Month: December 2007

I seem to notice a contrast between different people. When I debate someone on the Problem of Evil, they always bring up an idea that makes the Earth look like a hideous place where evil is around every bend. On the other hand, the Christians, like myself, see this place as having evil, yes, but that the good is by far overwhelming.

However, we believe that we are the people of the truth. Surely there must be some explanation for this discrepancy. Why is it that the non-believer sees so much evil that it outweighs the good? As I pondered this last night, I came to a conclusion that hinges on the way God is viewed.

Peter Kreeft says in his book “Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing” that everything on Earth points to either Heaven or Hell. If that is the case, and I think it is, everything here is that which points beyond itself. Everything screams that this is not all there is. I think even evil screams that. Evil tells us that things are not as they were meant to be. This world is not in its final state.

In “The Man Who Was Thursday” G.K. Chesterton speaks about a character that when seen from one view, is thought by many that he is so evil that there cannot be any good. However, there are others who look and see the good side that they realize there must be an explanation for the evil. One view is true and one is false.

Now it’s not my point tonight to show which it is. I am simply wanting us to see how this problem is approached by those from the non-Christian side. My suspicion is that our lives are preparing us to take on either the nature of Heaven or the nature of Hell. When we reach each place, it will simply be stepping into what is called aeveterinity in the way we have been going.

Why do the non-believers see so much evil? Because they are resisting God at this point and are not wanting to see the good. Since they do not want to see the good, God is granting them their wish and they are seeing the evil.  The more though they come to see good as it is and want the good for the sake of the good, the closer they will get to God.

As for us, we are making it our goal to see the world as it is, the way God would have us to see it. In doing so, we see that the creation truly is good as God said it is at creation. True, it is fallen, but do we really think the evil in the world can overwhelm the good of the creation?

We look at evil as a mere interruption of sorts. This is especially true of death. Death is a temporary good-bye for the Christian. For the atheist, it is still the greatest evil. It is that which is to be resisted to no end. When death comes, that is it. The non-Christian cannot view it as the Christian does.

For the Christian, all works together for good. Creation is not an accident. God is still in control of it. We do not have to think that we are in a funhouse of horror with danger around every bend. Instead, we are children that are in a huge playground and exploring it for the joy of discovery.

This could be a large part of Heaven in fact. It could be that we then have all of forever to explore the rest of the creation and see all the wonder God has made. Such is why I stated that when a non-Christian starts to love the good for the sake of the good, then he is getting closer to God. This is why C.S. Lewis told us that Hell has been unable to create a pleasure. They can only twist the pleasures of God. (Rest assured when they do, they actually become lesser pleasures.)  If someone comes to true pleasure, it will get them closer to God.

How about you? Are you seeking good for the sake of good? Or are you looking out for yourself only and seeing a world of evil all around? Be wary if you are, for it means you are getting closer to Hell instead of Heaven. Perchance if that is the case, you might want to check to see who your loyalty lies to.

I’d like to suggest something for your Bible reading. I read a few chapters of Scripture every day and I’ve been going through the book of Ezekiel now in the OT. I find it extremely fascinating in that as I have been reading, I have been suddenly confronted with texts that I find Trinitarian in nature.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know the Trinity is in the OT. Of course, I believe it’s easier to see with the revelation of the NT. I do believe though that you can go back through the OT with the lens of the NT on and see the revelation of Christ everywhere. One way to do that is to see the Trinity.

Consider if you were watching a detective movie or TV show. The first time through, you might not solve the case. Then, you do figure out who did it and you go through and watch it again. All of a sudden, you see that things do fit in perfectly and if you had been looking, you would have known them all along, and your insight is greater for it.

I’d like to suggest two passages I’ve come across thus far. The first is in Ezekiel 3:

22 The hand of the LORD was upon me there, and he said to me, “Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.” 23 So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the LORD was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.

