Why trust the Bible, according to the Bible

1. History doesn't contradict it, and often confirms it

"when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken" (Deut 18:22)

Under this heading comes most standard apologetics: historical evidences (archeological findings, history of manuscripts), fulfilled prophecies, how the Bible convincingly explains human nature (selfishness, dignity, longing for more etc) and personal testimony (i.e. the Bible says it brings new life and it does - look at the church).

2. It encourages our worship of God in Christ alone

"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams." (Deut 13:1-3; cf. 1 John 4:2, 12:3)

God says through Moses that the historical evidence is not enough for something to be God's word. Evidential apologetics only gets you so far. The ultimate question is: does it speak of the real Jesus?

For my earlier and different thoughts on the same passages (!) see here.

Proofs for the existence of God

C. Stephen Evans explains why there is a difference between proving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster and God:

Religious belief is presumed to be not innocent, but guilty until proven otherwise. Unless we can prove God's existence we must refrain from believing.

People who think like this imagine the religious situation to be something like the following: Suppose you are having an argument with someone over how many species of animals there are. Both of you agree that there are many species-cats, dogs, cows, and so on. You, however, believe in one species which your opponent does not believe in, say, the species of monsters residing in the Loch Ness. Your opponent claims that the burden of proof is on you if you want to believe in such monsters. Without strong positive evidence you would do better to refrain from believing in the Loch Ness monster.

Perhaps in this situation the burden of proof would be on you to come up with evidence for your belief. Perhaps if that evidence is less than conclusive, it would be wiser to suspend or withhold judgment. After all, we don't usually believe in monsters if we have no evidence of their reality. But belief in God is not at all comparable to belief in such a monster.

One important difference is that the Loch Ness monster is merely "one more thing." The two people that disagree about the monster agree about all the other animals. God, however, is not merely "one more thing." The person who believes in God and the person who does not believe in God do not merely disagree about God. They disagree about the very character of the universe. The believer is convinced that each and every thing exists because of God and God's creative activity. The unbeliever is convinced that natural objects exist "on their own," without any ultimate reason or purpose for being. In this situation there are no neutral "safe" facts all parties are agreed on, with one party believing some additional "risky facts." Rather, each side puts forward a certain set of facts and denies its opponents' alleged facts. There is risk on both sides.

A second important difference between the case of God and the case of the Loch Ness monster is that religious beliefs imply something fundamental about how life should be lived. Insofar as religious beliefs embody themselves in actions, suspending judgment is not possible. Even if it were possible to suspend judgment intellectually, it would by no means enable a person to avoid risk. It is clear that the faith of the religious believer and the faith of the atheist are equally risky. It is hard to see why any special burden of proof falls on the religious believer.

(pp.21-22, Why Believe? Reason and Mystery as pointers to God)

Evans is a Kierkegaard scholar, and this seems to echo the Dane's own thought:

The idea of proving the existence of God is of all things the most ridiculous. Either he exists, and then one cannot prove it (no more than I can prove that a certain human being exists; the most I can do is to let something testify to it, but then I presuppose existence) - or he does not exist, and then it cannot be proved at all.

Pointing out that 'it is generally a difficult matter to want to demonstrate that something exists', Climacus prefers the opposite approach:

Therefore, whether I am moving in the world of sensate palpability or in the world of thought, I always draw conclusions from existence, not to existence. For example, I do not demonstrate that a stone exists but that something which exists is a stone. The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists but that the accused, who does indeed exist, is a criminal

(pp.55-56, Sylvia Walsh, Kierkegaard: Thinking Christianly in an existential mode)

Therefore, while it may be unjustifiable to ask whether God the Son exists, we can ask whether Jesus is God the Son. We, and the First Century Jews knew who God is through the Old Testament and through nature. Jesus showed that he was God the Creator and the God of Israel by his power and his love. He fitted, at least if you listened. I think this is what Peter Jensen (?) means by Christology from within [the Biblical narrative], rather than above or below.

Responding to atheist morality

Christian responses to things like Alain de Botton's 10 Commandments - for Atheists usually focus on questioning the source of the morality. For example:

• Authority: Who says? Without a god, on what objective basis can you say people must be moral? Ultimately, the Atheist's authority is only their word.
• Motivation: Why bother? Theist's motivation is love for their lover, gratitude to a giver or fear of a punisher. Ultimately, the atheist's motivation is all selfgenerated.
• Power: Who can? The Christian will point to the Holy Spirit's enabling through Christ and the church. Ultimately the atheist can only rely on him/herself.

There is a lot of value to questioning atheist morality at its source, but you can also focus on the telos of atheist law.

