching this conclusion.

First, it states that Jesus was “in the form of God.” The word for “form” in the Greek is morphe, which denotes the exact substance or nature of something. Therefore, by declaring that Jesus was “in the form of God,” Paul emphatically states that Jesus shares the exact same nature as God. He is eternal, self-existent, all-powerful, all-knowing, holy, love, and so forth.

Second, Paul tells us that Jesus was equal with God when he wrote, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped.” Nothing, however, is equal to God except God. God even declares in Isaiah 46:9, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.” If what God says in Isaiah is true, how then could Paul make Jesus out to be God’s equal? It must be that Jesus himself is also God.

The Meaning Of “Emptied Himself”

We now come to the most controversial part of the text. What does Paul mean when he says Jesus emptied himself? I believe he tells us in the next part of the text when he asserts, “[Jesus] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Here, Paul indicates that the emptying of Christ doesn’t include losing any of his deity. Rather, the emptying includes adding a human nature to himself. In other words, it’s the formula of subtraction by addition.¹

Notice the text doesn’t state that Jesus emptied “part of himself.” That would indicate that he set aside portions of his divine nature in order to become a human. No, it simply states that he “emptied himself” by taking on the nature of a human.

Paul expresses that, even though Jesus had a divine nature and an exulted status in glory, he willingly chose to “empty himself” by coming to earth to experience all the limitations and sufferings of a human, ultimately culminating in his death on the cross.

This view is consistent with the historic orthodox view of the nature of Christ. At the Council at Chalcedon (AD 451), the church declared that Jesus was one unique person who possessed both a human and divine nature. That is to say; he was fully God and fully human, not part God part man. And for clarification, he wasn’t two persons. Rather, he was one person who had an eternal divine nature and an added human nature in the incarnation. Again, subtraction by addition.

“Emptied Himself” Illustrated

Let me give you an illustration to explain how adding something could look like subtraction.² Imagine that one day you decided to go to a luxury car dealership to test drive the nicest car in the showroom. The salesman gave you permission, so you took the shiny car out for a spin.

As you were driving down the road on that rainy day, you noticed a field off to your right and decided to take the car off-roading to see how well it could do donuts. After about fifteen minutes of spinning around in the field, sufficiently caking the car in mud, you took the car back to the dealership, handed the keys to the salesman, and thanked him for allowing you to test drive the car.

As you can imagine, the salesman demanded an explanation for why you plastered his new shiny car with mud. To which you responded, “hey buddy, why are you so upset? Did I take anything away from the car? No, I only added to it. I added mud!”

You see, even after the fifteen-minute test drive, the new luxurious car was still a new luxurious car. The full coating of mud, however, disguised its glory, so it wasn’t as obvious as before. In the same way, as Jesus added a human nature — much like mud in our illustration — he didn’t cease being God. Instead, the human nature merely disguised his glory like the mud disguised the glory of the new luxurious car.

As you read through the Gospels, you will find that Jesus’ humanity made it difficult to see his divinity. We even read of times where Jesus became hungry or tired or didn’t know certain details about future events. In a sense, this is the mud disguising his glory. It doesn’t mean he ceased being glorious, it simply means his human nature veiled his divine nature during the incarnation.

Why It Matters

Jesus adding a human nature has massive implications. After all, Paul tells us that Jesus emptied himself to become “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” If he only had a divine nature, he could not have died for our sins, because God cannot die. The reason Jesus could die was because he possessed a human nature.

Thus, without his added human nature, we would still be lost in our sins. Thank God Jesus emptied himself.

Were There No Camels During the Time of Biblical Patriarchs?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Mikel Del Rosario

Camels in the Bible?

Engaging skeptical challenges to the Old Testament and Camels in the Bible

Most people I knew growing up had no problem saying most Old Testament stories were based on some kind of real event. Even those who were skeptical about supernatural parts of the Scriptures didn’t question basic details of ordinary events like Abraham’s travels or even the presence of camels in the Bible.

Today, not so much. Many archaeologists and historians are challenging the reliability of biblical stories in the public square. From college classrooms to YouTube, many people get their views on the Bible from books, articles, and documentaries that try hard to undermine the truth of Scripture. This is probably why even the ordinary details of Old Testament narratives can raise questions in people’s minds. For example, could Abraham really have used camels?

Could Abraham really have used camels?

Skeptics say the camels in the Bible show up at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Many are quick to allege there’s no evidence of camels in the Middle East until about a thousand years after Abraham. In a 2014 New York Times article called “Camels Had No Business in Genesis,” John Noble Wilford wrote:

Camels probably had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs as Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, who lived in the first half of the second millennium B.C., and yet stories about them mention these domesticated pack animals more than 20 times… The archaeologists, Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the earliest known domesticated camels in Israel to the last third of the 10th century B.C. — centuries after the patriarchs lived.[1]

There are two kinds of camels

It’s true there are camels in the Bible. Genesis says Abraham brought camels back to Canaan from his time in Egypt (12:16) and his servant brought camels from Canaan to Aram (24:10-11). Did the Bible get this wrong? Gordon Johnson teaches in the Old Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. He talks about camels in the Bible and explains what the archaeologists really found and why counting the humps on camels can help us think through this issue:

When [Ben-Yosef and Sapir-Hen] were excavating, they found camel bones [belonging to a camel with one hump [2] But there are two types of camels: One-hump camels and two-hump camels. The first time one-hump camels appear in Israel is about 1,000 B.C. So the Internet blogs went crazy: “These Israeli archaeologists proved the Bible’s wrong—camels didn’t exist in Israel until about 1,000 B.C.” And that’s true for one-hump camels. but this is important: One-hump camels were late; two-hump camels were early.

