A Conversation About Sending Missionaries

Joe:    Hey, Bob. What are your plans for vacation this summer?

Bob:  Well, my wife and I are actually going on a mission trip during our vacation time this year.

Joe:    Really? I didn’t take you to be the proselytizing type.

Bob:  Oh, I’m not. Or least I haven’t been. But recently my wife and I both decided we needed to do more to spread the gospel.

Joe:    Admirable. Of course, you know I’m an agnostic, so I would never do such a thing. But I can understand why a believer such as yourself would want to go. Where are you going?

Bob:  A remote tribe in South America. It’s my understanding that the gospel has never been presented to the tribe before.

Joe:    Wow! That remote, huh? I’d be scared out of my mind. But since you believe they are lost and going to hell without Jesus, I understand why you’d want to go. And speaking of that, I’ve always had a problem with a God that would condemn people for not believing in someone they don’t even know existed. Seems unfair to me.

Bob:  I never said they were going to hell. There are some verses in the Bible that indicate that God may judge people who have never heard the gospel using a different standard than those who have heard.

Joe:    Really? I’ve always understood the Bible to say that the only way to heaven is through faith in Jesus.

Bob:  Yes, that is true, but there is some indication that God will have mercy on those who have never had a chance to hear about Jesus. God really is merciful. I don’t believe he’d condemn people for not believing something they don’t even know about.

Joe:    Well, I guess that’s good to know, assuming that the Bible is true. But now I have to ask: Why are you going?

Bob:  How do you mean?

Joe:    I mean, why are you going to preach the gospel to a group of people who are already saved?

Bob:  Who said they are saved?

Joe:    I thought you just did. You said they would be judged according to a different standard than those who have heard the gospel. I thought that meant they were saved.

Bob:  No, salvation only comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

Joe:    So, that tribe is not going to heaven?

Bob:  I didn’t say that either. I believe they will go to heaven rather than hell, but only by the grace and mercy of God, not because they are saved. Their rewards in heaven will not be as great as a believer who is saved.

Joe:    Okay, I’m a bit confused. Isn’t the most important thing to go to heaven rather than hell, not that you get there through salvation in Christ? And isn’t heaven with few rewards much better than hell?

Bob:  Yes, that’s true, but the good news of Christ is not just about the afterlife, it’s also for this life. Knowing Jesus will make this life better as well.

Joe:    I would argue that that’s not always true, but let’s put that aside. I have a question. What happens to the tribespeople that hears about Jesus and then reject the message?

Bob:  Well, according to the Bible, they will be lost.

Joe:    And bound for hell?

Bob:  Yes.

Joe:    So why are you going?

Bob:  I answered that already.

Joe:    Not exactly. Let’s lay out what you have said so far. The tribespeople are all going to heaven. Their life here on Earth may not be as good as it could be, and they may not be rewarded as well in heaven, but at least they aren’t going to hell. To me, that seems to be a positive. Now, you plan to preach the good news of Jesus to them. What are the possible outcomes? Some will believe, which may lead to a better life here on Earth and more rewards in heaven. But those who reject the message will now be on a path to hell whereas before hearing the message they were on a path to heaven. Overall, it seems like your preaching has no upside, only a downside.

Bob:  I haven’t really thought about it that way.

Joe:    Well, maybe you should. So, now, why are you going?

Bob:  I guess my answer has to be that Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel to all tribes and nations.

Joe:    I know enough about the Bible to know that is true. But why would he ask people to do that if everyone who hasn’t heard the gospel is going to heaven anyway? Wouldn’t the only valid reason for preaching be that people are lost and bound for hell?

Bob:  I don’t know. I can certainly see your point. Perhaps I have been wrong about people who haven’t heard about Jesus going to heaven. Or perhaps some are going to heaven and some aren’t. So, he wants us to preach to everyone just in case they need to hear.

Joe:    That certainly makes Jesus’ command to preach to everyone make more sense. But it still concerns me that there might be some who are going to heaven who no longer will after hearing the gospel. I thought preaching the gospel was about bringing people into heaven, not casting them out.

Bob:  I hear you. I just don’t know how to answer that. On the one hand, I find it hard to believe that God would condemn a person who has never heard about Jesus. But on the other hand, I don’t know why he would have us preach to those who are already going to heaven if it could lead to some of them rejecting the gospel and not going to heaven. I think I’m going to have to study this topic a bit more.

Joe:    Sounds like a good plan. Let me know what you find out.

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.’

Thoughts on the Movie "The Case for Christ"

Kathy and I went to see the movie "The Case for Christ" this afternoon. It was an excellent movie and well acted. I found myself being caught up in the emotion of it all.