Whether atheist or religious, law only ends up in two places:

• Guilt for failing to live up to the standard. Not just felt guilt (which not everyone may feel keenly), but real guilt.
• Suffering due to failing to live up to the standard. All moral failure hurts someone, or something in this world.

Jesus can be found in both those places. He lived out Alain de Botton's commandments, Moses' and yours - better than you could imagine. But he is also in the place of guilt and suffering. Before we get up in the morning and tie our moral bootstraps to walk out the door into the world he is in that place, bearing the weight of both guilt and suffering. He's there bringing an end to both the guilt and the suffering, and the law itself, for us.

One way I think this forward orientation may help in engaging atheist moralists is that it follows the direction of travel. Rather than going against the grain and pulling the atheist back to the source, it is accepting of the truth in atheist morality but goes with it to the end.

Any thoughts?

David Attenborough's problem with evil

Someone says: ‘I believe a God of infinite mercy created every single species and the Lord looks after us and all the animals.’ Well, what about that little African boy, five years old, sitting on the banks of a river, and he’s got a worm in his eye that’s going to turn him blind in three years? Did this God that you talk about actually design this worm and say: ‘I’ll put it in this boy’s eye?’ To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see.

(Metro interview with David Attenborough, 29 January 2013)

This is what I wanted to say to David Attenborough on my commute this morning:

1. I don't know how God can be both loving and sovereign over that African boy's plight*.

2. This is how I know that he must be:

• God the Father has always loved God the Son. From eternity past and without change he has been pouring his love out on his Son and he always will. That is who God is and if he ceased to do that he would cease to be who he is - God the Father.
• God the Father sent his Son to die in agony, abandoned by his friends and abandoned (but still loved) by the Father he had spent eternity with.
• God the Father did not do that because he loved someone or something more than his Son. He did it to glorify (John 17:1) and bring joy (Heb 12:2) to his Son who loved his world and his church.

So God's love and God's bringing humans to places of suffering are not incompatible. We've seen that in Jesus of Nazerth, the Son of God. Therefore, it is rational (in the same way that empircal science is rational) to believe God when he promises us that:

• He has always loved us;
• He has planned for us all to suffer and die; and
• He does that because he wants to bring us joy and glory.

* can someone help me remember where I read a quote somewhere recently? It said something like: "we can argue whether God permitted, allowed, purposed, or caused something, but the fact is 'God...'". Dorothy Sayers maybe?

Because it is true

"The Christian faith is not true because it works; it works because it is true. It is not true because we experience it; we experience it - deeply and gloriously - because it is true. It is not simply "true for us"; it is true for any who seek in order to find"

(p.79, Os Guiness, Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype, and Spin [Thanks to Ed Shaw])

Why does God allow suffering?

The job of the Christian apologist is to make that question harder to answer, not easier.

Discuss.

Suffering in this world (and the next) is more horrible than you think, God is more powerful over evil than you can conceive and he is more loving towards you than you can imagine. So... "My God, why have you forsaken me?"

Michael Ots - What Kind of God?

Micahel Ots has written a wonderful book called What Kind of God?: Responding to 10 popular accusations. I highly recommend it. I have just come across these youtube videos of him preaching through most of the chapters of the book.

• What kind of God doesn't make himself clear?
• What kind of God is still relevant?
• What kind of God doesn't stop suffering?
• What kind of God allows violence in his name?
• What kind of God has only one way?
• What kind of God limits my sexuality?
• What kind of God sends sincere people to hell?
• What kind of God would send his son to die?

What is man that you are mindful of him?

Dawkins asks:

"Why should a divine being with creation and eternity on his mind, care a fig for petty human malefactions?" (p. 238, The God Delusion)

Maybe he'd be surprised that David asked a similar question:

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:3-4)

The differences between the two include:

• Dawkins has an attitude of contempt, but David has an attitude of wonder.
• Dawkins presumes that if he can't answer the question then it is probably unanswerable, David doesn't.
• Dawkins asks the question of his readers, David comes to God with his question and looks to him for his answer.

The blind men and the elephant

It is such a famous story to illustrate religious pluralism that it has its own wikipedia page.

I've heard two problems with the story which people have pointed out to me:

1. It is told from the perspective of the one man who can see

"In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant… the real point of the story is constantly overlooked. The story is told from the point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of part of it. The story is constantly told in order to neutralize the affirmations of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth. But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite. If the king were also blind, there would be no story. What this means then is that there is an appearance of humility and a protestation that the truth is much greater than anyone of us can grasp. But if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth, it is in fact an arrogant claim with the kind of knowledge which is superior that you have just said, no religion has." (p. 9, Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

2. The elephant is passive

It presumes that we are on a quest to find a 'God' who is doing nothing to make himself known. Gloriously the truth is that God speaks while the elephant remains silent, pursues us rather than waiting to be found and opens our eyes to see him.

with thanks to my housemate

Random stuff on evolution

I've been listening and reading to lots of Christian views on evolution recently. There are two things that frustrate me about most of them.

