Monthly Archive for January, 2007

You call sitting for three days and nights under a tree being sincere???

Published
by
Ken
on January 31, 2007
in bible, christian fundamentalism, faith, god, hell, jesus, josh mcdowell and religion
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Ok, where was I? Oh, that’s right … in the middle of a magic trick. How do you let God be 100% just and at the same time don’t let him condemn people who could never have heard about Jesus? Easy as pie. Simply say along with Josh McDowell: “No one will be condemned for not ever hearing of Jesus Christ” [Answers to Tough Questions, p. 121]. Cool! So, everyone who doesn’t hear will be in heaven, right? Uh … no. In the next sentence, McDowell says, “That person will be condemned for violating his own moral standard.” Hmmm. I have two problems with this.

First, “his own moral standard?” I thought everything depended on violating God’s Law. Or not believing in Jesus Christ. What does a person’s moral standard have to do with anything? Talk about a sliding scale. So, a totally immoral person will get into Heaven while a very moral — although not infallible — person won’t?

Second, even though this sounds like “they” have a chance this is really only another rationalization. If everyone is a sinner at birth then, by definition, no one will be able to live up to any moral standard worthy of being called a moral standard.

So far, “they” don’t have much of a chance. But, a few pages earlier McDowell says,

“Although the Scriptures never explicitly teach that someone who has never heard of Jesus can be saved, we do believe it infers this. We do believe that every person will have an opportunity to repent, and that God will not exclude anyone because he happened to be born at the wrong place and at the wrong time.” (Emphasis mine)

Ah, despite the inference status of this statement, this does sound a little more optimistic. If everyone has an opportunity to repent, then those in Hell really do make the choice. Does he quote chapter and verse to back up this belief? Well, the next sentence quotes John 7:17

If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.

I didn’t really get what the New American Standard Bible (quoted above) was trying to say so I looked at a couple other versions and here is the New International Version:

If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

All the other more “common language” versions seemed to agree that Jesus was talking about someone who is hearing or has heard the teachings of Jesus. And I don’t see how anyone could hear his teachings without hearing about Jesus. So, how does this back up the inference? It sounds to me like just another rationalization to make Christians feel good about their all-loving God.

Even though there is no teaching to back up this inference, there is an example in Acts 10 which may set some precedent for it. Cornelius was a very religious man who prayed to God and asked God to reveal himself to him. God sent an angel and told Cornelius to send for the Apostle Peter who came and preached Jesus Christ and Cornelius was saved. This is all very good, but if people were constantly knocking on Christians’ doors saying “God told so-and-so to send for you. Please come preach Jesus to him,” don’t you think we’d hear about it?

But this doesn’t stop some Christians from continuing to believe it. They are so sure that if anyone is sincere enough that God will reveal himself to her so she can be saved. This means that Siddhartha Gautama (aka The Buddha), for example, was not sincere enough in his search. The seven years he spent learning from every different type of teacher he could find was not sincere enough. Being close to death from starvation and sitting for three days and three nights (sound a little familiar??) under a bodhi tree was not sincere enough. Obviously not because God would have sent someone to preach to him if he was sincere.

Kind of makes you wonder if anyone has a chance.

But now I want to return to a thought I mentioned in the last post. If the fate of all the souls in the world depend on hearing about Jesus, doesn’t this put the fate of all these souls on the hands of every Christian? Obviously yes, but you’ll have to stay tuned to see what else I have to say about it …

But it says “faith comes from hearing” …

Published
by
Ken
on January 29, 2007
in bible, christian fundamentalism, christianity, god, hell, jesus, judging others, religion and st. paul
. 5 Comments

In part two of this series, I talked about Romans 1:18-21 where Paul claims that everyone can know God from nature. But this doesn’t seem to be quite enough because, as I said in part one, you need to get from God to The Jesus of The Bible in order to be saved. And, despite a valient attempt by the Greeks with Dionysus, it seems darn near impossible to do this — at least to the Christian’s satisfaction. And indeed it must be because Paul writes in Romans 10:13-17

