Bible study_ Esther as an example of bravery and God’s providence

Bible study: Esther as an example of bravery and God’s providence

By Wintery Knight

I’ve been listening to this FREE two-volume series on the book of Esther featuring pastor Alistair Begg. A whole bunch of interesting things stuck out to me, so I’ll write about one of them today.

First, Esther is a Jewish woman whose father or mother died when she was young. She was adopted by Mordecai, another Jew. She was very beautiful, so she was picked to be part of the Persian King’s harem. In fact, she is so beautiful that the King chooses her to be the Queen.

Now there is an enemy of the Jews in the King’s court named Haman, and he manages to get the King to create an edict that says that all the Jews will be killed. Mordecai calls Esther to tell her that she has to stop the King from ordering this edict.

But Esther is out of favor with the King and hasn’t been asked to come in to visit him for some time. To go in and see the King without being summoned is a capital offense. Unless the King gives permission, she would be killed for intruding on the King. But in the end, she agrees to speak up and say something.

It all gets resolved in Esther, chapter 4.

Esther 4:1-17:

1 When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly.

2 He went as far as the king’s gate, for no one was to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth.

3 In each and every province where the command and decree of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing; and many lay on sackcloth and ashes.

4 Then Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her, and the queen writhed in great anguish. And she sent garments to clothe Mordecai that he might remove his sackcloth from him, but he did not accept them.

5 Then Esther summoned Hathach from the king’s eunuchs, whom the king had appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was.

6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai to the city square in front of the king’s gate.

7 Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

8 He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict which had been issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show Esther and inform her, and to order her to go into the king to implore his favor and to plead with him for her people.

9 Hathach came back and related Mordecai’s words to Esther.

10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach and ordered him to reply to Mordecai:

11 “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death, unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to come to the king for these thirty days.”

12 They related Esther’s words to Mordecai.

13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.

14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai,

16 “Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go into the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

17 So Mordecai went away and did just as Esther had commanded him.

What Mordecai is saying here is that God is sovereign over the events that are taking place, and that even if Esther makes a free decision to not intercede to save her people, then God will do something else. Somehow, telling her that makes her agree to take the risk and go in to see the King. Even though it is illegal to go in to see the King, she is going to risk her life and do it. And the message there is that God made her beautiful, and placed her in the palace, for exactly this purpose. Her beauty has a purpose.

Before then, she may not have been the most morally pure Jew, nor the most faithful Jew, nor some great authority on theology or apologetics. She was probably keeping her faith pretty hidden. But in that one moment, she rises above being an orphan, above being a harem girl, and above being just a pretty face. God can use anyone – even a silly girl who spends all day in front of a mirror playing with cosmetics – to achieve his ends. She is not Daniel. But today she is getting the call, anyway. It’s on her.

What is the lesson here? God can use anybody. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be moral, study theology, and study apologetics, and keep your character clean so you have self-control. It means that any believer is just one step away from glory, no matter what they did in the past. That’s how God rolls.

Further study

If you are interested in the story of Esther, then you should listen to the entire series by Alistair Begg.

The point I am making in this post is in this lecture.

Esther is about two themes: 1) how should a believer in God live in a society where believers are a minority? And 2) even when things look really out of control, God is in control and is never more than one step away from saving his people.

I have a lot of Christian apologist friends who struggle to go to church and struggle to read the Bible. The links above will take you to some great preaching on one of the most interesting books of the Bible. Go there, grab the MP3s, and listen to them with no distractions.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2WV31HD

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Apologetic Methods and A Case for Classical Apologetics

Apologetic Methods and A Case for Classical Apologetics

By J. Brian Huffling

In 2004 I began to pursue an MA in Christian Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary. I didn’t really know much about the topic, I just really wanted to know how to defend the Christian faith and have a better justification for my own beliefs. I realized that Christians and non-Christians had debates about the veracity of the faith, but I had no idea Christians argued among themselves about how (and even if) apologetics should be done. There are certainly different views about whether or not, and how, apologetics should be done. This article will briefly describe various apologetic methods and will argue for the superiority of the classical method.

Various Methods

Classical Apologetics

Classical apologetics has been called a two-step method. The first step is to prove the existence of God via traditional theistic proofs (the various cosmological arguments, design arguments, ontological, etc.). This method holds to the possibility of natural theology—the ability for a reason to demonstrate God’s existence. This first step does not prove Christianity, only monotheism.  The second step is to prove the veracity of Christianity by showing, for example (but not necessarily in this exact fashion), that miracles are possible, the Bible is reliable, Jesus claimed and proved himself to be God, etc. It is called the “classical” method because it has been the classical, traditional method used throughout the ages. Some proponents include Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, William Paley, the Princetonians such as B. B. Warfield, Norman Geisler,  and R. C. Sproul (among many others). Some good classical apologetics books would be Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler, and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler.

Evidential Apologetics

Evidential apologists avoid an attempt to demonstrate that God exists. Some do this because they don’t think natural theology is possible; others think it is simply easier to start with the biblical case. They jump straight to evidences for showing that Christianity is true from fields such as history and archaeology. To them, this bypasses difficult philosophical arguments and objections. People are ordinarily more prone to understanding history and the like. The thinking here is: if we can show the Bible to be reliable and that Jesus was raised from the dead, then a reasonable person will be convinced that Christianity is true. Such would include the existence of God. Proponents of this view, among others, are Joseph Butler, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, and Michael Licona. Some evidential apologetics works are  The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona and The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.

Presuppositional Apologetics

Presuppositional apologetics is directly antithetical to classical apologetics as its adherents deny that we can reason to God’s existence. Presuppositional apologists argue that we must presuppose the truth of Christianity and show that every other worldview (and religion) is false. Presuppositionalists go so far as to say that one cannot reason at all (or given an account for their ability to reason) without Christianity being true. They claim that we should argue transcendentally, showing that rationality itself presupposes Christianity and that any worldview other than Christianity fails. Well-known presuppositionalist Greg Bahnsen said in his debate with R. C. Sproul that he couldn’t know his car was in the parking lot without presupposing the Triune God. In a debate I had with a presuppositionalist, I was challenged to give an account of how I can know the tree is outside my window without presupposing Christianity to be true. Those who hold to this method argue that we should argue for Christianity based on the impossibility of the contrary. In other words, since other worldviews and religions are shown to be false, Christianity must be true. Proponents of this method include Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen, Gordon Clark, John Frame, and K. Scott Oliphant. Presuppositional works include Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til and Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended by Greg Bahnsen.

Cumulative Case Apologetics

Some apologists say we should take the best of all of these methods and use a cumulative case approach. That is, we should take the best arguments from each method and use them in a big picture approach. Paul Feinberg takes this position in Five Views on Apologetics. This is a good place to look for more information on this view.

The Superiority of Classical Apologetics

With this brief overview, one may wonder which method is best, or if we should just go along with the cumulative case and take all the good stuff from each model. At this point, I am going to argue for the superiority of the classical method.

First, the Bible says that we can know about God through nature. Paul says this in Romans 1:19-20:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

Thus, not only can we know God exists from nature, we can have some idea of what he is like. If God can be known via nature, then it is at least possible that such knowledge can be put in the form of a logical argument. The only question that remains is, “Are the arguments sound?” Well, that is another question, but it would seem that such is at least possible from a biblical point of view. Thus, it is hard to see how one could argue that the Bible does not allow for natural theology.

Further, it does seem that many of the theistic arguments are indeed sound from a rational point of view. For example, if the universe is contingent and cannot account for its own existence, and one cause leading to an effect cannot go on to infinity, then it seems that we must at some point arrive at a cause that is not contingent, but necessary. Such would be God.

Second, classical apologetics actually starts one step before arguing for God: it starts with knowing reality and the absolute nature of truth. In an age of relativism, we must answer objections such as, “Well, that may be true for you, but it’s not for me.” Further, classical apologetics deals with basic philosophical issues of metaphysics (the nature of reality) and epistemology (how we know reality) in a more robust and intentional way than do the other methods.

Third, classical apologetics puts evidences for Christianity in a theistic context. As Norman Geisler is apt to say, “There can’t be acts of God unless there is a God who can act.” Further, as C. S. Lewis has said, if God exists, then we cannot deny the possibility of miracles. Establishing the existence of God before moving onto miracles helps make more sense of the data. Also, miracles are signs of something. They were not just wonders; they demonstrated or pointed to something. For example, the miracles that Jesus performed showed that he was who he claimed he was. As Nicodemus said, only someone with the power of God could do the works that he did. Finally, as silly is it might sound, someone could claim that events such as the resurrection could have been performed in some superhuman say, such as by aliens. I know that’s ridiculous, but it is an objection that has to be overcome if God’s existence hasn’t been established. In short, the evidences for the Bible and Christianity are there, but they make more sense and are more powerful after they are put in a theistic context.

