Christianity Service Teaching

What Christianity Teaches About Service

By Al Serrato

I attended an awards assembly recently with my teenage son. He had written an essay on the value of military service, so the speeches and theme this night had to do with the traditions of service. And though this assembly was conducted at a Christian school, none of the comments made addressed the question of why people are willing to sacrifice in service to another. As I sat listening, a comment I had heard many years ago occurred to me: we are living on the fumes of past generations. Especially in the United States, many of us are living out the finest traditions of service, but few seem to remember what the generations that came before us – especially that first group of Patriots that set this great experiment in ordered liberty into motion – knew. Not only do our freedoms derive from the God that created us, but the idea of “service” makes the most sense within the context of a Christian worldview. Their vision of the benefits of service lingers with us, but many seem to be forgetting the reason – the value – behind service.

Consider: many people draw satisfaction and a sense of purpose from serving others. They may never wonder why this is so, but simply recognize the satisfaction it allows them to feel. Others seek out and enjoy – whether secretly or not – the recognition that service to others may entail. However worthy their efforts, they are being done not exclusively for the benefit of the other, but also for the benefit of the doer. This may seem an unfair criticism, especially when one considers that a growing number of people seem to have no interest in serving others, regardless of motivation. But this comment is an observation, not a judgment. It is simply the case that in serving others, we usually obtain some level of reward, whether purely psychological or not.

If, then, these efforts are but an approximation of something else – some purer sense of service that we approximate but never quite reach – just what is that something else? In the Christian tradition, it is referred to by the label agape love: the love of the other for the sake of love. It is a love freely given, a love that seeks no reward. In its highest forms, it manifests in acts of great self-sacrifice, such as when a person lays down his life for the safety of – for the sake of – the other.

And where do we learn about the value of such love? Where does such love find its grounding? Certainly not in the world of Darwinian evolution, a world characterized by random selection and the “survival of the fittest.” No, it is from Jesus’ own lips that we hear these stirring, yet challenging and troubling, words:

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13)

Consider also the Christian command to love one’s enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt. 5:43-45)

Finally, what example does Jesus give during his last hours on Earth? He could not have made the point clearer, as he washed the feet of his disciples, an act of profound humility and love (John 13).

The apostle John said that all things that have ever come into being have come through the Logos, the son of God. (John 1) So perhaps it is to be expected that we, the image-bearers of God, would have within us the seed of such great love. Perhaps there will always be something tugging at us, that God-shaped whole in our heart that draws us out of ourselves and toward others in acts of loving service. That draws us ultimately back to the One who created us.

But to an increasingly secular world that has forgotten its roots, the debt owed to Christianity for improving our world is worth noting. From the hospitals and other institutions that bear the names of Christian saints to the great universities that were founded to train up new generations to bring the message of Christianity to a fallen world; from the many people of faith who have fallen in the service of this great country to those faithful still among us serving unnoticed wherever there is need – we owe indeed a great debt of gratitude for a faith that inspired such selfless love.

Vigilance is said to be the price of freedom. But that vigilance cannot be directed solely outside the gates. We must look inward and return our hearts and our minds to faith in the One who emptied himself to become one of us and who took on our sins to restore us to right relationship with God.

And showed us the true meaning and value of service in the process.

Notes

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

 

 

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Apologetics Twitter Social Media

How Can Apologists Best Use Twitter? 6 Ideas

When my father first released Evidence that Demands a Verdict in 1972 there was very little popular apologetics materials available, and so it was an instant success. But now with the recently updated edition, and the growth in the apologetics industry over the past few decades, there is an abundance of material. The challenge today is not the availability of material, but how to make the material accessible, interesting, and relevant to people through the variety of means that people access material.

While there are a variety of different social media platforms, Twitter is one of my favorites. Here are 6 ideas and principles for apologists to effectively use Twitter.

  1. Have A Long-term Perspective. Effective ministry through Twitter is not built overnight. It takes time to develop a unique voice and to grow followers. But here’s the bottom line: If you provide quality tweets, and stick with it over time, you can influence people positively with apologetics. Don’t give up if you don’t get instant followers. Unless you have an existing platform that you bring to Twitter, it will take time and commitment. But it can be done.
  1. Be Positive. We live in an argumentative culture (and this can be especially true for apologists!). People seem to have no problem saying things on Twitter that they would never say in person. It’s easy to be negative. And yet people generally don’t listen to those who are critical, snarky, and condescending. While I have had my moments (and had to delete a few tweets), my goal is to be positive. Even when trolls hound me, I aim to respond with kindness and grace (see Proverbs 15:1). This is not always easy, which is why I give myself time before responding to negative critiques so I can hopefully respond in a positive manner.
  1. Provide Value. There are endless voices competing for our time and allegiance. I want to use my time well. And I assume most people do also. My goal is that people come to my Twitter feed expecting to find apologetics material that provides value to their lives. Thus, I post articles that I find helpful, insightful quotes, quality resources, shout-outs to people who encourage me, and occasionally personal experiences or humorous incidents to (hopefully) give people a good laugh.
  1. Champion Others. Not only do I want to provide value on my blog and Twitter feed, I want to help promote others who also provide value. That could certainly be I use the app Reeder app to follow dozens of blogs and articles every day on topics such as culture, leadership, youth, relationships, theology, and apologetics. If you write something of value, then I will likely tweet it. My goal is to help promote material that is beneficial, and I am more than happy to use my platform to champion others when they produce quality content. We, apologists, need to lock arms with others who share a common passion so we can have an exponential impact.
  1. Don’t Over-Tweet. Few things frustrate me more (on Twitter) than people who over-tweet. In fact, the quickest way I unfollow someone is if they tweet too much. No one is that important that we need to know what he or she is doing every five minutes! Personally, I have found about 6-8 tweets per day to be a good balance. In his book Platform, Michael Hyatt encourages people to tweet about 10-12 times per day. If you have good content, then go for it.
  1. Be Personal. Trust is one of the most important commodities today. Why should people trust you? In general, if people realize there is a real person behind the Twitter account, who has common dreams and struggles, and who is authentic, they will be much more likely to trust you. Don’t be afraid to share personal experiences from time to time—it will help humanize you. I enjoy reading occasional funny incidents, personal updates, and interesting experiences from people I follow. And I try to provide that for my followers as well. Also, I often add brief comments about blogs that I post so readers know what I think about it.

Twitter is a great form of social media. And apologists should use it as a medium to help positively advance the conversation. If you use it, and you want to genuinely influence people for good, then my encouragement is to have a long-term perspective, be positive, provide value, champion others, don’t over-tweet, and be personal. If you follow these ideas (or ones like it), you just might be surprised at how many people you can positively influence for the kingdom.

 

Sean McDowell, Ph.D. is a professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for Summit Ministries, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org.

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8 Predictions Future Sex Gender Marriage America

8 Predictions about the Future of Sex, Gender, and Marriage in America

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Recently I was reading sociologist Mark Regnerus’s insightful new book Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy. His premise is that the Pill and ubiquity of pornography have caused sex to be more widely available, which drives the cost of sex down and makes real commitment more “expensive” and difficult to navigate. Essentially, Regnerus examines sex in America today through an economic lens.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book was his final eight predictions for 2030 in regard to sex, relationships, and marriage. He admits that these are “educated guesses” and that the evidence for some is better than for others. Even though he is confident they won’t all come true, they are based on his best reading of current numbers and trends.

Prediction #1: Sex Will Get Even Cheaper. Regnerus considers this one “easy.” Fertility control is improving and there is little risk of pregnancy with sex. Porn use also continues to grow and shows no signs of declining. The continued growth of erotic experiences through porn will continue to cheapen the real thing. Eventually porn will be taken for granted. And as a result, there will be more loneliness, since solitary sexual experiences simply cannot fulfill our deepest needs.

Prediction #2: Enforcement of Age of Consent (Sexual) Laws will Decrease. This is perhaps one of the most startling of his predictions, but Regnerus does note that the age of consent is up for grabs. He is not predicting that American parents will embrace adolescent sex, but that there will be less enforcement age of consent laws near the legal age. In fact, he predicts that prosecutors will not wish to press charges unless the victim is clearly pre-pubescent.