… for “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

So where does that leave the billions of people who, because of where and when they were born, have never heard the name of Jesus? And doesn’t this put the fate of all these souls on the hands of every Christian? Well, yes, but …

Some Christians have no qualms about sending billions of people to Hell. A professor of New Testament, Ethics, and Philosophy at a Baptist Theological Seminary with whom I had a brief email exchange a few years ago told me straight out: “God may do with us just as he pleases.” He was referring to Romans 9 where in verses 20-23 Paul says

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory

Paul seems to be saying that God created some people knowing full well they’d end up in Hell. But, what the hell, He’s God, right? Of course, this opens up the whole predestination v free-will issue which I am not going to delve into right now. My point is that some Christians are fine with a Hell kind of like Monaco and a Heaven kind of like Greenland. (Hint … Manoco is the most densely populated country and Greenland is the least populated country.) Of course, aside from the guaranteed 50-acre lot in Heaven, the other advantage to this viewpoint is that it’s more or less out of your hands — your evangelical hands, that is. If God created some people knowing they’d end up in Heaven, they’re gonna get there, right? Whether I tell them about Jesus or not, they are gonna get there. And those who were created to be kindling, no matter how much you preach to them they are beyond hope.

Fair enough, but what about the Maya people who lived before even Columbus sailed the ocean blue? Can God, a God of Love, really condemn them all? My seminary pen-pal says yes. God can create entire civilizations knowing that they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in … hell. He is, after all, a God that is 100% just (apparently just trumps love) and those Mayas just didn’t get it right and didn’t say the right prayers and didn’t believe the right thing. They must be punished in accordance with God’s Law. Ignorantia juris non excusat, afterall. Quite a cavalier attitude for someone who had the luck to be born in the right place at the right time!

All this “God is 100% just” talk is just fine except that God, apparently, does have the ability to go against his nature. There is a loophole in the Law. Apparently, God doesn’t send little babies to Hell. Whew! That’s a relief. That would be just downright cruel and unusual. I mean, those cute little babies don’t deserve eternal damnation just because they are unable to hear about Jesus Christ and are unable to make a conscious decision to follow Jesus. Who cares that the Bible says they take part in the “total depravity of man” and are stained by “original sin” and are “conceived in sin”. They don’t deserve Hell!

But, aren’t the Maya of the 9th century, for example, in the same boat? Aren’t they unable to make a conscious decision about … about … what’s his name? Exactly. They never heard!

But don’t give up. There are other Christians who, perhaps like you, don’t sit well with God sending all those wrong-place-wrong-timers to Hell. How do they get around it? Do they let God chill out a bit and offer some free passes? No. They still insist that God be 100% just but they don’t want people condemned who never had the chance to hear. So what do they do? A little presto-chango … a little abracadabro … and a lot of stay tuned …

The Bible and Society — which conforms to which?

Published
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Ken
on January 28, 2007
in bible, christianity, god, religion and truth
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Maybe it is the influence of my Fundamentalist, “Give me that Old-Time Religion” upbringing but I sometimes think about the role of the Bible in our lives. Should the Bible (in it’s complete entirety) dictate the way we live or should our current society (including attitudes, social norms, etc.) allow us to label parts of the Bible as irrelevant and thus redefine how we interpret the Bible. In other words: Should we change religion or should religion change us?

And I started thinking about this anew after finding this link on Reiter’s Block to a post on Faith and Theology titled Twelve propositions on same-sex relationships and the church. In this post is the following statement on hermeneutics, the science of interpretation:

For here is a fundamental hermeneutical axiom: “If Biblical texts on any social or moral topic are to be understood as God’s word for us today, two conditions at least must be satisfied. There must be a resemblance between the ancient and modern social situation or institution or practice or attitude sufficient for us to be able to say that in some sense the text is talking about the same thing that we recognise today. And we must be able to demonstrate an underlying principle at work in the text which is consonant with biblical faith taken as a whole, and not contradicted by any subsequent experience or understanding” (Walter Houston).