Fourth, presuppositional apologetics has many problems. It is admitted even by presuppositionalists that their position is circular. However, they argue that all views are circular. For example, they say the notion that we cannot help but use reason is circular since any attempt to deny that position would require the use of reason. However, such is not a circular problem, it is merely undeniable that reason is unavoidable in discussions or arguments. One is not using reason to prove reason; he is simply saying that it is unavoidable and undeniable. However, assuming a position to be true and then from that position to prove it is the definition of circularity. Also, arguing that we can show Christianity to be true based on the impossibility of the contrary is simply wrong. Contrariety is a logical relationship between statements. Thus, when we talk about statements being contrary, we are talking about the nature of logic. Statements (and only statements) are contrary when they can both be false but not both be true. For example, the statements “Christianity is true” and “Atheism is true” are contrary since they can both logically be false. But since they can both be false, we could never show the truth of Christianity by showing the falsity of its contraries. Further, the alleged transcendental argument for full-blown Christianity has never been articulated, let alone defended. Believe me, if there is an argument that guarantees I win no matter what… I want it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist. No one has ever given it. Bahnsen was given several opportunities in his debate with Sproul, but could not do it.

So why not just take the best parts of all the methods and use a cumulative case approach? Because the best parts of each method are already inherent in the classical model. The classical model is more comprehensive than the others, puts miracles and evidences in a theistic context, and avoids the problems of presuppositionalism. Thus, classical apologetics is the strongest, most comprehensive model.

Works on apologetic systems include: Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith by Ken Boa and Robert Bowman (this is my favorite) and Five Views on Apologetics.

 

J. Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2JWaz6P

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Three Signs of the Church’s Spiritual Disorientation

Three Signs of the Church’s Spiritual Disorientation

By Bob Perry

It is a scary thing to be disoriented. At best, it means you’re headed in the wrong direction. But if you’re flying airplanes, it means you have no reference to the ground. You can’t navigate. You may not even know which way is up. In other words, being disoriented is not just an annoyance. It’s dangerous. But there is something even more dangerous than being disoriented — and that is not knowing you’re disoriented. I hate to say this, but I believe many people in the church are becoming spiritually disoriented. And many of them don’t even have a clue.

Let me explain what I mean.

Spatial Disorientation

On the evening of July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy, Jr. crashed his private airplane into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. I remember that night well because I was the First Officer on a Delta Boeing 767 descending into New York’s LaGuardia Airport at exactly the same time.

The visibility over the water that evening was horrible. The haze, humidity, and sun angle combined to turn the sky around us into a giant, yellow-gray blob. There was no horizon. No way to tell which was up. Between us, the Captain and I had nearly 40 years of combined flight experience. Even so, we were uncomfortable. New York air traffic control was allowing airplanes to use visual flight rules. But we insisted on using instrument procedures for our approach and landing.

John Kennedy, Jr. had no business flying in weather conditions like that. He was not an experienced pilot. Sadly, the plane he was flying did have the instrumentation he needed to operate in those kinds of conditions. But Kennedy wasn’t trained to use it. An investigation of the accident revealed the cause. JFK, Jr. had “failed to maintain control of the airplane … as a result of spatial disorientation.”

Unable to Recover

Spatial disorientation occurs when a pilot loses his reference to the ground. With no visible horizon, his inner ear and eyes begin fighting with each other. They give him conflicting signals. He gets the sensation he’s turning when he is actually flying straight. What he sees and feels don’t match. Making the correction that feels right actually exacerbates his problem.

Experienced pilots know how to recognize the symptoms of spatial disorientation. When they do, they are trained to trust their flight instruments. A failure to do so can quickly become a matter of life and death.

Kennedy didn’t understand what was happening to him. Inexperienced pilots rarely do. By the time he realized something was wrong, it was too late. His lack of training doomed him. His attempts to correct the situation only made it worse. Within a matter of seconds, he was plunging toward the ocean in a “death spiral.”

It probably went something like this…

Three Signs of Disorientation

There are three elements of spatial disorientation to be aware of:

  1. You can’t see the ground.
  2. Your sensations lie to you about your alignment with the world. You think everything is fine.
  3. When you realize something is wrong, your attempts to correct things make them worse.

Spiritual Disorientation

I share this story for a very specific reason. I believe that many in the church have become “spiritually disoriented.” They are flying through this life in a way very similar to the way JFK, Jr. was flying over Long Island Sound.

I don’t say this to be provocative. I say it because I have evidence to back it up.

Media research pollster George Barna makes a living studying the beliefs and behaviors of the Christian community. He has published several findings about how evangelical Christians think and act very much like the world around them. He also looks at their actual beliefs and attitudes. The parallels between spatial and spiritual disorientation are fascinating to see…

They Can’t See the Ground

What grounds the Christian worldview? What is our reference point? I submit that it is no different than what grounds reality itself.

The truth.

This is a topic for another discussion that I will engage more completely later. For now, let me say that for thousands of years, thinking humans have seen truth as an objective feature of the world. It is something external to us. We don’t invent it. We discover it. For that reason, truth is as real as the ground we walk on. And truth is what should ground our thinking.

But today, we have come to believe that truth is up to us to decide for ourselves. As one example, George Barna discovered that:

Only 59% of Christians said that there are moral truths that are unchanging, that truth is not relative to the circumstances.

In other words, we have lost sight of what should ground our thinking. We have no firm reference to the truth.

They Think Everything Is Fine

No longer grounded in the truth, most Christians think and act just like the world around them. For example:

At the same time, this little nugget ought to jump out of Barna’s data and grabbed you by the throat:

92% of self-described evangelical Christians view themselves as being “deeply spiritual.”

We think and act pretty much like the world around us. But we overwhelmingly believe ourselves to be “deeply spiritual.” How is that possible?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that society has lured us into redefining what it means to be “spiritual” by dissecting our heads from our hearts. We have let the culture convince us that the heart is the most important thing about us. Feelings and emotions guide us. When those feelings and emotions are positive, we are on the right track. Those who have perfected this search are considered society’s most “spiritual” people.

Their “Corrections” Make Things Worse

Once feelings and emotions replace truth as the most important point of reference, we use them as our primary means of engaging the world. In our efforts to avoid making people feel bad, we dodge the truth. Feelings become more important than reality itself.

Grace abounds, but truth is dying in the streets.

As an example, imagine an anorexic girl who is nothing but skin and bones. When she looks in the mirror, she thinks she is overweight. She diets and purges. Her weight continues to decline.

Would it be loving and kind of us to tell her she’s looking great? Should we encourage her to continue down the path she has chosen? After all, telling her, she looks like death warmed over would certainly hurt her feelings.

Obviously not. We have a duty to tell her the truth, no matter how much it hurts her feelings. Playing along with her delusion would only make things worse. And it wouldn’t be loving. It would be dangerous.

One doesn’t have to think very hard to see the parallels going on in our culture with all forms of sin and rebellion. Yet we have prominent church leaders and spokesmen demanding that we do just that. But a church that avoids the truth by honoring feelings above truth is a church that has lost sight of the meaning of love.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is tell someone the truth.

Overcoming Spiritual Disorientation

The culture has infiltrated the church. As a result, the church is becoming more and more spiritually disoriented. Many prominent church leaders deny the core principles of our faith. They promote a disoriented Christianity that allows the culture to critique the church instead of leading a biblical critique of the culture. And too many in the church have accepted what they’re saying.

 

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at: truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal, and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and a M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2JNObfQ

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Is Apologetics Anti-Faith

Is Apologetics “Anti-Faith”?

By Robby Hall

Often, I see other Christians objecting to the use of apologetics altogether.  They will usually say that faith doesn’t require evidence, or it’s not faith.

But is that the case?  If we look at the word “faith” itself, we can get a clearer picture of what the Bible is actually talking about.

First, faith comes from the Latin “fides,” which means “good trust.”  But the Greek word used in the New Testament is “pisteuo,” which means to have confidence in or to credit the thing believed in.  The other greek word used for faith is “pistis,” which means “conviction of the truth of anything”[1].