In case you don't know, Lee Strobel is a famous Christian apologist who started out as an atheist. He has written many poplar apologetic books. This movie depicts his journey from atheism to faith. As an investigative journalist for The Chicago Tribune, he was a firm believer in following the facts wherever they led. When his wife becomes a Christian, he sets out to prove the resurrection of Jesus never happened by visiting and interviewing experts in many fields of study. Eventually he realizes that the evidence for the resurrection was strong and he could not disprove it, so he converts to Christianity himself.

I have read several of Strobel's books and used to watch a question and answer TV show he hosted. His story is intriguing, as are other stories like his, such as Josh McDowell's. There have been a number of atheists that have come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus after examining the evidence. But on the other hand, there have been a number of Christians that have become unbelievers upon more thoroughly investigating the evidence. I am one of those people as is Dan Barker, who was an evangelical preacher for 19 years before realizing that he really didn't believe what he was preaching.

So, how can that be? How can two people examine the exact same evidence and come to such radically different conclusions? It's a conundrum, but fascinating. Think about a trial where 12 people are listening to the evidence being presented about the guilt or innocence of an alleged criminal. Sometimes the evidence is overwhelming one way or the other and all 12 vote the same way. However, in other cases, the evidence is not quite so clear. There is some evidence that makes you think the person is guilty, but other evidence that makes you think the person is innocent.

So what makes a person come down on one side or the other? Well, I believe it has to do with how much evidence each individual requires in order to be convinced of something. Some people can be told that friendly space aliens are going to land in Central Park tomorrow to take willing Earthlings to a better planet, and they will be lined up waiting at midnight. Others could actually see aliens land and take people and still not believe it, thinking some sort of delusion had overtaken them.

There's many other factors that can affect someone's decision in the face of conflicting evidence. Past experiences, facial expressions of the witnesses while they were testifying, how often they have been lied to by supposedly trustworthy people, etc. So, getting 12 people to agree on the meaning of the evidence is actually quite a feat.

In my case, I'm hard-nosed. I want to have near ironclad evidence, especially when it concerns supernatural events such as a resurrection. But when I conducted my multi-year investigation of the Bible, I discovered that the evidence for the supernatural events reported in it, especially the resurrection of Jesus, didn't even come close to being ironclad. In fact, the more I studied, the more ironclad it became against the resurrection. But, it never became what I would call conclusive. And that's the problem. I recorded my thoughts concerning my studies in a book entitled, "God Is."

The Bible says that God does not want any to be lost. Yet, it also says that if you don't believe, you WILL be lost. If you had a child that was in danger and you knew exactly what that child needed to be saved from that danger, would you not do exactly what was required of you? So, if God knows what each of us needs to believe and be saved, why does he not provide that for each individual? Why leave some hanging with a lack of evidence? These are the questions I cannot answer, assuming there is really a loving, powerful God in control.

A Review of the Movie “Risen”

This past Friday my wife and I went to see the new movie “Risen”. Although I am not a believer, I found the movie to be quite compelling. I think Joseph Fiennes, who played the lead role of Roman military tribune Clavius, deserves an Oscar nomination for best male lead. He did an absolutely fabulous job in this role.

Clavius is a tribune working for Pontius Pilate. Early in the movie, he is assigned the task of making sure the three men being crucified that day had their legs broken so they could die early. Of course those three men were Jesus and the two thieves. Later when Jesus’ body turns up missing from its tomb, Clavius is ordered by Pilate to find the corpse quickly before the disciples could start claiming Jesus had risen from the dead.

Clavius, being the loyal tribune he was, obeyed. But as the evidence unfolds, he begins to believe it might be possible that Jesus was indeed actually alive. When he ultimately finds all the apostles together in a room with Jesus in their midst, he is compelled to cast aside his doubts and embrace Jesus’ resurrection. However, this creates quite a dilemma for Clavius, given his position.

I will leave you with three main thoughts that stuck with me during the movie.

1. Joseph Fiennes is a fine actor.

2. Oftentimes people can get caught up in doing bad things while thinking they are being good. This struck me during a scene where Clavius has his men cremate fallen soldiers after a brutal battle with some Zealots. As one of the bodies was going up in flames, I had a sudden thought that that poor soldier probably died thinking he was a good man and a loyal Roman, being willing to give his life while defending the Empire. Yet, we now look back on those times and view the Roman occupation of Israel as being an evil thing. It makes me wonder how many times I have done something thinking I was doing good but will one day be seen as bad?

