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Ten Questions Christians Can’t Answer | Part III

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7) If you believe the creation account in Genesis is allegorical, they why don’t you treat Paul’s epistles in the same way since he references the creation account in Genesis as historical?

Paul uses the fact of creation throughout his epistles. Here are some examples:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Heb 11;3)

Since the person posing the question in this instance isn’t specific about which verses he’s referencing, it’s difficult to know what exactly he’s referring to. Typically, however, the difficulty with the Creation account is whether or not God completed everything in six literal days. Did He create the heavens and the earth in less than a week, or is a “day” nothing more than a literary device describing a timeframe that may have been significantly longer than 24 hours?

Fact is, there’s a great deal of compelling evidence that suggests the earth is not as old as some in the scientific community would have you believe (click here for more reading on that topic). The bottom line is that carbon dating and other traditionally accepted methods of dating fossils etc. are based on the assumption that the observable conditions of the earth have remained unchanged since the very beginning of time. Indeed, the atmospheric conditions were not necessarily the same, which means that carbon dating is not necessarily absolute.

While some calibration can be made in order to accommodate the atmospheric anomalies that may have been present at the time, those kind of distinctions can only be identified by whatever may have been documented. In other words, outside the context of recorded history, you have a very subjective landscape to navigate when it comes to dating articles of antiquity beyond a certain point.

On the other hand, when you compare Genesis 1:27 which says that God created both Adam and Eve on the sixth day, to Genesis 2, it looks like the sixth day either had a great deal of activity packed into the daylight hours, or you have more time built into the term “day.”

Our culture is steeped in the notion that we inhabit a planet that is billions of years old. It’s a convenient thought in that you now have a theoretically comfortable timeframe to accommodate natural selection and the fortuitous evolution of life as we know it. While there is a fascinating amount of research that’s been done in terms of dating the earth according to a purely biblical model, which suggests that the earth is nowhere near as old as the champions of evolutionary theory would have our grade school classrooms believe, for the sake of this conversation the only pertinent Truth that needs to be affirmed is the fact that God did, in fact, create the universe.

However one wants to interpret Genesis and the age of the earth, the priority here, as far as the way in which Paul refers to creation, is to simply reinforce the fact that God was the Creative Force behind the origin of the cosmos and that is not allegory, that is the literal Truth.

8) How many donkeys did Jesus ride in His triumphal entry in Jerusalem? Was it one like Mark, Luke and John say, or was it two donkeys like Matthew says?

Matthew 21:2 says:

saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.

Mark 11:2, Luke 28:30 and John 12:14-15 only mention one donkey. Jesus wasn’t straddling two donkeys as much as it was Matthew simply mentioning what constituted a complete picture of the prophecy articulated in Zechariah 9:9:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zec 9:9)

Chances are excellent since the foal had never been ridden before, let alone paraded around in front a large and noisy crowd, having the mother lead the foal for the sake of psychological support would’ve been a logical move. Dr. Gleason Archer says as much:

The Zechariah passage does not actually specify that the parent donkey would figure in the triumphal entrance; it simply describes the foal as “the son of a she-ass” by way of poetic parallelism. But Matthew contributes the eyewitness observation (and quite possibly neither Mark nor Luke were eyewitnesses as Matthew was) that the mother actually preceded Jesus in that procession that took Jesus into the Holy City. Here agin, then, there is no real contradiction between the synoptic account but only added detail on the part of Matthew as on who viewed the event while it was happening.1

So, the gospel writers do not conflict with one another as much as Matthew is simply providing more detail.

9) Based on the genealogies for Matthew and Luke, who was Joseph’s father?

Luke follows the genealogy of Mary whereas Matthew follows the genealogy of Joseph. Jesus was the legal descendant of Solomon (Matthew’s genealogy [Joseph]) and a blood relative of Nathan (Luke’s genealogy [Mary]). The confusion is clarified when you take the verbiage of Luke 3:23 into consideration.

Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, (Lk 3:23)

Luke is qualifying the list he’s getting ready to enumerate by stating up front that, while it was customary to trace a person’s lineage through the line of the father, the virgin birth represents a special situation. Hence the emphasis on Mary. That fact is further reinforced when you consider the original Greek and notice how Luke doesn’t say that Heil “begat” Joseph. Rather, he was Joseph’s father in law.

Joseph was begotten by Jacob, and was his natural son (Matt 1:16). He could be the legal son of Heli, therefore, only by marriage with Heil’s daughter (Mary) and be reckoned so according to law. It does not say “begat” in the case of Heli.2

10) Was Jesus crucified on the first day of Passover, like the gospel of John says? Or the next day like the other three gospels say?