24 Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. He spoke to me and said: “Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people. 26 I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says.’ Whoever will listen let him listen, and whoever will refuse let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

Now notice what is going on here. I’m no expert on Hebrew, so I can’t confirm anything yea or nay. However, I do believe there is a possibility of this showing up here. We have the hand of the Lord and then appearing before the glory of the Lord in the form of a person. My belief is that when there is a theophany in the OT, we can generally take it to be Christ. The only one that could be an exception that I know of right off is Genesis 18 and the three men that came to Abraham.

However, if that is the case, we have the hand of the Lord referring to the actions of the Father, the glory of the Lord, referring to the Son, and then the Spirit of the Lord, which of course, refers to the Spirit. Now if it is the Spirit or not that is speaking, I am unclear of. However, I do see three persons working together in this passage.

The next is in Ezekiel 8:

1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign LORD came upon me there. 2 I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man.  From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. 3 He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance to the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. 4 And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain.

Look what happens again. The hand of the Lord comes on Ezekiel and then he is standing before a man much like his vision in Ezekiel 1. (Go read that vision and see if that man is not in the position of deity.) Then, Ezekiel is taken by the Spirit and sees the glory of the God of Israel. This I would take to refer to either the Shekinah or the temple, though most likely, that would usually refer to the Shekinah. (This was the presence of the Lord in the cloud.)

What’s my point in this? Trinitarianism runs all throughout the Bible. Now this is just Ezekiel and only two passages, but you can find references in several places. I already have an Arian who doesn’t know what to do with Genesis 19:24 because it says the YHWH on Earth rained fire down from the YHWH out of Heaven.

Too often, we have rejected the OT. This is a shame. It is just as much our heritage as any other part of Scripture is. We should embrace it and look in it to see Christ as much as we do in the NT.

Recently at the apologetics conference, I heard a great talk on problems of Open Theism and how God is truly timeless. I heard it expressed in a way I never had before and it really left me thinking. I have also been reading Gordon Clark’s “Thales to Dewey” with the constant debate between rationalism and empiricism. How do we know what we know?

Now what I am about to put forward here is just speculation. However, it could help spark someone else’s thoughts. Maybe someone will comment the missing piece. Rest assured, I have no conclusions definitely and I will spend much more time pondering this. I’m wanting to invite you along on this journey though and you can get a glimpse into what’s going on in my mind. (Some of you, I anticipate, are getting nightmares now.)

I believe that God experiences everything in the eternal now and knows everything in the eternal now. Right now, God is creating the world, seeing his Son die on the cross, and unleashing judgment on those sinners who haven’t repented at the great white throne judgment, as well as enjoying eternity with you and I.

Now how about our knowledge? Plato’s idea is that we know because we saw the forms in between our lives. Now it’s not likely he believed in reincarnation, but that is just the best possible theory he had at the time for explaining how we know the eternal ideas called the forms.

Aristotle was different. Aristotle thought that information came through the senses mostly. Now Plato was not against sense experience. Plato was against the idea that all knowledge came through that for he thought there were many things you do not know through your senses.

Augustine came and said that the forms were eternal ideas in the mind of God and since we are in the image of God, we are given that knowledge when we are born. It is not explicit though. It is implicit within us and when certain triggering events come along, we recognize them.

Then Aquinas came and Christianized Aristotle and again returned emphasis to the senses. This led to Locke with his theory of the blank slate or “Tabula Rasa.” This was eventually followed by Berkeley who denied the reality of the material world, the skepticism of Hume, and the idea of Kant that we can’t know the reality of external things in themselves.

I see this as a type of natural progression of the idea as one who gives more credence to Plato’s theory of knowledge than Aristotle’s. I ponder though how it went with Berkeley. We are told by the skeptical community that morality is relative, which is to be put in contrast to things that are objective, like science.

But why should we on the basis of naturalism see science as objective? Why should we believe that senses that are the result of an accident can tell us about the nature of the external world? Why should we believe it even exists? If we can’t know the things in themselves, then how can we know they even exist?

Now this is my theory. Things exist and are true because they are eternally true in the mind of God. What that means is not that the objects are eternal themselves, but that God knows time and he knows the way things are at each moment in time. Whatever is before me is there based on the knowledge of God.