3. It is okay to doubt the reality of an incredible claim from the past. Clavius becomes distraught upon finding a risen Jesus. He was having a hard time believing his own eyes. He ultimately did, but it was hard accepting that which he had long believed impossible. As you may recall from the Bible, the apostles, and especially Thomas,  were skeptical of Jesus’ resurrection even though the New Testament tells us that they had witnessed a number of resurrections and had even performed some themselves. At one point Jesus asks Clavius, “Are you having trouble believing your own eyes? Just think of all those who will be asked to believe, but do not see.” Yes, what about those people, of which I am one? If it took an actual physical appearance of Jesus to convince his followers he had risen from the dead, then why is it wrong for us today to require the same? Jesus did not condemn their lack of faith; he simply provided then with the proof they needed. Why must we today have to depend on supposed eyewitness testimony from centuries past? We don’t. We can ask for the same level of proof that the apostles asked for.

If you get the chance, go see this movie!

First Contact – Part 29 – Supernatural

I grew up believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. As all children do at some age, I eventually began to question these characters’ existence. So, you can imagine how much of a relief it was for me, at the tender age of 16, to finally prove that they were all indeed real. That is, if the figments of people’s imaginations can be considered real. But seriously, I can still remember riding in the backseat of our car when I was maybe five or six years old. I saw two or three Santas along the way on street corners. I wondered how all those Santas could be the real Santa. Mom had explained that most of them were just Santa’s helpers, but that’s not what they claimed to be. I also began questioning how Santa could slide down a chimney or squeeze through a keyhole. In other words, the rational part of my brain was beginning to kick in and question the fanciful tales I had been told. Interestingly, my son Andrew began questioning Santa’s existence when he was four. Kathy and I had determined that we would not intentionally lie to him about Santa, so if he ever asked directly, we would tell him the truth. I can still remember tucking him into bed one evening near Christmas and the conversation going like this.

Andrew: “Does Santa Claus really exist?”

Me: “What do you think?”

Andrew: “I don’t think he’s real.”

Me: “Do you want to know the truth?”

Andrew: “Yes.”

Me: “You’re right. He is not real.”

Andrew (after thinking a bit): “I think I’m going to believe in him anyway.”

Me: “That’s fine. Just don’t tell your friends. Their parents may not want them to know.”

Andrew: “I won’t.”

Andrew proceeded to pretend Santa was real. He’d go sit on his lap at the mall and leave cookies and milk out on Christmas Eve. The next morning, he’d ask Kathy and me who had eaten them. One or both of us would fess up. Kathy and I never perceived that Andrew enjoyed Christmas any less with his truthful knowledge than his friends with false knowledge.

Another part of my supernatural upbringing was that my mom was apparently a psychic. She told me that it began when she was a young girl. She was in the kitchen at home working on a meal when a voice in her head said, “The barn is on fire.” She didn’t think too much of it, but a few minutes later one of her brothers came running into the house yelling, “The barn is on fire.” From that point forward, The Voice would talk to her on occasion. The one I remember best is when she first met my new friend’s mother. The Voice told her that she and her husband were going to get a divorce. Well, it was several years later, but indeed the divorce did come to pass. When I was older, that same friend was going to the car races with his dad, and they invited me. I asked Mom if I could go. She was very hesitant about it. She finally told me that The Voice had told her something bad was going to happen. I didn’t care about The Voice, so kept pleading with her. She finally relented. My friend and I loaded into the back of his dad’s truck and left for the races. We had a great time and arrived home safely. Hey, even Jeane Dixon got it wrong occasionally.

My mom also used to tell me about spooky things she saw as a child. They were kind of like ghost stories, but supposedly true. She used to see lights bouncing around in the sky. Since this was before the days of UFO stories, she didn’t think too much about it. She would just marvel at them. One evening as she and her family were walking home from church they all saw a ball of fire approaching them from the east. As it passed overhead, her dad threw his hat at it. It continued on over the woods to the west and disappeared. She never knew what it was. But the most bizarre story she told me was about the time she had to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. At that time, potty time was not an easy time. There was no toilet in the house. They didn’t even have an outhouse. She had to go out to the field and squat. ‘Nough said. Anyway, when she went out the front door she noticed a three-story building with all the windows lit up directly across the road. That would be fine if there had been an actual building there, but there wasn’t. It was just woods. And they didn’t even have electricity in the area at that time. She said she sat on the front porch for a while watching it. She finally did her business and went back to bed. I still don’t know what to think about all those stories Mom told me, especially since I have never experienced anything similar. Well, mostly. I have experienced a couple of bizarre incidents.