So faith is trust, and trust is object centered.  You put your trust in something.  But does God require a blind trust or has He given evidence that we can put our trust in?  As always, we must consult scripture.

First, Jesus says in John 10:24-26

“So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.”
And again in vs. 36-38, Jesus says

“do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

What about Thomas? Jesus told him blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed — but not seen what? The resurrected Jesus.  But, what did Thomas see in the time he spent with Jesus? Healing of the sick, raising of the dead, casting out of demons, feeding of 4k and 5k, etc. Shouldn’t then, Thomas have believed when Jesus told the disciples ahead of time that he would suffer, die, and on the 3rd day rise again? Jesus gave evidence.

What about John the Baptist? In Matthew 11, we see the following:

“Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receives their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians:

“7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” Phil 1:7

There are many more passages in the NT that admonish us to offer a defense (apologia) for the Gospel we preach. But the one that gives us the direct command is 1 Peter 3:15:

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense(apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

In John 20, the apostle writes ” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Acts 1:3 tells us, “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”
God has not left us without evidence of the truth.  It becomes clear that we as Christians need to know what we believe, why we believe it, and how to articulate that truth.

 “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:19-20

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2KePWBR

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Every Christian Should Begin to Master the Moral Argument Today

Every Christian Should Begin to Master the Moral Argument Today

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By Erik Manning

There’s a dizzying array of arguments for the existence of God. For a newbie looking to get into apologetics, it can be intimidating trying to figure out where to start. You have the cosmological argument, but it helps if you know something about cosmology, physics, and even math. There’s the argument from the origin of life, but now you’re talking about chemistry, DNA, information theory, and it can feel overwhelming. There’s the ontological argument, but that requires understanding modal logic and let’s be real here, has anyone in the history of the universe come to faith because of the ontological argument? Sorry, St. Anselm.

If you’re looking either for ammo to argue against naturalistic atheism or to give some reasons for someone to think God exists, I wholeheartedly recommend learning the moral argument. Why?

For one thing, it’s accessible. You don’t need a Ph.D. in philosophy, physics, or chemistry to understand the argument. Secondly, it’s more effective because it touches people at a personal level that scientific arguments do not.

Dr. William Lane Craig earned his doctorate in philosophy and spent decades developing a version of the cosmological argument. But after spending years of traveling, speaking, teaching and debating some of the smartest atheists on the planet, here’s what he has to say about the moral argument:

““In my experience, the moral argument is the most effective of all the arguments for the existence of God. I say this grudgingly because my favorite is the cosmological argument. But the cosmological and teleological (design) arguments don’t touch people where they live. The moral argument cannot be so easily brushed aside. For every day you get up you answer the question of whether there are objective moral values and duties by how you live. It’s unavoidable.”

-On Guard, Chapter 6

With a little thought, you know this is true. Just log on to Twitter or turn on cable news for a few seconds. We live in a culture where people are in a state of constant moral outrage. CS Lewis popularized the argument in his classic work Mere Christianity. (Warning: Massive understatement alert!) In regards to the power of the moral argument, Lewis says:

“We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, then I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place). The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put into our minds.

And this is a better bit of evidence than the other because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built. Now, from this second bit of evidence, we conclude that the Being behind the universe is intensely interested in right conduct—in fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty, and truthfulness.“

So what is the moral argument? You can cash it out in different ways, but I favor using it negatively in order to falsify atheism. If atheism isn’t true then obviously we should reject it and find a worldview that makes better sense of reality. Here’s the argument in logical form:

  1. If naturalistic atheism is true, there are no moral facts.
  2. There are moral facts.
  3. Therefore, naturalistic atheism is false.

An example of a moral fact would be that even if NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association…ew.) somehow hypnotized the world into thinking that pedophilia is morally acceptable, it would still be morally wrong. Morality isn’t a matter of personal preference. I’m going to bring some ‘hostile witnesses’ on the scene to help make my case.

CAN MORAL FACTS BE FACTS OF NATURE?

Some atheists have tried to say so, but I think unsuccessfully. Moral facts aren’t about the way things are, but the way things ought to or should be. But if the world isn’t here for a purpose, then there is no way things are intended to be. Natural facts are facts about the way things are, not the way things ought to be. Animals kill and forcibly mate with other animals, but we don’t call those things murder or rape. But if natural facts are the only types of facts on the table, then the same holds true of people. We can explain the pain and suffering on a scientific level, but we can’t explain why one ought not to inflict suffering and pain.

Here are three atheists who drive the point home that on atheism there can be no moral facts.

Michael Ruse

Michael Ruse

“The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than our hands and feet and teeth… Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival, and reproduction…and any deeper meaning is illusory.” – Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse.

“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is.“ – Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins

And finally, here’s atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg, when asked about the cruel and inhumane cultural practice of foot-binding that was practiced by the Chinese for centuries:

Interviewer: “And so your argument is to say we shouldn’t do foot-binding anymore because it’s not adaptive, or should we…?”

Rosenberg: “No. I don’t think that it is in a position to tell you what we ought and ought not to do: it is in a position to tell you why we’ve done it and what the consequences of continuing or failing to do it are, okay? But it can’t adjudicate ultimate questions of value, because those are expressions of people’s emotions and, dare I say, tastes.”

Earlier in the interview, Rosenberg says, “Is there a difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There’s not a moral difference between them.”

A matter of tastes

A matter of tastes?

BUT THERE ARE MORAL FACTS

So rather than giving up naturalism, these atheists bite the bullet and say that on their worldview there is no room for moral facts. But how plausible is that really? As you can imagine, many atheists disagree. Here are some more ‘hostile witnesses’ I’ll bring in to make the point:

“Whatever skeptical arguments may be brought against our belief that killing the innocent is morally wrong, we are more certain that the killing is morally wrong than that the argument is sound…Torturing an innocent child for the sheer fun of it is morally wrong. Full stop.” -Atheist philosopher Paul Cave.

“Some moral views are better than others, despite the sincerity of the individuals, cultures, and societies that endorse them. Some moral views are true, others false, and my thinking them so doesn’t make them so. My society’s endorsement of them doesn’t prove their truth. Individuals and whole societies can be seriously mistaken when it comes to morality. The best explanation of this is that there are moral standards not of our own making.” – Atheist philosopher Russ Shafer-Landau

Louise Antony

Louise Antony

“Any argument for moral skepticism will be based upon premises which are less obvious than the existence of objective moral values themselves.” – Atheist philosopher Louise Antony

This makes sense. Any argument that allows for the possibility that there is no more moral virtue in adopting a child or torturing a child for fun is a lot less plausible than the existence of moral values and duties. Why should we doubt our moral sense any more than our physical senses?

The problem is for the naturalist is that from valueless, meaningless processes valueless, meaninglessness comes. Atheism just doesn’t seem to have the resources for the existence of moral facts. Christian philosopher Paul Copan writes:

“Intrinsically-valuable, thinking persons do not come from impersonal, non-conscious, unguided, valueless processes over time. A personal, self-aware, purposeful, good God provides the natural and necessary context for the existence of valuable, rights-bearing, morally-responsible human persons.”

And atheist philosopher JL Mackie agrees that if there are moral facts, their existence fits much better on theism than on atheism. He wrote “Moral properties constitute so odd a cluster of properties and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful god to create them. If there are objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them. Thus, we have a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a god.”

THE POWER OF THE MORAL ARGUMENT: HOW 3 FORMER ATHEISTS CHANGED THEIR MINDS

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and formerly led the Human Genome Project

Francis Collins

Dr. Francis Collins

Dr. Collins was an atheist until he read Lewis. In his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he writes:

“The argument that most caught my attention, and most rocked my ideas about science and spirit down to their foundation, was right there in the title of Book one: “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.” While in many ways the “Moral Law” that Lewis described was a universal feature of human existence, in other ways it was as if I was recognizing it for the first time.

To understand the Moral Law, it is useful to consider, as Lewis did, how it is invoked in hundreds of ways each day without the invoker stopping to point out the foundation of his argument. Disagreements are part of daily life. Some are mundane, as the wife criticizing her husband for not speaking more kindly to a friend, or a child complaining, “It’s not fair,” when different amounts of ice cream are doled out at a birthday party. Other arguments take on larger significance. In international affairs for instance, some argue that the United States has a moral obligation to spread democracy throughout the world, even if it requires military force, whereas others say that the aggressive, unilateral use of military and economic force threatens to squander moral authority.