Prediction #3: The Percentage of Unmarried Americans Will Increase, but the Age of First Marriage for Women Will Slow. Demographers predict that the share of Americans who never marry will continue to increase. Women no longer need men for social, cultural, and economic reasons, and men no longer feel the need to act “nobly” towards women and their interests. Regnerus predicts we are moving towards a nation that increasingly replaces marriage relationships with partnering singles (and he believes this will make our nation remarkably lonely and vulnerable).

Prediction #4: Same-Sex Marriage Will Decline Among Gay Men. Regnerus believes the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 was more a sign of deinstitutionalization than the revitalization of marriage. Given the propensity of men towards non-monogamy, he believes far fewer gay couples will choose marriage (unless, of course, in the unlikely event that marriage is transformed to integrate non-monogamy). Regnerus concludes, “By 2030, there is a good chance that a look-back at June 2015 will reveal same-sex marriage as a quest for rights and a cultural land grab rather than a product of the genuine desire to access a historic institution” (p. 207).

Prediction #5: Men’s Sexuality Will Become More Malleable. According to Regnerus, scholars are beginning to reveal that men exhibit a greater degree of sexual malleability than previously thought. He expects men to increasingly experiment with same-sex sexual behavior while not identifying as exclusively gay. He believes this is due to the declining stigma of non-heterosexual identities, increasing emphasis on a variety of sexual experiences, and the ubiquity of pornography that blends straight, gay, lesbian, multi-partner, and other forms of sexuality.

Prediction #6: Organized Christianity Will Not Stem the Retreat from Marriage in the U.S. While American Christians value lifelong monogamy, according to Regnerus, few have the commitment to make a significant cultural difference. One reason is that the evangelical church is decentralized. And the other reason is that many Christians have bought into the cultural emphasis on individualism and self-fulfillment at the expense of biblical teaching.

Prediction #7: Polygamy Is Not Coming Back, but Polyamory May Become an Accepted Minority. According to Regnerus, long-term legal shifts in family laws favor the individual, not the kinds of unions they form. Americans are more interested in fleeing marriage than having multiple marriages (at least in significant numbers).

Prediction #8: Efforts to Abolish Gender Will Not Succeed. Such efforts may have some success, but ultimately Regnerus concludes, “Because while the globe’s inhabitants may exhibit sympathy for the equal treatment of its citizens, and perhaps efforts to ensure equal economic access, they have much less patience for efforts aimed at obliterating all sexual difference—that is, eradicating the truth of sexual dimorphism” (p. 212).

Even though these are reasonable predictions, it is impossible to know what the future will hold. I have some intuitions about these trends but don’t have a crystal ball.

Nevertheless, they will certainly be on my personal radar as I both study and have conversations about the future state of love, sex, and marriage in America. I hope you will be following these trends as well, and be thinking about what they mean for Christian faithfulness and cultural engagement in the years to come.

 

Sean McDowell, Ph.D. is a professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for Summit Ministries, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org.

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Tornado, Simulation, Tyson and God

Tornado Simulations, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and God’s Existence

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By Luke Nix

Introduction

For nearly all my life, I’ve had a fascination with the physical sciences. Meteorology and astronomy were two of them that always caught and kept my attention as a kid. In my teens was when I started to focus more on information technology, and in my twenties, I was drawn to defending the truth of the Christian worldview through science, philosophy, and other knowledge disciplines. Living in Oklahoma, the weather is always in the news, and being that I frequent philosophical and scientific sites, popular astronomer Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson comes across my screen once in a while as well. In the last year, a few different articles have shown up from the meteorological, astronomical, and philosophical worlds, which the combination is what caught my attention. Today, I want to take some time to show how technology, being used to simulate natural phenomena, can be used to show that God exists, and I will address a popular naturalistic alternative explanation that was proposed by Tyson (and others). Let’s start with the weather and super-computers.

Tornadoes And Technology

One of my earliest memories was that of a weather event in Lubbock, TX in the mid-to-late 80s. I was about five years old, and my brother was only two. We were with our parents at the local mall on a spring afternoon. This was pretty typical and nothing exciting, but what happened that afternoon seared this memory into my brain for life. As we were wrapping up our trip and on our way out, nearly everyone in the mall started running frantically, screaming and crying. My parents grabbed my brother and me, and we ran outside to see what was going on. All I remember once we were outside was seeing traffic stopped on an overpass not far from the parking lot and an odd funnel-shaped cloud connecting the sky to the ground. As a five-year-old, I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that that funnel was the cause, and it terrified me. Later, it was explained to me that what I saw was a tornado. Since then, I have had a great fascination with tornadoes, and living in Oklahoma has definitely provided a great opportunity to feed that fascination. Over the years, like most mid-westerners, I have had a few close calls with tornadoes, including one that inspired a blog post a few years ago about God’s potential purposes for allowing natural evil.

While I never went to school for meteorology, I did get to take one meteorology course at the local college one spring semester. That same semester I had the opportunity to watch a supercell develop overhead. While that also is nothing odd for a mid-westerner, this was the first time that I purposely went outside to watch it and was actually paying close attention. Seeing the rapid circulation of the dark clouds around me and the scuds develop and get sucked into the circulation was astonishing. Luckily, no tornado developed, but we did get some nice-sized hail. This particular experience in my mid-20s was one of my turning points for realizing the incredible beauty and power of one of nature’s most destructive forces (at least for my area). If you’ve never experienced a storm this way, take a look at this time-lapse video of a supercell and imagine yourself watching it develop from directly below it:


Nebraska Supercells – 4k StormLapse from Chad Cowan on Vimeo.

Historically, weather has been quite challenging to predict despite the continued increase in power of today’s super-computers and the amount of data that they process in the latest models. In early 2017 atmospheric scientist Dr. Leigh Orf at the University of Madison released a video produced by the most extensive and precise simulation of a real supercell that became tornadic. The EF-5 tornado struck Oklahoma in 2011, and Dr. Orf’s team reproduced the entire supercell for the life of the tornado. Here is the simulation video he released:

The enormity and beauty of the storm astound me which creates a sense of wonder and worship of the Creator (not the creator of the simulation, but the Creator of nature which produced the storm). But something else does as well. The amount of time required, on our fastest computers to simulate the visuals of such a small portion of our universe for such a short period of time with precision orders of magnitude less than what this universe exhibits, created that same sense of wonder and worship in me. Some naturalists have posited that perhaps this universe is a simulation, much like what was explored in the movie trilogy, “The Matrix.”

What If We Live In A Simulation?

Popular astronomer Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson moderated a scientific debate a couple years ago where he suggested that science lends credit to the idea that we live in a simulation. Being that he is an agnostic (if not an atheist) he proposes this idea as a possible naturalistic explanation for the evidence coming from the sciences. The idea that this universe may be a simulation presses the bounds of the word “ludicrous” for a naturalist to make for three reasons.

First, the fact that a naturalist would even suggest such a thing is a philosophical concession to intelligent design on two levels. We know that simulations can only be the product of intelligent designers: the designers of the hardware and the designers of the software. To suggest this universe is a simulation is to suggest the universe was intelligently designed. Let us also not forget what a simulation is: an imprecise representation of something else. So, not only has the naturalist conceded intelligent design but they have merely pushed back the explanation, for they must then assume a universe of greater complexity and precision is what is being imprecisely simulated in the designed hardware by designed software. If this universe is, indeed, a simulation then it has a Designer.

Second, just as the 2011 Oklahoma City tornado was more complex than Dr. Leigh Orf’s simulation, the universe that this universe is imprecisely simulating would be more complex as well, so the naturalist has inadvertently increased the difficulty level of the problem of design because they now need to explain the complexity and design in the universe that our universe is simulating.

Third, all simulations (once the hardware is designed, programmed, and put together, and the software is designed and loaded) must begin. Someone must be there to start the simulation. If the universe is a simulation, all simulations begin, and anything that begins has a cause outside itself, then the simulation (universe) has a beginning outside itself. The universe, if a simulation, indeed must have a Beginner.