Incident #1: Many years ago I went with a female coworker to a new restaurant in town for lunch. It was fixed up with a lot of decorations, TVs on the walls, and a side room with arcade games. While waiting for our food, I began watching an old B&W movie that had just started. The title of the movie was a woman’s name that I cannot remember, so let’s just say it was Amelia. Well, at the point that Amelia makes her first appearance in the movie, she is asked who she is. She responds, “Amelia.” Well, just at the time she said her name, an employee of the restaurant came over the intercom to call out the name of the customer whose order was ready to pick up. You guessed it, the name was Amelia. Kind of bizarre, don’t you think? Anyway, after my friend and I finished eating, we were just sitting there relaxing when I heard a deep male voice behind me say, “Better get back to work.” I quickly turned and looked all around, but there was no one anywhere near me. Just when I thought I might be hearing things, my coworker said, “Yeah, you’re right.” I asked her who she was talking to. She said, “Didn’t you just say we needed to get back to work?” I responded that I had not, but I had heard someone else saying it. To this day I still don’t know whose voice that was or where it came from. Upon telling my mother, she of course believed it was a supernatural warning that we really needed to get back to work or something bad was going to happen.

Incident #2: On March 30, 1981, as I was driving home from work, I heard a report on the radio that President Ronald Reagan, Press Secretary James Brady, and others had been attacked and shot by a crazed gunman. The report went on to say that James Brady, as a result of a gunshot wound to his head, was dead. I began praying that Brady would somehow not be dead. I knew this was a rather brazen prayer given that I was in fact praying for nothing less than a resurrection. Later I heard reports that Brady was in fact not dead. The earlier reports had been incorrect. Even so, the report of Brady still being alive gave me pause.

Other family members have reported seemingly supernatural events, also. Back in the late 1970’s, soon after my grandmother died, several of my relatives were at my grandfather’s house. An uncle was sitting in a chair directly opposite a wall where a whatnot hung. On a shelf of the whatnot was a small porcelain cup that had belonged to my grandmother. Suddenly my uncle saw the cup slide off the shelf and begin floating in the air toward him. Flabbergasted, all he could do was stare. When the cup got within a few feet of him, it quit moving towards him and the handle turned upward as if someone was holding it. Slowly it descended straight to the floor whereupon the cup appeared to have been released and then rolled over until the handle contacted the floor. He later described it to me as something straight from the TV show “Bewitched.” A second uncle, who was standing nearby but facing the opposite direction, caught a glimpse of the cup as it hit the floor. Thinking a young niece was responsible, he called out for her to stop throwing things. She was not even in the room at the time. A cousin was in the dining room at the time and reported that he also caught a glimpse, through a doorway, of the cup as it was moving though the air. When the second uncle asked the first uncle how the cup got on the floor, he was speechless. After asking a few more times, he was finally able to answer that it had just floated over there. Several of the family members got together and tried to determine what had caused the cup to come off the shelf, cross the room, and settle on the floor. During the course of their investigation, they set the cup back on the shelf and pushed it off my hand. The cup sailed quickly through the air and hit the floor with such force as to break it into many pieces. A third uncle, when later told about this incident, said that he would give a hundred dollars to have seen that cup floating through the air. The uncle that saw the whole event responded that he would give a hundred dollars to not have seen it. Interestingly, the uncle who saw the cup floating through the air had been a skeptic of all the supernatural stories he had heard from other people. However, after this event, he told me he would never doubt other people’s stories ever again.

In addition to the paranormal stories, I will mention my religious upbringing. My dad never went to church as I was growing up. My mom attended some, but was dependent on having her cousin pick her up since she didn’t drive. I attended the Baptist church they went to when I was younger. Despite the lack of regular church attendance of parents, I was reared believing the Bible was the Word of God and worthy of being read and adhered to. Even so, as an older teenager, the rational part of my brain related to religion began to develop, so I rejected the Bible. I basically told people that I believed in God, just not the God of the Bible. There just didn’t seem to be enough evidence to support the veracity of the Bible’s supernatural stories. Yet, when I was 25 years old, I accepted Christ as my savior and was baptized into the church. By the age of 28, however, I was once again questioning the truthfulness of the Bible and eventually deconverted from Christianity. It wasn’t that I wanted to deconvert. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe something that I deep down knew did not have sufficient evidence to back it up. I eventually documented all my thoughts on this matter in a book entitled God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God.

To this day I am still skeptical of all supernatural or paranormal stories just as was my uncle before he saw the cup floating through the air. But I readily admit that should I ever see something totally unexplainable, I may change my mind. But it seems that usually when supernatural claims are put to the test scientifically, natural explanations are always forthcoming. One person who has been diligent about exposing people with supposed psychic, paranormal, or supernatural abilities is magician James Randi (aka The Amazing Randi). For many years now he has had a challenge in which if a person can demonstrate his supernatural powers under controlled conditions he will receive a substantial cash prize. Everyone who has taken this challenge has failed. Randi documents many exposés in Flim-Flam!: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions as well as other books.