In the area of medicine, furious debates currently surround the question of whether or not it is acceptable to carry out research on human embryonic stem cells. Some argue that such research violates the sanctity of human life; others posit that the potential to alleviate human suffering constitutes an ethical mandate to proceed.

Notice that in all these examples, each party attempts to appeal to an unstated higher standard. This standard is the Moral Law. It might also be called “the law of right behavior,” and its existence in each of these situations seems unquestioned. What is being debated is whether one action or another is a closer approximation to the demands of that law. Those accused of having fallen short, such as the husband who is insufficiently cordial to his wife’s friend, usually respond with a variety of excuses why they should be let off the hook. Virtually never does the respondent say, “To hell with your concept of right behavior.”

What we have here is very peculiar: the concept of right and wrong appears to be universal among all members of the human species (though its application may result in wildly different outcomes). It thus seems to be a phenomenon approaching that of a law, like the law of gravitation or of special relativity. Yet in this instance, it is a law that, if we are honest with ourselves, is broken with astounding regularity.”

Leah Libresco, graduate of Yale University, political scientist, statistician and popular blogger

Leah Libresco

Leah Libresco

Leah used to write about atheism on the Patheos network of blogs. She grew up as an atheist but began to doubt her doubts. In her last post on the atheist portal of Patheos, she wrote:

“I’ve heard some explanations that try to bake morality into the natural world by reaching for evolutionary psychology. They argue that moral dispositions are evolutionarily triumphant over selfishness, or they talk about group selection, or something else. Usually, these proposed solutions radically misunderstand a) evolution b) moral philosophy or c) both. I didn’t think the answer was there. My friend pressed me to stop beating up on other people’s explanations and offer one of my own.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got bupkis.”

“Your best guess.”

“I haven’t got one.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got nothing. I guess Morality just loves me or something.”

“…”

“Ok, ok, yes, I heard what I just said. Give me a second and let me decide if I believe it.”

It turns out I did.”

“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to, and it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of.”

Later in an interview with CNN, she said: “I’m really sure that morality is objective, human independent, and something we uncover like archaeologists, not something we build like architects. And I was having trouble explaining that in my own philosophy, and Christianity offered an explanation which I came to find compelling.”

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Western Sydney University, Senior Lecturer on History and Cambridge graduate

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

Irving-Stonebraker wrote an article titled ‘How Oxford and Peter Singer Drove Me From Atheism to Jesus’. Peter Singer is a famous bio-ethicist that is well-respected but has some pretty far-out views. He’s very big into animal rights and has said things like “The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.” Singer has advocated infanticide in certain circumstances, as well as bestiality. Yeah, I know. Only a philosopher could attempt to justify such insanity intellectually. Anyway, here’s Dr. Irving-Stonebraker:

“I grew up in Australia, in a loving, secular home, and arrived at Sydney University as a critic of “religion.”  I didn’t need faith to ground my identity or my values. I knew from the age of eight that I wanted to study history at Cambridge and become a historian. My identity lay in academic achievement, and my secular humanism was based on self-evident truths… 

After Cambridge, I was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Oxford. There, I attended three guest lectures by world-class philosopher and atheist public intellectual, Peter Singer. Singer recognized that philosophy faces a vexing problem in relation to the issue of human worth. The natural world yields no egalitarian picture of human capacities. What about the child whose disabilities or illness compromises her abilities to reason? Yet, without reference to some set of capacities as the basis of human worth, the intrinsic value of all human beings becomes an ungrounded assertion; a premise which needs to be agreed upon before any conversation can take place.

I remember leaving Singer’s lectures with a strange intellectual vertigo; I was committed to believing that universal human value was more than just a well-meaning conceit of liberalism. But I knew from my own research in the history of European empires and their encounters with indigenous cultures, that societies have always had different conceptions of human worth or lack thereof. The premise of human equality is not a self-evident truth: it is profoundly historically contingent. I began to realize that the implications of my atheism were incompatible with almost every value I held dear … One Sunday, shortly before my 28th birthday, I walked into a church for the first time as someone earnestly seeking God. Before long I found myself overwhelmed. At last, I was fully known and seen and, I realized, unconditionally loved – perhaps I had a sense of relief from no longer running from God. A friend gave me C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and one night, after a couple months of attending church, I knelt in my closet in my apartment and asked Jesus to save me, and to become the Lord of my life”

THE NATURALIST’S DILEMMA

I hope you can see by now that the moral argument is an argument that is pretty difficult to get away from. It forces the skeptic into a few different corners: They either have to:

a.) bite the bullet like Mackie, Ruse, Dawkins, and Rosenberg do and just accept the crazy and counter-intuitive notion that there just are no moral facts at all, no matter how obvious that seems to all of us. Or they can –

b.) accept there are somehow moral facts but have no way to really ground them. Why think valueless, meaningless processes produce beings with intrinsic moral value that have obligations to one another? On atheism, there just is no way things ought to be and morality is about what ought and ought not to be. You could stubbornly dig your heels in here anyway, or –

c.) make the move that Collins, Libresco and Irving-Stonebraker (and myriads of others) did and dump their worldview in exchange for one that can provide more robust resources for why human beings have worth and duties towards one another.

My hope is that you see that the moral argument is effective. Many times it has changed people’s minds. It speaks to people because we’re all moral creatures; we can’t help but make moral decisions and judgments every day. And possibly most importantly, the moral argument shows us that we’ve all fallen short of the moral law and that we need forgiveness. Christianity has plenty to say about redemption and God’s mercy.

For these reasons, if there was one argument for God that I’d recommend you really camp on until you master it, it’s this one.

Recommended Resources:

CS Lewis’ Moral Argument on the YouTube Channel CS Lewis Doodle

Mere Christianity, CS Lewis

God, Naturalism, and The Foundations for Morality, Paul Copan (free)

The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism, Mark Linville (free)

A Simple Explanation of the Moral Argument, Glenn Peoples (free)

 

Erik Manning is a former atheist turned Christian after an experience with the Holy Spirit. He’s a freelance baseball writer and digital marketing specialist who is passionate about the intersection of evangelism and apologetics.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2QvLvni

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Did Jesus Have a Wife A Simple Response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

Did Jesus Have a Wife? – A Simple Response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

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By Mikel Del Rosario

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

So your skeptical friend just heard about something called, “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” But unlike the fiction Dan Brown created in the Da Vinci Code, this wasn’t in a movie or a novel. She just caught another sensational segment on the evening news talking about how controversial this new find is, and now she’s wondering, “Did Jesus have a wife?”

But here’s the thing. This fragment really isn’t rocking anyone’s world. Especially in the academic community. In fact, Karen L. King, the Harvard Professor who actually presented this at the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies said:

…this new discovery [highlight] does not prove that the historical Jesus was married. [/highlight] This gospel (is)…too late, historically speaking, to provide any evidence as to whether the historical Jesus was married or not

So this is all about later, Egyptian views about who Jesus was–not about the historical Jesus of the 1st century.

In this post, I’ll share a simple way to respond to this fragment because we’ve only got two real options here. But first, here’s what scholars are saying about the fragment itself.

Scholars are Skeptical

I got an e-mail about this from Dr. Dan Wallace as soon as this hit the nightly news.  Later, he expanded on his initial thoughts on his blog, saying:

Does this fragment prove that Jesus was married? [highlight]The answer is an emphatic no [/highlight] … it says nothing about true history, about Jesus of Nazareth.

He says that if this thing wasn’t faked (May 2014 Update: Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Looks More and More Like a Fake), one possibility is that it’s a Gnostic source (basically a totally different religion) which meant something other than real marriage here (since they weren’t big into physical stuff being good). Another possibility is that it’s talking about the church as Jesus’ wife, kind of like John does in the book of Revelation. Other scholars like Dr. Darrell Bock and Dr. Gary Habermas agree, saying there just isn’t an awful lot of context here to even figure out what the author was trying to say.

How I Answer, “Did Jesus Have a Wife?”

So what can you say to a skeptical friend who asks you, “Did Jesus have a wife?” Seems like I’ve been hearing this question off and on for a while now. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a possibility: “Isn’t it possible that Jesus had a wife?” I usually agree, which sometimes surprises people and grabs their attention. I say, “Sure. Anything’s possible. But the question is, are there any good reasons to believe that the historical Jesus of Nazareth really had a wife?” If you want to be confident in conversations about this fragment, here’s what I suggest.