If the naturalist wishes to posit that our universe is a simulation, then they have conceded that our universe is designed (thus has a designer), that there exists another universe of greater complexity and design, and that the universe has a beginning (thus a beginner). If a naturalist proposes the option of a simulation, these three issues can be used to show how they have actually granted God’s existence.

Do We Live In A Simulation?

The but the question remains: “Do we live in a computer simulation?” The latest research published in the journal Scientific Advances addresses this possibility. According to one summary of this paper,

“The researchers calculated that just storing information about a couple of hundred electrons would require a computer memory that would physically require more atoms than exist in the universe.”

In other words, not a chance! Lucky for the naturalist the problem is not actually more difficult due to our universe being some big simulation. But they are still stuck with the universe’s beginning and the universe’s design and fine-tuning. The naturalist simply cannot escape these two realities. The possibility of the universe being a simulation appeared to explain these realities (the agent could have been an alien race in the multiverse, or intelligent machines like in “The Matrix,” after all), but when working out the logical implications, it did not, and recent research shows that the whole discussion is moot anyway. So, the naturalist, even if they were right, is still stuck. Evidence for design in the universe is so strong that the naturalist cannot reasonably appeal to an “appearance of design;” they know that they must come up with a way to affirm that the design is real, and they almost (not really) had a way to affirm actual design via the simulation hypothesis, but now they must deny it yet again.

Conclusion

If we conclude from the design in the universe that it is a simulation (based on what we know about the origins of computer simulations), but we discover that the universe is real (not a simulation), shall we then deny the design of the universe again just to avoid the notion of a cosmic Designer and Creator? Shall we further deny the design of the computer simulation by the scientists and say that the simulation was nothing special and just a “chance” occurrence? I do not believe that Dr. Orf would appreciate such a conclusion. Let’s now apply this to the universe.

Rather than denying the evidence, there is an option that has been established, not only through the process of elimination (a negative argument) but also through argument by analogy (positive argument): God. Just as we know that purposeful designs created by human designers exhibit lesser levels of complexity and specificity that we see in the universe and we know that those levels are the product of designers, so too we can know that the greater levels of complexity and specificity that we see in the universe are the products of a Designer. We can either follow the scientific evidence where it leads, or we can continue to deny it, even though we know deep down that to do so is a denial of all that is rational. Given the numerous other positive arguments for the God of the Bible, when the whole of reality is considered (quoting homicide detective J. Warner Wallace from his book Forensic Faith– “Everything counts as evidence”), only the God of the Bible stands as the logical explanation. We can either follow the evidence and logic and surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, or we can deny reason and the evidence and live our lives in opposition to our Creator and Savior. It is our free choice, and no one is morally responsible for making the wrong decision but us.

For more on God’s existence from the Sciences, I recommend:

Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity’s Home by Dr. Hugh Ross

Where The Conflict Realy Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Dr. Alvin Plantinga

Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off by Dr. Fazale Rana and Dr. Hugh Ross

Origin Science: A Proposal for the Creation-Evolution Controversy by Dr. Norman Geisler

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2gNtq3R

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Coexist Biblical Comand

To COEXIST Is A Biblical Command

Along with my regular blog here at seanmcdowell.org, I am now featuring occasional guest posts from some students in the Biola M.A. in Christian Apologetics that I personally had the privilege of teaching. This post is from my friend Tim Stratton, who has an excellent and growing ministry of his own. I simply asked him to write anything on his heart and mind. Check out his ministry and enjoy this post! Sean McDowell.

To Coexist Is A Biblical Command

By Tim Stratton

Almost every time I go for a drive these days I can count on seeing at least one bumper sticker with only one word on it — “COEXIST.” According to Wikipedia, the bumper sticker typically spells “COEXIST” using an Islamic crescent moon for the “C,” a peace sign for the “O,” a combination of the male and female symbols for the “E,” a Star of David for the “X,” a pentagram for the dot of the “I,” a yin-yang symbol for the “S,” and a Christian cross for the “T.”

The meaning is quite clear: “We all should get along!” No matter what worldview one holds, we ought to get along, live peacefully among each other, and help neighbors of a different religion, belief system, or worldview flourish.

Who could argue with that message, right? Well, you might be surprised!

The message of COEXIST implies that no matter what worldview one holds, there is a “Law above the law” that supersedes an individual’s subjective beliefs — an objective truth that it is really wrong not to get along! This statement can only make sense if humanity was created on purpose and for the purpose of “getting along.” This would be something true of humanity irrespective of the opinions from humanity.

Atheism and Coexist

Some views deny that it is objectively true that humans ought to “get along” and love each other. Atheism, for example, contends that since God does not exist, humans were not created on purpose or for a purpose — we are nothing but a happy accident — nothing more than dust in the wind. If atheism is true, there is nothing really wrong with not co-existing and getting along.

Islam and Coexist

Another worldview to consider is Islam. Although Muslims believe that Allah created humans for a purpose, not all Muslims believe this purpose is to “get along.” In fact, according to the final commands of Muhammad, Muslims ought to kill all infidels and non-Muslims (Quran 2:191; 9:5; 9:73; 9:123, etc.)! Accordingly, many who affirm the “crescent moon” on the COEXIST bumper sticker also believe they ought to kill everyone else who affirms one of the other symbols of the same bumper sticker. (Nabeel Qureshi is a former devout Muslim. Click here to watch him explain why Islam is not a peaceful religion.)

Christianity and Coexist

The message of Jesus Christ is radically different from the final teachings of Muhammad! In fact, the idea of COEXIST is a biblical command! Jesus summarized the entire purpose of human existence in two simple and easy to remember commands in Matthew 5:44; 22:37-39:

  • Love God first!
  • Everybody loves everybody (from your neighbors to your enemies)!

Jesus even hammered his second command home by offering the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) as an example of how humans ought to go out of our way to make sure an individual of a different “people group” thrives and flourishes (even though these different people groups were previously hostile to each other).

The apostle Paul echoes the commands of Jesus in Romans 12:18: If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

And the author of Hebrews commands us to COEXIST with everyone in Hebrews 12:14: Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

The idea behind the COEXIST bumper sticker is awesome — it is a biblical concept! However, each symbol represented entails beliefs which logically contradict the beliefs of other worldviews. Therefore, they cannot all be true! Moreover, not all views affirm that all people ought to get along.

Bottom Line: If you think all humans ought to COEXIST, then you should be a Christian!

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Why did God write a book

Why Did God Write A Book?

By Evan Minton

Why did God write a book? By that, I mean why did God inspire authors to write documents which make up a compilation we call The Holy Bible? What were God’s purposes in doing that? Obviously, He had reasons of some sort. All authors write books for reasons. For example, when I sat down to write Inference To The One True God, my purpose was to give arguments for why belief in the Christian God is warranted as opposed to any other so-called deity. In my book A Hellacious Doctrine, my purpose was to establish that God’s love and justice aren’t incompatible with The Bible’s teachings on Hell. My purpose in Inference To The One True God wasn’t to tell my readers about agriculture, or whether abortion is morally permissible, or what the health benefits of a glucose-free diet are or are not. I had a specifically stated purpose: to give reasons to believe that The God of The Bible exists, and by extension, The Bible’s truth, and by even further extension, Christianity’s truth.

Likewise, The Bible’s divine author (God) had a purpose for inspiring the authors of the 66 books and letters which comprise it. It’s important that we know an author’s purpose for writing because if we don’t, we may wrongly accuse him of error, or criticize him for not talking about something or mentioning something in his work. If we don’t know an author’s reason for writing, we may also have unreasonable expectations which, if not met, will cause us to be disappointed or to doubt the author’s credibility.

Through reflection on this subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that God had 3 reasons for inspiring the 66 books and letters which comprise The Holy Bible.