Here’s what he means by “late” and “early”: There probably weren’t many camels with just one hump in Israel until a “late” date, after Abraham’s time. But the rest of the story is we know ancient drawings and texts show camels with two humps were already in Egypt at an “early” date, way before Abraham. Turns out, knowing the difference between one-hump camels and two-hump camels can help us respond to skeptics who insist the Bible got this all wrong.

Keep this in mind when you see camels in the Bible: The fact is two-hump camels were in Egypt about 12,000 B.C. and they were all over the Ancient Near East by 7,000 B.C. They were domesticated by about 3,000 B.C. That’s 1,000 years before Abraham.

Evidence for Camels in Ancient Egypt

When skeptics raise questions about camels in the Bible, they often miss the difference between camels with one hump those with two. One-hump camels were for trade. Two-hump camels were for travel and that’s exactly what Abraham was using his camels for. He got them in Egypt where they’d already been for thousands of years.

Ancient texts around that time from Nippur[3], Ugarit[4], and Alalakh [5], mention two-hump camels. There are even rock carvings and drawings of these kinds of camels 1,000 years before Abraham. For example, This cylinder seal from Abraham’s time shows a circle with two figures riding on each hump of a two-hump camel[6]. Archaeologists also discovered a rock drawing from Egypt from 200 years before Abraham showing a domesticated one-hump camel being led by an Egyptian[7].

Abraham Used Camels for Travel

Sometimes, archeological discoveries can raise questions about certain details of ancient stories, like the presence of camels in the Bible. But it’s important to get the whole story. Even if one-hump camels weren’t all over Israel during Abraham’s time, archaeology has shown us it’s not unlikely that Abraham got two-hump camels for his travels in Egypt, where they had already existed for thousands of years. Camels in the Bible are no problem at all.

Notes

[1] John Noble Wilford, “Camels Had No Business In Genesis,” The New York Times, February 10, 2014, Sec. Science, Https://Www.Nytimes.Com/2014/02/11/Science/Camels-Had-No-Business-In-Genesis.Html. This Idea Was Not New. Albright Asserted This Popular View Amongst Mainstream Scholars: “It Was Only In The 11th Century Bc That Camel-Riding Nomads First Appear In Our Documentary Sources … Any Mention Of Camels In The Period Of Abraham Is A Blatant Anachronism.” William F. Albright, Archaeology And The Religion Of Israel (Johns Hopkins, 1968), 96.

[2] Lidar Sapir-Hen And Erez Ben-Yosef, “The Introduction Of Domestic Camels To The Southern Levant: Evidence From The Aravah Valley,” Tel Aviv 40 (2013): 277–85.

[3] A Sumerian Text Alludes To The Milk Of Bactarian Camels, Implying Domestication. See Gleason Archer, “Old Testament History And Recent Archaeology From Abraham To Moses,” Bibliotheca Sacra 127, No. 505 (1970): 17.

[4] A Sumerian Text Mentions Bactarian Camels In A List Of Domesticated Animals. T.M. Kennedy, “The Date Of Camel Domestication In The Ancient Near East,” Http://Www.Biblearchaeology.Org/Post/2014/02/17/The-Date-Of-Camel-Domestication-In-The-Ancient-Near-East.Aspx.

[5] A Fodder List Mentions A Bactarian Camel. Archer, “Old Testament History And Recent Archaeology From Abraham To Moses,” 17.

[6] See The Artifact: “Cylinder Seal With A Two-Humped Camel Carrying A Divine Couple,” The Walters Art Museum · Works Of Art, Accessed September 7, 2017, Http://Art.Thewalters.Org/Detail/27381/Cylinder-Seal-With-A-Two-Humped-Camel-Carrying-A-Divine-Couple/.

[7] See The Artifact: Donald Redford And Susan Redford, “Graffiti And Petroglyphs Old And New From The Eastern Desert,” Journal Of The American Research Center In Egypt 26, No. 27 (1989) Figure 42: 3–49.

An Intro to Arguments for God’s Existence

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By J. Brian Huffling

Does God exist? This has been one of the most asked questions in history with the most profound implications. As Norman Geisler used to say, our view of God’s existence is most important since it determines what we think about everything else. There are many arguments for God’s existence. This article will examine the standard classical proofs with typical objections and evaluations.

The proofs for God are varied and different, but they can be classified as either a posteriori or a priori. The former means the proofs are based on (or after/post) experience, while the latter are allegedly not based on experience, but prior/apart from it. A posteriori proofs are empirical in nature and take it that we can trust our senses. A priori proofs start with the mind and are thus rationalistic. All but one of the following arguments are a posteriori.

The proofs we will look at are various forms of the cosmological argument, the teleological/intelligent design argument, the moral argument, and the ontological argument.

Cosmological Arguments

Cosmological arguments are arguments based on the cosmos (from the Greek kosmos). They are a posteriori in nature, or based on experience and are thus empirical. There are many types of cosmological arguments. For a good survey, see William Lane Craig’s The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. Here we will examine a few such as the Kalam argument and two of the famous Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas.

The Kalam Argument

The Kalam argument, popularized by William Lane Craig, is an example of what has become known as a horizontal type of cosmological argument since it argues that there is a temporal beginning of the universe in the finite past (horizontally). Here is the argument:

Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
The universe had a beginning.
Therefore, the universe had a cause.

The first premise is very straightforward in saying that if something came to exist that did not exist, then it must have a reason (cause) for its existence. This is because a thing must be either (1) self-caused, (2) uncaused, or (3) caused by another. A thing that began to exist can’t be self-caused since it would have to exist prior to bringing itself into being, which is a contradiction. It can’t be uncaused since there would, by definition, be no reason for its existence, and something can’t come from nothing. It must then be caused by another. This premise has its challengers, though. Some will say that things like virtual particles come into being from nothing and for no reason. However, such is simply not the case. Virtual particles are particles that arise from unstable energy in a vacuum. Since unstable energy is clearly not nothing, this is not a counter-example.