Firstly, that they seem to focus on whether generic theism is compatible with evolution. Unfortunately that is comparitively easy compared to the question about whether evolution is compatible with the teaching of the Bible. In my opinion, Alvin Plantinga in this excellent series of articles from 1991 asks the best questions and comes up with the best answers.

I have a soft spot for Alvin, after reading just a few pages of his writing helped me a massive amount when I was doubting the reality of God more than any point in my Christian life. He has helped me a lot again, not least in arguing that there is nothing wrong with being an agnostic on the question:

"Hasker apparently believes that if I reject [The Theory of Common Ancestery] as improbable, then (if I am proceeding properly) I must be prepared to suggest and endorse some other view of the same specificity or same logical strength as TCA. Now at first glance, anyway, that seems wrong. I think Cardinal X will be the next Pope; you think that is unlikely, but don't have a candidate of your own; there is no one such that you think it is more likely than not that he will be the next pope. Is there something wrong with your procedure? I think not."

My favourite quotation from all my reading so far has been from him too:

"accepting the view that evolution is certain is itself adaptive for life in graduate school and academia generally."

Nice.

The second thing that frustrates me is how often Christians retreat to something very similar to the non-overlapping Magesteria Dawkins criticises in The God Delusion. Many Christian responses to evolution seem to fit right into the nature/grace dualism, Schaeffer, and before him, Bavinck criticised (HT Leithart):

“The sharpness of this contrast between natural and supernatural runs the grave risk of dualistically separating (supernatural) revelation from creation and nature. Special revelation should never be separated from its organic connection to history, the world, and humanity. Stated theologically, the religious antithesis should be between grace and sin and not between grace and nature.” On nature/grace premises, “What is distinctively Christian is . . . identified with and restricted to the ecclesiastical; for the world to be influenced in a Christian direction it needs to submit to the domination of the church. The nature/grace dualism also fuels the opposite of world dominaton. . . . Special revelation is not seen as entering into the fabric of the world and humanity but as floating outside and above it....

The Reformation revolted against this worldview. . . . The reality of the incarnation militates against any nature/grace dualism; the gospel is not hostile to the world as creation but to the world under the dominion of sin, the alien element that has insinuated itself into the world. Revelation and creation are not opposed to each other, for creation itself is a revelation. . . . The Reformation sought a Christianity that was hostile, not to nature but only to sin, and had a reforming and sanctifying effect upon natural life as a whole, including the world of culture, society, and politics. In the Reformation the adage came into its own: nature commends grace; grace emends nature.”

Evolution and the Bible - preliminary thoughts

Listening to: Sufjan Stevens: Illonois

I'm involved in a continuing discussion with a colleague who is also studying a Biology degree. I am bit at sea in our discussions, and as such probably confirming all her worst suspicions about Christians - although she is a very nice person, so maybe she's being more charitable to me than I deserve. Among other things it has forced me to think over what I actually believe about the Creation Narrative and Evolution - a question I've put on the back burner for years.

I would greatly appreciate criticisms on this marking post for my thinking at the moment, and pointers for other directions to consider. Please don't give it any weight in your own thinking on this matter.

With thanks in anticipation, here are my thoughts so far:

1. Richard Dawkins is right to criticise Christians who close their eyes to the world and do not see the beauty and challenges that science reveals.
2. Richard Dawkins is right to criticise the concept of Non-overlapping magisteria. There is overlap because God is the Creator and still creating. However, there there is not complete overlap between Biblical knowledge and Scientific knowledge. It is best to speak of partially overlapping magisteria which inform one another over their whole range of knowledge. Christianity is rooted in God's historical acts, but science proceeds on the basis of Christian presuppositions (leaning on Polanyi, Newbigin, Torrance, Gunton, Lewis and Plantinga).
3. Quantum theory and postmodernism teach that the answers you get are determined by the questions you ask. There is truth, although only partial truth in this. The theory of Evolution is the answer to the question "how could life have developed in a world where God is uninvolved?" Having said that, it is difficult to know how science could answer the simpler question: "how has life developed?".
4. The philosophy put forward by popularisers of science seems unable to deal with 'the one and the many'. Often it seems to drift to 'the one' and put forward some kind of pantheism where there is no distinction between humans and animals, and our purpose is derived entirely from the whole. Less palatabley it emphasises 'the many' and suggests we are all out for ourselves, each trying to enjoy life while it lasts with no purpose outside of our own existence. Trinitarian Christian theology is much better at doing justice to both the one and the many and relating them together (no doubt Colin Gunton would say something better).
5. Evolution explains how life develops but doesn't explain how life began.
6. The distinction between macro and micro evolution is not in the Bible and not in science.
7. The biggest problem I can see with an old earth from a Biblical point of view is that the Bible seems to teach as foundational that the universe was not always marked by death and decay.
8. I just don't understand how Intelligent Design is any different from the God of the Gaps.
9. John Walton is a gifted speaker. I think he is right that Genesis is more concerned with the creating of function than creating of material, but it would be wrong to say that it is only concerned with the creating of function. Which then leaves the question of what Genesis is saying about the creating of material (not 'how much it is saying about the creating of material').
10. Naturalistic evolution is self-refuting (as Lewis and Plantinga have argued).
11. What does it mean to "know nothing except Christ crucified" in this discussion?

Reasonable faith

faith...is no blind leap in the dark. Far from it. The Bible teaches that faith is an exercise of reasonable trust in a God who is really there and has proved himself to be completely trustworthy. In fact, it would be utterly unreasonable and irrational not to trust in someone who has proved himself to be infinitely dependable. The whole Bible bears witness to the reality that God has been, is now, and will always be truthful and worthy of our trust. We may not always understand what God is doing or why he is doing it, but we have no good reason to doubt him.

(p.73, Do I Know God?, Tullian Tchividjian)

Presenting the moral argument for Christianity

Why be good?

The objective existence of a good creator means there is a universal meaning of goodness.

What kind of good?

God, pre-eminently in Jesus in his cross-centred mission to the world, as a demonstration of what good is.

How is it possible to be good?

The Gospel as the only way in which change can happen so that people become consistently good.

[Seems a good structure for presenting the moral argument in it's fullness - inspired by Michael Green's approach]

Escapism

I've been dipping into a old book by Michael Green called Runaway World. Very stimulating and well written. He explains that to many people:

Christianity is the religious man's form of escaping from reality; it is his private way of 'getting away from it all'.

I believe this charge to be largely though not entirely false. Certainly we live in a runaway world, but for the most part it is not the Christians who are running away from reality. We have our escapists in the churches, no doubt. But this book is written in the conviction that the Christian faith itself is the very antithesis of escapism. It provides us with the most credible account of the universe and man's place in it, with the motive and the dynamic for serving our fellow men, with the ability to face the harshest of situations with realism, and with a message of urgent relevance to the many who suspect Christians of escapism but are themselves running away from truth. The issue before us in this book resolves itself into this question: 'Who are the escapists?'

The chapter titles are:

1. Running away from history
2. Running away from science
3. Running away from reality
4. Running away from adventure
5. Running away from Christ

In each chapter he explains the charge that people level at Christians and shows how Christianity in comparison to many other worldviews is actually the least guilty of that charge.

It is the first time I've read a Michael Green book and I love his style, approach, knowledge and heart. It won't be the last.

Sadly, it is out of print, it assumes too much knowledge for many, and is very of-its-time, so is not the kind of book you can give away (feast your eyes on the cover). But someone else loved it enough to put online (probably illegally but I suspect Michael Green doesn't mind) so you can read it if you like.

I mention it because I think this is really good apologetics. Escapism along with immorality are two of the biggest charges people level against Christianity in my experience. Engaging with the questions and acknowledging their weight, turning the questions back on the questioner, and presenting Christ as an answer of truth and beauty seems the way to respond.

What about a loving follower of another religion?

Imagine a husband who gives gifts to his wife out of love for her. How should the wife respond?

What if she praises and thanks a male colleague at work for giving her the gifts, even though he had nothing to do with them?

Imagine she goes further and has an affair with this man. A man who has never given her anything, but is only taking advantage of her 'availability'. There may be loads of good things about how she relates to this man, thankfulness, love and respect are all admirable qualities, but she is giving them to entirely the wrong person.

Before long reality will hit home for her. She will be miserable in this relationship that offers her nothing and her husband will be justifiably angry for her behaviour.

But imagine the husband offers to take her back. You would marvel at the depth and quality of the love willing to overlook what has happened.

Longing for an advocate

How many times do we speak to people who are not yet Christians about how they long to be loved, and point out how that longing can be satisfied in God?

But I was struck by the passing comment in this video, that we all have a longing not just to be loved and told that we're loved, but for the person who loves us to tell the world that they love us.

