On Being Jesus and Beyond

This morning I was thinking about what it would have been like to be Jesus. If he was fully God, as many assert, then from a young age he would have known every single thing he would do and say for the rest of his earthly life. Can you imagine knowing when you are two years old that when you turn 33 you are going to experience a brutal death on the cross? And can you imagine going through life having no choice but to do those things you foresee lest you prove yourself unworthy of Godhood by not having perfect foresight of the future?

On the other hand, having perfect foreknowledge could be fun. Just imagine never having to study for an exam and still getting a C% on every exam and straight Alpha’s on every report card. Think how you could handle those bullies who always want to pick a fight. You could dodge every punch and kick and win the fight through attrition without ever mustering a blow. You could be the greatest mentalist of all. Of course, you could only do those things if your foreknowledge allowed them. If your foreknowledge said you had to miss some questions on an exam, get Beta’s or Gamma’s on your report card, or take a few blows from the bullies, then you’d have to make sure those things happened.

On the other hand, perhaps God relinquished some of his powers when taking on a human form. Perhaps Jesus did not have perfect foreknowledge. After all, he was different from God when it came to other things such as pain. He bled like a human which God supposedly doesn’t do as a spiritual being. But if Jesus had fewer powers than God, then isn’t it true he was not God, but rather a human? You might ask, “But what about the miracles he performed?” Well, the apostles performed miracles. So did a number of people in the Old Testament. If performing miracles is proof one is God, then all these other miracle workers were God also. But I don’t know anyone who believes that.

You might be thinking, “Jesus was God because he was God before taking on human form. He just chose to take on a human form and give up his Godly powers for the benefit of humankind.” Perhaps so, but if God can choose to relinquish his powers when taking on a human form, cannot he choose to do so while in spiritual form? I have heard a number of people say that if the being we call God is not omnipotent (having all powers), omnipresent (being everywhere at once throughout all time), and omniscient (knowing all things and knowing everything that happens everywhere throughout all time), then that being is not really God. To me, this seems to be rather presumptuous. Who are we to tell God what attributes he must possess? Rather, shouldn’t God himself be allowed to choose who he will be and what attributes he will claim for himself?

Here’s a thought. Perhaps the primary attribute of God is his ability to choose. Choose how he will create. Choose what he will know. Choose where to be at any given time. Choose how he will interact with his creation. Quantum theory has shown us that at its base level, the Universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic. For example, electrons aren’t fixed particles with fixed positions and momentums, but rather a probability field. You might call this limited determinism or restrained chaos. If this view of the Universe is correct, it implies that God created a Universe whose future cannot be known with certainty. Perhaps he did this on purpose, not wanting to be bored for billions of years by knowing everything that was going to happen. If you want to get a sense of how utterly boring living in a totally predictable Universe can be, watch the old episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “A Nice Place to Visit”.

The current understanding of our Universe is that it consists of a multitude of invisible fields. No, sports fans, not football fields or baseball fields or soccer fields, but rather quark fields, lepton fields, and boson fields. These fields interact with each other to produce what we perceive to be matter and energy. And thanks to Albert Einstein, we know that these two things are interchangeable via the formula E=mc². But what we perceive as particles are actually bundles of probability, thus unpredictable in a deterministic way. Given that everything in the Universe is made up of these fields, that means our brains are made up of these fields as well. Yet, it seems that somehow we are able to make choices. But how? Could it be that the interactions of the fields as embodied by a brain have some sort of feedback that allows us to “nudge” the probabilities in such a way as to make them fall on the choice we want? Whatever is going on, we perceive we can take in information and make freewill choices that are non-deterministic. We also perceive we are conscious beings. Could it be that being made in the image of God means being given the ability to make choices. Choices that are limited by our physical nature, but choices nonetheless.

Here’s another thought. If the invisible fields that make up our Universe can interact in such a way as to make brains capable of knowledge, emotions, and choices, could it be that all the interactions throughout the entirety of these fields in the whole Universe makes one humongous super-brain that is much more capable than any one brain. And perhaps it is this super-brain that sustains everything. Perhaps that super-brain is what we call God.

Romans 1:20

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.

Acts 17:27-28

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

The Rights of Atheists

Today, on the radio, I heard a Christian say, “When an atheist claims he has certain rights, he is absconding the argument of the Christian, because rights can only come from God. Without God, no one has any rights.”

I understand where this person is coming from. He knows that if humans attempted to provide rights to their fellow humans, they would fall short. He wants there to be an absolute set of inviolable rights that apply to all of humankind. But here’s the problem. Suppose such a list of rights dictated by God actually exists. How do we humans determine what they are? After all, God did not carve them into the face of the Earth for all to see. So, how do we discover them? A Christian would say, “God has given them to us in the Bible.” But a Muslim would say, “God has written them in the Koran.” People of other religions would have equally diverse responses. Who gets to decide for everyone else what the true set of rights are?