The confusion stems from John 19:14 where it says:

Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he *said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!”  (Jn 19:14 [NASB][emphasis added]) 

Matthew 27:62-63 says:

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir, ” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ (Matt 27:62-63)

Mark 15:42-43 says:

It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (Mark 15:42-43)

Luke refers to the day that Jesus died in the 24th chapter when he says:

It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. (Lk 23:54)

“Preparation Day” was the day before the Sabbath, which was a Saturday. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was often  referred to as “Passover” because of the way the Passover meal served as the opening ceremony for the Feast.3 So, when John uses the term “day of preparation for the Passover,” he’s not referring to the day before the Passover meal, he’s referring to the day before the Sabbath of Passover week (Feast of Unleavened Bread). The NCV rendering of the verse makes that fact more evident:

14It was about noon on Preparation Day of Passover week. Pilate said to the crowd, “Here is your king!” (Jn 19:14 [NCV][emphasis added])

In addition, John uses the Greek word “paraskeue” to define the day, which by that point was a technical term that referred to the “day of preparation” for the Sabbath.4 Remember, the Sabbath for the Jew is Saturday and not Sunday. Sunday would later be embraced as the “Lord’s Day” in that it was the day Jesus rose from the grave. So, given everything we’ve now considered, John’s account is consistent with all of the other gospel writers. Jesus was crucified on a Friday and the Last Supper happened on the evening before which was Thursday.

Conclusion

G.K. Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Many of the critics that circulate their jabs at Christianity on the internet occupy a philosophical position that refuses to concede the Reality of a Power and an Intellect that they cannot understand and / or agree with.  Their attacks are necessary in order to maintain a distance between themselves and a worshipful demeanor which they refuse to buy into. They have found it “difficult” and decided to deny its substance. It’s healthy to be able to respond to questions and attacks, but the nature of these kind of conversations goes beyond a mere intellectual exchange. It is a spiritual contest that has to be engaged in a way that’s consistent with Scripture:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. (2 Cor 10:4)

Know what you believe and why you believe it. Pop the hood on the Word of God and be capable of defending it (1 Pet 3:15). And remember too, that oftentimes there’s a bigger picture that you want to expose. Squabbling over the number and the identity of the women who were at the tomb on the morning of Christ’s resurrection is subordinate to the fact that the tomb was empty. Arguing over the amount of time it took for God to create the heavens and the earth is secondary to the fact that God did, in fact, create the heavens and the earth. Dismissing the whole of Scripture because Matthew references both the donkey and its foal, whereas the other gospel writers mention only the foal, is like arguing over whether or not someone paid a ten dollar invoice using exact change or a twenty dollar bill.

The fact is, the debt was paid.

The details of Scripture are important, but you don’t ever want to become so absorbed in the minutia of the gospel that you overlook the fact that there’s a tomb out there that was occupied at one point that is now empty. And that empty grave is the Signature of One Who didn’t claim to be a mere messenger of God, but God Incarnate.

There will always be a critic and there will always be a situation where, regardless of how sound your reasoning may be, the spiritual elements that are involved will always see to it that “revelation” will remain seemingly inconsistent with logic (1 Cor 2:12). That’s not a cue to be less than compelling with your argument. But it’s not an argument that will influence a soul, it’s only the Power and the grace of God that makes the difference (John 6:65; 1 Cor 1:18).

Again, you don’t want to hide behind a “faith based perspective” that comes across as a decision made despite the facts, but rather as a decision made in light of the facts. Be ready to either answer the question being posed, or be ready to direct them to the myriad of resources that provide the science and the literary tools that address their quandary. But be sensitive to the fact that the moment the Name of Jesus is spoken, you’re no longer contending with purely academic themes. The parameters have been expanded and the stakes have been dramatically increased. You can be as compelling and as accurate as you want and still be found wanting. Not because of the substance of your argument, but because of the implications represented by your argument.

Should God be perceived as credible, it’s no longer a debate. Now it’s a soul-altering encounter and the forces referenced in Ephesians 6:12 will do everything they can to prevent that kind of dynamic.

So, be ready, but be wise and not just smart. It’s the Power of God in you that makes the difference and ensures that the outcome of your exchange is not just a willingness to agree with what’s in the Bible, but a desire to submit to the One Who authored it.

1. “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties”, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 1982, p334
2. “The Companion Bible”, E.W. Bullinger, http://www.heavendwellers.com/38%20Luke%201427-1509.pdf, accessed on May 19, 2015
3. Feast of Unleavened Bread..Passover. “Passover” was used in two different different ways: (1) a specific meal begun at twilight on the 14th of Nisan (Lev 23:4-5), and (2) the week following the Passover meal (Eze 45:21), otherwise know as the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a week in which no leaven was allowed (Ex 12:15-20; 13:3-7). By NT times the two names for  the week-long festival were vitally interchangeable. (NIV Text Note: “NIV Study Bible”, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1985, p1582)
4. “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties”, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 1982, p375

Ten Questions Christians Can’t Answer | Part II

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This is Part II of “Ten Questions Christians Can’t Answer” – a response to a video on youtube that suggests that the questions being posed can’t be adequately responded to by believers. What follows demonstrates that such is not the case.