This also means that it is based on relationships. Now there is naturally a relationship between everything. My computer exists. There is a subject and a predicate there. The computer is that which partakes in existence. This is also why my epistemology is specifically a Christian epistemology as the God of Christianity exists eternally in a relationship.

Thus, truth is eternally known in the mind of God and when we discover truth, we are simply discovering that which God affirms as true. It will also have to be a Trinitarian concept. I’m not even sure if truth can truly exist in a universe from a monad god. I have far less basis in a naturalistic universe.

Again, these are just my thoughts. Do I have a reconciliation of predestination and free-will yet? No. I’m still chewing on that and maybe in some time I will post some thoughts on it. These are just the ideas I have now, and I certainly hope that there is something to them.

Most of my praying is done at night. I’ll admit that is something I should probably change, but I am hardly what anyone would call a prayer warrior. Nevertheless, I want to share with you a nightly prayer I say. Sometimes I drop out of the habit of saying it, but a few months later, I’m in it again. It came largely from thinking about how C.S. Lewis said somewhere that one of the dangers of our life is that we keep picturing God as we think he is so much that we don’t see him as he really is and we need to open up to the fact that our ideas could be wrong.

Take this with Scripture. Perchance someone is a Calvinist. I think it’d be good for them to approach the Scripture and say “Is there a chance that I could be wrong on this?” Let Scripture guide your beliefs instead of your beliefs guiding Scripture. To be sure I’m not going on other people, I am an orthodox preterist. I should read the Scripture and realize I could be wrong and if so, be ready to accept correction as the text is being understood.

Thus, with that in mind, here is the prayer I pray. It’s not word for word, but the same nuances are there every night.

I start addressing the Father and I come up with several terms from Scripture that remind me who he is and some outside of Scripture. Maybe some philosophical ideas that I think show his glory as well. I refer to him as holy and Ancient of Days and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for instance. Then, I say “Not as I see you, but as you are, may I see you.”

Then I come to the Son. Again, I say many similar things. I will speak of him being Messiah for instance and Savior and Lord. He is the Son of God, Son of Man, and Son of David. I will then address him and say “Not as I see you, but as you are, may you be to me.”

Next, for good Trinitarians like myself, is the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit is not given as many titles in Scripture as the Father and Son, but we have some. He is the Parcalette. He is the one that comes alongside us. He is the comforter. I then pray “Not as I see you, but as you are, may you be to me.”

I then come to the Trinity as a whole. I do think it’s important to understand each person of the Trinity to the best of our ability, but it’s good to ponder the nature of the Trinitarian relationship as well. I then pray that not as I see the Trinity, but as the Trinity is, may the Trinity be to me.

After this, I come to other areas. I pray about the world and say “Not as I see the world, but as you see it, may I see it.” This is the world God has put us in to change for his glory. I want to have the best understanding of that world and see it the way God sees it so I will have the passion to do what I am to do.

Then I say the same thing about my neighbor. I want to see my fellow man the way God sees them. Now in each of these, I’m not asking for omniscience. I just believe that God sees things as they are and I want to see them the same way. Of course, I also believe he sees them as they will be, but I want to see them as they are at this point in time.

Then I pray that about myself. We can often have the hardest time seeing who we are. I want to see myself the way God sees me. I want to believe all that is true about me and get rid of all that is false about me. We Christians should be conforming our lives to truth more and more everyday.

Now some of you might not care for this kind of prayer. That’s fine. If you want to use it though, great! Of course, I do still have prayers afterwards of thanks, praise, petition, forgiveness, intercession, etc. This is the one I pray first though as it helps to remind me of the one I am approaching and how I should constantly seek truth.

I had a conversation with someone earlier today. We started discussing masculinity and femininity.  We somehow got to talk about Native American beliefs that some tribes would believe everything has spirits. I said my only problem with that is that they are polytheistic. I believe God does permeate the universe as it were. He is not the universe of course, but his presence is everywhere.

I then told them that we do see love everywhere. We’ve just mechanized it. Let us consider gravity for instance. What is gravity? It is simply attraction. We cannot explain why the heavenly bodies are attracted to one another, but they are. We look at all that happens and because we think we know the mechanistic reason for why it happens, that we understand it all.