Please keep in mind that if you have had what you consider to be a supernatural experience, I am not telling you it was not real. What I am saying is that our brain can sometimes trick us into believing something that wasn’t real. Also, sometimes what we consider to be supernatural is really a rare natural phenomenon. But then again it could be a for real supernatural experience. Still, most people can only judge the truthfulness of a claim based on their own personal experience. If someone tells me they just bought a new computer, I have no immediate basis for disbelieving him as this is an easily observed activity. However, if a friend tells me he just bought a dog that can speak German, French, and English, I do have an immediate basis for disbelieving him since no such thing has ever been reported in the history of man. As Carl Sagan said in his book Cosmos, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

If you have any stories of your personal encounters with the supernatural, I would love to hear them. Just leave them in the comment section.

Response to Joel Anderson's Critique of My Book, Part 5

Recently, Dr. Joel Anderson wrote a critique of the chapter "God is Omniscient" from my book "God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God". Here is my response.

Joel went quite easy on me this time, probably because he understood where I was coming from as far as my approach to the chapter went. I point out early on in my book that while much of what I critique is the Bible itself, a large part of it is more of a critique of some people's beliefs about the Bible. Joel is apparently not a fan of systematic theology in that it takes an a priori belief and attempts to find Biblical passages that support that belief. Joel believes in Biblical theology, where a person just accepts what is said without trying to read more into it than there is. I agree with this approach.

One of the biggest problems I see with some people's study of the Bible is how they rationalize certain parts of the Bible they don't like to make it fit with other parts they do like. I say let the words fall where they may even if you end up with a contradiction. Doing otherwise is akin to systematic theology in that you have a priori determined there are no contradictions in the Bible and therefore must reinterpret parts to make the whole consistent. This is a no-no in my mind. (NOTE: No-no does not here refer to a hair removal system regardless of what my head looks like. ;>) )

Concerning my comments about Jesus' lack of knowledge of certain things, Joel says that nowhere in Christian history was it taught that Jesus was omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. I would say that is good, since Jesus was indeed none of these things. However, many Christians today teach that Jesus was all those things. They believe him to be God incarnate and thus in possession of all the attributes of God himself, which they believe include all those things. I believe Jesus was simply a man that was disgusted with the Jewish leadership of his day and spoke out against them. At most he was a man that perhaps had more insight into the mind of God than did most people of his day. He was rather like Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses pointing out the errors of the religious leaders. Jesus' harsh commentaries eventually got him killed.

Regarding my concerns with God's omniscience and man's free will not being compatible, Joel says, "At some level beyond our finite human understanding these two things work together. We’ve just got to accept it." To Joel I paraphrase HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, "I'm sorry, Joel, I'm afraid I can't do that." It's by reasoning through some of these issues that we can conclude that certain ideas are untenable.

I was glad to hear that Joel sees Biblical prophecy the way I do. The OT prophecies were concerned with events that took place back in OT times, not NT times or current day. The linking of Jesus' life to OT prophecy was simply the writers' way of relating Jesus' life to that of their ancestors. But some might say that even if that is so, those original prophecies still came true back in OT times. Well, that's not necessarily true. When you have one writer relaying a prophecy as well as its fulfillment, things get problematic. The prophecy and its fulfillment could have just been made up or certain events simply interpreted as a fulfillment. But on the other hand it could simply be that there were many prophets predicting a variety of things. By pure chance, some would get it right, some would get it wrong. If the latter were killed as false prophets and the former kept alive and their writings preserved, it would appear they have special powers they in reality did not have. I am reminded of a story I heard from a friend.

Suppose you want to start a financial newsletter and charge people a large sum of money for your financial expertise. You might be pretty good at predicting markets, but you are by no means perfect. So, what do you do to make people think you are a financial wizard worthy of a substantial part of their income. Well, you first start out by sending out a sample newsletter. Half of them make one prediction, the other half the opposite. You'll lose the people that receive the wrong prediction, but get the attention of the other half. Now, send out another half and half newsletter to just the ones you sent the correct prediction. Soon you will have some fraction (1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or whatever) of the recipients thinking you to be a financial genius and willing to send their money to you for more advice. Something similar could explain the prophets of old. After eliminating the wrong ones, you'd still have some fraction of them appearing to be God's man of the hour. As Joel says, "The Jews kept the writings of Jeremiah because his prophecy about Jerusalem’s destruction came true; they ditched the prophecies of Hananiah because his prophecies about Judah breaking Babylon’s yoke was proven to be false."

To better understand my views of the Bible and Jehovah, be sure to read a copy of my book, God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God. I am also the author of two other books. Passion is a Harsh Taskmaster is a mystery romance novel. Beginnings to Endings is a humorous philosophy book written in the style of one of my favorite humorists, Dave Barry. I also have four photography books published. Check out the ads to the left and below for links to these books as well as my various Web sites.

Response to Joel Anderson's Critique of My Book, Part 2

Dr. Joel Anderson has written a second post critiquing my book "God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God". Below is my rebuttal.