Here we go…!

6) When Jesus rose for the grave, how many women went to the tomb and which ones?

The gospel writers reference several women, both at the tomb as well as at the foot of the cross. Matthew 27:55 says that there were “many women” standing at a distance from the cross as Jesus was dying. Luke doesn’t ever name any of the women, he just refers to them as “the women” (Lk 23:49, 55). And with the exception of Mary Magdalene, Matthew, Mark and John reference either different women or use different descriptions to identify those who were there.

If Matthew’s “mother of James and Joses” is John’s “wife of Clopas” and the woman John describes as “Mary’s sister” is the woman Mark calls “Salome,” you’ve got a total of four women and it looks like this:

 The Women at the Cross (each color represents one particular woman that’s described differently by the gospel writers)
verse Mary (Jesus’ mother) Mary Magdalene Mary, wife of Clopas Mary, mother of James and Joses Mary’s sister mother of Zebedee’s sons Salome
Matt 27:56 ✔ ✔ ✔
Mk 15:40 ✔ ✔ ✔
Jn 19:25 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

While you have four different accounts, at no time does Matthew or John state that the women they reference were the only ones present, they simply chose to acknowledge a particular person or persons. Same thing with Mark. He only lists three, but he doesn’t qualify his trio to the point where he rules out the possible presence of other women.

Bottom line is we don’t know for certain who all was there, all we can do is connect the dots as they appear in Scripture. We can be confident that Mary’s mother was there along with Mary Magdalene. As far as the other two Mary’s and Salome, all we do is speculate as to whether or not the wife of Clopas was the mother of James and Joses and Salome was Mary’s sister.

You’ve got the same kind of dynamic at the empty tomb. Again, Luke refers to them as “the women” (Lk 24:1). Matthew, Mark and John again highlight certain personalities that were present:

 The Women at the Empty Tomb
verse Mary Magdalene Mary, the mother of James the other Mary Salome
Matt 28:1 ✔ ✔
Mk 16:1 ✔ ✔ ✔
Jn 20:1 ✔

Thanks to having looked at the way the same writers referred to “the women” at the foot of the cross, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that Matthew’s “other Mary” is the woman he described as “Mary, the mother of James and Joses” in chapter 27. That means that he and Mark are probably referring to the same woman in their respective accounts, as far as the “other Mary.” Matthew doesn’t mention Salome and John only references Mary Magdalene. So, of “the women” that were present, we know of three for certain, although there might’ve been others. Mary Magdalene is a definite as well as “the other Mary” and another woman named Salome.

Over the years, several great minds have tried to more specifically identify the players that were present. Again, we’re looking at a situation where the Bible doesn’t clarify things as well as we might like, but there are two things we want to avoid in these kinds of situations:

#1 – fail to appreciate the big picture
#2 – attempt to edit Scripture in order to manufacture a scenario that’s easier to process

Dr. James D Tabor does a great job of presenting a case for Mary, the wife of Clopas, to being the mother of Jesus based on the fact that Joseph, Jesus’ father, is conspicuously absent from the New Testament shortly after his having brought his young family back to Nazareth from Egypt (Matt 2:19-23). It would’ve been customary for the brother of the deceased husband to marry the widow based on Jewish law. When you couple that with the fact that Clopas was the father of James and Joses and Jesus had two brothers named James and Joses, it becomes fairly obvious that Mary, the mother of Jesus and Mary, the mother of James and Joses (wife of Clopas) are actually the same person. Should that prove to be accurate, the women at the tomb, based on Dr. Tabor’s theory and a comprehensive snapshot of Scripture would be:

  • Mary Magdalene
  • Mary – the mother of Jesus, James and Joses
  • Salome

That sounds downright compelling right up to the point where he suggests that the book of John has been edited.1 Regardless of how “logical” a particular explanation may be, if it involves having to change the content of the Bible in order for it to work, at that point the Bible is no longer inerrant and you no longer have the Word of God, rather  you have a flawed text.

Granted, what we have with the gospel writers is not conclusive in terms of the women that were there at the empty tomb. It’s not that they contradict one another as much as their decision to reference certain women in lieu of others results in a list of characters that’s speculative. But it’s not who was at the tomb, it was the fact that no one was in the tomb – that’s the point the gospel writers are making.

It could very well be that there was a whole congregation of women at the tomb which would mean that neither Matthew nor Mark nor John chose to document everyone that was present. But that doesn’t mean that their respective accounts are contradictory, nor should it distract from the fact that Christ had risen from the grave.

So, the short answer to our critic’s question is three, based on what we have in Scripture coupled with some speculation. But in the end, the emphasis should not be on who was not AT the tomb, rather the issue is Who was not IN the tomb!

Click here to read Part III!