The second premise is really the crucial premise. The Kalam was originally provided by Muslim philosophers in the Middle Ages who argued that an infinite series is impossible, and since an actual infinite amount of time in the temporal past would be an actual infinite, then the universe cannot be temporally infinite: it must have had a beginning. Nowadays it is more popular to use Big Bang cosmology to show the universe had a beginning, such as the second law of thermodynamics, the fact that the universe is expanding, and the radiation echo discovered in the 1960s that demonstrates there was a massive explosion that gave rise to the universe’s expansion.

The Big Bang model is the reigning model, and atheists do not like its implications for a cause of the universe. Good books on this type of argument include Robert Jastrow’s God and the Astronomers, Hugh Ross’ The Creator and the Cosmos, and Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator.

Aquinas’ 5 Ways

Thomas Aquinas’ famous 5 Ways (See Summa Theologiae Part I Q. 2. Art. 3) are other types of cosmological arguments. The first way is an argument from motion. The word ‘motion’ actually means ‘change.’ It is taken from Aristotle. Aquinas calls this “the more manifest way” since it is clear that change happens all around us. For Aristotle and Aquinas, change is when something goes from being potentially x to actually x. For example, a piece of wood can be hot, but until it is actually hot, it is only potentially hot. The actually hot fire actualizes the wood and makes it hot. Further, a thing can only be changed by something else; in other words, a thing can’t be in potency and act in the same way. So, change must be brought about by an actually existing thing. A thing cannot actualize its own potency as that would mean it would be actually and potentially x at the same time, which is a contradiction. The linchpin to this, and all of the 5 ways, is that there cannot be an actual infinite regression of causes like this. Since things are composed of act and potency, they must be put together of act and potency. But being put together like this requires a being that is either put together of these things or not, which cannot go on forever. So there must be a being that is not put together of act and potency, but a being of Pure Act (or pure existence). Such all men call God.

This is a complicated argument based on Aristotelian metaphysics. However, going through all of the metaphysical thought, in the end, pays great dividends. Much can be deduced from God being Pure Act, as Aquinas demonstrates in the subsequent questions. For example, if God is Pure Act, then he is simple, meaning he is not composed of anything. (See this article on divine simplicity.) Being composed, so the argument goes, requires a composer. So he has no potency. But potency is a requirement for change to take place. So if God does not have potency, then he cannot change. (See this article on divine impassibility which is related to this notion that God can’t change.) Further, if he cannot change, then he can’t be measured by time as time has classically been thought to be the measure meant of change. So he is eternal. (See this article on God being eternal.) In this sense, ‘eternal’ does not mean existing forever. Following Boethius, it means that God enjoys all of his being all at once. There is no succession. He is infinite and perfect (also following from Pure Act). Thus, while the argument is much more complicated than the Kalam, it tells us a lot more about God.

Objections to this argument include Newtonian laws of motion and the idea that a thing can change itself. It is argued, some say, that Newton disproved Aristotle’s point here since objects at rest or in motion stay in such a state unless impeded by something else. However, Aristotle’s point is metaphysical in nature, while Newtons’ is physical. Aristotle does not have in mind inertia, like Newton. While inertia (a thing moving in location) certainly is an example of change, it is only an example, and not change as such. Others maintain that a thing can move itself, such as one’s hand. However, the hand does not move the hand; the nervous system does, which is run by the brain, which the will moves. But such is not a counter example to the first way since the point stands that a thing in potency has to be moved by a thing in act.

Whew.

The second way is from efficient causality. It basically says that a thing cannot be the cause of itself since it would have to exist in order to bring itself into existence, which is a contradiction. There cannot be an infinite number of efficient causes since such causes are the causes of intermediary causes, and if there were an infinite number of efficient causes, then there would be no ultimate beginning to effects. An example of this, that I owe to Richard Howe, is a train. When asked what is making a particular boxcar move, one can reply the boxcar in front of it. But there cannot be an infinite number of boxcars since a boxcar cannot cause motion; an engine is required for that. This kind of causes cannot be infinite in number; thus, there must be an ultimate efficient cause that is known as God. This type of cosmological is referred to as a vertical argument since it is based on a hierarchy of causes rather than a temporal beginning in the (horizontal) past.

A typical objection to this argument is, “what created God?” While one can argue with the reasoning or soundness of the above arguments, this objection demonstrates that the objector does not understand the arguments. The first way concludes with a being of Pure Act that per the reasoning can’t have a cause. The second way is the same since there would then require a seeming infinite number of causes, which the argument denies. God as an uncaused cause cannot have a cause, or he wouldn’t be the uncaused cause. Such an objection does not apply to these arguments.

Good books on the above include Maurice Holloway’s An Introduction to Natural Theology, and Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, along with Philosophy of Religion by Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan.

Teleological Arguments

While cosmological arguments argue from the existence of the cosmos, teleological arguments (also known as intelligent design arguments, or ID arguments) argue for God’s existence from the design of the cosmos and biological life. (The term ‘teleological’ comes from the Greek telos, meaning “end” or “goal.”) The argument tends to go like this:

Every design has a designer.
The universe and life exhibit design.
Therefore, the universe and life have a designer.

Regarding design in the universe, design can be seen that allows biological life to live on earth. For instance, the kind of galaxy we are in (spiral), where we are in the galaxy (outer arm), what kind of star we orbit, the size of our moon, the kind and make up of our atmosphere, etc., all go into making biological life possible. Biological life can also be seen to be designed given the amount of specified complexity in the human body. (“Specified complexity” refers to the notion that a given thing needs certain parts to work properly and to perform some function. A typical example is the mousetrap. It has few parts, but each part is necessary for the trap to function properly.) Parts in the human body exemplify specified complexity, such as the eye. Evolution does a poor job of explaining the eye since each part is needed in order to see. Given evolution, the person would not be able to see if the eye were developing slowly via random mutation (or even directed via God for that matter). DNA and the cell also exhibit amazing complexity and design. Since all designs need a designer, the universe and life require a designer.