As you can see, it is problematic discovering the true God-given rights of man when we can’t even agree who the true God is. In addition, people who believe in the same God can’t agree on what their God’s list of rights consists of. Further, even if two people agree on a right, they may not agree on how to implement that right in the real world.

Look at the US Constitution. Even though our Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, our founders found it necessary to include a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Why was that necessary if we already had unalienable rights? Well, I believe it was because they knew there would be disagreement over what those unalienable rights were and thus needed to be defined in some way in our founding document so there would be less confusion.

Another issue is that of enforcement. If humans have rights, then it seems reasonable for there to be some sort of punishment for those that violate those rights. We humans recognize that without those punishments, we essentially don’t have any rights, for evil men could run roughshod over good men without retribution. We can state all we want that we have rights, but that will not stop a bad guy with a fist, or a knife, or a gun.

It’s this enforcement issue that makes me question whether our rights come from God. As we all know, God does not find it necessary to exact justice on those that violate others rights. But without that side of the rights coin, the other side fails. Rights mean nothing if a violator of them sees no retribution. It’s like a blind man being told that his eyes are reacting to light just fine. It does him no good if the optic nerve is damaged.

So, why would God give us rights, then do nothing to protect them? Perhaps he just wants to see us flounder about figuring it all out ourselves. The problem is that men are not omniscient. Even with the best intentions, we fail. We sometimes convict people of crimes they did not commit. We sometimes set free the worst among us. Just think of how much better it would be if God—assuming he is a good God—made the decisions about who should be punished and who should not. And I’m not talking about punishment in the next life. That does no good for all the subsequent victims of crimes after the initial one. In fact, if indeed God is omniscient, he could actually prevent all crimes before they are committed. How cool would that be? Kind of like those officers in the movie “Minority Report,” but with a perfect knowledge of the future rather than a murky one.

It seems to me that even if God does have a list of rights that all humans possess, he has left it to us to figure them out for ourselves. We must decide what those rights are, write them down for all to see, get a general agreement on their correctness, and then enforce them by punishing those who violate them. But as we can see by looking at the world around us, there is no agreement across the globe on what rights we have. That is one reason we are divided up into countries with differing sets of laws that define differing sets of rights for its citizens. Also, some countries like the USA are further divided into states, counties, and cities that each define our rights. It seems that’s the best we can do in the absence of God doing it for us.

Revenge, Justice, Forgiveness, and Salvation

My son and I have been watching the entire series of the TV show “House, M.D.” A few days ago, we started the sixth season. In one episode, a maniacal genocidal dictator, who was visiting the United States, gets ill and comes under the care of Greg House’s team at the hospital. Throughout the show, one of the team members, Cameron, struggles with helping this dictator get well because she fears she will then be complicit in any deaths he brings about in the future. Others on the team keep telling her that their jobs as doctors are not to pass judgment on their patient, but to cure him. The conflict builds and finally Cameron’s husband, Chase, who is also on the team, becomes convinced that this dictator is going to commit genocide against many thousands of his own people if he recovers and goes back to his home country. He can’t bear that thought, so switches a blood sample to make it look like the dictator has a medical problem he does not have. The treatment will most certainly kill him given what they believed his real condition was. The plan succeeds, the dictator dies, and now Chase must figure out how to cover up his actions and fight his inner demons.

Moral dilemmas in TV shows and movies have always intrigued me. They push me to evaluate how I would response if put in a similar situation. The answer is not always easy. In fact, more often than not, I am left not really knowing for sure what I would do. 

During World War II, there were quite a few Germans who saw Hitler for what he really was, which was a maniacal genocidal dictator like the one in the “House, M.D.” episode. Some of these astute citizens realized they needed to stop Hitler before he destroyed their country. Several assassination attempts were unsuccessfully carried out. I often wonder how those people, had they been successful at assassinating Hitler, would be viewed by the world. Most assuredly the German military would have executed them for treason. But much of the rest of the world would have viewed them as heroes and martyrs.

It is interesting how varied people’s opinions can be over the same actions of others. In most of the cop shows, the main issue is justice. Someone mistreats other people and the police talk about bringing that person to justice. In other movies like “John Wick,” the issue is revenge. Someone did something bad, and the victim won’t stop until he gets his vengeance against the perpetrator. In religious shows, the emphasis is oftentimes placed on forgiveness. Rather than seeking justice or revenge, seek to forgive the person who transgressed against you. Yet in other shows, the emphasis is salvation. Consider the movie “Taken.” A man’s daughter is kidnapped and about to be sold into slavery. Since the man has “certain skills,” he goes on a rampage to save his daughter. He is not driven by justice or revenge, but rather solely by rescuing his daughter from the hands of evil. Anyone who stands in his way is a target of his wrath.

This afternoon, my wife and I went to see the movie “The Shack.” I had read the book many years ago but, given the inefficiency of my long-term memory, could not recall much about it. The basis of the movie is that a young daughter of the main character is kidnapped and killed. The father struggles with this as does his wife and two other children. He gets an invitation from God to return to the shack where his daughter was murdered. There his judgmental mentality and his inability to forgive others is challenged. And, interestingly, a question that I had just challenged my wife and son with at lunch earlier was asked in the movie. “How does one decide what is good and what is evil?” If you think deeply about this, the answer may not be as obvious as it seems at first glance.