1. “Something seems to be going on here. John knows something that either he, or those who later edited his gospel, chose to veil.” This is a portion of the post made by Dr. James D. Tabor entitled “Sorting Out the Jesus Family: Mother, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters at http://jamestabor.com/2012/12/27/sorting-out-the-jesus-family-mother-fathers-brothers-sisters/, accessed May 31, 2015

Ten Questions Christians Can’t Answer | Part I

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Popping the Hood on Scripture

The critic bangs his hand on the desk and insists that unless he can break down the Word of God to the point where it can fit comfortably within the boundaries of his intellectual preferences, his skepticism will remain intact and the condescending tone he uses when he addresses believers in Christ will also remain decidedly sarcastic.

When confronted with a situation in Scripture that doesn’t make sense, the believer responds as a diligent student does when they are challenged by something in the classroom they don’t understand. They don’t accuse the professor as being flawed, nor do they doubt the integrity of the curriculum. Rather, they proceed as someone who needs to learn as opposed to someone who wants to critique. It’s the philosophical starting point that distinguishes the cynic from his Christian counterpart. The atheist needs to keep the Reality of God at an arm’s distance and therefore keeps the curtains drawn in order to maintain the illusion that man’s ability to reason is subordinate to the One Who gave him that ability to begin with. The Christ-follower, on the other hand, recognizes the limitations of the human perspective and, in the face of something seemingly illogical, labors to understand in the light of God’s Identity and Authority.

Still, you can’t simply say “If the Bible says it, then I believe it” and not come across as academically anemic. The passages cited by critics as evidence that the Bible is less than credible, can be resolved, you just have to be willing to pop the hood on Scripture and do some digging.

Dr Gleason Archer
The problems and questions dealt with in this volume have been directed to me during the past thirty years of teaching on the graduate seminary level in the field of biblical criticism.As an undergraduate at Harvard, I was fascinated by apologetics and biblical evidences; so I labored to obtain a knowledge of the languages and cultures that have any bearing on biblical scholarship. As a classics major in college, I received training in Latin and Greek, also in French and German. At seminary I majored in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic; and in post-graduate years I became involved in Syriac and Akkadian, to the extent of teaching elective courses in each of these subjects. Earlier, during my final two years of high school, I had acquired a special interest in Middle Kingdom Egyptian studies, which was furthered as I later taught courses in this field. At the Oriental Institute in Chicago, I did specialized study in Eighteenth Dynasty historical records and also studied Coptic and Sumuerian.Combined with this work in ancient languages was a full course of training at law school, after which I was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1939. This gave me a thorough grounding in the field of legal evidences. Additionally, I spent three years in Beruit, Lebanon, in specialized study of modern literary Arabic. This was followed by a month in the Holy Land, where I visited most of the important archaeological sites.1

Dr. Gleason Archer (see call out to the right) says as much in the preface to his book “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.”

As I have dealt with one apparent discrepancy after another and have studied the alleged contradictions between the biblical record and the evidence of linguistics, archaeology, or science, my confidence in the trustworthiness of Scripture has been repeatedly verified and strengthened by the discovery that almost every problem in Scripture that has ever been discovered by man, from ancient times until now, has been dealt with in a completely satisfactory manner by the biblical text itself – or else by objective archaeological information.2

And when it comes to one’s approach to apparent discrepancies in Scripture, he says:

Be fully prepared in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. The aerodynamic engineer may not understand how a bumble bee can fly; yet he trusts that there must be an adequate explanation for its fine performance since, as a matter of fact, it does fly! Even so we may have complete confidence that the divine Author preserved the human author of each book of the Bible from error or mistake as he wrote down the original manuscript of the sacred text.3

At the end of the day, it’s not just what the Bible says, it’s what the Bible is. That’s what makes this exchange both significant and distinctive. We’re not merely gauging the authenticity of an ancient text. The question on the table is whether or not God exists and is the Word of God, in fact, His Message to us?

Or, is it merely a religious comic book without the pictures?

The critic needs it to be the latter in order for their worldview to remain intact. But however fortified their defenses may be – regardless of the rapid abundance that characterizes their rhetoric – their stance needs to be countered with something compelling and in a way that points them to the Truth (Jn 14:6).

The following ten questions are posed in a video on youtube entitled “Ten Questions Christians Can’t Answer.” The questions are not the sort that break new ground as far as Bible difficulties are concerned and like the objections that have been raised in the past, there are rebuttals and explanations, it’s just a matter of referencing books like Dr Gleason’s “Encyclopedia” or any one of a number of other similar resources, not to mention Scripture itself.

The final frame of the video states that the “silence is deafening.” We want to make sure we can break that silence with something that not only addresses the questions, but more importantly provides an approach to God and the Message of that gospel that’s intellectually sound – unobstructed by questions that seemingly have no answer. In that way, it’s not only their intellect that’s satisfied, it’s their soul as well.

Here we go…

1) When Noah’s ark landed, how did the Kangaroos make it back to Australia?

There’s an article you can access by clicking here that elaborates on a time when the continents as we know them today were actually one solid land mass. That would give both animals and people the ability to migrate without having to contend with the insurmountable obstacle of an ocean between them and where they would ultimately make their home.