What about evolution? As the above remarks indicate, evolution has a tough time dealing with specified complexity, as well as the origin of life (for which it has no answer), as well as many other problems. (See The Deniable Darwin and Darwin’s Doubt for a critique of Darwinian evolution. David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion is also very good.) But as a strategic move, one can grant evolution is the case and still argue for God’s existence. This bypasses unnecessary arguments since even if evolution were true, there would still need to be a cause to the universe and biological life (things evolution can’t explain—especially the former). Thus, one doesn’t have to be well-versed in the evolution debate in order to argue for God’s existence.

The ID arguments are very powerful and convincing. However, they don’t provide as much as the cosmological arguments. For example, ID arguments cannot demonstrate creation ex nihilo (that the universe was created from nothing). They also can’t demonstrate monotheism (that only one God exists). What they demonstrate is that there is an intelligent designer (or designers). They also can’t demonstrate that the designer(s) are transcendent to the universe. Nothing in the ID arguments alone can demonstrate that the designer(s) is not part of the universe. Further, natural science on its own cannot demonstrate a transcendent being to the universe since natural science studies nature, and a transcendent being would be supernatural. Thus, natural science is, by definition, limited on the issue of God’s existence without the help of philosophy. (See my earlier blog for a more complete critique of ID arguments and why I think philosophical arguments are stronger.) However, the arguments are very good in showing at least one intelligent designer, and most people are probably convinced that such a being is God. In conjunction with the other arguments, the ID arguments are very powerful.

Typical objections include the need for the designer to have a designer/creator, dysteleology (arguments for a lack of design), the accusation of the god of the gaps fallacy, and evolution. Taking these objections in order, the argument says that designs need designers, not that designers need designers.

Dysteleology is the notion that things are not designed well or do not show signs of design. Many of the examples for this tend to be based on a lack of knowledge. For example, the number of vestigial organs (organs that we supposedly don’t need) have dramatically shrunk in number. Further, the fact that some things may not appear to be designed do not demonstrate the overwhelming design in things like DNA and the cell. Such is positive evidence that far outweighs so-called dysteleology.

Many atheists argue that theists are saying, “We don’t know how this happened, so God must have done it.” (Such is an objection to the cosmological arguments too.) However, the God of the gaps fallacy is when one doesn’t have enough evidence to account for something and then invokes God (fallaciously). However, this is not what theists are doing with the above arguments (teleological or cosmological). We are saying there is so much positive evidence for a designer that there must be one. The God of the gaps fallacy is not committed.

As already stated, evolution is not a reason to give up belief in theism since there must be a cause for the existence of the universe as well as biological life. This is to say nothing of the problems with evolution.

All in all, the ID arguments are strong and persuasive but are not as complete as the philosophical arguments.

Some good resources on the ID arguments are Creator and the Cosmos, The Case for a Creator, and Signature in the Cell.

The Moral Argument

The moral argument is a very popular one. There are at least two forms:

Every law has a lawgiver.
There is a moral law.
Therefore, there is a moral lawgiver.

I have not seen an objection to premise 1. Premise 2 is much more contentious. The reason for it is that one can look anywhere throughout human history and see a basic moral code. For example, moral precepts such as don’t murder, lie, steal, commit adultery are pretty ubiquitous. There are different ways these codes have been understood. For example, in some cultures it is permissible to have several wives while in others it is permissible to have only 1. But cultures will (historically anyway) say that one should not have sex with a woman who is not his wife.

Another form of the argument is:

If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
Objective moral values do exist.
Therefore, God exists.

This has the same basic thrust as the first argument, it just takes a conditional form. But both arguments hinge on the objective nature of morality. While some people will argue there is no such thing as objective morality, such a view is hard to consistently maintain. For example, it is hard to maintain that the Nazis were not objectively wrong or that rape is not objectively wrong. The person who argues that the latter is not objectively wrong, for instance, probably would be highly upset if his daughter were raped. As Geisler used to say, we can tell more about a person’s beliefs by his reactions rather than his actions.

The moral argument says that there must be a transcendent cause to explain the objective nature of morality. If it is objective, it can’t be explained from within the human race. Evolution can’t explain the objective nature of morality either, even though atheists maintain that it can. If evolution is invoked to account for it, it should be pointed out that such “morality” could only be egoistic or utilitarian in nature. It could never be objective—only useful.

Such is a good argument. Sometimes it is argued that the moral standard that is invoked is God’s nature. Theists often claim that the Euthyphro Dilemma is solved this way while also providing an objective account of morality. (The Euthyphro Dilemma asks the question—put in modern vernacular—”Does God command what is good because it is good, or is it good because he commands it?” The first option is problematic since it would demonstrate that something is good apart from God, which would raise problems about how it is good without him. The latter option seems to make God arbitrary.) Many say, “The answer to the dilemma is to say God’s nature is the standard of goodness.” This is problematic for many reasons. I have written another article on this topic, so I won’t rewrite that here, but I will point out that it is not clear what it means to say that God is morally good. For humans to be morally good means that they measure up to some standard. Even if God could be said to be morally good, it’s not clear what it would mean for him to measure up to a standard since the standard would be his nature. But it seems incoherent to say a thing measures up to itself. It is also not obvious or clear why the standard for finite, temporal, changing, material beings is a being that is none of these things.

Rather than saying that God is the standard of morality, it seems to make more sense to say that God is the cause of the standard of morality. Instead of saying a non-human is the standard of human morality, it is more rational (and biblical) to maintain that human nature is the standard. But if there is an objective human nature (a highly debated topic in philosophy), there must be a cause to it. At this point, the argument becomes more of a cosmological argument for a cause to the objective human nature.