This got into talk about sexuality and seeing it in nature and how we don’t see it because we have a naturalistic view of the world. The ancients had nouns as masculine and feminine. We tend to think they read their thoughts into the creation. What if they read them out of the creation though?

What if this was a world of life that they saw and so many things embodied to them the qualities of masculinity and femininity? What if we returned to the ancient name for outer space? They did not call it space. They called it the Heavens. Could we not say space is filled with the presence of God? Then why speak of it as lifeless? Whether you are here or on the moon or on Alpha Centuari, God is there.

Let us consider how much something is reduced though if you give just the mechanics. Consider again sexual intercourse. Now I am a virgin, but I would have no problem telling a young man how the system works. Suppose though that I had to explain it to a young man and this young man is not in puberty yet and he has no desire or interest in girls.

Suppose I describe the whole system to him and I do it without any emotion. I just describe the mechanics. There is no talk in there about feelings and desires. I just say “This is how the system works and when it does its purpose, there is a baby that is born later on.”

I can easily imagine such a kid looking at me when I’m done. I can picture that he’d say “But everyone make such a big deal about it. From the way you described it, I just don’t see what the appeal is.” For all I know, he might even think it sounded gross like a necessary evil. If I just described the mechanics also, who could blame him?

What did we leave out? It’s not enough to know the mechanics. You have to talk about passion and desire and pleasure. You have to talk about how these two people want this more than anything else at the time and they just can’t contain it. Only then can you really understand it. It has to be more than mechanics.

Are we treating the universe the same way? The universe is the way it is. Why? God made it that way for a reason. This is where Christianity and science do intersect. It’s not just about how it works. It’s about why it works and to what end it works. Take away a designer and you leave out those steps. There is no final cause, as Aristotle would say.

And is it any wonder some of us lose wonder? If this is all the universe is, why bother? What’s so amazing about the sunrise? We know it happens and how it happens. Ah! But why did God make it that way? Could we learn something about him from it? Could he be revealing his nature?

Yes. I believe the universe works according to laws. The sexual system has rules that are to be followed if the result is to come about, but let us not think these laws are all there is. They are the way they are for a reason and you will not see that reason if all you have is just the mechanics.

I’d like to suggest that we have a strange concept with normal. Normal is a word I think everyone throws around but we’re not sure what it means. I’m not set on a clear definition myself. It usually means that this is the way that it is supposed to be. I believe we also have a normal Christian experience in mind.

How many of us would really say we spend our lives desiring God? Do we really spend so much of every day pondering the nature of God? Do all we want to do is pray and study Scripture and read other books on the topic? Do we get excited every time we approach the Bible?

If you find a lack in those and you find it in you, you’re not alone. This is what I do, and I can’t say that the above would describe me.

Now here’s where the problem comes from.

The desire is an emotion and too often we think that if we don’t have the emotion, then there’s something wrong with our Christian life. It can leave us feeling miserable. Let me make a suggestion here. If you are in that boat, then I would suggest that the misery you feel is a sign of your devotion to God.

Beg your pardon?

If you were one who did not care one way or the other, you would not even notice any sort of lack in you and even if you did, you would not care. The misery could very well be the gift of God to you. On the other hand, if you have a great devotion and joy in your emotions, then you’re already there! It’s win/win!

Let’s also note that you are not meant to be like everyone else. You do not think like everyone else. You do not do anything like everyone else most likely. I am an introvert. Am I to be seen as less spiritual because I am not outgoing? Is someone athletic less spiritual if they are not as intellectual as an A student? Are you less spiritual if you can’t sing like someone else?

Now, while we’re all different, there is one thing we have in common. This is what we should focus on. We are all sinners who have come to the cross. We are all striving for what Paul called perfection. I don’t know if we’ll reach it this side of eternity. I doubt it, but I’m not closing the door on that just yet.

I do know this though. I’m striving now and my guess is so are you. Let’s unite on what we have in common then. Let us picture the goal as the top of a mountain. You and I are climbing it as well as every other Christian. What are we going to do? Press ahead and ignore everyone else? Hardly.