2) If the ark was covered in pitch, it also made it air tight. How did they survive for 40 days and 40 nights since Noah couldn’t open the window?

Probably because the areas that were covered in pitch were those that came in direct contact with the water as opposed to the airtight coffin you interpret the ark to be.

3) Why were Adam and Eve punished for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil when they didn’t / couldn’t understand what they were doing?

They did understand what they were doing in that they had been told not to eat from that particular tree (Gen 2:17).

4) Why would God place the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so close to His innocent creation, then allow Satan to tempt them and all the while stand back and do nothing?

Love and obedience go hand in hand (Jn 14:21) and love isn’t love unless its voluntary. In the absence of a choice, you don’t have love as much as you have a calculated reaction.

Dr Ravi Zacharias explains it this way:

What would it take to create a loving world void of evil? A world in which love is capable of meaningful expression and experience would also imply a world in which there is choice. If someone tells you that they love you, those words mean something because they are freely given. If you learned that someone had told you they loved you but that they had been forced to say it, their words would not mean very much. Thus, if we want to speak of a loving world, we must also speak of a world in which choices are exercised. And in such a world, there is also the possibility of choosing a course of action that is not loving, i.e. evil.

5) When the women went to Jesus’ empty tomb, was the stone already rolled away, or did an angel roll it away after the women got there?

When looking at the four gospel accounts, Matthew 28:2 is worded in a way that’s distinct from Mark 16:1-5, Luke 24:1-2 and John 20:1. Matthew reports the scene of the empty tomb in a manner that makes it sound as though the stone was rolled away upon the arrival of the women that had come to care for Jesus’ body as opposed to it happening prior to their arrival. The NIV Text Note elaborates on the Greek verbiage used in the text as being past tense so there’s no inconsistency between the four accounts, even though there might appear to be.4 See also James 1:13.

To continue on to Part II, click here.

1. “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties”, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 1982, p11
2. Ibid, p12
3. Ibid, p14
4. There was. The sense is “Now there had been.” It is clear from the parallel accounts (Mk 16:2-6; Lk 24:1-7; Jn 20:1) that the events of vv. 2-4 occurred before the women actually arrived at the tomb (NIV Text Note on Matthew 28:2) NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 1985. p1489

Atheism

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atheistBeing an Atheist is often promoted by its adherents as an enlightened and liberating approach to life in that it’s unhindered by “ancient texts” and the restrictions that those religious paradigms attach to their followers. But strip away liturgy and dogma and religion is whatever a person uses to answer four basic questions:

• How did life begin? (Origin)
• How am I supposed to be behave (Morality)
• What’s the point of my existence? (Meaning)
• Is there life after death? (Destiny)

How you answer those questions is captured in your religious convictions. From that standpoint, the atheist is just as “religious” as they’re Christian counterpart, the only difference is that they choose to answer those questions according to a completely humanistic paradigm, which in some ways requires more faith than the faith deployed by a born again believer.

Here’s the thing: Hiding beneath the atheist’s indignant refusal to accept anything other than what can be proven or understood, is a desperate attempt to make a world based on mathematical absurdities, philosophical dead ends and indefinite moral boundaries sound fulfilling. When you dismiss God from the equation, all that you have left to explain and legitimize your existence is both temporary and relative. You are a lucky accident hoping that the next level of success and gratification translates to a lasting confidence that you matter and your life has meaning.

The problem is, regardless of how noble or stimulating your experiences may be, if everything is relative, than you yourself are relative and everything is inconclusive. In short, you don’t have a foundation, only an imaginary paradigm rooted in a self absorbed mindset that has no chance of being validated because of the way it attempts to make itself its own philosophical bottom line. And not only is it an epic fail from a logical standpoint, the end result of a resolve to establish one’s self as their own god is an empty and altogether pointless existence compared to the Compassion and Intentional Design represented by the Message of the Gospel and the Power of God.

Let’s take a look…

The Meaning of Life

As far as the “meaning of life” is concerned, according to the atheist, one’s purpose and significance is derived from the pleasant things in their life.

David Niose is an attorney who has served as president of two Washington-based humanist advocacy groups, the American Humanist Association and the Secular Coalition for America. He is author of Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans and Fighting Back the Right: Reclaiming America from the Attack on Reason. In an article written for Psychology Today, he elaborates on how both the godly and the godless can find rich meaning in their lives. He says:

Having rejected myth and ancient texts as authorities for defining life’s purpose, nonbelievers get meaning and joy from family, friends, loved ones, nature, art and music, and their work.