Now, I know nothing about Walter Houston except that it appears he is an Oxford man whose research interests are “the social-scientific interprtation of the Hebrew Bible, with regard to the topics of social class, economics, and culture; its ethics, especially social ethics; and its hermeneutics.” And this is the first thing that really, really bothers me. This guy is doing university-level research on how to interpret the Bible. And he’s bringing into his research more research on ancient social situations, institutions, attitudes, etc. How the heck am I supposed to have devotions now? How am I supposed to apply anything at all to my life until I get a Ph.D. in ancient studies so that I can figure out what I should apply and what I shouldn’t? Are we really at the mercy of the “scholars” to tell us what is relevant for our lives?

And what does this say about the Bible? Is it really any different than Grimms Fairy Tales which get reinvented every few years; updated for today’s youth? I think you’d be suprised to know how some of the original ones ended — not at all the way Walt tells them. There are people who claim that the Bible is absolute truth. Yet absolute truth should be true, absolutely, no? How can absolute truth change from generation to generation? And doesn’t this make the Bible less like God’s Word and more like Dear Abby? A lot of advice that you can pick and choose from and use or not use depending on your mood — I mean your modern social situation?

And what does this say about God? I was taught that the Bible is the plenary, verbally, infallible, inspired, inerrant Word of God. If this is the case, then it seems to me that we ought not be mucking around with it. After all, “God said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me” was a whole-heartedly believed motto in my youth. But now, it’s “God said it, but I’ve decided it’s not applicable to my particular situation, and that’s good enough for me.” I wonder why God put all that stuff in the Bible in the first place, knowing that it would be out of date in just a few millenia. I thought he was omniscient — surely he would have had enough foresight to put some everlasting words in there.

Furthermore, doesn’t this really make Society our new God? Since we are reinterpreting the Bible based on our “social situation or institution or practice or attitude,” if society changes then our Bible changes. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I thought the Bible was to dictate how we live. But it seems that the modern view is that the way we live dictates how we read the Bible. So society is, essentially, issuing a new edition every few years. You know, updated and revised with more graphs and pictures and 17 hours of special features including a 7 hour “The Making of” featurette. If Society is putting out the new editions, doesn’t this make Society God?

And what is the end result of all this reinterpretation? I doubt very much that passages deemed irrelevant will ever come back into “fashion” so we will slowly eliminate verse after verse, passage after passage, until entire books are inapplicable to our modern social situation. What do you think will remain in 25, 50, or 100 years? I think that pretty much the entire Old Testament is null and void even now. After all, the entire thing is about a nomadic, oppressed by everyone and his cousin, desert-wandering society. That pretty much fails the first of Houston’s two tests so chuck it all! And even a lot of the New Testament is out. I mean, women covering their heads while praying, all men with short hair, divorcees banned from church boards, men only as pastors, deploring homosexuality — we have absolutely nothing in common with those people.

I think the death blow is not far away and will be signaled by the removal of Bibles from those little shelves on the back of the pews. Afterall, if the pastor can’t even mention one verse during her sermon, why do we need them? And the pastor can’t mention a single verse because she needs to be hip and relevant and nothing in there is. Of course, we can always ship our unused copies to third world countries. It will take a couple more generations for their social situations to outgrow the Bible.

Just give me the whole case and I’ll be on my way.

Published
by
Ken
on January 26, 2007
in bible, christian apologetics, josh mcdowell, logic and ravi zacharias
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Josh McDowell’s argument (in Answers to Tough Questions about the Chrisitian Faith) that archaeology proves the Bible reminds me of the Adventurers Club at Walt Disney World’s Pleasure Island. It also reminds me of a Seinfeld episode (but, then again, what doesn’t?). I talked about this McDowell argument in another post but it was lost in a pretty long rant and I think it’s important enough to warrant repetition on its own.

But first, to the Adventureres Club! This club has these barstools that can move up and down. But they move very, very slowly and the bartender has control over them. They move so slowly that you don’t even notice it — even the person sitting on the barstool doesn’t feel it move. Sounds weird but it’s true. So, you’ll be sitting there with a friend talking, watching what’s going on around you, drinking a cocktail and suddenly it will hit you — you are looking your friend square in the nipple ring! His barstool is almost a foot higher and yours a foot lower than normal. And you really didn’t notice anything because it happened so slowly and, I guess, your brain compensated automatically. It is a shocker when it happens.