1: To Teach Us Theology

The most obvious reason God inspired The Bible was to reveal to us truths about Himself. Through The Bible, we learn that God is omnipotent (see Genesis 18:14, Job 42:1-2, Matthew 19:26, Luke 1:37), omniscient (see Job 34:21, 1 John 3:20, Proverbs 15:3, Psalm 147:5, Psalm 139:1-4), omnipresent (see Psalm 139:7-12, Joshua 1:9, Jeremiah 23:24, Acts 17:27), morally perfect (see Deuteronomy 32:4, 1 John 1:5), all-loving 1: John 4:8, John 3:16), and so on.

We learn that God is a Trinity from the inference of 5 biblical facts: 1) There is only one God (see Isaiah 44:8, Isaiah 45:5, Isaiah 43:10, 1 Corinthians 1:8, 1 Timothy 2:5), that 2) The Father is God (1 Corinthians 4:8), that 3: Jesus is God (see John 1:1-3, 14, John 10:30, Isaiah 9:6, Philippians 2:5-8, Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1), that 4: The Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4), and 5: That The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons (as evident from the fact that Jesus often talks to the Father, that John 1 said the Word was with God, that Jesus said He would send The Holy Spirit when He Himself departed  in John 14:26, etc.).

We learn that Jesus’ death on the cross was to pay for our sins in passages like Isaiah 53, 1 John 2:2, Romans 4:25, and 1 Peter 3:18. Moreover, Romans 4:25 tells us that not only did Jesus die to bring us justification, but He was resurrected from the dead as well. Jesus’ resurrection was part of His atoning work.

So, theological truths, doctrine, is why God inspired The Bible. The Bible was written so that man would know He is a sinner who has broken God’s laws, and that God became incarnate, took the punishment on his behalf, and will apply that shed blood if he only places his faith in Him. The Bible was written so that we would know what God is like, who God wants to save, who Jesus died for, and much more.

2: To Teach Us History

The Bible was also written to teach us history. Now, not all of The Bible’s books were written for this purpose (e.g Proverbs, Psalms), but undoubtedly many fall into the historical genre. For example, most scholars agree that the 4 gospels fall into the genre known as “Greco-Roman Biographies”, which is to say that they’re written to chronicle the events of a person’s life (in this case, Jesus’). The books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, etc. are also universally agreed by theologians to fall in the historical genre. These are records of events that happened in space and time.

One of God’s purpose in having His chosen authors accurately record history is that much of Christian theology rests on historical events having taken place. For example, if the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus did not actually occur in time and space, the entire Christian faith crumbles (see 1 Corinthians 15:4). If you don’t have a historical death and resurrection, you don’t have an atonement for mankind’s sins (Romans 4:25). Thankfully, the historical evidence is strong that Jesus did die on a cross and did subsequently rise from the dead (see “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection”).

Moreover, almost anyone would admit that history can be learned from, even secular history. That’s why they say “If people don’t learn history, they will be doomed to repeat it”. We can learn from the lives of Moses, Samuel, David, The Apostles. For example, every time I read about the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, and how they complained and distrusted God, how they accused Moses on more than one occasion of leading them out there to die, and so on, and how God never fails to provide for them, I am reminded that God is faithful. He will do what He says He will do. He will never leave us nor forsake us. I take a lesson from that. In the wanderings through the wilderness we call “life”, we should trust God to take care of us. Often times, many of us find ourselves in the same position as the complaining Israelites.

Moreover, the historical narratives strung together to tell a specific story: the story of God’s mission to rescue the world from Sin. It starts in the garden of Eden and climaxes in the death and resurrection of Jesus. “It is accomplished” (John 19:30) And now history continues, as followers of Christ spread all over the globe to tell others the way to salvation (Matthew 28:19).

3: To Teach Us Morality 

Obviously, God wants us to live moral lives. If He didn’t, He would not have given us The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), or told us “Be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16, cf. Leviticus 11:44, Leviticus 20:7), or “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). God wants us to live holy and upright lives. He wants us to produce the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control, (Galatians 5:22:23) rather than the fruits of the flesh (i.e sinful nature) which are sexual immorality, drunkenness, outbursts of anger, hatred, idolatry, discord, factions, witchcraft, envy, orgies, etc. (Galatians 5:19-21).

God tells us what is right and wrong in The Bible, and He commands us to choose the right and refrain from the wrong. Now, of course, we can know right from wrong in many areas without scripture, as Romans 2:14-15 tells us that God wrote an awareness of morality on our hearts, but not everything can be read of “The Moral Law”. For example, in Romans 7:7, Paul says that if The Old Testament scriptures hadn’t told him that coveting was wrong, he would have never known it was wrong. I can say the same thing about looking at women with lust. If Jesus hadn’t told me that it was wrong in Matthew 5:28, I would probably do it and think nothing of it. I also probably wouldn’t think to get drunk was a sin had various verses in The Bible said so. I would think it unwise to get drunk, but not morally wrong. Crossing the street without looking both ways is unwise, but it’s not a sin.

4: To Teach Us Science? 

The 3 purposes God had for inspiring The Bible’s documents will be uncontroversial for any orthodox Christian believer. I think any Christian reading this would be in full agreement with me that doctrine, history, and morality are reasons that God wrote The Bible. We could probably include wisdom as well, given that that’s the explicitly stated purpose of the book of Proverbs, but one may possibly put that under the morality category. I don’t know, it’s up to you whether you think Wisdom fall under category number 3 or stands as its own category.

Anyway, there is a split in the church today over whether God intended His authors to convey accurate scientific information. By that, I mean that many Christians (in fact, I’d be willing to say most) believe that whenever a Bible passage makes reference to the natural world, the way it talks about it should correspond to the way the world really is. They think that if The Bible taught some scientifically ludicrous idea such as the Earth is flat or that the sky consists of a solid dome, then The Bible is in error and therefore not divinely inspired. The Christians would call themselves “Concordists” as they believe The Bible must be in concord with what science says about the universe.

However, we need to ask two questions: first: what is the definition of biblical inerrancy. Secondly: what would constitute an error.

My definition of inerrancy is this: “The Bible is inerrant in everything that it intends to teach.” If The Bible did not intend to teach something, then if the authors got it wrong when talking about that something, then inerrancy isn’t undermined. So, for me, I would accuse The Bible to be in error if it got it wrong in any of the three categories stated above: Theology, History, and Morality. I would also consider it to be in error if it got it wrong in describing cosmology IF God intended to teach the recipients of His book cosmology. However, if that wasn’t His goal, then no problem.

I am not a concordist. I am an accommodationist. I believe God did not intend to teach the Israelites Cosmology. In fact, the more I think about the idea of God conveying absolutely perfect scientific information in scripture, the less sense it actually makes. Here’s why I say it doesn’t make sense. I go back to that one question: “Why did God decide to write a book?” Was God really interested in teaching the ancient Israelites how the cosmos functioned? Was that really on His list of priorities? Did it matter to him whether they believed the Earth is a sphere or is flat? Did it matter to Him whether or not they believed the sky was solid? What was God’s purpose for writing a book? I think 3 reasons given above make perfect sense, but it makes no sense to think teaching them accurate cosmology and physiology was even on His to-do list.

For one thing: God has foreknowledge (Psalm 139:1-4). He knew we would figure out the truth about the universe eventually through the rigorous scientific method. It would have been redundant to tell us in His Word. God may have thought to Himself “There’s no need to correct my Peoples’ faulty cosmology. Humanity will figure it all out on their own in time. Besides, a lot of this would just confuse them anyway, and I already have a tough time getting them to trust what I say. Overturning their entire cosmological system with something foreign to their thinking would just be counterproductive. I’ll just use the cosmology they think is true to get my theological points across.”

On this view, God accommodated (hence the name) the scientific understanding of his original recipients to teach truths about Himself. I resisted this view for a long time because I thought to affirm that The Bible contained Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology was to affirm that The Bible is not inerrant. But I now see that’s mistaken.

It’s like this: imagine there’s a pastor teaching vacation Bible school, and he wants to teach the children about being charitable. It’s Christmas time and all the kids are talking about Santa’s supposed imminent coming. The pastor talks about Santa Claus and says “Santa Claus travels all over the world delivering lots of toys to good little girls and boys. You know why he does this? Because he’s loving and selfless. He gets nothing out of this global delivery except your joy and happiness. You should strive to be just as charitable and giving as he is”.