Get the Facts

Blow past the headlines and get the hard facts. There are a whole bunch of Web sites covering The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, but this short post on Talbot School of Theology’s The Good Book Blog will give you the skinny on this fragment (which despite its sensationalized name, really isn’t a gospel) that’s basically the size of a business card.

Dr. Darrell Bock was recently quoted by CNN as saying:

“It’s a small text with very little context…It’s a historical curiosity but doesn’t really tell us who Jesus was…[highlight]It’s one small speck of a text in a mountain of texts about Jesus. [/highlight]”

Indeed, even if this fragment turns out to be real, there are over 5,000 New Testament manuscripts and other ancient sources outside the Bible that talk about Jesus. None of these sources indicate that Jesus ever had a wife. And if you’re really interested in the historical Jesus, you know that the four traditional gospels–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John–were recognized as the most accurate biographies of Jesus by A.D. 125. It’s really these ancient documents that give us the very best picture of Jesus’ life and his teachings.

How History Answers, “Did Jesus Have a Wife?”

So did Jesus have a wife? The best ancient, documentary evidence for the historical Jesus says “no.” As historian Dr. Mike Licona observes:

The most powerful evidence that Jesus was single comes from a deafening silence. In 1 Corinthians 9:5 Paul writes, “Do we [i.e., Paul and Barnabas] not have a right to take along a believing wife, as do the rest of the apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Peter?” It appears that all of Jesus’ disciples, all of his blood brothers, and even the lead apostle, Peter, were married. If Jesus had been married, …we certainly would expect for Paul to have mentioned it here, since it would have provided the ultimate example for his point.

A Simple Response You Can Use

So what can you say when someone asks you, “Did Jesus have a Wife?” after hearing something about this fragment? Let me share a simple response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. You don’t have to be a historian or a scholar to say this. It’s easy to remember and something you can use today. Tell your skeptical friend that when it comes to this little fragment, we’ve only got two real options here:

  • Option 1: It’s a fake fragment that tells us nothing about the historical Jesus. [See 2014 updates below]
  • Option 2: It’s a real fragment that tells us nothing about the historical Jesus.

As Christians, it’s important that we’re able to honestly look at something like this fragment without it messing with our faith. After all, if it’s fake, no one should care. If it’s a real 6th-century fragment, it could help us learn more about the kinds of things some Egyptian Gnostics were writing in Coptic hundreds of years after any of the actual eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and teachings.

As for the question, “Was the historical Jesus married?” The historical evidence points to “no.”

Updates on the Fragment

2012

MSNBC: “One the most suspicious grammatical errors in the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife appeared to be a direct copy of a typo in the PDF file version of the Interlinear translation (of the Gospel of Thomas)”

More: See how Dr. Mark Goodacre compares the fragment text to the PDF.

Still More: Read Leo Depuydt’s conclusion Harvard Theological Review. “The author of this analysis has not the slightest doubt that the document is a forgery, and not a very good one at that.”

2014

Boston Globe: King responds to the alleged grammatical error and forgery charge: “such a combination of bumbling and sophistication seems extremely unlikely.”

Huffington Post: “Scientists have concluded the fragment dates back to at least the sixth to ninth centuries, and possibly as far back as the fourth century.” Still, 6th to the 9th century is way too late to tell us anything about the historical Jesus. Furthermore, there is no external or internal evidence suggesting this goes back to the 2nd or 4th century. According to Dr. Bock, “It is a suggestion based on when these discussions commonly arose. That is all it is.”

[highlight] New! [/highlight] 05/01/2014 Wall Street Journal: How The ‘Jesus Wife’ Hoax Fell Apart. 05/02/2014 GLive Science: Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Looks More and More Like a Fake.  Tyndale House quotes Askeland on the “smoking gun”:

The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife was one of several fragments which were announced by Karen King.  There was also in this group of fragments a fragment of the Gospel of John in Coptic. Just recently, when I gazed upon Karen King’s Coptic John fragment, what I saw was immediately clear.  [highlight] Not only were the writing tool, ink and hand exactly the same as those of the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife fragment, but also the method of composition was the same. As I looked at Karen King’s Gospel of John fragment, I finally saw that it was clearly copied (by the forger) from Herbert Thompson’s 1924 edition of Codex Qau. [/highlight] Indeed, the Gospel of John fragment had exactly the same line breaks as Codex Qau – a statistical improbability if it were genuine.

Scholars Discuss The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (2012)

Did Jesus have a wife? Sit in on a discussion I attended on responding to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and get the details from Dr. Richard Taylor and Dr. Darrell Bock at Dallas Theological Seminary. You’ll even get to recite some Coptic before the end of this video! How many people get a chance to do that? I rarely post full-length videos on my blog. But if you’re read this far, this one will definitely be worth your time.

 

Mikel Del Rosario, M.A., Th.M. helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a doctoral student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel teaches Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University. He is the author of Accessible Apologetics and has published over 20 journal articles on apologetics and cultural engagement with his mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock. Mikel holds an M.A. in Christian Apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and a Master of Theology (Th.M.) from Dallas Theological Seminary where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and a host of the Table Podcast. Visit his Web site at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2M8oWa2

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How a Cold-Case Atheist Detective Became a Case-Making Christian

How a Cold-Case Atheist Detective Became a Case-Making Christian

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By Terrell Clemmons

I think it may be true,” Jim Wallace said to his wife, Susie. He was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

“What may be true?”

“Christianity.” Why did she need to ask? He’d been obsessed with the subject for several weeks now, talking her ears off on multiple occasions. It had all started at Saddleback Church during an otherwise normal Sunday morning service. A friend, a fellow police officer, had been inviting him for months, and he’d finally acquiesced. Susie liked the family to attend church, and although Jim had no use for religion, he loved his wife deeply and placed a very high priority on marriage and family. As for church, he didn’t get it, but he was fine going along for her sake.

Jim managed to ignore most of the sermon, but his ears did perk up when Pastor Rick Warren mentioned some wise principles Jesus taught that could be applied today. He’d described Jesus as “the smartest man who ever lived.” This guy Jesus might have some information I could use workwise, Jim thought. He’d always been open to learning from any ancient sage whose wisdom had stood the test of time. So the following week he dropped $6.00 on a Bible at B. Dalton bookstore and leafed straight to the New Testament Gospels. He wasn’t interested in anything but the red letters. What did Jesus say?

As Jim read, though, he was soon struck by something else. By this time in his career as a police officer and crime investigator, he had interviewed hundreds if not thousands of eyewitnesses and suspects and had read countless written testimonies. The Gospel accounts, he was surprised to note, bore a striking resemblance, not to the mythology or moralistic storytelling he’d always believed them to be, but to actual eyewitness accounts, something with which he was intimately familiar. His investigator’s curiosity was piqued.

Opening an Investigation

Since he’d shown a knack for interviewing early in his career, Jim had received special training in a variety of investigative techniques. One of them, a methodology called Forensic Statement Analysis (FSA), was especially designed to scrutinize eyewitness testimonies to detect deception and other manner of falsification. Wow, Jim thought, wouldn’t it be cool to try to apply this discipline I do at work to one of the Gospels?

He was in his element now. He started with the Gospel of Mark. For a full month, he meticulously picked it apart, hanging on every word, and in spite of deep skepticism going in, ultimately came to the conclusion that the Gospel writer Mark had penned the eyewitness account of the Apostle Peter, exactly what traditional Christianity has held all along. Pressing on, he subsequently reached the conclusion that the other three Gospels also gave every appearance of being exactly what they purported to be—authentic, eyewitness accounts written by men who genuinely believed what they were writing.

Personal Crossroads

This was a wholly unexpected development. At this juncture, Jim’s well-honed drive to uncover truth ran square up against his lifelong aversion to all things religious. The only son of a divorced, cultural Catholic mother and atheist father, Jim had been an avowed atheist all his life. And he was quite happy with it. Religion had always been just plain silly to him, and as a shrewd cop for whom skepticism was a skill that got you home at night, he had a very low threshold for silliness. Christianity might be a useful delusion for some, or an area of weakness for others, but nothing beyond that. Worse, despite his love and respect for Susie as a quiet believer, he’d badmouthed the few people he’d known in the department who were Christians. Now, as a follow-the-facts-wherever-they-lead investigator, he had to contend with the possibility that there might be something to this “garbage” after all.