Surprise! I don't actually have a rebuttal. Joel was pretty much in agreement with my conclusions in the "God is Self-Sufficient" chapter.

But I do want to add a couple of things.

Much of the "God is Self-Sufficient" chapter of my book centers around a discussion of God's perfection and why he would create anything if he is totally self-sufficient. In Christian literature, self-sufficiency seems to be one of the attributes defining perfection. However, I challenged the prevailing beliefs about perfection and Joel seemed to agree with that challenge.

The problem with humans discussing perfection is that we consider even ourselves imperfect, making mistakes fairly regularly. So, my question is, "Is it possible for imperfect people to recognize perfection given that our view of perfection is most likely imperfect?" In other words, can we humans even know what perfection entails? The perplexity of this simple question has profound implications.

Suppose a perfect person was born into this world, as it was claimed that Jesus Christ was. How would he be viewed? I think it obvious that a few would consider him to be perfect, others would see him as being slightly flawed, some would view him as just another flawed human that was no better or worse than any other human, and some might even consider him evil. And lo and behold, that is exactly how the responses to Jesus' life played out in the Gospels. But how could this be?

Simple. We all have a different idea of what constitutes perfection. But if this is so, how can we ever know who, if anyone, is perfect? The answer will be unsatisfactory to some. WE CAN'T! The only way to recognize perfection perfectly would be for there to exist some absolute standard of perfection of which everyone was aware.

Of course, some people claim that the God of their religion represents perfection. But there are many religions. The gods of each are different and incompatible. So, can they all be perfect? And within each religion there are many sects with differing views of the God they worship. This is even true on a congregational level. That being the case, whose view of God is the right one and thus the one pointing us to perfection? Who is qualified to make that determination?

All of the above assumes that God is indeed perfect. Most religions seem to believe this. For example, here's a quote from a recent "Questions Answered" from Bible Gateway: "Though the connection between God’s sovereignty and human freedom is mysterious from our perspective, we must remember that God is, by definition, completely good in his actions."

Where did this definition of God being completely good come from? Why is it necessary for God to always be good or perfect? Couldn't God be both good and bad and still be the creator of the Universe? And who gets to decide the answers to these questions?

If you haven't picked up on the real issue here, it's that the word "perfection" is a relative term like the word "cold". You can have a group of people in the same room at the same temperature and humidity and some would say it was warm, some would say it was cool, and some would say it was cold. Who's right? They all are. That's because "cold" is a term that relates how individual bodies respond to air temperature and humidity. Well, "perfection" is similar. Each person has a different view of perfection based on a combination of genetics and life experiences. Fortunately, there are some aspects of perfection that an overwhelming majority of people agree on. This allows us to live together as a community and a nation with laws that restrict certain imperfect behaviors.

That's all I have for now. There will probably be more discussion about this matter as Joel critiques additional chapters of my book.

Response to Joel Anderson's Critique of My Book, Part 1

My friend, Joel Anderson, has written his first blog post critiquing my book "God Is: Exploring the Nature of the Biblical God". For some reason, Google was not allowing me to post a response directly on his blog, so I am posting it here on mine.

Thanks, Joel. You are a man of your word, and I appreciate that.

I just wanted to make a few points of clarification.

Reason and logic are not a panacea. To live our lives 100% by R&L requires us to have all knowledge related to a topic and to be capable of flawless logic. In this temporal life, we rarely have the time to gather all relevant information and examine it thoroughly. We almost always make decisions based on partial knowledge. Faith bridges the gap. So R&L and faith are both needed to function properly in this life. That said, I believe the more we use R&L, the closer to the truth we will come.

When I say that we should examine the Bible through the filter of R&L, what I am saying is that if there are any obvious contradictions or irrationalities, it is not a good idea to just accept them by faith. It is best to say, "Well, the Bible has flaws in it" rather than say "I don't understand these seeming contradictions, but I know the Bible is 100% true, so I believe it anyway."

While some Christians believe the Bible should be accepted by faith alone, others actually believe in some combination of faith and reason. Once a Christian friend said to me, "People need to understand that the Bible should be believed by faith." I said, "If that's true, then why can't a person believe ANY religion by faith?" Knowing he was cornered he responded, "Well, I guess one needs to use faith and reason." I said, "Exactly! The problem is now how much of each?"

Also, notice that I didn't say in my book that only natural explanations should be accepted for reported supernatural events. I said if any natural explanations exist they are to be preferred. I fail to see how this is controversial. Even Christians do this when it comes to current day events. If someone says he killed another person because God commanded him to, even a Christian would not believe it without an abundance of proof. But when the Old Testament reports that God commanded the Israelites to kill people, they accept it without an abundance of proof. That is illogical to me. Be skeptical of both.