Now, the pastor’s point is not that there is actually a person called Santa Claus who delivers presents on Christmas Eve. His point is that the children should be just as charitable as they believe Santa is. In an analogous way, when The Bible says “The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength; indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.” (Psalm 93:1, NIV), God’s point is not that the Earth doesn’t move, but that God’s throne (His sovereignty) is as established and unmovable as the ancients believed the Earth was. Just as the pastor could use a false belief of the child’s to teach a moral truth, God used a false scientific belief to teach His initial recipients a theological truth. Neither the pastor nor the Lord could be accused of being in error because the existence of Santa Claus and the immovability of Earth wasn’t what they were trying to teach. Indeed. Neither of them needed to teach such, for the child believed in Santa Claus prior to receiving the teaching. The Israelites believed the Earth was motionless prior to receiving the revelation. The pastor and God simply used false pre-existing beliefs as a springboard to teach something that is true.

Conclusion 

Why Did God write a book? To convey the history of his interactions with His people, to convey theological doctrine, and to convey morality. God could have used scripture to teach cosmology, but what motive would He have for doing that? I can’t find any motive. He knew we would figure it out on our own anyway, so why tell us thousands of years in advanced? One can have a spiritually fulfilling life and a strong relationship with God even if they’re the most scientifically ignorant person of all time, so why would correct cosmology be a priority at all? Moreover, one could argue that concepts like evolution, a spherical earth, a non-solid sky, would have just confused them at best, and made them distrustful of this God didn’t know anything about their “correct” science at worst.

Of all the motives I can find for God to write a book, cosmology isn’t one of them. I can’t think of a single reason God would have to want to correct the ancient Israelites cosmology via divine revelation.

So, if God’s book doesn’t describe the world properly (and it doesn’t), I don’t find blame God. Teaching cosmology wasn’t one of Scripture’s purposes. Getting mad at God for not teaching cosmology would be like getting mad at me for not teaching quantum physics in A Hellacious Doctrine. Quantum Physics wasn’t why I wrote the book.

“The Bible shows the way to go to Heaven, not the way the heavens go.” – Galileo Galilei[1]

“I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption” – Billy Graham[2]

Notes

[1] Galileo Galilei, (n.d.) BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved August 15, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/galileogal381320.html

[2] Source Book:  Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, 1997.  p. 72-74

 

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Faith Emotional Logical

Is Faith Emotional or Logical?

By Luke Nix

So many people, both religious and non-religious, believe that faith is purely emotional, and in most contexts people imply the word “blind” before “faith”. While few others believe that faith is logical- that it is firmly grounded on something. Lately, I’ve been reading the book “Emotional Intelligence” by psychologist Daniel Goleman and a few thoughts came to mind regarding this seeming dichotomy between faith being based on emotion versus being based on reason. Before I go into that connection or disconnection, though, I want to establish what I mean by “faith”.

Faith in Time

I hear people all the time say that they “have faith”. It seems to inspire them and those around them, but it often leaves me confused. Sure, someone can say that they “have faith”. But when I hear this, I am compelled to ask a few questions:

  • “What do you have faith in?”
  • “What makes you believe that thing is worth placing your faith in it?”
  • “Why do you need to put ‘faith’ in something anyway?”

Without answers to these questions, faith is empty, contentless, blind: merely a verbal platitude but ultimately vacuous. If faith is to be significant it requires content. From what I have seen, it appears that for faith to have content, three essential things must take place at three different points in time: the past, the present, and the future. All three are necessary; if one is missing, then we cannot say that someone has meaningful faith. So, if the “something” is identified at these three levels, this means that faith is not empty or contentless, there is something significant to it.

  • Past– Experiences with something or someone (foundation)
  • Future– The unknown (need)
  • Present– Trust (action)

Based on prior trustworthy experience, we must trust the person or thing in the present because the future is unknown. If we do not have any past trustworthy experience to justify trusting someone or something, yet we still say we have “faith”, then our faith is blind. If there is no future unknown, then trust is not really needed, thus any “faith” we say we have is imaginary. If we don’t actually place our trust in the person or thing with the unknown, yet we say we have “faith”, our words are not backed up by our actions. In all three of those cases, faith does not exist. All three -the past, present, and future- are required for faith to actually exist in a person.

Objects of Faith

Faith is that which is based on the rationality and the reasonableness of that which has already been revealed. What we decide to use as the object of our faith will depend on our experiences or revelations with different possible objects of faith. Some trust science. Some trust government. Some trust reason. Some trust themselves. Some trust God. Every one of these possible objects of trust is tested by the person. The test is as simple as reviewing past experiences with that object in situations when promises were made or understood. This is a very logical way to approach who or what to trust (or not to trust) with the unknown. Thus, we have a very reasonable and logical approach to faith.

Where The Emotion of Faith Meets The Logic of Faith
However, emotion plays a huge role here also. Goleman explains: “When some feature of an event seems similar to an emotionally charged memory from the past, the emotional mind responds by triggering the feelings that went with the remembered event. The emotional mind reacts to the present as though it were the past.” (Goleman, 295)

It is the emotional part of our brain that gives past experiences their thrust. We have a vivid recollection of experiences that impacted us regarding the trustworthiness of someone or something we depended upon. If we believe that something(one) followed through with the given or understood promise, then we associate positive emotions to that experience. But if we believe that something(one) did not make good on given or understood promises, we associate negative emotions to that experience. When faced with a similar future unknown, we will tend to act (place trust) based upon those previous experiences (revelations).

However, we are not stuck with certain emotions to certain objects once they are “written” in our memory. The brain is highly malleable. As we obtain more verifying experiences, the satisfaction with an object of faith grows, and our ability and willingness to trust it with the unknown future is more solidified. On the flip-side, As we obtain more experiences that confirm the untrustworthiness of a possible object of faith, the less we have the ability and willingness to trust it with the unknown future.

This has great implications for the Church in general and apologists specifically:

The Church– We need to be extremely careful in how we approach and treat people (believers or not). Every interaction that we have creates a memory with someone. If that interaction was negative, not only will people question your trustworthiness, but they will also question those you associate with (including your beliefs). We must take responsibility to properly represent Christ to everyone- even those in the Church. Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is one; they may be looking for a reason to reject Christianity, let’s not give them one by treating those we believe to be our brothers and sisters in manners that are not Christ-like.

Apologists– This is a critical point in our defense of Christianity. Many skeptics do not trust God and/or the Church due to painful experiences with Christians (and/or those they believed to be Christians). We have to understand that when we ask them to trust Someone they believe has failed them, to them we are making the most unreasonable request of them. We would be equally put off if they asked us to place our trust in someone who had failed us in the past. Goleman explains again:

“The emotional mind takes its believes to be absolutely true, and so discounts any evidence to the contrary. That is why it is so hard to reason with someone who is emotionally upset: no matter the soundness of your argument from a logical point of view, it carries no weight if it is out of keeping with the emotional conviction of the moment.” (Goleman, 295)

The brain’s malleability is not quick, but it is strong. This is both good and bad. What is good is that someone who is placing trust in something that actually is untrustworthy (though their experiences with it may point to trustworthiness) can still redirect their trust away from that unreliable object and place it in someone that is truly reliable. Also, if someone does not trust a potential object of trust due to perceived untrustworthiness, it can be reversed.When we present negative arguments, we are attempting to show the unreliability of their current object(s) of faith. When we present positive arguments, we are attempting to show the reliability of alternative objects of faith. This is gone into more detail in my post “Positive and Negative Arguments“.

Patience Is A Virtue

When damaged, trust is something that is rebuilt slowly- the emotional associations to a particular type of event must be changed. More damage requires more time and more effort. We must be patient. We can present logical arguments, but only in their due time. That time comes as the emotional connections are being changed and the heart is being transformed through Christ acting in our lives to establish the positive emotional connections. Which prepares the person to accept the logical arguments used to demonstrate the reliability of the Christian God as an object of faith.