By now, he was on much more than an intellectual exercise. The Scriptures he’d been examining contained certain claims that were supremely unsettling to a contented atheist. There were supernatural claims, claims about authority, claims about exactly who was God. And some of Jesus’ teachings, if you took them seriously, were devastatingly convicting. What do I do with the claims of Jesus related to his own divinity? And the claims of Jesus related to the nature of my heart?

As an atheist, he’d always felt like he was a good guy. He’d made his own rules for what was appropriate, and according to them, he was living a good life. He wasn’t hurting anybody. He was even devoting his life to stopping the bad guys who were. He didn’t believe in heaven, but if there was one, he was fairly confident he would make it in. But Jesus said differently. Who was right?

“I knew that I was standing on the edge of something profound,” he wrote in Cold Case Christianity.

I started reading the Gospels to learn what Jesus taught about living a good life and found that He taught much more about His identity as God and the nature of eternal life. I knew that it would be hard to accept one dimension of His teaching while rejecting the others. If I had good reason to believe that the Gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts, I was going to have to deal with the stuff I had always resisted as a skeptic. What about all the miracles that are wedged in there between the remarkable words of Jesus?… And why was it that I continued to resist the miraculous elements in the first place?

These were imposing questions, threatening to upheave everything he’d believed all his life.

Sometime during this Gospel investigation, a friend gave him a copy of Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis. After reading it, Jim, ever obsessive once onto the trail of something, went out and bought everything C. S. Lewis had written. One quote from God in the Dock resonated powerfully when he read it and never left him afterwards. “Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance,” Lewis wrote. “The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” It made such perfect sense. The big-question issues of life, Jim thought, those are the ones I should be spending my time on. The most important thing he could do right now was to answer the question, Are these Gospels divine?

All his adult life, he’d instructed jurors to stay evidential in their examination of what happened. “Live and breathe what the evidence dictates to you,” was the inviolable rule. And just as jurors must make decisions based on the evidence, not personal predispositions, so, he knew, must he. And after a full investigation, he found that the evidence strongly suggested that the Gospels were, in fact, divine. And if they were, it followed that Jesus was right and he was wrong. He knew that to reject this truth any longer would be perilous. He accepted it as transcendent truth and began making life adjustments accordingly.

Case-Making Christianity

Jim became a Christian, not because he had any life problem he needed to fix—he was quite happy with his life—but because he became convinced that Christianity is true. “It’s not convenient for me. It’s not always comfortable, and it doesn’t always serve my purposes. There are times when my brokenness would like to take a shortcut, but I’m stuck with the fact that this is true,” he says. “And like any transcendent truth, you’re either going to measure yourself by it, or you’re going to reject it to your own peril.”

But don’t get the idea that he’s a reluctant convert. He immediately plunged with Wallace-esque drive into full-bore Christian case-making: he enrolled in seminary and seven years later completed a masters in theology. He also served part-time as a youth pastor, all the while still working full-time as a detective. Out of his passion to train believers, particularly young people, to become case-making Christians, he created PleaseConvinceMe.com [coldcasechristianity.com current site] as a place to post and discuss what he was discovering about the evidence supporting Christianity.

The website draws fire at times because Jim doesn’t limit himself to presenting Christian principles for a Christian readership. Quite to the contrary, he regularly puts forth objective truth claims about reality, making the case that Christianity is true, not just true for him and maybe true for you, but transcendently true for everyone at all times.

And he’s amassing formidable evidence to support the claim. Much of it is objective and rational—that’s what draws the fire. But there is also that which is subjective and personal, but no less real. Case in point: this formerly angry atheist who had been ever ready to tell any bothersome Christian why he didn’t accept all that “hooey” engages his detractors with remarkable patience, occasionally hearing echoes of his own younger voice. As a toughened cop and softened believer, he can now “take a punch and deliver a kiss. I no longer have a desire to respond with anger,” he explains. “Not because I’m more clever tactically, but because I think that God has done something in my own life. That God who I discovered was true evidentially, I’m also discovering in my own life is true evidentially. Because he’s changing me.” •

Christian Case-Making 101

Cold Case Christianity

Jim Wallace keeps a leather bag packed beside his bed. His callout bag holds the tools he’ll need if he’s called to a homicide scene during the night—a flashlight, digital recorder, notepad, etc. It also contains an investigative checklist representing years of distilled wisdom gleaned from partners, classes, training seminars, and his own years of experience. His new book, Cold Case Christianity, offers a metaphorical toolkit for both Christians and skeptics and invites them to retrace with him the steps he took when he applied his investigative tools to the Gospels years ago. The real-life detective stories he uses to illustrate the principles will be an added delight for TV crime-show fans. Cold Case Christianity will:

  • Give you ten principles of cold case investigation and equip you to use them to evaluate the claims of the New Testament Gospel authors. Applying these principles will help you gain a firmer handle on the historic evidence for Christianity.
  • Provide you with a four-step template for evaluating eyewitnesses to determine if they are reliable, and walk you through applying these steps to the eyewitness Gospel accounts, showing how they more than adequately pass forensic muster.

The historic truth claims of Christianity are under assault from all directions, but when pressed, they withstand the most scrupulous of investigative techniques. Jim Wallace is passionate about getting this information out, and about training Christians to become skilled case-makers for Christianity. “Most other theistic worldviews are deficient in the very areas where Christianity is strong,” he says. “We have great reasons to believe what we believe.”

—Terrell Clemmons

 

Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

This article was originally published at salvomag.com: http://bit.ly/2VUTDDS

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How Naturalism Defeats Science As A Knowledge Discipline

How Naturalism Defeats Science As A Knowledge Discipline

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By Luke Nix

Introduction

One of the core necessities of science is the constancy of the laws that govern this universe. The fact that the laws of physics have the same since the beginning of the universe and will continue until the universe is destroyed allows scientists to not only observe and know what is happening in the moment of their observation, but it allows them to discover what has happened in the past and even make accurate predictions of the behavior of objects and conditions in the future. Some scientists even use the understanding that the laws of physics are constant to make predictions of what we will observe in the past (by observing distant celestial objects), then conduct multiple observations to test their theory. But where do they come up with the idea that the laws of physics are constant in the first place?

The Constancy of the Laws of Physics

We certainly cannot look inside this universe to establish it, for that would be to beg the question (assume what we are trying to conclude). Without something outside the universe that established the constancy of the laws of physics, such an assumption has no justification. So, on this view, since our first assumption has no justification, neither do any of the conclusions that follow it. At best, the constancy or variability of the laws of physics is unknowable. Since scientists foundationally base their claims about the past and the future upon something that is unknowable, then their claims about the past and the future can only reach the same level of knowledge: unknowable.

At this point, many scientists would object based upon observation of distant celestial objects. My response is to point out that a subtle fallacy is in place. While we think that we can observe the past by looking at distant celestial objects to observe how the laws of physics behaved back then, we are still stuck with merely a suspicion (thus the whole scientific enterprise that is dependent upon constancy is suspect). I ask that the objector recalls that in order to correlate the observation to any point in time, the speed of light (governed by the laws of physics) must be finite and constant– light does take time to travel, so we are seeing light as it was when it left the object not as it is now. To say that observing distant objects establishes the constancy of the laws of physics is to commit the fallacy of begging the question. The objector has sneaked his conclusion into his argument. This invalidates his conclusion that our observations establish the constancy of the laws of physics. But all is not lost, they do still have a suspicion that the laws have been constant into the past.

Naturalism Defeats Science As A Knowledge Discipline

If this universe is all that there is, then there really is no possible way to justify the belief in the foundational idea that the laws of physics are constant. All further conclusions will remain as merely suspicions and will remain unknowable. However, if something exists outside the universe that does provide a foundation for the laws of physics, then we at least have something to reason toward constant laws of physics without begging the question. If God exists and created this universe, then He certainly would be the source for the laws of physics, but this alone does not tell us if they are constant or variable over time.

Christianity Provides The Foundation For Science As A Knowledge Discipline

Interestingly enough, though, God has revealed to us which option He selected, and it matches the observations that cause us to suspect one or the other. Let us examine Jeremiah 33:25-26:

Slide5

In this passage, God compares His constancy to the laws that govern His creation. If these laws are not truly constant, then the comparison means, at best, nothing, and at worst, the exact opposite (that the laws are variable).

If scientists wish to claim that their conclusions are more than mere unknowable suspicions, then they have no choice but to be dependent upon God’s existing. And we’re not talking about some deistic god, for a deistic god does not reveal Himself to His creation (God is revealing His constancy, among other characteristics, in the passage above), nor are we talking about some generic theistic god. We are talking about the God of the Bible.