Now, ask yourself, “Which response to evil do you like the best?” Revenge? Justice? Forgiveness? Salvation? If you are like me, I think perhaps you might be saying, “I like them all.” I cheer on John Wick as he leaves a trail of dead bodies in his wake while seeking revenge on the man who stole his car, killed his dog, and knocked him unconscious. I applaud the police officers who relentlessly investigate a murder and finally bring in the murderer so justice can be served. I cry at the struggle victims go through to forgive the criminal who did them wrong. I urge on the man who will do anything to save the person he loves.

So, what’s going on? Do I have multiple personalities living within my brain? Am I simply crazy? Or is it simply coded into my DNA, and perhaps yours as well, to want all these things to occur simultaneously? Is that even possible?

Upon thinking about these questions, I have concluded that it is possible. Revenge seeks to teach an evil person how deep the pain of what they did was by having that person experience that same pain. Justice seeks to right a wrong, as much as humanly possible, by taking them out of society, thus making it impossible to perpetrate the same evil on others. Forgiveness seeks protection of yourself by letting the past go and to quit obsessing over the evil that occurred. Salvation seeks to prevent harm to a loved one and perhaps prevent additional harm to others. A combination of these things can be both therapeutic and good for society as a whole. While all four of these reactions are legitimate, different situations call for a differing mix of the four.

I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, but I do have an inkling of how these four reactions should be applied. For instance, while seeking vengeance, you must not cross a line that ends up making you the evil one. When seeking justice, one must be certain, usually through a trial process, that the right person is being punished. When seeking to forgive, you should not “deal with the devil” or place yourself or others in danger. When seeking to save, one must be confident that the actions they take do not end up bringing harm to the one you are trying to save. Accomplishing these things will most likely not be easy. Mistakes will often be made, but doing nothing will probably end badly.

After watching “The Shack,” I told my wife that I view some movies as following the Old Testament, where we typically think of God acting out of vengeance and justice, while other movies are like the New Testament, where God is defined by forgiveness and salvation. I like a little of both. Concerning forgiveness, I should note that there are actually three levels of forgiveness: 1) letting go, 2) no punishment, and 3) restored relationship. “The Shack” only addresses the first. That level of forgiveness is difficult, but the other two are much more so. For a complete explanation, please see my book, “God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God.”

Ten Reasons I Hate Politics and One Reason I Don’t - Part 1

Well, we are approaching the time that comes around every four years that gets the attention of the entire world. No, it’s not the Summer Olympics. That has already passed. I’m talking about the US Presidential Election. In case you don’t pay attention to such things, this is a time where more mud gets slung around than at a women’s mud wrestling match. It’s a time where millions of dollars are spent by both major political parties to get the word out about how wonderfully fantastic their candidate is and how horrifically terrible the opposing candidate is. Now, I am aware that there are some people who love mud wrestling, but I’m not one of them. So in this post I will present to you one reason I hate politics. I will present nine more reasons in future posts. Then in my final post I will tell you one reason I don’t hate politics. So, let’s get started.

1.  I Am God, You Are The Devil

I have heard it said that if you want to get good people to do bad things to other people, you have to dehumanize, even demonize, those other people. If you can convince the good people that those other people are Satan’s minions straight from the pit of hell, you can get them to harm, even kill, them. After all, who believes that Satan’s soldiers deserve to live?

The same is true in politics. It’s really not enough to say, “You know, my opponent has the same goals as me, and in some areas we agree on how to approach our problems. However, I believe my solutions overall will be best for our nation and all its people.” That position is considered too weak. Too wishy-washy. Too conciliatory towards your opponent. It admits that your opponent might be right about some things. And you can’t have any of that. You must present yourself as more intelligent, more savvy, more courageous, more generous, more trustworthy, more compassionate—heck, more anything that’s good—than your opponent. In other words, you must present yourself as being God and your opponent as being the Devil. Your goals must be lofty while your opponent’s are lowly. Your motivations must be pure while your opponent’s are putrid. Your methods must be inspiring while your opponent’s are insipid.

I don’t know about you, but I find this attitude distasteful. While I don’t think it necessary to speak more highly of anyone than they deserve, I also don’t think one should speak more ill of anyone than they deserve. The fact is that every human on Earth has some good and bad in them. Of course the ratio of the two varies greatly from one individual to the next. As Bing Crosby says in the movie White Christmas, "Surely you knew that everybody's got a little larceny operating in them." But a little larceny does not deserve the complete ire of another.

I hear some people say that they wish that the politicians would be more civil in their discourse like it was back in the good old days. Well, perhaps there have been more civil campaigns at times, but from what I have read, politics have been dirty from the beginning of our country. In fact, some say that the dirtiest presidential campaign goes to Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams back in 1828. But that doesn’t make it right or mean it has to be that way.