When the time comes to give the logical arguments, we can demonstrate the unreliability in their previous object of faith (further challenging and changing the emotional ties): the negative arguments. At the same time, we must offer logical arguments to trust in Christ: the positive arguments.

Timing is Everything

Notice that this is quite dependent upon timing; timing we cannot possibly know because we do not know the state of the person’s heart at any particular time. We can get hints based on behavior and conversations, but those can be purposely misleading or misinterpreted. It is only through prayer and the willingness to let Christ guide our delivery of the Gospel that a person may be added to the Kingdom. As I have said in previous posts, we cannot argue someone into the Kingdom. It requires a change of the heart, that only God has the knowledge and the resources to accomplish. We, as the members of the Body of Christ, should feel humbled and blessed that God has chosen us to be one of his many resources.

Why Is Faith Emotional and Logical?

Faith in anything is not just emotional or logical, it is both. Faith also is not practiced only by a certain type of people, it is practiced by everyone. In the words of Ravi Zacharias: “God has put enough into this world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing. He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason alone.” (17:39) There is a very specific design and purpose in this reality: that we can possess knowledge of reality, but never enough that we become too prideful to stop searching for the Source of everything that we know, to discover that the Source of that knowledge is personal, loves us and is worthy of our worship and trust. God created us to be both logical and emotional. It is only in the discovery and knowledge of who God is, that our insatiable search for knowledge is completed; and our faith in Him, no matter how emotionally difficult and painful it may be, is eternally vindicated and appreciated in the presence of the Source of all knowledge, the Foundation of reason, the Creator of our emotions, and the “Finisher of our faith.”

Another great post is by Carson Weitnauer: Is Faith Opposed to Reason?

Sources

Goleman, Daniel, Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition; Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Zacharias, Ravi, Scorned For God- Part 1 (Let My People Think Podcast)

 

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Good God Hell

Why Did a “Good” God Create Hell?

By Al Serrato

Many people today accuse God of unfairness.  Since God can foresee the future, they ask, why didn’t He simply never create all those he knows to be destined to spend eternity in Hell?   One skeptic I know put the question like this:

God supposedly knows everything that will happen before you are ever born, so if all your choices are set beforehand, how can they possibly matter? Furthermore, if God knows you will “choose” Hell before he creates you, why does he simply not create you? Personally, I would much prefer nonexistence to eternal torment. Is God deliberately creating people knowing they will end up in Hell? Then I would call him evil. Is he compelled to create people regardless of what he sees in their future? Then he doesn’t have free will, which would certainly be an interesting interpretation, but one I doubt many people share. Is there some other explanation? If so, I can’t think of it.

This challenge has a bit of intuitive appeal.  It seems to put God in a box, as it were, trapped between being “evil” for choosing to create rebellious creatures or lacking free will, by being unable to do otherwise.  Let’s take a closer look at the two horns of this apparent dilemma.

To the Christian, “evil” is the label we give to words, thoughts or actions that deviate from God’s perfect will.  If we were created robots, there would be no evil in the world; we would operate exactly in accordance with God’s desires.  But in creating man, God did something quite different. He gave us “free will,” the capacity to rebel against him in our thoughts, words, and actions. And rebel we did.  God “foresaw” this development, but only in a manner of speaking – a manner focused upon the waywe think.  This is because God is not bound by time. For him, there is no future to “foresee.”  There is only an eternal present.  All times – whether past, present or future – are accessible to him in this eternal present. Thus, at the moment of creation, God was aware that man would rebel, that he was rebelling, and that he had rebelled. He was aware of the acts and the consequences, the motivations, and the ultimate end, of everyone.  Consistent with his nature for perfect fairness, he created a means by which man – though in rebellion and deserving punishment – could nonetheless find reunification with him.  But in implementing this scheme, he did not force this choice upon us. He gives us the means to salvation but remains content in allowing us to choose which path we will follow.

Those who use their free will to turn toward him – more precisely, to accept his free gift of salvation – will find a welcoming father, ready to do the work needed to restore us. Those who use their free will to turn away from God – to reject his gift – will find that this choice too is honored.  Expecting God not to create those in this latter category would have two significant effects: it would show that God’s provision of free will is really a fiction, since only those who choose to do his will are actually created, and two, it would mean that Hell is a place of evil.  But Hell is a place – or perhaps more precisely a condition – which was created by God to serve a purpose. Since God does not create evil – i.e. he does not act against his own nature – then Hell cannot be a place of evil. Like a human prison, it may be inhabited by those bent on doing evil, but the place itself – and the confinement it effectuates – is actually a good, just as separating hardened criminals from society is a net positive for both the evil-doer and the society that is victimized.

Some will be tempted to argue that God should have forced this choice upon us anyway. Isn’t it better to be forced to love God than to spend eternity in Hell? Only, I suppose, if one believes it is better to be a robot than a thinking, self-aware and self-directed being.  There is no middle ground. Either free will is something real – with consequences attendant to the choices we make – or it’s a fiction.  One cannot have it both ways.

To recap: God is not trapped in an either/or dilemma. God is not “evil” for having created, because in the end, he treats his creation fairly, giving each what he or she deserves.  Since he values free will enough to have given it to us, he apparently intends to make that gift real by allowing some to reject him. Likewise, God is not lacking in free will, because he is not “compelled” to create against his will. Since Hell is not a place for eternal torture, but an appropriate destination for all rebellious human beings, God does not violate his own nature – does not engage in “evil” – when he separates himself from some of his creation.

What this challenge brings into focus is not some internal inconsistency in our conception of God. No, what it highlights is just how different our thinking is as compared to God’s. For like the skeptic, many would view the decision to create nothing all – neither good nor bad people – to be a better – a more noble – alternative.  Yet God sees things quite a bit differently, it seems.

In the end, that he views things differently should not really surprise us. Our judgment as to right and wrong, good and evil, has been corrupted by our rebellion. Since we all share this fallen nature,  we should realize that we are not in the best position to render judgment as to the way eternal things “ought to be.” We wouldn’t ask a group of incarcerated rapists for guidance on issues of sexual mores; nor would we consult death row inmates for advice on how best to treat one another. Perhaps, in the same way, God has little need to consult with us to determine what ultimate “fairness” demands.

No, the Creator of the universe may occupy a slightly better position to judge matters eternal. We might be wise to heed him, rather than try to ensnare him in a “logical” trap.

 

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Free Will Critics

Responding To Free Will Critics

By Evan Minton

My article “5 Arguments For The Existence Of Free Will” became very popular. Tim Stratton liked it so much that he featured it as a guest post on his blog FreeThinkingMinistires.com, Martin Glynn specifically asked me to post it to The Society Of Evangelical Arminians’ website, and Jairo Izquierdo published it as a guest post on CrossExamined.org. In the case of the latter, several comments came flooding in as pushback to the things I said in the article. This isn’t surprising given how popular CrossExamined.org is as an apologetics ministry. Instead of responding to the comments specifically and getting into long back-and-forth conversations with people, I thought it would be more edifying if I actually made a response article addressing a few of those rebuttals.

To the readers of this site, I will assume you have already read “5 Arguments For The Existence Of Free Will“, and the following content will assume that background knowledge. If you haven’t read it, go read that first. Moreover, I’ll address these rebuttals according to each specific argument that the rebuttal is aimed towards.

The Argument From True Love 

Rebuttal: You Can’t Choose Who You Fall In Love With.

Andy Ryan wrote “You can talk about ‘love freely given’ but does anyone believe they have a choice over who they love? It’s pretty much something that just happens. Many people wish they could stop loving someone they love or regain a love they’ve lost. But in vain. So I don’t get how you connect love to free will.” 

The problem with this response is that it’s equivocating “love” with “infatuation”. I’ve pointed out in other blog posts that love is not an emotion. It’s not a feeling. Love is an action or series of actions aimed at the wellbeing of the one being loved. You can choose who you love if love is an action or series of actions rather than a feeling. Obviously, you can’t control how you feel. If that were the case, I’d never feel worried, angry, or sad a single day in my entire life. When someone I love dies, I’d choose to just be giddy rather than heartbroken. While you can’t control how you feel, you can control how you act.