This God not only told us the truth of something that we only became suspicious may be true in recent centuries (the constancy of the laws of physics), but He came to earth, died, and resurrected from the dead (see this historical evidence in the post: “Did The Historical Jesus Rise From The Dead?“). In that resurrection, He confirmed His claims to be God, the Creator of the universe: the Source of the laws of physics.

Slide11

Conclusion

Naturalism simply cannot justify the conclusion that the laws of physics are constant, and unless scientists are willing to ground this foundationally necessary concept in the God of the Bible outside the universe, none of their conclusions can be more than suspicions, and suspicions hardly counts as knowledge. In order for any conclusions that count as knowledge to come out of the scientific enterprise, God must exist to be the source of the constancy of the laws of physics. If naturalism is true, then science necessarily is not a knowledge discipline.

 

Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

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The Education of Jesus of Nazareth

The Education of Jesus of Nazareth

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By Brian Chilton

Often, critical scholars make Jesus of Nazareth out to be a country bumpkin, one who was uneducated and unsophisticated. However, when one evaluates his life and teaching style, it appears that Jesus of Nazareth was a well-polished individual who spoke and taught with great authority and wisdom. The Jewish leaders marveled at Jesus, saying, “How is this man so learned, since he hasn’t been trained” (Jn. 7:14, CSB)? While this writer holds that Jesus was the divine Son of God, the human aspect of Jesus does not indicate that Jesus was an uneducated hillbilly, but rather one who had at least some formal education. The following are five reasons to believe that Jesus was a well-educated man.

  1. Jesus could read. The Synoptic Gospels indicate that Jesus stood in the synagogue of Nazareth. Luke notes that Jesus “entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read” (Lk. 4:16, CSB). The text indicates that he read from the prophet Isaiah. In Jewish culture, Hebrew boys were expected to be able to read from the Scriptures. In Jesus’s case, it is clear that he had the ability to read, which was better than 90% of the society at the time. The reading level for Jews was higher than the those of the Greco-Roman world due to the emphasis of schools in the synagogues, at least for boys.
  2. Jesus could write on some level. While John 7:53-8:11 is not found in the earliest manuscripts of John, it is generally accepted to be historically genuine since it has all the earmarks of the historical stories told of Jesus. What makes the passage of Scripture so fascinating is that on two occasions, Jesus is said to have written something in the sand (Jn. 8:6, 8). The term used for Jesus’s writing does not indicate some abstract doodling, but the writing of words. Graphō is used for writing that is found in books and scrolls. According to Louw and Nida, “Since the knowledge of writing is almost universal, there is usually no difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory term for writing” (Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the NT, 395).
  3. Jesus taught according to rabbinic styles. Jesus also used rabbinic styles of teaching. Jesus often answered questions by asking them. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life while calling Jesus good, Jesus responded by asking, “Why do you call me good” (Lk. 18:19, CSB)? In another case, Jesus is asked whether people should pay taxes. Jesus responds with the question after taking a denarius, “Whose image and inscriptions does it have” (Lk. 20:24)? Jesus also uses a rabbinical style of teaching called Remez, which alludes to a passage of Scripture. Remez is a Haggadic method of interpretation. Since many people memorized the Scripture, it wasn’t necessary to quote the entire passage of Scripture. Rather, one could recall part of the Scripture or allude to the Scripture. When the allusion to the Scripture is given, the entire passage is referenced. When Jesus answers the disciples of John the Baptist as to whether he is the Messiah, Jesus replies by saying, “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news, and blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me” (Mt. 11:5). In this one statement, Jesus references Isaiah 29:18; 35:5-6; 42:7; and 61:1. John the Baptist would have understood Jesus’s citation (Blizzard and Bivin, org, 2013). Not only does Jesus use extensive rabbinic techniques, Jesus uses tremendous methodologies of logic in his teaching as well as various picturesque expressions in his teaching, including similes (Mt. 7:24, 26), metaphors (Mt. 13:19-22), hypocatastates (comparison of two unlike things in naming, Lk. 13:32), metonymies (word or phrase is substituted for another word or phrase associated with it, Mt. 10:34; 11:21, 23), synecdoche (like metonymies but that this substitutes a part for a whole or vice versa, Lk. 23:29), hyperboles (exaggerations to prove a point, Mt. 5:29-30), personification (Mt. 6:3, 6:34, 11:2), apostrophes (addresses an object as if it were a person, Mt. 11:21, 23; Lk. 10:13), euphemisms (substitution of an inoffensive expression with a bold one, Mt. 9:24; Jn. 11:11), ironies (Mk. 2:17; Mk. 7:9), paradoxes (Mt. 5:2-5; Mt. 19:29; Mt. 23:11), puns (Lk. 21:11; Jn. 3:3), humor (Mt. 6:2; 7:3; 19:24), enigmas (Mt. 8:22; Mt. 10:34), aphorisms (Mt. 5:13-14; 6:34; Lk. 12:34), repetitions (“Blessed” in the Beatitudes; “I tell you” in Mt. 18:3, 10, 18-19, 22; 26:21, 29, 34), a fortiori (Mt. 6:26; 10:29-30), reductio ad absurdium (Mt. 5:46-47; 12:24-26), excluded middle (Mt. 12:30; 21:25-27), noncontradiction (Lk. 6:39) analogies (Mt. 12:40), contrasts (Mt. 23:23-24), and Hebrew forms of poetry (Mt. 10:24, 26) (Zuck, Teaching as Jesus Taught, 183-234). The high level of logic and reasoning in addition to his rabbinical style of teaching seems to preclude that Jesus of Nazareth was well educated.
  4. Jesus knew the Hebrew Bible well. This point does not need a lot of exposition. It is evident even upon a casual reading of the Gospels that Jesus knew the Scriptures well. He even segments the Scriptures into the classical way of segmenting them as the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Lk. 24:44). Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy, Isaiah, the Psalms, and other prophets frequently indicating that he had memorized large segments of Scripture.
  5. Jesus lived in a region that had schools. Finally, it should be noted that according to Professor Shmuel Safrai, the number of Galilean rabbis eclipsed those of Judean rabbis in the first century (Safrai, Jewish People of the First Century). Archaeologists have uncovered synagogues in the Galilean area as found within the first century. Jesus would have received his education at the synagogues by the rabbis of the area in addition to his earthly father, Joseph of Nazareth. While not much is known about Joseph, if James, the half-brother of Jesus, is any indication, it would seem that Joseph would have been quite knowledgeable of the Scriptures himself as he would have passed along an education to Jesus and James.

When Jesus was called unlearned, it is most likely that the Jewish leaders noted that Jesus had not been trained in the approved schools in Judea. He had, however, been educated in Galilee. Each synagogue had its own bet-sefer, that is, a school of learning. While Jesus may not have received the training that a scribe would have received in Jerusalem, Jesus would most certainly been educated during his early years as was evidenced by Jesus’s reading, writing, and teaching skills. Many people ask, “What was Jesus doing in his early years?” I think the answer is quite simple. Jesus was memorizing and learning the Scriptures in preparation for his ministry, which was to come. If Jesus, the Son of God, needed to study the Scriptures, what does that say of our need to study them?

Sources

Blizzard, Roy B., and David Bivin. “Study Shows Jesus as Rabbi.” Bible Scholars.org (May 2013). Accessed on April 29, 2019. https://www.biblescholars.org/2013/05/study-shows-jesus-as-rabbi.html.

Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene Albert Nida. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains. New York: United Bible Societies, 1996.

Safrai, Shmuel. The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural, and Religious Life and Institutions. Volume 2. Boston: Brill, 1988.

Zuck, Roy B. Teaching as Jesus Taught. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1995.

 

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as the Senior Pastor of Westfield Baptist Church in northwestern, North Carolina.

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How Can God be Sovereign over Evil and not Morally Culpable for It

How Can God be Sovereign over Evil and not Morally Culpable for It?

By Ryan Leasure

It’s not uncommon to hear those in the non-Reformed tradition make the claim that Reformed belief necessarily makes God blameworthy for evil. After all, if God has sovereignly decreed everything whatsoever to come to pass — including evil — how is he not morally culpable for it? It’s certainly a good question, but as I’ll try to point out, it’s one that misunderstands the Reformed view.