But life isn’t always pleasant. Julian Baggini takes note of this in an article entitled, “Yes, Life Without God Can be Bleak. Atheism is About Facing up to That.” It’s part of a series of articles featured in The Guardian designed to, “…redraw the battle lines in the God wars and establish a new heathen manifesto.” He says:

Given how the atheist stereotype has been one of the dark, brooding existentialist gripped by the angst of a purposeless universe, this is understandable. But frankly, I think we’ve massively overcompensated, and in doing so we’ve blurred an important distinction. Atheists should point out that life without God can be meaningful, moral and happy. But that’s “can” not “is” or even “should usually be.”  And that means it can just as easily be meaningless, nihilistic and miserable.

So, whether it’s joy or despair, for the atheist, purpose and significance is derived from however you choose to respond to the circumstances you either manufacture or those that simply happen.

The problem, though, is that there is no point. Pleasure and joy in and of themselves are sensations and not destinations. First of all, deriving your sense of purpose from the amount of pleasure you experience in whatever areas you engage requires an ever increasing degree of stimulation to keep you convinced that you have value. Secondly, even if you want to say that you’re getting pleasure from being philanthropic and giving sacrificially, you can’t posit your definition of what constitutes a noble purpose as something that means anything because if there is no such thing as an Absolute, then there is no Standard by which you can measure your life to prove that you have any real merit. And however you want to insist that “society” or “civilized people” will appreciate your contribution, the fact is you have value only for as long as you’re surrounded by people who agree with your philosophical manifesto.

On the other hand…

You were created by a loving God with a Purpose that resonates as both meaningful and eternal. You don’t concern yourself with “positive thinking,” instead you engage in “profound thinking.” With that approach, you’re not simply being selective in what you want to think about, instead you focus on the One Who your circumstances answer to knowing that “all things work together for the good of those who love Him. (Rom 8:28)”

Morals

As a Christian, you base your morals on the Absolutes as they’re communicated in Scripture. An atheist, on the other hand, believes that ethics and morals flow from a natural desire to thrive both as individuals and in the context of community. In his essay, “Ethics Without God,” Frank Zindler, former President and current Board Member of American Atheists, explains the difference between “enlightened self-interest” and “un-enlightened self-interest.”

The principle of “enlightened self-interest” is an excellent first approximation to an ethical principle which is both consistent with what we know of human nature and is relevant to the problems of life in a complex society. Let us examine this principle. First we must distinguish between “enlightened” and “unenlightened” self-interest. Let’s take an extreme example for illustration. Suppose you lived a totally selfish life of immediate gratification of every desire. Suppose that whenever someone else had something you wanted, you took it for yourself. It wouldn’t be long at all before everyone would be up in arms against you, and you would have to spend all your waking hours fending off reprisals. Depending upon how outrageous your activity had been, you might very well lose your life in an orgy of neighborly revenge. The life of total but unenlightened self-interest might be exciting and pleasant as long as it lasts – but it is not likely to last long. The person who practices “enlightened” self-interest, by contrast, is the person whose behavioral strategy simultaneously maximizes both the intensity and duration of personal gratification. An enlightened strategy will be one which, when practiced over a long span of time, will generate ever greater amounts and varieties of pleasures and satisfactions.

He goes on to reinforce the idea that our personal approach to ethics will inevitably be driven by our natural regard for a healthy community:

Because we have the nervous systems of social animals, we are generally happier in the company of our fellow creatures than alone. Because we are emotionally suggestible, as we practice enlightened self-interest we usually will be wise to choose behaviors which will make others happy and willing to cooperate and accept us – for their happiness will reflect back upon us and intensify our own happiness. On the other hand, actions which harm others and make them unhappy – even if they do not trigger overt retaliation which decreases our happiness – will create an emotional milieu which, because of our suggestibility, will make us less happy.

In short, the person who does not believe in God sees morality as an enlightened application of those behaviors that are most beneficial to himself and his neighbors.

Creation

Typically, atheists tend to believe in Evolution as being the driving force behind the initiation of the universe and humanity.

In a speech entitled, “Evolution and Atheism: Best friends Forever,” given by Jerry Coyne at FFRF‘s 39th annual convention in Pittsburgh on October 8th, 2017, he said this:

Here’s my thesis for the evening: The fact of evolution is not only inherently atheistic, it is inherently anti-theistic. It goes against the notion that there is a god. Accepting evolution and science tends to promote the acceptance of atheism. Now, it doesn’t always, of course. There are many religious people who accept evolution. I would say they’re guilty of cognitive dissonance, or at least of some kind of watery deism. The path from going to an evolutionary biologist to an atheist is pretty straightforward. You write a book on evolution with the indubitable facts showing that it has to be true, as true as the existence of gravity or neutrons, and then you realize that half of America is not going to buy it no matter what you say. Their minds cannot be changed; their eyes are blinkered.

Mutations are random, and where there is order, it can be explained by an organism’s need to adapt to it’s environment. In other words, according to the atheist, God is completely unnecessary, as far as being able to explain the origin of the universe and the precise organization that characterizes both organisms and the inorganic material found in nature. While there are many brilliant minds, both throughout history and in today’s scientific community who disagree, according to some atheists, the science that backs up the claim that life is the result of evolution is conclusive and isn’t questioned by any rationale human being.