Let’s reach hands across this mountain. We’re all in different spots on different sides trying to make it and we won’t make it alone. Some of us will stumble. Some of us will need to be pulled up by others. Some of us will be able to help others get past some areas better and they’ll help us get past others as well.

Let us jettison the idea of a normal Christian experience. God made us uniquely different. It is time we tried to be us and not someone else.

No. I am not going to give a full Christology here. I do not think that could ever be done. My point is not to tell about who Christ is per se, but to point out that we need to be gripped by who he is. We need to look at him with wonder and awe and realize that the calendar centers around this man for a reason.

Who was he? What did he do? Was he a cynic sage? Was he an eschatological zealot? Was he a speaker of Women’s Rights? Was he a magician? Was he a teacher of Eastern thought? Or, was he what the Bible claims? Was he the Son of God? He was something to be sure.

What do we do when we approach the gospels though? Do we turn to them and think “Ah. The Good Samaritan. Yep. I’ve heard this story before.”  Do we allow it to speak to us? Do we really hear it for the first time again ever? Have we reached the point where sadly, Christ has become ordinary?

Part of it could also be our Christology. We have become docetics in many ways. I do believe in the deity of Christ. It needs to be taught. We need to teach also though the humanity of Christ. If we don’t have a Jesus who is fully human, then we don’t have a Jesus that the gospels talk about.

A Muslim argument I’ve seen has been simply “How can God go to the bathroom?” We have to accept this. Jesus did that. Jesus did the things that we would think are gross and not worth talking about. When he took on our nature, he took on our nature entirely. There’s no indication he would not have to go to the restroom like the rest of us, wash like the rest of us, eat like the rest of us, etc.

Yet how did he live? Look at how he approached sinners. What made them like him when he was so condemning of sin? Look at how he approached the Pharisees. Why is it that the most learned people of the day could not handle this rabbi from a small town? Why was he such a threat that it ended with his crucifixion?

Why is it that this figure became a centerpiece so that while he never wrote music, more music has been about him than anyone else? He never painted, but how many paintings have been done because of him? He never wrote a book, but you can find volumes written about him.

Who was he?

Could we really create him even? I think the existence of even the idea of Jesus would require a miracle if it wasn’t a reality. There has never been a figure anywhere like Jesus unless it was one based on Jesus, such as Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia. Even Lewis though would gladly admit that Christ is more gripping than Aslan.

Maybe we should open our Bibles and read him again as if we’ve never heard of him.

Jesus. Are we seeing him as he really is? Are we allowing ourselves to be in awe of him? Or, have we just made him ordinary?

I have an idea for a basic definition of morality. I haven’t worked it out entirely, so I’m open to modifications where need be. It seems quite accurate though. The question comes down to “What makes a thing moral?” This is the conclusion that I have come up with.

Morality is treating a thing as it is.

Aristotle, for instance, spoke of justice as treating equals equally and unequals unequally. What does that mean? It means to treat them as they are. I had a friend up last night who brought his wife and in discussing morality said “It’s moral if you treat your wife as a lady, which she is, and not as a dog, which she is not.”

This is why the concept of what is is so important. Are we going to treat the poor as they are? Are we going to treat the person who has been raped as they are? Are we going to treat the sinner as they are? Remember that each of these first is a person created in the image of God. It is then what they have had happen in life or what is done to them that comes into play.

This is also how I believe things happen in the Trinity. Each person of the Trinity treats each other person in the Trinity as they are. I believe that we can find our whole base of ethics in Trinitarian relationships. Trinitarian relationships are based first on who each person is. This is simply saying God has had an eternal relationship of love within himself.

This means we treat the world as it is also. We treat the planet as if it is our home for now. We treat our animals for the way they were meant to be treated. We don’t treat either of these as more or less. To love them too much would lead to pantheism. To love them too little I believe would lead to atheism.

Look at each thing in your life. What is it? Respond accordingly. Is the person near you a person? Then treat them as such. Of course, what they do will have some variance in that. You are justified in locking up a child molester for instance because he is a child molester and society needs to be protected. You are not justified in locking up someone who has not violated the law though.