McDowell’s argument is kinda like that. He starts off stating a simple, fairly well-defined fact. He then continues talking and at the end he has a general, all-encompassing result that “proves” his point. Most people will say, “Oh, cool!” and continue reading not even realizing that the basis of the argument was to “up the ante” with each comment with no justification — subtle escalation, if you will. But once you see it, it’s not so subtle. His basic argument goes like this …

To start off, he says that the Bible mentions some people and places which archaeology has verified did exist. In other words, “many biblical pasages are historically accurate.” His examples:

  • The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in some of the 15,000 tablets uncovered at Tell Mardikh.
  • Archaeological proof that a ruler named Belshazzar existed; that the Hittites had a vast empire; that King Sargon ruled; that the “matters that touch upon history in the Book of Acts are demonstrably accurate.”

Fair enough. I’m going to ignore some potential problems such as how the cities were mentioned — the way we would mention New York City or the way we would mention Altantis — and how many, exactly, is “some” tablets. After citing these few examples, McDowell then concludes that “the findings of archaeology have verified, and in no case disputed, historical points of the biblical record.”

Now, this is not quite as strong a point as it may seem. To say that “archaeology [has] verified … historical points of the biblical record” is a pretty solid statement in my book. But to say that archaeology has not disputed any historical points is a totally different matter. ‘Tis far easier to prove than to disprove — just ask Ravi Zacharias and his white rock with black dots. After all, archaeology hasn’t yet disputed my claim that eight-foot Amazon women were the first settlers in the Andes. They just haven’t found them yet! So, we really should forget the second part and leave it at “the findings of archaeology have verified historical points of the biblical record.”

From here, McDowell starts a very short section where he cites new “conclusions” but without offering more evidence to support. Here’s the trail …

  1. “the findings of archaeology have verified, and in no case disputed, historical points of the biblical record.”
  2. “[archaeology] is very helpful in illustrating that many biblical passages are historically accurate.”
  3. “One cannot stress too strongly the importance of the Bible giving an accurate historical picture.”
  4. “Putting it another way, if the authors of Scripture are accurate in their accounts of the things that transpired…”
  5. “… it then follows that [the authors of Scripture] cannot be ruled out of court because they happen to mention things out of the ordinary.”

Do you see what he’s done from 1 through 3? He’s gone from “historical points” to “historical passages” to “historical picture“. That’s escalation. Starting with “they mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah which, by the way, is a real place” he ends up with “the Bible paints an accurate historical picture” which implies so much more than just mentioning real places.

But he’s not done! From 3 to 4 he claims to simply “rephrase” his last point but what he actually does is escalate again. He claims that an accurate historical picture is the same thing as an accurate historical record. Again, from starting with “they mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah which, by the way, is a real place” he ends up with an accurate account of what happened, who did what to whom, who said what to whom, etc.

But, believe it or not, he’s still not done. From 4 to 5 he makes yet another escalating move. He claims that since the Biblical writers are accurate historians then everything they say must be considered as truth; even when what they say is “out of the ordinary.” This gives the Bible writers carte blanche to say anything and it is to be believed. Pretty convenient when your goal is to be able to use the Bible as the basis for all kinds of “proofs”.

McDowell’s intial claim is that archaeology proves the Bible but he ends up with something that I think is very different. Does the Bible mention some verifiable places and people? Yes, it does. Does that mean anything more than the Bible used real people and places as a backdrop for its stories? According to McDowell, yes. According to me, there’s not enough evidence to say.

And now to Seinfeld. What I am reminded of is Elaine’s escalation in “The Sponge” episode of Seinfeld where she is trying to find a store that still carries her favorite form of birth control after it was taken off the market:

PHARMACIST: Actually, we have a case left.

ELAINE (excited): A case! A case of sponges? I mean, uh…a case. Huh. Uh…how many come in a case?

PHARMACIST: Sixty.

ELAINE: Sixty?! Uh…well, I’ll take three.

PHARMACIST: Three.