The Ontological Argument

The ontological argument is the only alleged a priori argument in this article since it purportedly doesn’t argue from the cosmos but from the notion of being. The word ontological comes from the Greek ontos, which means “being.” The argument is an argument from being. It was presented by Anselm, an eleventh-century monk who was asked by his brothers to provide an argument for God’s existence that didn’t rely on Scripture. It goes like this:

God is a being than which none greater can be conceived.
It is greater to exist in reality than just in the mind.
Thus, God must exist in reality.

It is a simple argument but very contentious. Atheists and theists have debated the merits of this argument more than any other (although there has been considerable interest in the cosmological argument as of late). The logic of the argument is based on a reductio ad absurdum. In other words, to deny God (or the conclusion of the argument) is to affirm a contradiction. If God is the greatest conceivable being and thus must actually exist extra-mentally, then a God that exists only in the mind would not be the greatest conceivable being. Thus, that God (in the mind only) would not be God. Given the nature of existence, God must logically exist extra-mentally.

Another monk named Gaunilo attempted to give a counterexample to Anselm by arguing that the most perfect island must exist extra-mentally rather in the mind only, given the same kind of argument that Anselm gave. Anselm pointed out that the difference was that God would have necessary existence, which makes his argument different than the island argument.

One’s philosophical commitments tend to determine if he thinks this argument is sound. As a moderate realist in the vein of Aristotle and Aquinas, I do not think the argument is sound as it makes a logical leap from the order of knowing to the order of being.

For resources on the moral and ontological arguments, see Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, along with Philosophy of Religion by Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan. For all of the above arguments in their primary (original) text, see Brian Davies’ Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology and Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Resources.

Conclusion

The above are merely a sampling of theistic proofs from a bird’s eye view. The interested reader should consult the recommended readings for more information. It is my contention that the philosophical proofs, namely the cosmological arguments, are the strongest, especially the five ways and such arguments that are based on metaphysics (the nature of reality). However, such arguments are complicated and difficult to use with non-philosophers. In conclusion, there are persuasive arguments for God’s existence, arguments that some of us consider to be metaphysically necessary since a necessary being must exist to account for contingent being. Contrary to many atheists, belief in God is not merely the desire of wishful thinking by illogical religious folk. Some of the brightest minds in the history of ideas have believed in God for well thought out reasons, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, et al.

The Best Kind of Love

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Tim Stratton

Question:

Dear Dr. Stratton,

In your interview with Jorge Gil on Cross Examined’s Hope One, you attempted to answer “all the problems of evil” by appealing to love. In fact, you said that “the best kind of love requires libertarian free will.” Surely this is false, for I can think of a counter-example that clearly shows this to be false.

After all, the members of the Trinity are the epitome of perfect love and they do not have libertarian free will. They cannot do otherwise. They must love by necessity. So how can “the best kind of love” require libertarian free will?

– Phillip

Tim’s Response

I am thankful for your question, Phillip! When I read it I could have kicked myself for not providing this vital clarification in my interview with Jorge Gil. Your question provides this opportunity.

Contrary to your assertion, the members of the Trinity (God) do possess libertarian freedom. This is easy to demonstrate when considering creation. The vast majority of theologians agree that God possessed the ability — the power — to create the universe or to refrain from creation. This is the epitome of libertarian freedom. Moreover, if nothing other than God causally determined Him to create the universe, then God possesses libertarian freedom. In fact, this conclusion can be reached by merely thinking about the rational implications of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The cause and creator of the universe must possess libertarian freedom.

If God possesses the libertarian freedom, for example, to create the universe or not to create the universe, then this is an “ability to do otherwise” kind of freedom. With that said, however, we are not discussing the creation of the universe, but something different. We are discussing the “best kind of love,” or the “kind of love worth wanting.” You aptly pointed out that God does not possess the “ability to do otherwise” when it comes to love — namely the love between the Trinity which you noted is the epitome of the “best kind of love.”

I agree that each member of the Trinity does not possess the ability to NOT love the other members. For example, it is impossible for the Holy Spirit not to love the Son, and it is impossible for the Son, not to love the Father. Does this not “destroy” my claim — that the best kind of love requires libertarian freedom?

Not at all!

Just because God might not have the ability to do otherwise when it comes to love, it does not follow that God does not possess the libertarian freedom to love. This is the case because NOTHING other than God causally determines God to love. Moreover, nothing other than the Father causally determines His love for the Son and the Spirit.

It is vital to remember that there are basically two definitions of libertarian freedom:
1- The PAP/”ability to do otherwise” version.

2- The source-hood version (which simply means that a person is not causally determined by something other than the person).

When it comes to love, God possesses the source-hood version of libertarian freedom. God is not causally determined by something other than Him to love. As 1 John 4:8 makes clear: “God IS love.”

So, with all the data in mind, the best kind of love still requires libertarian freedom to be possessed by each person in the relationship. The best kind of love is when persons are not causally determined to love the other. In fact, it is simply oxymoronic to refer to a relationship where at least one person in the union was causally determined to enter the relationship as a “love relationship.” It is not love at all, rather, it is simply an incoherent combination of words.

Since it would be impossible for God to create a contingent being whose nature is necessarily loving (like God is), without causally determining the nature of the creature, God creates humans with an “ability to do otherwise” kind of libertarian freedom so that a true love relationship with humanity can be attained. Humans, then, unlike God, possess both the source-hood version and the PAP version of the libertarian freedom to love. God only has the source-hood version.

Robots have neither!

Bottom line: The best kind of love, or the kind of love worth wanting, requires libertarian freedom.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Tim Stratton

Have You Thought About Marriage Lately?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Bob Perry

Have you spent much time thinking about marriage lately? You should. It doesn’t matter if a wedding is something in your future or in your past. It doesn’t even matter if you have no intention of ever getting married. The fact is that the institution of marriage is important to us all. Our culture has devalued it in many ways, but marriage is the foundation of a healthy society. For that reason, we all ought to contemplate the true meaning and value of marriage.