Treating things as they are. It is the way of morality, and if it is moral, we should be doing it.

How many times have we heard something like this?

“When I was dating this guy, he was all sweet and charming and we got married and he is such a slob! His underwear is on the floor constantly and he leaves the dirty dishes in the sink? What happened to the man I married?

“She was so wonderful when we were dating, but I don’t see why she is such a nag all the time! She is just so finicky about every little thing! It’s driving me crazy!”

I think most couples have some kind of reality shock when they marry. Now granted, there are some behaviors that might change, but each person needs to realize that the key personality type of the person that they’ve married most likely has not changed and it is something that they will eventually get used to.

Tonight though, we need to talk about seeing our neighbor as he is. One mistake we often make in this area though is that we don’t get to see him as he is because we’re too busy thinking of him as we see him. We go to our neighbor with an idea of seeing him as we think he is and sometimes, that can cover us from seeing him as he is. (Also, by my neighbor, I do mean any other person.)

Why do you like the people that you like? Why do some of them drive you crazy? It is because of the way each person is. It has been said about family for instance, that our family members are people that chances are we could not stand if it weren’t for the fact that they are our family.

Do we really take time to see our neighbor as he is though? Or, do we instead see him as he is. Now granted, there are ways that we can work to change our neighbor, but are there some characteristics that we don’t always grasp? Do we know the reason why the neighbor does what he does? Even if it is wrong, we can get some insight into our neighbor and ourselves if we try to see where he is coming from.

Also, let us learn to see our neighbor as what he was meant to be. He was meant to be one who reflects God. I know many of my Calvinist friends will disagree, but I think it would benefit us greatly to see each person as someone Jesus Christ loves and died for and if we treat them as less, we demean the sacrifice of Christ.

Your neighbor is an important person. Some of them, you will spend eternity with. If you are going to spend eternity with them, ought you not to love them now since you will be doing so forever? You also don’t know who will or won’t repent and who has and hasn’t infallably. If that is the case, maybe you should just try to love everyone so you can be prepared for whoever you meet in eternity.

Your neighbor. May you see them as God sees them.

No one likes being deceived really. Now we don’t mind generally if it’s sneaking around a Christmas gift or a surprise party, but we tend to prefer the truth. We want people to tell us the truth and be honest with us. However, there is one person each of us deals with who has a tendency to lie to us. That person is ourselves.

If anyone lies to us the most, it is us. I often have to have my friends back me up constantly as I am one of the worst at this and if a recording could be made of the thoughts that go on in my head everyday, they would be absolutely stunned. Being in a new city closer to a new friend has helped a lot, but old habits die hard. Rest assured if this is you also, you are not alone.

Gary Habermas has recommended I get the book “Telling Yourself The Truth” by William Backus and Marie Chapman, so I pass the advice on to you as well. The truth in it has been said to be next to salvation, the most liberating truth you will ever hear. Most of what we go through in suffering is not brought about by what happens to us, but what we tell ourselves about what happens to us.

This is one reason I am very cautious about people saying they feel led. I see no basis in Scripture to give our feelings divine authority. Is it any wonder I see several people who feel like they’re terrible people when they’re good Christians and think that God is condemning them because they always feel guilty and ashamed.

The Christian view is that we are created in God’s image. We are people he loves even if we don’t feel his love or feel like he loves us. If we could but grasp for a moment that we are truly loved and truly forgiven, how much better off would we be? Just that one moment in time I think could change the rest of our lives.

Let’s also remember that in Christianity, you as an individual are good. It is the parts that do not reflect God that are not good. Sanctification is the process of God removing all that does not reflect him so that only that which is his reflection remains. In this way, you remain you and yet, you become a reflection of him that is pure.

Friends. We need to see God as he is, but we also need to see ourselves as we are. We will be with him for eternity and it can better help us if we really know who this is that will be with him for eternity. God created us the way he did for a reason. While I’m not for endless self-analysis, let’s be sure any analyzing we do of ourselves is rooted in the truth of who we are in Christ.