ELAINE: Make it ten.

PHARMACIST: Ten?

ELAINE: Twenty sponges should be plenty.

PHARMACIST: Did you say twenty?

ELAINE: Yeah, twenty-five sponges is just fine.

PHARMACIST: Right. So, you’re set with twenty-five.

ELAINE: Yeah. Just give me the whole case and I’ll be on my way.

Not as subtle as the levitating barstools but only slightly less subtle than McDowell’s argument.

Bruce says … Become Worldly for Jesus

Published
by
Ken
on January 26, 2007
in christianity, homosexuality, jesus and judging others
. 0 Comments

Please head over to The World According to Bruce and read It Is Time to Leave the Christian Ghetto and Become Worldly for Jesus. All I can say is, Bruce is right on!

Some Christian apologists do a grave disservice to the Christian faith

Published
by
Ken
on January 23, 2007
in bible, christian apologetics, faith, josh mcdowell and logic
. 0 Comments

Last week, I dusted off my copy of Josh McDowell’s book, Answers to Tough Questions about the Christian Faith. McDowell is a Christian apologist. Apologetics is the field of study involved with the systematic defense of a position using historical evidence, philosophical arguments, and scientific investigation. So McDowell, in his book, attempts to logically prove all kinds of things about Christianity: Does God exist? Did Jesus exist? Did Jesus really perform miracles?

I totally understand McDowell’s desire to write such a book and defend Christianity. I think he was basically trying to do exactly what I am trying to do with this blog-o-mine: articulate what he believes and why he believes it. And for this I do not fault him in the least. What I do fault is the extent to which he goes. He tries to prove every aspect of Christianity and leave no room for doubt. Or faith!

After all, what is faith? According to wikipedia, “faith is a belief, trust, or confidence, not based on logic, reason, or empirical data.” If I prove to you that the Christian God exists and is the only god out there and that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus really existed and was the Son of God and yada yada yada, then where is there any room for faith? If I really, truly prove all this, then there is no way you can doubt and no way you can demonstrate any faith. After all, who needs any faith that electrons exist or that the earth revolves around the sun? It’s been proven.

So, McDowell is doing a grave disservice to the Christian Faith by trying to eliminate the need for faith. But the good news (for the Christian Faith, anyway) is that I think it totally impossible for him to succeed. Impossible for two reasons. First, I don’t think God will let him succeed because he, McDowell, is basically trying to ruin things for Him, God. Second, since faith is not based on logic, it is impossible to logically prove anything in which you have faith; if you could prove it, it wouldn’t be a matter of faith.

But that’s not all. McDowell is doing another, even more grave disservice to the Christian faith; more grave because he is succeeeding. He is succeeding in looking foolish because his “logical” arguments are anything but logical; his reasoning is anything but reasonable. But don’t take my word for it, read his book. But I’ll give a preview anyway …

Let’s examine the tough question: “Are Christians guilty of circular reasoning?” Here is a summary of his argument for proving that the Bible is God’s Word without the use of circular reasoning, i.e. without first assuming that the Bible is God’s Word:

  1. Demonstrate that the Scriptures are basically reliable and trustworthy historical documents by applying the ordinary test of historical criticism to the Scriptures.
  2. Realize that Jesus Christ claims to be the Son of God based on His forthcoming resurrection from the dead.
  3. Examine the evidence for the resurrection contained in the reliable historical document proved in #1, aka the Bible.
  4. Realize that since Jesus is God, He speaks with authority on all matters.
  5. Show that Jesus claimed the Old Testament to be the Word of God by quoting from the New Testament.
  6. Show that Jesus claimed the writers of the New Testament would be guided by the Holy Spirit in their writing the New Testament by quoting from the New Testament.
  7. Since both Old and New Testaments are from God, we can insist, with sound and accurate logic, that the Bible is God’s Word.
  8. Q.E.D.

Whew! That’s quite the proof. Each step seems to follow logically from the previous ones and he does, indeed, end up with the right answer without assuming the answer to be true. Kudos!