An Honor And A Privilege

My wife and I have been happily married for 33 years. When you’ve done anything for that long, it’s easy to think you have it all figured out. But in July, my son and his fiancé asked me to perform their October wedding ceremony. Suddenly, I found myself thinking about marriage nearly every waking minute.

It was an honor and privilege to take part in my own son and daughter-in-law’s wedding. But it ended up being more than that. Preparing what I wanted to say to them on such an important day became a powerful reminder for me about the eternal significance of marriage. The whole experience reminded me of some things I had been taking for granted for far too long.

The Grand Story

We are all part of that bigger story. It’s a story that began with a God who wanted to allow free-will beings to choose to follow him. He designed a world for that purpose. And when it was exactly the way he wanted it, he created two very different beings to begin multiplying and filling it. These two complemented one another in every way — physically, psychologically, and spiritually. So, God joined them together in the world’s first wedding.

Later, that same God chose to step out of eternity to implement his plan of redemption for all of us. And when he was ready to begin his ministry, he chose to show the world who he really was by changing water into wine … at a wedding.

We are told the story will eventually come full circle. The descendants of that first couple who have chosen to devote themselves to God forever are called the church. And the church will be joined together for eternity with Christ. The Book of Revelation refers to the church as the “bride of Christ.” Jesus is the bridegroom.

In other words, the Grand Story begins and ends with a wedding.

A Picture Of Eternal Life

It seems like God really likes weddings. That’s because every wedding is meant to be a small picture of the ultimate wedding. It is in that context that all of us should think about marriage.

The covenant of marriage honors the personal stories of individual men and women. But it does so in light of the Grand Story of God’s redemptive love.

When you think of it that way, you understand marriage as it was meant to be — a God-centered, submissive commitment for life.

God’s Spirit At The Center

Marriage should never be an agreement between two “needy” people who are looking for someone else to “fill up their tanks.”

Only the Spirit of God can do that.

Both the bride and groom must be people who have considered life’s biggest questions…together. They don’t have to agree on everything, but neither can they redirect worldviews that are on opposite trajectories. The Bible calls this being “unequally yoked.” It’s a picture that any ancient-near-east, agrarian listener would have understood immediately. Think of two oxen pulling a cart in different directions. It doesn’t work. It only leads to trouble.

With God at the center of the relationship, drawing closer to him can’t help but draw husband and wife closer to each other.

A Covenant Of Submission

To the world — and the culture we live in — nothing sounds more old archaic, ridiculous, oppressive, or horrific than the words of Ephesians 5:22:

“Wives, submit to your husbands.”

But that’s because the world has a short attention span. Three sentences later, Paul continues:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …”

Do you want submission? There is no greater form of submission than for a man to offer up his own life for his wife.

But there’s more.

The sentence that leads into this passage says that we are to “give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

This is not a one-sided submission. It’s not even a fifty-fifty proposition. Marriage is a covenant in which both parties agree to give 100% of themselves.

The Beautiful Fruits Of The Covenant

The Greek word for “submit” that Paul uses in this passage has its roots in a military term. It’s about surrendering your independence to be part of something greater. It’s all about grace, forgiveness, patience, and compassion.

It has all the features of an authentic friendship — constancy, transparency, and sympathy.

This covenant is nothing like the worldly promise too many see in their marriage vows — a promise of conditional love that feeds your happiness in the moment. Instead, it’s a love that will include painful days and survive hurt feelings. It’s a love that faces obstacles and tough decisions together. This covenant is for future, sacrificial love that doesn’t depend on circumstances.

How many marriages built on that kind of selfless bond do you think would fail?

The Power Of The Covenant

When you are enmeshed in an intimate, selfless relationship like that, both participants take on superpowers. You get two of them. First, you have the capacity to hurt each other’s feelings more deeply than any other person on Earth. Second, you have the power to heal, affirm, and build each other up more than anyone else ever could.

Married folks need to be forever aware of their superpowers. They have the capacity to make or break a marriage. Never get near the first one. And use the second one every chance you get.

The Purpose Of Marriage

Can you even begin to imagine the kind of society we would be living in if everyone took this view of marriage to heart?

When I say that, I’m not trying to paint some kind utopian picture of heaven on earth. The truth is that fallen human beings would still be involved. But the beauty of the marriage covenant is that it is a vehicle for tempering our sinful natures. Being committed to a lifetime of submission to another makes one a better person. I may not be a good man, but I know that I am a better man for having married my wife. Every aspect of our complementary nature forces me to be.

And that’s why marriage matters. It creates the building block of a stable, thriving society — the human family. Marriage is the cement that holds that society together. The union of a husband and wife is supposed to be a snapshot of the church’s ultimate reunion with its Creator. It builds communities that are focused on God. It makes us think eternally.

And that’s the kind of thinking we should all be doing.

Without Training, The Church Will Create More Jon Steingards

Atheism, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

Recently Jon Steingard made headlines after he announced over Instagram that he had lost his faith. Steingard was the lead vocalist of the Christian music group Hawk Nelson, which became popular in the early 2000s. Since they had so many fans, this obviously sent shockwaves over social media.

In the post, Steingard gives several reasons why he no longer believes. He does ask some challenging questions when he writes, “If God is all-loving and all-powerful, why is there evil in the world? Can he not do anything about it? Does he choose not to? Is the evil in the world a result of his desire to give us free will? OK then, what about famine and disease and floods and all the suffering that isn’t caused by humans and our free will?”

Philosophers call this the problem of natural evil, and I think it’s one of the bigger challenges out there. That said, I think it’s been addressed successfully. But I do get that not everyone is going to be convinced by every theodicy given for natural evil.