I believe that when we evaluate Scripture, we find a God who is meticulously sovereign over every detail. At the same time, though, he is praiseworthy for the good and not blameworthy for the bad. Allow me to explain.

God’s Meticulous Sovereignty

When I say “meticulous sovereignty,” I mean two things: 1) God has decreed before the foundation of the world everything that will happen, and 2) he actively works in his creation to ensure that his sovereign decrees are carried out. This is even true with respect to human free will.

Who can speak and have it happen if the LORD has not decreed it? — Lamentations 3:37

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. — Proverbs 16:9

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. — Proverbs 19:21

It seems clear from these texts, that we can only do what God has decreed. We can make plans, the proverb says, but ultimately God determines our steps. No one can act outside the bounds of God’s sovereign will.

Furthermore, nobody can frustrate God’s plans. That is, his plan is always what happens. Consider these texts:

I know you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. — Job 42:2

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. — Isaiah 46:10

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. — Ephesians 1:11

Nothing can thwart God’s sovereign plan. Everything he decrees will happen, and when he acts, no one can reverse it.

God Sovereignty over Good and Evil

It’s not uncommon to hear people say things like: “In God’s good providence, I met my spouse.” Or, “God providentially provided a job for me.” It’s highly unusual for people to make comments like: “In God’s providence, I got cancer.” You see, we’re quick to acknowledge God’s role in good circumstances. We’re hesitant to do so during the bad ones. Yet the Bible says God is in control of both.

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. — Ecclesiastes 7:14

I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. — Isaiah 45:7

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? — Lamentations 3:38

Many Christians work diligently to get God off the hook for evil. The Biblical authors, however, don’t seem to share that same concern.

God’s Good Nature

Before we can explain how God should be praiseworthy for the good and not blameworthy for the evil, we need to address a couple more issues. The first issue is God’s character. The Bible unequivocally affirms that God is morally pure and good in every way. Consider these texts:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. — 1 John 1:5

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. — Psalm 5:4

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God.” For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. — James 1:13

So while God controls both good and evil, he does not delight in wickedness. Nor does evil dwell in him, nor does he cause or tempt anyone to sin. In short, God is good and not evil, though he controls both good and evil.

God’s Asymmetrical Relationship to Good and Evil

Building off the previous section, we must now ask ourselves an important question. If God is, indeed, meticulously sovereign over both good and evil, what is his relationship to the two respectively? Is his sovereignty over good and evil equally ultimate? Or is his relationship to both different? I submit that his role in both is different. And because it’s different, we should view his relationship to good and evil as asymmetrical.

God’s Role in Good

In the case of the good, we can say that God’s good nature actively causes all the good that happens. Nothing good in the world occurs apart from God’s good nature breathing it into existence. As James 1:17 tells us, “Every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” Notice James says that every good gift is from God. Not just some or most, but every.

We can call God’s control of the good direct-causative.1 That is, God directly causes every good act, and every good act is an extension of his good character. This is why Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” God rightly deserves the credit for all the good because he actively brings it about by his grace.

God’s Role in Evil

When respect to evil, we must affirm that God sovereignly controls it as we read above in Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, and Ecclesiastes 7:14. We must, however, say that God’s relationship to it is different than his relationship to good. As we just saw, all the good in the world is a direct extension of God’s good character. Evil, however, does not flow from God’s character as it stands opposed to his goodness.

Since evil does not flow from God’s character, and he doesn’t actively cause it to happen like he does the good, we can refer to his control over evil as indirect-permissive.2 Unlike the active role God plays to bring about good; he merely allows evil to occur that will accomplish his ultimate purposes.

The idea that God doesn’t actively cause evil but merely allows it is found in Scripture.

Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. — Exodus 21:12-13

In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. — Acts 14:16

Let me reiterate that God permits only the evils that serve his ultimate purposes. This implies that God could stop any evil from occurring if he deemed in his good wisdom to do so. Thus, all evil occurs under his watch, but he doesn’t cause any of it to happen.

What About Free Will?

If God does meticulously control all things, how does that square with human freedom? I believe the two are compatible if we hold to the right definition of freedom. One popular view of freedom — known as Libertarian Freedom — argues that we are only free if we have the ability to do otherwise. That is, we must possess the freedom of contrary choice if we’re to be considered truly free.

I don’t think this view of freedom squares with the meticulous sovereignty of God outlined in the previous sections. There’s another view of freedom; however, that fits nicely with God’s sovereignty. This view is known as the Freedom of Inclination. It states that humans are free if they choose what they most want to choose in the moment of choice. That is, they choose from the desires of their hearts.

Paul tells us in Romans 8:7-8, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The picture Paul gives us here is of someone without the Spirit of God who is unable to please God. In other words, they don’t have the ability to do otherwise.

My contention is that the person in the flesh freely chooses not to please God. The reason? They don’t want to in their fallen state. As Jesus tells us elsewhere, a bad tree will only produce bad fruit (Matt. 7:17). If God’s sovereignty over this person’s actions in the flesh is indirect-permissive, as I’ve previously argued, we can, therefore, lay the blame at the person’s feet because they’re simply doing what they want to do.

For the person who does good, the Freedom of Inclination view argues that they only do good because God has sovereignly worked in that person’s heart (Phil. 2:12-13; Jn. 15:5). In other words, God’s sovereignty is direct-causative in softening a person’s heart so that they freely want to do good. And because of this, God, not humans, gets all the glory for the good (Matt. 5:16).

God’s Middle Knowledge and Evil

Perhaps you’re wondering how can God guarantee that people freely choose to do the evil that is part of his ultimate plan if he doesn’t actively bring it about himself?

Here is where I think an understanding of God’s Middle Knowledge is really helpful. Theologians dating back to Luis Molina (1535-1600) have argued that God not only knows what will happen (Free Knowledge), he also knows what could happen (Natural Knowledge), and he knows what would happen if the circumstances were different (Middle Knowledge). It’s this last category that is especially applicable to our topic.

The Bible speaks of God’s Middle Knowledge in several places. Let me give you a couple of examples:

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. — Matthew 11:21

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” — Exodus 13:17

In both instances, God knew how people would respond if the circumstances were different. With respect to Tyre and Sidon, Jesus knew that they would have repented if they would have received the same amount of revelation as Chorazin and Bethsaida. In the case of Israel, God knew they would have turned back to Egypt if he had led them by the land of the Philistines.

Since God knows exactly how we will respond in every situation, he is able to guarantee that free creatures will do the evil that accomplishes his greater purposes without directly causing them to do it.

Consider a sting operation as an example. When done properly, law enforcement orchestrates a situation so that a person who wants to sell drugs freely does so. The law enforcement doesn’t have to coerce him to do it. They simply set up certain “factors” so that the drug dealer chooses to do what he most wants to do, and therefore, he is held morally responsible for his actions. All the while, this person did exactly as the law enforcement planned for him to do.

While many of my Libertarian friends also affirm God’s Middle Knowledge, I believe it makes the most sense within the Freedom of Inclination framework. After all, how can God truly know what free creatures would do in a hypothetical situation if they had the power of contrary choice? But if people choose according to their strongest desires, God can know exactly what evil choices people will make because he knows their heart’s desires (1 Sam. 16:7).

What you Meant for Evil, God Meant for Good

Let’s apply God’s Middle Knowledge to the story of Joseph. All sorts of evil occurred in that story, especially Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery. At the end of the story, Joseph declares to his brothers “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Gen. 50:20).

As we think back through the story, we can see how God orchestrated the circumstances in such a way to guarantee that Joseph made it to Egypt. He made Joseph the favorite child and gave him certain dreams. He had him sent out to check on his brothers, made sure Reuben was there, so Joseph wasn’t killed, and had Reuben conveniently missing when the slave traders came traveling by. You see, God knew that Joseph’s brothers would sell Joseph into slavery when all of these “factors” were present.

God’s good purpose of getting Joseph to Egypt was so he could save the nation of Israel from extinction. Yet he worked through the evil choices of Joseph’s brothers — choices they wanted to make, and choices God knew they would make if the circumstances were just right. As Joseph stated in the end, his brothers were morally responsible for their evil despite the fact that they carried out God’s good sovereign plan.

With Joseph, my hope is that we’ll all be able to see that even though God has sovereignly ordained evil, he isn’t evil for doing so. He merely allows humans to do the evil that is in their hearts in ways that accomplish his greater purposes.

 

Ryan Leasure holds a M.A. from Furman University and a M.Div. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.

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