Life After Death

While most religions advocate the idea of life after death, the atheist does not. In their spiritual universe, once you take your last breath, you simply cease to exist. The well known physicist, Stephen Hawking, captures that notion in a 2011 interview he did with The Guardian.

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail,” he told the Guardian. “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
What’s So Great About Christianity?

John Polkinghorne was professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979. He is among those who looked at the same data as Jerry Coyne and came to the exact opposite conclusion.

In addition, here’s a partial list of leading scientists who were believers: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Brahe, Descrates, Bolye, Newton, Leibiz, Gassendi, Pascal, Mersenne, Cuvier, Harvey, Dalton, Faraday, Herschel, Joule, Lyell, Lavoisier, Priestley, Levin, Ohm, Ampere, Steno, Pasteur, Maxwell, Palnck, Mendel. A good number of these scientists were clergymen. Gassendi and Mersenne were priests. So was Georges Lemaitre, the Belgian astronomer who first proposed the “Big Bang” theory of the universe. Mendel, whose discovery of the principles of heredity would provide vital support for the theory of evolution, spent his entire life as a monk in an Augustinian monastery.

Where would science be without these men? Some were Protestant and some were Catholic, but all saw their scientific vocation in distinctively Christian terms.

1 John Polkinghorne himself resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982. He served as the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, from 1988 until 1996.

You Have Nothing to Start With, So…

Part of what makes the mindset of the atheist so nonsensical is the way in which they assume the existence of the laws and materials necessary to create life. Unless you can explain the origin of the intangibles that govern the manner in which the physical world operates, you’re not explaining how all of these things came to be anymore than describing traffic patterns explains the origin of an automobile.

In Mathematics you have what is called the Null Set. It’s a symbol that represents a value that doesn’t exist. For example, Let A = {x : 9 < x < 10, x is a natural number}. There is no natural number that exists between 9 and 10. 

To satisfactorily explain the origin of the universe, your starting point must be the cosmological equivalent to the Null Set as far as having neither matter nor math. In other words, you have neither raw materials nor ordered systems within which these assumed materials can interact with one another. You have nothing to start with. So, you can’t have a “Big Bang,” because you have no Laws of Physics that would dictate an explosion nor do you have any materials that could combine in a way that could potentially combust. And however someone might want to steer clear of a Divine Personality (as opposed to a stoic machine) lurking behind the invention of all that’s necessary to “create,” this same “force” must also be capable of creating beauty, love, peace and joy – things that exist outside the realm of material things.

It’s here where the futility of an atheist’s viewpoint becomes obvious. When the material precision of the created order coupled with the intangible realities of the human experience are fully appreciated, the mathematical impossibilities are so extensive, what is thrust upon the public as enlightened sophistication is revealed as a self absorbed desperation on the part of the atheist to declare himself as his own absolute.

The fact is, you have any one of a number of brilliant and accomplished minds who believe that God, not Random Selection, is the impetus behind the universe and all of life as we know it (see sidebar). So, for Jerry Coyne and those who think like him to insist that Evolution is a foregone conclusion, they’re either oblivious or indifferent to any platform save their own.

You Are Your Own Bottom Line

While all religions agree that humanity is flawed, only Christianity posits the idea that man can’t make things right on his own. So, whether a person defines themselves as a Muslim or an atheist, both are subscribing to a “religion” that positions man as his own spiritual remedy and with that choice comes a morality that’s used to advance a person’s spiritual status in the eyes of their chosen deity.

With Islam, you’re abiding by the morals outline in the  Q’uaran to please Allah. As a Buddhist, your morals are aligned with whatever best achieves Nirvana. As an atheist, your morals are crafted in a manner that best satisfy whatever requirements you have prescribed for yourself.

Those religions that direct the attention of their followers to either a supernatural personality or a heightened sense of well being generally require some kind of discipline or self-denial in that you are answering to someone or something other than yourself. An atheist, on the other hand, answers only to himself. That doesn’t mean they are, by default, depraved. What it does mean is that theirs is the only signature required on the hypothetical document that outlines what is wrong versus what is right. And though they may insist that their morals are configured so as to benefit society, it is still their definition of what is beneficial that dictates their moral code. In other words, as an atheist you are your own bottom line. And however that perspective is cloaked in noble sounding verbiage, it is still a scenario where the Absolute of God is replaced with the absolute of one’s self.

What’s the Point?

From the perspective of an atheist, you live however you choose. There is no transcendent moral standard that everyone is obligated to conform to. Any “good” that one does is purely subjective and whatever “unenlightened self-interest” you may be guilty of, the repercussions, while they may be unfortunate, are not errors that you are to be held accountable for by some eternal scorekeeper. Thomas Jefferson held that the notion of an eternal source of accountability provided an effective motivation to do good and avoid evil.