But what I want to address is another objection Jon brought up, because it raised a red flag. He wrote:

“Why does God seem so p***sed off in most of the Old Testament, and then all of a sudden he’s a loving father in the New Testament? Why does he say not to kill, but then instructs Israel to turn around and kill men, women, and children to take the promised land? Why does God lead Job to suffer horrible things just to win a bet with Satan?! Why does he tell Abraham to kill his son (more killing again), and then basically says, “Just kidding, that was a test”?”

Why Is God Nice In The Old Testament, But Always Angry In The New Testament?

So there’s inconsistency with the mean God of the OT and the nice, friendly Jesus of the New. Or is there? Let me run a similar argument to Steingard’s:

“Why is God always ticked in the New Testament, but a loving husband in the Old? Why does Jesus say not to kill, but then he turns around and says “I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.”

And why does God kill Ananias and Sapphira, even though they gave away half of their property to the church?! Why does he allow Paul to turn a man over to Satan for “the destruction of his flesh” just because a man was in a relationship outside of marriage? (Is this some kind of sick bet?) And why does God allow the Corinthians to become sick and die young, (more killing again) because they took communion wrong?

Or why does Jesus call a Syrophoenician woman a dog? Or why does he curse an innocent fig tree? Or why does Jesus say he hasn’t come to bring peace, but a sword?

In the Old Testament God’s a loving husband, who even stays with Israel even though she’s accurately depicted as a faithless prostitute in Hosea. He says he’d tattoo her on the palms of his hands, and sing over her with joy. He even just forgives the Ninevites even though they had done terrible things in the book of Jonah. In the Old Testament, he’s a good shepherd who will follow Israel with goodness and mercy all the days of their life.“

How Could Steingard Not Know?

So you see, we can easily run this argument of Steingard’s in reverse and twist the texts. What is confusing to me because his father and father-in-law are both pastors. Steingard was a Christian his entire life. How can he not be aware of these verses?

I bring this up to say there’s no disconnect between Yahweh of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New. The reason why God seems harsh under both covenants is that he doesn’t change, he always hates sin. But he still delights in showing mercy. He’s patient and kind in both testaments, not willing that any should perish. (2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:41) As Paul writes in Romans 11:22, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off.”

A Cultural Recipe For Apostasy

I can’t say for sure, but judging from his statements, it’s as if Steingard previously only considered one side of God’s character. When you look at a lot of the seeker-friendly movement that is so prevalent in today’s western church, all you hear is the side of love. So perhaps reading these passages in the Old Testament came as a shock, but shouldn’t when you read the entire New Testament.

It also seems that in our Western-democratic culture, our belief and confidence in the powers of our intellect has increased to the point where we think we can play armchair God and assume we know and would do better. As the philosopher Charles Taylor has observed, it’s only in our modern era that we get “the certainty that we have all the elements we need to carry out a trial of God.”

Steingard Is Sawing Off The Branch He’s Sitting On

But we can’t just assume that a God beyond our understanding can’t exist without begging the question. By abandoning faith in God, he’s put his faith instead in his ability to reason and judge God. But this isn’t a better foundation.

As Douglas Wilson has written, “If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine corresponds to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true, but rather because of a series of chemical reactions. Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn, created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else.”

In other words, Steingard has tragically sawn off the branch he was sitting on. According to many atheistic philosophers, naturalism spells trouble for reason, free will, and the morality that Steingard is judging God with. If atheism is true, we’re all dancing to the music of our DNA, as Richard Dawkins says.

That means all our beliefs are the product of non-rational, deterministic physical forces beyond our control, whether we’re theists or naturalists. In fact, if Steingard’s conclusions are right, it’s only by accident, not because he’s now more intellectually better than the believer. That is to say; the atheist would have a true accidental belief (which isn’t the same thing as knowledge) rather than warranted true belief (which is knowledge). I hope he scrutinizes his newfound unbelief at least as much as he scrutinized his faith.

The Church Needs To Do Better

As Christians, we can do better in several areas: We need to poke holes in atheism and show where the greater absurdities lie. Hint: Not with Christianity. Naturalism removes the foundation for reason and morality that secularists so greatly cherish. A book I’d highly recommend for this topic is Mitch Stokes’ How to Be An Atheist.

We also need to defend the character of God and not hide from difficult passages in both the Old and New Testament. While it’s good and right to study arguments for the existence of God and especially for the resurrection, we need to go a step further and be able to deal with difficult passages in both the OT and NT. On this topic, I highly recommend Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster?

It’s also notable that Steingard said nothing about the evidence for the resurrection. It doesn’t matter if we always like what we find in the Bible if Jesus rose from the dead. We have to teach on these bedrock truths of our faith.

And finally, pastors can no longer only preach 20-minute sermons on the love of God in hopes of attracting crowds. Don’t get me wrong. I think we should absolutely major on the love of God. After all, God is love. But even love gets angry at sin, and we need to stop minimizing God’s wrath. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re going to create many more Jon Steingards.

Society in the Hands of an Angry God

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Brian Chilton

On July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards, famed pastor and theologian of colonial America, delivered one of his most famed messages of all-time at a church in Enfield, Connecticut. The title of his message was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Using Deuteronomy 32:35 as his text, Edwards argued that sinners are kept in the hands of God. Their sin pulls them to hell, whereas God tries to save them from their awful fate in hell. Using vivid language and descriptive adjectives, Edwards notes that the normal state of humanity leads toward destruction. That is, if humanity is left to its own devices, human beings drag themselves to hell. Three important truths are found in Edwards’s classic declaration.

The weight of our sin drags us toward destruction.

Edwards writes,

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.

The further a person turns from God, the greater the weight of sin the person carries. The same is true of society. The more a society turns from God, the greater the weight of sin that it bears. Racism, anarchy, and violence are not traits that demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit.

God’s grace is what keeps a person from facing judgment now.

Edwards points out the following:

That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God’s appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

Just because God has not brought judgment yet does not imply that he will not. In due time, God will bring due judgment to a person and a society unless the person or party repents. It is by God’s grace that our society has not been brought down already. How long will God offer his protective hand? Only God knows. But the point of Edwards’s message is that you may not have another opportunity to respond to his grace, for the flames of judgment may be around the corner.