Since I have never experienced any supernatural events (something that defies the known laws of physics and nature) in my entire life, it seems reasonable to me that I should be skeptical of supernatural reports from others. After all, when many of these claims are actually investigated, a natural explanation is found. Other times we find that the person was fooled, exaggerating, or lying. But if the gospel stories are indeed true, then I am not nearly as skeptical as the apostles were of Jesus' resurrection. They disbelieved the testimony of their friends even though they had seen Jesus perform many miracles and had themselves performed them. They still had to see physical proof. I ask no more. (See http://www.rcfinch.com/philosophy/TheApostlesAreOurExample.pdf)

Finally, I am a skeptic, but more accurately I call myself a theistic leaning agnostic. That means that I don't know for sure if God exists, but I tend to believe he does. But based on all the evidence I have encountered along my space-time continuum path, I do not believe supernatural events occur. It doesn't mean they don't, it just means that I am very skeptical based on my experiences. The reason I mostly believe in a god (or creator), is that the Universe doesn't seem to be able to explain its own existence. That may change with more research, but currently it seems more knowledge just leads to more questions. What I don't believe is that God is any of the ones portrayed by the religions of the world. I believe the descriptions of the gods in religions are just how the writers of the holy books personally viewed God. A person in any of these religions would be just as skeptical as me about all other religions but their own. I am just skeptical of one more than they are.

If God exists, it appears he has given mankind the gift of reason to keep us from believing the unbelievable. Surely he would not want us to squander this ability.

On Wealth and Giving

This morning I heard David Jeremiah on the radio talking about tithes and offerings. He talked about how he and his wife had recently discussed what they felt like the Lord was leading them to do in the way of giving. He said that the older he gets the more he realizes how little a person really needs to live. Although he didn’t state it explicitly, Jeremiah seemed to be implying that Christians needed to scale back obtaining things they simply want and give more to the Lord instead. I would like to express my view on this matter.

First, one has to be clear about what is meant by needs and wants. Do needs only include those things required to survive at a subsistence level or can they also include things that elevate us some degree above subsistence level. If the former, then it really is true that very little is needed. These would consist of: a small shelter to protect us from the elements, a minimal amount of basic foods for nourishment, and very basic clothing to protect us from the winter cold and the summer sun. Multi-roomed brick houses with fine decorations are not needed. Twenty-dollar steaks and other high end culinary delights are not required. Designer clothes are not essential. Throw out those TVs, radios, game machines, phones, computers, fine furniture, dish washers, clothes washers and dryers, plush mattresses, etc. None of those things are necessary to maintain a subsistence level existence.

But I doubt seriously that Jeremiah was talking about scaling our lives back this much. He hasn’t done it and I don’t see a mass movement amongst believers to leap into a poverty level existence. So, if God’s people are allowed to live above the poverty line, how far above it can they go? Once one steps above that line, I can see no logical stopping point. At every step along the way, one can question his own actions. You want to sleep on a nice $500 mattress rather than the floor so your back won’t hurt. But is preventing your hurting back more important than preventing a destitute person from starving to death? Is the convenience of having a machine wash your dishes more important than providing shelter to a person exposed to the elements? And on and on the questions can be asked. At what point should the answer be that my comforts are less important than another’s survival?

Rather than questioning his spending habits, a person could choose to go the route that Jesus told the rich ruler in Luke 18 he must follow to inherit eternal life: sell everything and give to the poor. This Biblical story has been repeated so much that we sort of gloss over how incredibly radical this command is. Sell everything and give to the poor! I have often wondered how this would play out in real life should a person actually do this. First, the rich man would himself immediately become poor and need the assistance of others who are selling everything and giving to the poor. That is unless the rich man had a source of income to sustain him in the future. Assuming he does, is he required to continually sell all new possessions that come his way or is this just a onetime event leaving him free to accumulate wealth in the future with impunity? It would seem that the answer to this is that he would have to continually turn over his wealth to the poor lest his new possessions take control of his life as the old possessions had.

I personally think that as long as a person has earned his possessions honestly, then he is free to live at any standard of living he can afford. In countries where this has been allowed, wealth beyond what even a king could have imagined 500 years ago has been created. Look at society today here in the US as well as in other relatively free nations around the world. It is absolutely phenomenal! Now think with me about what would happen if everyone decided to quit buying things not necessary to simply exist. The world economy would be decimated. If people quit buying TVs, iPods, appliances, large houses, fancy clothes, and so on, worldwide unemployment would probably top 50% or higher. This is due to the efficiency in the current production of necessary items. It does not take the entire working population to produce these things. So, for there to be work available for everyone else, they of necessity must produce wanted items rather than needed items. Just look at what has happened in the last couple of years with the economic downturn. Just a small number of people withholding spending on luxury items has caused unemployment in the US to top 10%. That is nothing compared to what would happen if there was a mass exodus from high-on-the-hog living.