There are several objections I take with this proof one of which is: what does he mean by “basically reliable and trustworthy”? But I’m going to focus on one that is only a little more subtle. And that is: what does he mean by applying the “ordinary test of historical criticism” to the Scriptures? This is rather important as it’s the basis for his entire proof! I did a Google search on this phrase and came up with two hits. One of them was a site that appears to reproduce McDowell’s argument verbatim and the other uses the same line of reasoning to prove that Jesus was the Son of God. Hmmm… not much help there.

McDowell does discuss archaeology and the Bible, so maybe that will help. What he says in the answer to that “tough question” is that the Bible mentions some places and people which archaeology has verified did exist. In other words, “many biblical pasages are historically accurate.” His examples:

  • The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in some of the 15,000 tablets uncovered at Tell Mardikh.
  • Archaeological proof that a ruler named Belshazzar existed; that the Hittites had a vast empire; that King Sargon ruled; that the “matters that touch upon history in the Book of Acts are demonstrably accurate.”

Again, we’ll ignore some potential problems such as how were the cities mentioned — the way we would mention New York City or the way we would mention Atlantis — and how many, exactly, is “some” tablets. Instead we’ll continue with his answer and see where it leads.

After citing these few examples, McDowell then concludes that “the findings of archaeology have verified, and in no case disputed, historical points of the biblical record.” From this starting point, McDowell starts a short narrative during which he continuously “ups the ante” and hopes no one notices:

  1. “the findings of archaeology have verified, and in no case disputed, historical points of the biblical record.”
  2. “[archaeology] is very helpful in illustrating that many biblical passages are historically accurate.”
  3. “One cannot stress too strongly the importance of the Bible giving an accurate historical picture.”
  4. “Putting it another way, if the authors of Scripture are accurate in their accounts of the things that transpired…”

In one page — five short paragraphs — McDowell starts with “verified historical points” and ends up making comments about “accounts of the things that transpired” with no intervening justification. Just because the Bible gets a few names of people and places right, we are to trust it as a historically accurate document. Does that make sense? But he’s not done. Oh no! There’s another unjustified escalation …

  1. “it then follows that [the authors of Scripture] cannot be ruled out of court because they happen to mention things out of the ordinary.”

Wow! That’s quite a leap! Let me see if I got this figured out. Because the Bible mentions Sodom and Gomorrah and a couple rulers by name, it should not be questioned when it talks about people rising from the dead and virgin births and other “things out of the ordinary“?

While I continue scratching my head over that one, where were we and how did we get here? Oh, that’s right. We were looking at McDowell’s first premise in his proof that the Bible is the Word of God. For lack of any other explanation for the “ordinary test of historical criticism,” we shall assume he is talking about the archaeological verification of historical points of biblical record. So, with that assumption, his “proof” that the Bible is the Word of God stems entirely from the fact that the Bible mentions some verifiable people and places. Hmmm … more head scratching on that one. I know a few other books which get some historical “points” correct. Wonder if God wrote them, too?

In any case, McDowell does succeed in presenting a proof which does not employ circular reasoning. His proof, however, is very weak and the starting premise — the very foundation upon which all the other premises rely — is questionable at best. In my opinion, McDowell should stick to faith and forget the logic. Just say, “I believe the Bible is the Word of God” and leave it at that. Put the faith back in the Christian Faith!

But there’s a disadvantage with taking that stance — a loss of power. Once you give up the right to quote the Bible as a historical document that also happens to be God’s Word — which you do when you believe this on faith and don’t try to prove it — you give up the right to use the “Because The Bible Says So” defense. This means conversations with people who don’t share your faith become very difficult. No longer can you stand there and hurl Bible verses at them, parrying all their objections and arguments with Scriptural snippets. You actually have to think and perhaps draw a logical conclusion or two. You may even have to listen to them and try to understand their point of view. Worse yet, you may even be shown to be wrong! God forbid!

Is the Doctrine of the Trinity just God on purée?

Published
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Ken
on January 20, 2007
in christianity, god, religion and st. paul
. 0 Comments

I was feeding our nine month old daughter tonight and started thinking about the milk/meat analogy that Paul uses in I Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 5. Now that we have a baby, this analogy has gone to an entirely new level for me. God, I love a good analogy!