The idea that love is action and not an emotion is grounded in scripture. Let’s turn to one of the most famous passages on love; 1 Corinthians 13.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

This passage is a description of not just love, but perfect love. Go up and read the passage again very carefully. I want you to notice something. There isn’t much talk of warm, fuzzy feelings in this passage.

Kindness is not a feeling. Kindness is an action. If I buy you a house, it doesn’t matter how I feel about you. My action was a kindness towards you. My choice to buy you a house was just that: a choice. You can have very bitter feelings towards someone and will yourself to do something nice for them. Kindness does not have to be associated with feelings.

What about patience? Well, that might seem like an emotion, but in reality, patience itself is an action. I might be irritated that someone is taking a long time in doing something they said they were going to do for me, but I can choose to not to express my agitation. I can conceal it, and say “Take your time. There’s no hurry.”. An impatient person would say “What is taking you so long? Get on with it already!” I may be experiencing a feeling of impatience, but I can still express the action of patience. A friend and I may both be waiting on another friend to pick us up to take us to dinner, and I may say “What is taking him so long? He should have been here 20 minutes ago! This is going to screw up my whole schedule.” while my friend next to me may be experiencing the same emotion but keeps his impatient emotion to himself. So, although we’re both feeling the same emotion, I choose to express impatience while he chooses to express patience. When my future wife takes a long time in the bathroom getting ready, I may be irritated at that, but what will I express? Patience or impatience? The choice is up to me.

“It keeps no record of wrongs”. This is also a choice. You may incidentally remember wrongs done to you, but the one who loves will try to forget them. The one who loves will not purposefully keep a list so that he can keep throwing the misdeeds up in the misdeed doer’s face. I have been wronged by some of the people in my life, and while I can remember that I was wrong, I can’t remember very many of the specific wrongs (except when something triggers a memory). I’m trying not to keep a record.

“It does not dishonor others”. Is dishonoring others a feeling? Surely not.

“It does not boast” — regardless of what your emotional state is, you can choose not to brag about things.

“It is not self-seeking” — another action that’s not a feeling. You can choose to seek the good of others instead of your own good.

The only things resembling emotions in this passage would be the parts that say “It is not easily angered” and “rejoices in the truth”. Now, these are emotions. Does this contradict everything I’ve just said? I don’t think so. I don’t think love itself is an emotion, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely isolated from emotions. Love can invoke emotions. I’ve heard testimonies of Christians who have done kind things for their enemies. While initially gritting their teeth in distaste, over time, their continued choice to express love softened their hearts towards their enemies and they actually had emotional feelings towards them. One of my Bible teachers spoke of a man he worked for years ago who made his life Hell. The employer developed cancer and my Bible teacher reluctantly prayed for him over a long period of time. The more he prayed for his boss, the less hard feelings he had towards him. When he learned of his employer’s passing, he said that it actually broke his heart and he burst into tears. I have had similar experiences. Doing love can actually transform your feelings towards someone. This is why I think it’s entirely possible to learn to “love the one you’re with”. This would also explain why so many arranged marriages actually worked out in times past.[1]

In light of this, Jesus’ command in Matthew 5 to love our enemies makes a lot more sense. Jesus isn’t commanding us to have warm and fuzzy feelings towards the people who treat us horribly. Rather, he’s telling us to show them kindness, patience, to avoid dishonoring them, to not boast if you one up them, to seek their well-being. Most of Jesus’ examples of loving your enemies are *drum roll* actions: “ If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”(verses 39-42).

In conclusion: I can’t control who I become infatuated with, but I can control which woman I show love to. I don’t have to have warm and fuzzy feelings towards someone to love them.

The Argument From Moral Accountability 

Rebuttal: Your Argument doesn’t follow because you haven’t demonstrated that The Bible is true.

In one of KR’s comments, he said: “Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premises since you haven’t established that what the Bible teaches is actually true. Your 2nd argument suffers from the same problem.” 

My article was primarily aimed at Calvinists, who believe The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant, and ergo true. So, I admit that I presupposed that The Bible was true in most of the arguments I used in my blog post. I wasn’t concerned with refuting atheistic determinists, but determinists who were Christians. The only argument in the blog post that would apply to both Christian and non-Christian determinists was The FreeThinking Argument. I’ve argued with KR in the comment sections of other blog posts on Cross Examined’s website, so I know that he isn’t a Christian. It isn’t surprising that he wouldn’t find the argument from moral accountability compelling since it does presuppose that The Bible is true.

The Appearance Of Free Will Problem

Rebuttal: I Feel Determined?

In the same comment, KR wrote “As for the appearance of free will, it may be the case that we have different experiences. While I certainly feel that I have a self and that this self-performs various actions and has various thoughts, it feels to me that these actions and thoughts are always a reaction to something that happened before. I don’t feel that I decide to perform an action or have a thought ‘ex nihilo'”.

I don’t like responding to arguments when I’m not 100% sure I understand. But I studied this response carefully and I think I know what he’s saying here. I suspect that KR may be misrepresenting what libertarian free will is when he says “I don’t feel that I decide to perform an action or have a thought ex nihilo.” It is a common misconception that libertarian free will asserts that our choices are “random” or “spontaneous”, like the appearance of a particle in the quantum vacuum. No one knows when and where one is going to pop up. I don’t think my choices originate “ex nihilo” either, at least if KR is using that term the way I think he’s using it. Certainly, there are previously existing factors inside and outside of myself that have an influence on my choices, but does this mean that they determine my choices? I would say no. My feeling of hunger may influence me to get up and grab something to eat, but the hunger doesn’t determine me to eat. My urge for sex may influence my decision to have intercourse with someone, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have refrained from having sex with that person. Libertarian Free Will (LFW) neither asserts that our choices have no good reasons or motivations behind them. I may choose to eat because I’m hungry or I may choose to refrain from eating because I’m too busy working on a blog post, or maybe I’m in the middle of a fast, or maybe I’m dieting to lose weight. LFW doesn’t assert that our choices are without purpose, just that it laid within our power to choose the opposite of what we actually chose.

Does KR have an accurate understanding of LFW? If not, that might explain why he feels he doesn’t have it. If he thinks of free will as spontaneous actions devoid of any influences or motivations, then it’s no wonder why he doesn’t think he has it. I don’t believe I have that kind of free will either!

The Free Thinking Argument

Rebuttal 1: Computers Do Calculations And They Don’t Have Free Will.

Andy Ryan wrote “You’ve not shown or demonstrated this. Why does the latter follow from the former?” Premise 3 of The Free Thinking Argument states that if libertarian free will does not exist, the rationality and knowledge does not exist. He says I haven’t demonstrated that this premise is true. Why does he think that?

The argument I put forth was a quote from Tim Stratton. Stratton said “Premise (3) is equivalent with ‘if all things are causally determined, then that includes all thoughts and beliefs.’ If our thoughts and beliefs are forced upon us, and we could not have chosen better beliefs, then we are simply left assuming that our determined beliefs are good (let alone true). Therefore, we could never rationally affirm that our beliefs are the inference to the best explanation – we can only assume it. Here is the big problem for the atheistic naturalist: it logically follows that if naturalism is true, then atheists — or anyone else for that matter — cannot possess knowledge. Knowledge is defined as ‘justified true belief.’ One can happen to have true beliefs; however, if they do not possess warrant or justification for a specific belief, their belief does not qualify as a knowledge claim. If one cannot freely infer the best explanation, then one has no justification that their belief really is the best explanation. Without justification, knowledge goes down the drain. All we are left with is question-begging assumptions.”[2]

Andy responded “Why does one have to ‘freely’ infer it? Do computers require free will to make accurate calculations? Evidently not – they seem to get by just fine! Imagine giving two computers sentience. They argue between them over a particular course of action and which option is the best. What’s wrong with describing what they have as ‘knowledge’?”