Outside of God’s forgiveness, judgment is inevitable.

Edwards continues by noting,

All wicked men’s pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.

Darkness is the veil of sin. Unsurprisingly, protests during the day are peaceful. The individuals protesting at this time are mostly standing for just causes. However, violence and looting come at night. Most likely, these individuals take advantage of the unrest for their own purposes. Wearing masks and using the dark of the night, rioters think that their identity is concealed. However, God knows all things, is in all places, and possesses all power. God is the ultimate Judge overall. Everyone will stand before God (2 Cor. 5:10). This is an inescapable truth.

The nationwide riots and unjustified killing of innocent people serve as depictions of what hell will look like. The looting, killing, shooting and burning all illustrate well the hell that human beings create for themselves. Hell is a place of rebellion. It is a place designed for rebellious entities, not originally planned for human beings.

These issues, while scary, do not take God by surprise. Jesus warned during his message on the Mount of Olives that “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” (Matt. 24:6-8, ESV). He goes on to say that he will return instantaneously, saying, “For as lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matt. 24:27, ESV).

Going back to Edwards’s message, a parallel can be drawn from Edwards’s message to the state of our society. While the sin of society is dragging itself toward chaos, they are but birth pains indicating that the return of Christ is closer than ever before. Is your soul right with God? When God calls the roll up yonder, will you be there?

Source

All quotes from Edwards come from Edwards, Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” BlueLetterBible.org. https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/edwards_jonathan/Sermons/Sinners.cfm

3 Unhelpful Things in the Race Conversation That Need to Stop NOW

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Timothy Fox

Race and injustice are difficult topics to discuss. And while the church must talk about it, I’ve seen a lot of harmful missteps along the way. Here are three unhelpful things that people are doing in the race conversation that needs to stop. Now.

Warning: This might be too spicy for some people. Read with caution.

1) Speaking to or for an entire group of people

Indeed, each group of people across all shape, color, and size have unique experiences and perspectives. There may be certain types of injustices that face specific people. But attempting to speak to or for an entire group of people is unhelpful. I’ve seen so many White Jesuses on social media trying to bear every sin white people have ever committed. Stop it. Get over yourself. Quit pandering. Read Matthew 6:1-4.

If you are personally guilty of discrimination or racial injustice, then seek forgiveness for your sins. The Bible does teach us to confess our sins to one another for accountability and the health of our Christian community (James 5:16). No one but Christ, however, can grant forgiveness to entire groups of people, who died for the sins of every person across all time.

2) Responding to “Black lives matter” with “All lives matter.”

Anytime someone says, “Black lives matter,” it’s inevitable that someone will snap back “ALL lives matter.” I understand where this is coming from, but it’s actually unhelpful. The whole purpose of the phrase “Black lives matter” is that some black people feel their lives don’t matter, that they are valued less than people with light skin. When you clap back, “ALL lives matter,” you’re confirming what they may already believe, that you don’t care about the specific injustices facing their community.

If you must respond when someone says, “Black lives matter,” you can simply say, “Yes.” Or, “I agree with you.” “I’m so sorry you feel like black lives don’t matter.” And how about, “What can I do to help?”

Just remember that the reason why any lives matter at all is because we are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27, Gal. 3:28, Col. 3:11). Red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in His sight. Every human has the same intrinsic worth, which does not vary by the amount of melanin in one’s skin. And if God doesn’t exist, then no lives matter.

I’m not arguing never to say, “All lives matter.” It’s a true statement. I’m simply saying that responding with that phrase to someone who says “Black lives matter” misses the whole point of the slogan.

This leads into…

3) Minimizing true victimhood

Whenever people discuss victimhood, someone inevitably mentions how Jesus was the ultimate victim, as if that fixes everything and will make everyone feel better. Yes, Jesus was the only perfectly innocent person ever, and his death was the greatest injustice that ever occurred. And, yes, Jesus can relate to our pain and suffering (Heb. 4:15). But PLEASE don’t use this to minimize someone’s unique suffering. Might someone be whining over nothing? Of course. But that certainly is not true of every situation. We need to help correct injustice, not just paint over it.

Let people speak. Listen with the intent to understand, not just to respond with pious platitudes. Only then can we properly address someone’s unique circumstances and encourage true racial healing.

The Virtues Of Science?

Moral Values: Not Scientifically Discovered And Not Created By Man

“If It Can’t Be Verified By My Physical Senses, I Can’t Know It.”

But What About Moral Diversity?

Ethical Truths Are More Certain Than Many Scientific Claims

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The Dilemma

The Deity Of Christ

The Meaning Of “Emptied Himself”

“Emptied Himself” Illustrated

Why It Matters

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Camels in the Bible?

Could Abraham really have used camels?

There are two kinds of camels

Evidence for Camels in Ancient Egypt

Abraham Used Camels for Travel

Notes

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Cosmological Arguments

The Kalam Argument

Aquinas’ 5 Ways

Teleological Arguments

The Moral Argument

The Ontological Argument

Conclusion

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Question:

Tim’s Response

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An Honor And A Privilege

More Than Two Stories Becoming One

The Grand Story

A Picture Of Eternal Life

God’s Spirit At The Center

A Covenant Of Submission

The Beautiful Fruits Of The Covenant

The Power Of The Covenant

The Purpose Of Marriage

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Why Is God Nice In The Old Testament, But Always Angry In The New Testament?

How Could Steingard Not Know?

A Cultural Recipe For Apostasy

Steingard Is Sawing Off The Branch He’s Sitting On

The Church Needs To Do Better

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The weight of our sin drags us toward destruction.

God’s grace is what keeps a person from facing judgment now.

Outside of God’s forgiveness, judgment is inevitable.

Source

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