Earlier today, my wife and I were talking about whether or not to start giving our baby some finger food. You know, cereal, soft crackers, and the like. I want to but am scared to death of her choking on a bit of food. We make our own baby food and are no longer puréeing everything but are leaving it a little chunky. Every once in a while, she will try to swallow too fast or something and will start gagging a little. Nothing major and she always manages to get it down but when she does this I feel myself starting to panic.

So I started thinking about the transition from milk to meat, both the physical one with actual food and the metaphorical one with spiritual food. First of all, the transition is a slow one. No baby actually goes from drinking milk one day to eating meat the next. It takes time to work in new foods slowly. You have to be careful to not overstress the baby’s digestive system and you have to avoid creating food allergies from introducing certain things too quickly. The same thing applies with spiritual food. I think there has to be a gradual change in our spiritual diet; we have to work our way slowly from milk to meat. This means that there must be more than two categories of food. There must also be the spiritual equivalent of rice cereal and mashed sweet potatoes. Now, this also means that just because you’re not drinking the milk it does not mean that you’re ordering the holy lamb shank.

Secondly, the transition cannot progress without a little grimacing and gagging. As we introduce new foods into our daughter’s diet, invariably the first few bites give us much laughter as she shudders and shakes and contorts her mouth in reaction to the brand new flavors. But as we eat a little bit to show her how good it is and she gets used to the new tastes, she is soon eating faster than we can fill the spoon. And there will be some gagging as she eats bigger and bigger pieces. It’s just something that I have to accept as she gets used to eating. Again, there is a parallel with spiritual food. Some truths and doctrines may not seem very appetizing at first and others will be difficult to swallow. But we can’t just ignore them and rationalize our way out of taking them in. If we do that, we’ll end up eating diced peas and carrots the rest of our lives.

All this got me thinking about the Christian doctrines we have today. My guess is that anyone you talk to will probably say that these doctrines — the virgin birth, the Trinity, the historical Jesus, etc. — are spiritual “meat.” But I wonder. Just as a baby has no idea about the foods she’s not eating yet, can we really say whether our doctrines are meat or mashed taters? They may seem solid enough to cut with a knife but could they not be mashed up versions of something bigger and better but totally beyond our comprehension right now? Maybe we are still eating puréed notions of God.

tell the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but

Published
by
Ken
on January 20, 2007
in bible, christian apologetics and truth
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According to Addition Does Not a Contradiction Make on ApologeticsPress.org it is perfectly fine for the Bible to tell only part of the truth. It’s ok to leave out a few details here and there. Well, I say, “That’s kooky talk!”

Given the authority that the Christian apologist claims the Bible has (you know, being the The Word of God and all) I think it only reasonable that the Bible be held to the same standards to which we hold witnesses in our courts of law. After all, the Bible is effectively a “witness” for God, right? So, the Bible should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Let’s look at one of the scenarios in the aforementioned article as it would take place on Perry Mason. I think you’ll agree that John doesn’t come off as a very credible witness.

That other lawyer who always loses: “And as you said in your statement to the police, who was at the tomb that Sunday morning?”

John: “Mary Magdalene.”

That other lawyer who always loses: “No more questions.”

Perry Mason: “Isn’t it true that there was another Mary at the tomb that day?”

John: “Uh, yes.”

Perry Mason: “And this ‘other Mary’, isn’t it true that it was, in fact, Mary the mother of James?”

John: “Yes. Yes it was.”

Perry Mason: “And isn’t it also true that Salome was there, too!”

John: “Well … yes. Yes, she was.”

Perry Mason: “And isn’t it also true that Joanna was there! Isn’t it true that there were at least four women at the tomb that day!”

John: “Well … … yes.”

Perry Mason: “Why did you not tell the police this? What were you hiding? How many women were really there? Five? Ten? A Hundred?”

That other lawyer who always loses: “Objection! Badgering the witness.”

Perry Mason: “Withdrawn.”