To hark back to Stratton’s explanation: knowledge is “justified true belief”. In order to have a belief that is both true and justified, one must be able to think freely. In order to think freely, one must have free will. You can’t be a free thinker without free will. In the case of computers, yes, they do mathematical calculations and they always come up with the right answer to the equation, but that’s because there were people who causally determined the computer to have an infallible calculator inside of it. The programmer just as well could have programmed the computer to come up with wrong answers, and the computer wouldn’t know the difference. Or perhaps someone hacked into the computer and infected it with a virus that causally determines it to come up with calculations. If human beings are causally determined, then how do you know that the beliefs you hold to aren’t irrational? How could you keep yourself from committing fallacies? How could you know whether or not the beliefs you were determined to hold are true? They could be true, they could have good reasons for them, but you wouldn’t be able to rationally weigh alternatives. If person 1 is causally determined to believe truth A, if person 1 was causally determined to believe lie B, he was determined to believe B.

Just as a computer will come up with the truth or a lie depending on how it’s wired, so we will come to true or false beliefs depending on how we’re wired. Can it really be said that someone possesses knowledge (i.e justified true belief) when the conclusions they came to were a mere matter of the molecules and chemistry in their brain + their environment? If the atoms in their brains bumped around differently, or if they had lived different lives in different circumstances and environments, their beliefs very well could have been different. What someone believes, on naturalism, depends on happenstance. If what someone believes depends on happenstance, how can that belief be said to be justified? It could, by happenstance, be a true belief, but it would not be a justified true belief. You would just happen to hold to the correct viewpoint.

The same problem affects theological determinism. If God causally determines everything we think, say, and do, then if we believe the correct theological doctrines or not just depends on whatever God decreed we would believe.

William Lane Craig said it well: “There is a sort of dizzying, self-defeating character to determinism. For if one comes to believe that determinism is true, one has to believe that the reason he has come to believe it is simply that he was determined to do so. One has not in fact been able to weigh the arguments pro and con and freely make up one’s mind on that basis. The difference between the person who weighs the arguments for determinism and rejects them and the person who weighs them and accepts them is wholly that one was determined by causal factors outside himself to believe and the other not to believe. When you come to realize that your decision to believe in determinism was itself determined and that even your present realization of that fact right now is likewise determined, a sort of vertigo sets in, for everything that you think, even this very thought itself, is outside your control. Determinism could be true; but it is very hard to see how it could ever be rationally affirmed since its affirmation undermines the rationality of its affirmation.”[3]

Rebuttal 2: What Is A Soul And How Does It Allow For Free Will but Physicalism Doesn’t? 

In that same comment, Andy Ryan said “What exactly is a soul and by what exact mechanism does it make libertarian free will possible where it is otherwise impossible? If one person has a soul and another person doesn’t, how does the soul lead to better or more informed decisions in the first person? If their brains are otherwise working exactly the same, I don’t see the difference.”

Andy is responding to the second premise of The Free Thinking Argument which states that if the soul does not exist, then no one has a libertarian free will. First, souls are immaterial entities that animate the physical bodies of humans and higher animals. It controls the brain and the brain controls the body. When a person dies, the soul leaves the body, leaving it lifeless. A soul isn’t something you have, it’s something you are. A body is what you have.

If people are merely physical organisms, then that means all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions are causally determined by brain chemistry, firing neurons, external environmental conditions and so on. How can free will exist if a man is nothing more than a collection of physical parts? Does a computer have free will? Does an amoeba have free will? Do thunderclouds have free will? No. All of the above react to physical cause and effect because they are purely physical things. I just took a swig of diet coke after typing that last sentence. If humans are purely physical creatures, then I don’t see how we can control what we do any more than my diet coke can control whether or not it fizzes.

Many atheists, like Francis Crick who I quoted in the article, are determinists precisely because they are physicalists. It’s their physicalism that drives them to the conclusion that we are merely organisms reacting to stimuli.  The assertion of premise 2 is that if the soul doesn’t exist, then free will doesn’t exist. I think I’ve done a pretty good job explaining that we have good reason to believe this is true. Now, how does the soul solve the problem? I’m not entirely sure what it is about a soul that gives it the ability to choose between alternatives, but I do know that it makes human beings more than mere physical objects. If I am a soul with a body, then there’s an aspect of me that transcends the natural realm, and that therefore entails that I am not necessarily subject to do whatever my environment and internal brain activity make me do. I have a mind, not just a brain. And while the brain can affect/influence the mind (e.g mental illnesses like schizophrenia), and the reverse is also true (e.g studies have shown that positive thoughts and negative thoughts can shape your brain), it is not the case that my brain makes me do anything.

Conclusion 
I don’t think any of the people in the comment section successfully refuted any of the arguments I put forth in libertarian free will.

By the way, there was a comment left by a person named John B Moore, but I didn’t address it because he didn’t get any rebuttals. All he did was essentially say “Your arguments are no good. You’re wrong”. Not a quote, but that’s the essence of his comment. He didn’t say which of the premises of which of the arguments were not true, nor did he tackle my arguments for the truth of the premises.

Notes

[1] I ‘m not advocating for arranged marriages. I’m just saying that maybe a reason so many of them actually turned out well was that the people realized “This is who I’m going to be stuck with for the rest of my life. I should make every effort to show love to him or her”.

[2] Tim Stratton, “The FreeThinking Argument In A Nutshell”, November 30th 2015, http://freethinkingministries.com/the-freethinking-argument-in-a-nutshell/

[3] William Lane Craig, from the article “Q&A: Molinism VS. Calvinism: Troubled By Calvinists”, – http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism-vs-calvinism 

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2ku9IhP

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Powerful Evidence Christianity

What is the Most Powerful Evidence for the Christian Faith?

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For the past three years I have been helping my father update his classic book Evidence that Demands a Verdict. There is no doubt that the evidence for Christianity has grown substantially since the book first released in 1972.

Since I have been working on this book people have been increasingly asking me, “What do you think is the most powerful evidence for the Christian faith?” While I do think the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, the textual evidence for the reliability of the Bible, and the scientific evidence for a designer are persuasive, these are not the most powerful evidences.

So, what is it? At the beginning of Evidence, my father and are clear that we believe there is a more powerful apologetic—a clear, simple presentation of the claims of Christ and who he is, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Here is how my father explains it in the introduction:

For my (Josh’s) philosophical apologetics course at Talbot Theological Seminary, everyone had to write a paper on “The Best Defense of Christianity.” I found myself constantly putting it off and avoiding writing it, not because I didn’t have the material but because I felt I was at odds with what the professor was expecting (an expectation based on the ream of my lecture notes from his class).

Finally, I decided to voice my convictions. I began my paper with the sentence, “Some people say the best offense is a good defense, but I say to you that the best defense is a good offense.” I proceeded by explaining that I felt the best defense of Christianity is a “clear, simple presentation of the claims of Christ and who he is, in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Then I wrote out the “Four Spiritual Laws” and recorded my testimony of how, on December 19, 1959, at 8:30 p.m., during my second year at the university, I placed my trust in Christ as Savior and Lord. I concluded the paper with a presentation of the evidence for the resurrection.

The professor must have agreed with my approach that the best defense of Christianity is a clear and compelling presentation of the gospel, for he gave me an A.

William Tyndale was right in saying that “a ploughboy with the Bible would know more of God that the most learned ecclesiastic who ignored it.” In other words, an Arkansas farm boy sharing the gospel can be more effective in the long run than a Harvard scholar with his intellectual arguments.

Although it may surprise some people, since my father is known for presenting “evidences” for the faith, he has always lived by this principle. I have seen him present the evidence for Christianity on countless occasions, but his goal is always to bring it back to the gospel. After all, it is the gospel that has the power to set people free.

We hope you enjoy the updated Evidence. But just remember: It’s not the evidence alonethat changes lives. Apologetics is one critical tool God can use to draw people to Him. We are to be ready with an answer for our faith (see 1 Peter 3:15). But when it is all said and done, the most powerful apologetic is a clear and compelling presentation of the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Sean McDowell, Ph.D. is a professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for Summit Ministries, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org.

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