So, is it better to stop living an affluent life, thus putting billions of people out of work; or is it better to continue to acquire more and more unnecessary stuff, thus keeping billions of people employed. It seems to me that it is much, much better for everybody to live as affluently as possible and keep people employed than live modestly and cause many to go on welfare, assuming there’s any welfare money available under such conditions. In addition, it is affluence that allows us to provide an abundance of emergency help to people in dire straits like the people of Haiti. If those who are able to live abundantly fail to do so, then they can cause as much devastation and suffering for the poor of the world as can a natural disaster.

The Unknown God

A few weeks ago a friend of mine at church loaned me some audio tapes of a three part sermon by John MacArthur entitled "Getting to Know the Unknown God." This sermon series was recorded late 1973 so I am not sure if MacArthur still agrees with everything he said back then, but for the purposes of this post I will assume he does.

The sermon was centered around Acts 17 where Paul enters Athens and sees the altar to the unknown god. He then preaches a sermon declaring Jehovah to be the god that they did not know. John MacArthur's sermon is quite good. He is an interesting speaker. However, there were a few things he said that I take exception with.

MacArthur claims that the only purpose of humans is to know God. He says that people who do not know God have no purpose and no meaning and their lives are not worth living. These people, like Judas Iscariot, would have been better off to not have been born. That is a pretty bold statement. How can he so confidently state such a thing without knowing the inner person of every human on the face of the Earth? What does MacArthur mean when he says a person's life is meaningless and purposeless? Isn't the meaning and purpose of one's life something that is a part of one's own consciousness that can only be determined by each individual for his own self? I know and have seen many people that MacArthur would probably claim do not know God that believe they have much meaning and purpose in their lives. They know people and engage in activities that are very important to them. Other people love them and believe them to be essential elements of their own lives. But apparently this does not matter to MacArthur. For him, the only thing that conveys meaning and purpose onto a person's life is the knowledge of God.

MacArthur goes on to say that there are two types of people: those that know God and those that don't know God.  Of the latter there are two groups: those that know they don't know God and those that don't know they don't know God. The latter group believe they know God, but in actuality they do not. In other words they are deceived.

So what does it take for a person to truly know God. According to MacArthur God can only be known through Jesus Christ. By studying about Jesus and coming to know him better, we can get to know God himself. This is based on John 14:6-8. So anyone who believes they know God through any other means than Jesus is deceived and really does not know God. The thing that has always interested me about such statements is that once a person admits that it is possible to believe something wrongly, they must admit that they themselves could be among that group. In other words, it could be that MacArthur himself is one of the deluded, thinking he knows the true God, but not knowing him in reality.

Another interesting aspect of MacArthur's sermon was that he quoted many times from the book of Jeremiah and other OT books where the writers describe the nature of Jehovah. But how could these OT writers know God? If the only way to truly know God is through the knowledge, teaching, and person of Jesus Christ, how could the OT writers have known anything about God? They knew nothing of Jesus Christ. They may have believed in a coming Messiah, but that was just general information, not a true knowledge of the actual person of Jesus. I say that if the only way to know God is to know Jesus, then we can just chunk the OT because those guys did not know Jesus.

I believe that we cannot with certainty even know whether there is a god or not, let alone know for sure what his attributes are. We all exist on a huge ball in space which is just an infinitesimal speck in the expanse of the cosmos. Humans have the ability to use their senses to assimilate information about the cosmos and draw conclusions via rational thought. However, when it comes to the ultimate questions of "How did the Universe get here?", "Where did we all come from?", and "What is my purpose for being here?", we are all still in the dark just like the thousands of generations that preceded us. This can be a hard pill to swallow, but it is one we must swallow nonetheless. Basically, every person must discover what has meaning and purpose to himself and go about achieving those things.

Lifting Himself Up By His Own Bootstraps

I have heard a number of people claim that Jesus raised himself from the dead. In fact, I just heard John Ankerberg say this on his September 11, 2009 radio program, The Ankerberg Minute. I have not been able to find any references in the New Testament proclaiming that. Every passage I have found where the raiser is mentioned says that it was God the Father. Here are verses I have found that state that Jesus was raised by God the Father:

Acts 2:24, 3:15, 4:10, 5:30, 10:40, 13:30, 13:34, 13:37
Romans 4:24, 6:4, 8:11, 10:9
1 Corinthians 6:14, 15:15
Galatians 1:1
Colossians 2:12
1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
1 Peter 1:21.

All these references say that God raised Jesus from the dead. I know of no references that say otherwise. If you know of any, please leave a comment.