… Rationalize, Perjurize, and Anathemize

Published
by
Ken
on January 20, 2007
in bible, christian fundamentalism, christianity, god, hell, jesus, judging others, religion, religious pluralism and st. paul
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This is the second in a series of posts that began here. When we last left our intrepid Christian — defender of the one, true Jesus — she was not sleeping too well because of the constant, nagging fear that she should be doing more to spread the name of Jesus throughout the world. How else would poor, hopeless souls find their way to Heaven and avoid the eternal torment of Hell? And how could her God, a God of love, send so many to Hell just because they were born at the wrong time and in the wrong place? Shouldn’t there be some way for them to change their destiny?

Then she went to church and her faith in her God was restored because of what she heard. For her pastor was preaching from Romans 1:18-21

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Whew! Our intrepid Christian sighs a great sigh of relief. All is well with her faith in her all-loving God. For, as her pastor so eloquently relays to her, God has nothing to do with all those souls going to Hell. It seems that they have known about Him the whole time and have made a conscious decision to reject Him. So, of course, they deserve the eternal damnation they are about to receive.

Paul tells us that both God and the Christian are absolved of all responsibility for anyone going to Hell because, from the beginning, God’s “invisible attributes … have been clearly seen.” Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? Invisible attributes … clearly seen … how could I have been so blind? Through nature, i.e. “what has been made”, God has made Himself evident to everyone and “they know God” but do “not honor Him as God.” So, everyone — no matter when or where they were born — can know God and know Him as God.

Well, this does seem evident to me. Afterall, how many cultures have gods derived from nature? There are sun gods, moon goddesses, gods of the harvest, gods of war, goddesses of fertility, gods of wine. After all, religion is one of the things that make us humans human, right?

One problem is that, in practice, this really doesn’t work out the way Paul says it can. When was the last time you heard a missionary speak at your church’s annual Missionary Convention (you have one of those, right?) and give the following report:

“We bushwacked through the jungle into the remotest part of the country, to a place where no outsider had ever been, and stumbled upon a small tribe of natives who were holding a baptism service in which they were baptizing ‘in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’. They then recited the Lord’s Prayer, said the Apostle’s Creed, and held an alter call for the neighboring tribes after which the pastor started hut-to-hut visitation to minister to the shut-ins.”

This may sound silly, but think about what it would take for someone you didn’t know anything about to convince you that their religion was the same as your religion. And let’s say that they didn’t go to church or have a copy of The Bible? Without those two things, would it even be remotely possible?

The second problem we saw in the previous post. Just believing in God is apparently not enough. You have to get from God to Jesus. And not just any Jesus but The Jesus of The Bible. This part is not mentioned here by Paul. They could have a virgin-born-son-of-a-god miracle-working tree-crucified rose-from-the-dead god-man and it still wouldn’t be close enough to The Bible’s Jesus to get them into Heaven.

Furthermore, this is being written by a man who spoke directly to Jesus and not from a man who actually found the “right” God from nature. In fact, I know of no one mentioned in the Bible — Old or New Testaments — who found God from nature. Everyone either spoke directly to God/Jesus or heard about God/Jesus from someone else. Please correct me if I’m wrong, here.

So, all this “God is evident from nature” is either a rationalization to make us feel better about God and about ourselves for not “getting out there” more or it is a flat out lie. Either way, it allows us to anathemize the “poor souls” so their ending up in Hell doesn’t seem quite so bad. Plus, we can all sleep better at night, feeling safe and secure in the loving arms of our loving God and knowing that those in Hell have no one to blame but themselves.

But wait … and stay tuned …

Circular Reasoning Always Proves Your Point

Published
by
Ken
on January 15, 2007
in charles ryrie, christianity, logic, quotes and religion
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A brief digression for more “Pearls of Logic” from C. C. Ryrie.

From the Introduction to the First Letter of Paul to Timothy:

Some have questioned whether Paul himself wrote these letters … There is no argument against Pauline authorship that does not have a reasonable answer. And, of course, the letters themselves claim to have been written by Paul. (Emphasis mine)

From A Synopsis of Bible Doctrine:

The Bible is self-authenticating and church councils have only recognized the authority inherent in the books themselves. (Emphasis mine)

Need I say more????