A firm believer in man’s free will, he [Thomas Jefferson] thought that good works were the way to salvation and that rewards and punishments for actions on earth were “an important incentive” for people to act ethically.2

But then again, what is “good” if there is no Absolute basis for it? And for that matter, what is “evil?” If the only absolute the atheist is willing to acknowledge is the absolute of themselves, then everything about their existence is conditioned according to what they’re willing to observe, experience and accept. Not only are they their own moral bottom line, but they themselves become the standard by which the entire universe is measured. Moreover, if their argument is to have any validity, then every member of the human race needs to be able to discriminate however their perspective dictates as well. So, the end result is a never ending tension between the way in which one person defines something as morally substantive and another individual can look at the same thing and dismiss it as either inconsequential or even sinister.

In short, there is no “meaning,” only the extent to which one’s appetites can be momentarily gratified. And even then, if the only object is to punctuate the tedium of one’s existence with as many temporary stimulations as possible, at what juncture does it become unavoidable to ask, “What’s the point?”

Conclusion

There’s really no such thing as an atheist.  If “god” is whatever you use to answer the philosophical questions that require a response from every human being as far as one’s origin, life after death, right versus wrong and what’s the point of a person’s existence, then the atheist is simply declaring “god” to be the one that stares back at them in the mirror every morning.

Now…

• the individual can claim themselves to be a product of Natural Selection and therefore owes God no acknowledgement for their birth or existence
• the individual can define their own morality and completely ignore God’s commands
• the individual can view life as nothing more than a dash between two dates and deny there’s a Divine Purpose to be lived out and enjoyed
• the individual can deny any accountability to a Higher Power other than themselves and death is now nothing more than a last gasp with no reward or chastisement to consider afterwards

But it’s not a liberation, it’s an incarceration. The atheist has fastened a philosophical ball and chain to their ankle by insisting that anything which can’t be fit on the dinner plate of the human intellect simply doesn’t belong on the table. A person may think that they don’t need God, but in the absence of God all they have is themselves. Not only is that a poor substitute… …it’s a poison that restricts a man to fulfillments that can’t last, accomplishments that can be undone and a death that can only be mourned.

For further reading…

Christianity – It Cannot be Believed by a Thinking Person
G-R-A-V-I-T-Y

1. “What’s So Great About Christianity”, Dinesh D’Souza, Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois, 2007, p99
2. “Jefferson’s Religious Beliefs”, monticello.org, https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-religious-beliefs, accessed December 31, 2020

There Are Only Two Religions

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While it might not be an original phrase, I heard “There are only two religions in the world” for the first time in a talk given by author Frank Peretti.

I though it was a very succinct and profound way of summarizing the various religions in the world and how they compare to the gospel. Basically, it boils down to one of two options: Either God is God or man is god.

In his book, “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins summarizes his atheistic disposition by stating that, “I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.”1

While Atheists want to be perceived as having an impartial approach to the various faiths represented by the American population by insisting on a “religion-less” perspective on morality, there is no such thing as a “religion-less” approach to anything, let alone morality. From a purely philosophical standpoint, “religion” is the way in which you answer four basic questions:

  • Origin – how did the universe come to be?
  • Destiny – what happens when you die?
  • Morality – how are you supposed to behave while you’re here?
  • Purpose – what’s the point of your existence?

These are not lofty, theological issues or advanced, philosophical themes that only academic types bother to engage. The way you process yourself and the world around you on a daily basis is based on the way you answer these questions and from that standpoint, you are a “religious” person regardless of how often you go to church, if you go at all. And from that standpoint, there’s no such thing as an atheist. You’re simply your own god – you’ve established yourself as your own religion.

So, when you hear critics of Christianity or social activists insist that they represent a more judicious approach to moral issues and social tensions by removing the Bible from the conversation, they’re not leveling the playing field as much as they’re giving priority to that “religious” school of thought that establishes the individual as his own deity.

If religion, at the bare minimum, is the paradigm upon which one bases his perspective on himself and the world around him, then atheism “fits” in the illustration Peretti proposes in that atheism is the belief that all things can be, and should be, assessed and determined by an intellect that is entirely human. So, rather than appealing to the God of the Bible, atheists instead appeal to the “god” of human reason and humanistic thinking. However they may balk at the notion of anything that even sounds remotely supernatural is attached to their philosophical infrastructure, it is nevertheless an apt way of comparing the two schools of thought. And with that comparison comes a more direct way of identifying the fundamental difference between Christianity and other supernatural thought processes, while simultaneously defining the one aspect of Christianity that, once proven, reduces all of what would otherwise be argument against the gospel to ash.

The empty tomb. H.P. Liddon put it very well when he said:

Faith in the resurrection is the very keystone of the arch of Christian faith, and, when it is removed, all must invariably crumble into ruin. 2

1. “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins, Bantam Press, Great Britain, 2006, p57 2. “Therefore Stand: Christian Apologetics”, Wilbur M. smith, Baker book House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1965, p577