Jesus is our great advocate to his Father and he is also our great advocate to the world when he comes again to reveal us to be the Father's beloved sons and to declare us to be his beloved bride.

Incidentally this shows that justification is at the heart of the Gospel of relational love - it is not just a one metaphor among many.

Everything bears the stamp of the hidden God

"What can be seen on earth indicates neither total absence, nor the manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this stamp."

(Blaise Pascal, Pensees, cited in p.35, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

I don't think that Pascal intended it, but that chimes with a Lutheran approach to natural theology (esp. if you understand the Lutheran concept of "the Hidden God".

The right kind of certainty

Lesslie Newbigin finds in 2 Timothy 1:12 the right kind of certainty that Christians should have about their faith:

"I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me."

He observes that there three aspects of this kind of certainty:

1. Certainty rests not in the competence of my knowledge, but in the faithfulness of the one whom I know.
2. It is something in via. I don't possess it. I am on my way to it. I am looking forward to that day when it will be fully known to me.
3. It is a matter of grace ("What has entrusted to me")

Apologetics in Galatians

Paul in Galatians spends roughly the first half of Galatians explaining how his Gospel is true, and the second half how it is morally good.

So the first half of Galatians speaks to the agnosticism of our culture that thinks we cannot know the truth of God. Following Kant (?) most people I know think that it is impossible for us to know anything for certain about God. As naturalists they believe we live in a closed natural system where it is impossible for us to believe God has spoken or worked miracles. So given that it is impossible for us to know anything about God, it is permissible to believe anything about God but never permissible to be certain about it. The critique of the Bible you hear from people you meet is that it is just human opinion, and as such has no more weight than the speculation of any other human. In response to this I don’t think it is best to simply assert that we can’t avoid absolute truth in religious statements, instead it is better to FIRST admit that our culture is right that if the Bible is just human opinions then we shouldn’t say that the Gospel is absolute truth. THEN, as Paul does in the first few chapters of Galatians, demonstrate the Gospel is “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” so we can be certain of it’s truthfulness.

The second half of Galatians speaks to the belief that religious certainty breeds hate and events like 9/11. In fact, Paul actually anticipates the concerns of postmodern pragmatic-pluralists who believe that claims to absolute truth tend to be power-plays which end up in division. He shows the judaizer’s false gospel is a form slavery, which they only preach so that the Galatians “may make much of them” and they can “boast in [the Galatians] flesh” (4:17; 6:13). Not only that, but as it is only the true Gospel that brings the Spirit and the Spirit’s fruit, any false gospel we come across will only lead to “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, [and] divisions” (5:20). So freedom from oppression and moral goodness are key concerns of Paul that overlap with our pluralist culture, but he would criticise pluralism as a false gospel that oppresses people and fractures society as much as any other worldview. So again, with Paul, we can FIRST agree that claims to absolute truth tend to be both oppressive and divisive. THEN as Paul does, show how the Gospel is unique in bringing freedom as well as the motivation and power to love our neighbour and bear one another’s burdens (5:14; 6:2).

Testing claims to revelation

How can we know that the Bible is a true revelation of God?

1. It is consistent with what we already know to be true

"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams." (Deuteronomy 13:1-3)

For the non-Christian they should come to see that the message of the Bible makes sense of what they already know, and integrates with the knowledge we have already gained about science, history, morality etc. That is not to say that it should not transform how we understand what we already know, and question whether we really knew something to be true in the first place, but we are not inviting people to enter a dream world.

If like me you have recently been challenged by Mormons asking why the Book of Mormon could not also be revelation from God, then at least one thing you would want to ask is: does the Book of Mormon agree with the beating heart of the Bible which we already know to be true? In it's denial of Christ alone, I had to say the answer was 'no'.

2. What it warns and promises does happen

"if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken" (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

In line with this type of evidence standard Christian apologetic would point to OT prophecies fulfilled in Christ, but not go much further. However, I would say this is one the most important evidences there is.

When Jesus says that people will know the truth of the Gospel by the lives disciples lived, when Paul tells the Galatians that they know they have heard the truth because they received the Holy Spirit, and when 1 John says to his readers that they know they received the truth from him if they love their brothers, the evidence is this one. The Gospel promises to bring salvation, and that salvation breaks into our life in healings and other miracles, but most of all in the new life of supernatural loving service for one another and love for God.

So actually the transformed lives of people (whether drug-addicted convicts, middle-class doctors or persecutors of the church) is testimony to the truth of the Gospel. It is objective and we can raise it with confidence, although to some people resurrection life will actually look like death rather than life, but if so then they are not then rejecting the evidence but the promise (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).