Category: Apologetics

The Reason Rally and the Jesus Allergy

Why is it so many have a problem with simply the existence of Jesus? Let’s talk about it in today’s Deeper Waters blog.

With the Reason Rally coming, many atheists have come to this blog to share their…um…wisdom. What has been remarkable to see is the antagonism to the idea of Jesus. No. Not really the Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah. No. This is to the acceptance of any existence of Jesus whatsoever.

In reality, a claim like this is akin to going to a geological convention and claiming that the Earth is flat. Most historians writing about Jesus will reduce the idea of the Christ myth to a footnote if even that. Still, this doesn’t stop the rants of atheists thinking they’re making powerful arguments.

We are told that there is no contemporary evidence of Jesus. To begin with, this would not fit with the Pauline epistles that scholars across the board hold to be authentic. For those who don’t know, these are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. In the world of NT studies, to think that Paul did not write these is ludicrous.

Furthermore, there are several creedal statements in these epistles themselves and these would have been part of an oral tradition that predates the epistles. In these traditions, we also have testimony to the existence of Jesus. Most notable is the creed that is in 1 Cor. 15.

IF we went a little bit further, we have the gospels. Even if we place them 60-70 years after the Jesus events are reported to have happened, this is a much shorter time distance than most historians would have written about in the ancient world. This does not mean one has to accept everything in the gospels as historical, but one can realize they are built around a historical figure.

Go still not much further and we have the beginning of the Early Church with the apologists and other fathers. Notably, none of their opponents were trying to make the claim that Jesus never existed. In fact, a number of them even agreed that Jesus did things that were considered to be miracles.

If we use the line that there is no contemporary evidence, then we have to throw out the huge majority of ancient history. We can easily get rid also of the idea that there was a Jewish War in 70 A.D. After all, no one wrote about this except Josephus, and he obviously was making it up as a Jew himself to get sympathy for his people….

Ah. Josephus. We all know that the reference to Jesus in his works is entirely an interpolation.

Do we?

Now it’s believed that it’s quite likely that a part of it was interpolated, but that’s only a part. Can someone produce the Josephus scholar who says that the entire thing is an interpolation?

Furthermore, this is just one passage. There is another reference to Jesus in the Antiquities in Chapter 9 of book 20 and this reference is not called into question at all.

Of course, there are other references such as those of Tacitus and Lucian and Suetonius.

The question is what best explains what I wish to refer to as a Jesus allergy amongst these new atheist types? Is it a fear that if even if the existence of Jesus is conceded then everything else comes in? Do they really think that this is an all-or-nothing game? It certainly is a characteristic of fundamentalist thought.

It certainly does not come from a study of history. In all of these claims of Jesus never existing, a real approach to historiography is never given. It would either take away too much or it would make it impossible to really claim anything as it would be too nit-picky.

Is it a not wanting to do any actual work in historical study? It would be much easier to just say Jesus never existed instead of actually having to study the Bible and seek to see how it ought to be interpreted. That does not mean you have to believe that it is true. I believe there is a true interpretation of the Koran, and that means that any interpretation that disagrees with what the author wrote is false, but that does not mean that the content of that interpretation is true.

Could it be that these atheists are so antagonistic to that idea that they want to just take the easy way out? Could it also be a part of the concept that we can admit no truth to the Bible or to religious thinking that we must simply believe everything sincerely believed by Christians is delusional?

Richard Dawkins himself has said that it is possible to mount a serious case that Jesus never existed and uses G.A. Wells as an example. Wells is not a historian however, but a professor of German, and his case is not accepted in NT scholarship. Making a case is not the same as making a good case. Would Dawkins accept it as much if we said that because apologists exist, one can make a serious case that God exists? Is it because there is an ID movement that we can make a serious case that there is a designer? Dawkins would not accept any of these, but accepts that because Wells makes a case, it means it must be a serious case.

To the atheists who are coming here, it is best for you to drop the idea that Jesus never existed. It is not taken seriously and to make a case only shows a lack of understanding of historiography and gives reason for those of us who are Christians to not take your case seriously.

By the way, it’s not just Christians like myself who make this case. Please note the following video where Bart Ehrman answers the question directly in the company of atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdqJyk-dtLs

Considering Ehrman is a champion of biblical matters to the New Atheists, hopefully they’ll take him seriously here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Reason Rally Attendees Coming To A Church Near You!

What happens if they come to our churches? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

With all the talk about the Reason Rally, one complaint that has come from the atheists is the complaint of if they would want us to be coming to their church services. When I heard about this question, one thought popped into my mind.

“Do you promise to?”

You see, unlike the attendees at the Reason Rally, I actually would love to see opposition showing up at the church. I think it would be one of the greatest blessings to come to the American church. This is in fact one reason I tell people that I think we should thank God for the New Atheists regularly. I think Richard Dawkins is doing a great service for the church in making arguments that can be easily refuted, but in doing so opening up the discussion and letting the church member know it’s going on and not only that, that it has been going on since the start of the church and there’s a world of information they can use.

Thus, if the atheists go to a church that’s unprepared, either it will be a church that actually does care about the truth, and in that case that church will go out and do the research and then be ready, or else it will be one that does not care about the truth and then the new atheists will clear away some of the dross. Heads we win. Tails we win.

I would simply love to be in the congregation and have a new atheist come in and give a public challenge. Why? Because it would be the perfect chance to publicly show the congregation how weak the other side is. It would also give the possibility of opening up people to the world of apologetics who have never seen it before. I even think as I say this of a friend of mine who got started studying some of this stuff after Mormons came to a church we were attending together and when he saw myself and some others dialoguing with them and he didn’t have anything to contribute, he realized he needed to do better.

Thanks Mormons.

Yet in all of this, it seems the champions of reason do not want to have their reasoning challenged. This is such an odd practice. Instead, it seems most of them just want to say that William Lane Craig has been refuted. Never mind that we’re never told how. Never mind also that we’re all assumed to be blind followers of Craig. Hint to new atheists out there. I don’t support Craig’s fifth way at all and I do not argue from his first and second way. I think those arguments are inductive at best and I prefer a more deductive approach. I wouldn’t even use the moral argument the way Craig does.

Another hint. Just because new atheists tend to believe every jot and tittle Richard Dawkins has written must be defended as the gospel truth, doesn’t mean Christians do the same with great speakers on our side, even the one who is considered the most prolific defender of Christianity publicly, and while I do disagree with some of his views, I do think Craig is an excellent defender of the Christian faith.

Thus, I think having atheists come to our churches would be a great benefit. We can preach the gospel to them and show the congregation the truth of it. We can expect that generally, the most “powerful” arguments we’ll see will be “Jesus never existed!” and “Who made God?”

So in conclusion, I definitely ask that the new atheists do make it a point to come to our churches. There’s a pew available for you. We’d love to have you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Sex, Sanger, and Animism

What has Margaret Sanger to do with Animism? Let’s find out as we plunge into Deeper Waters.

My best man recently told me about a find he made on the STR blog concerning a book by Francis Galton recently released, though apparently in bits and pieces, that involves a dream Eugenics society. For many, that society would be a nightmare, but what my best man was most interested in was that despite the technology, the society happened to be animistic. This sounds like a primitive belief to many, so why would it be in such a great society?

Naturally, that gave me something to ponder, which indeed I did. I do have the fortune, or one might say misfortune, of having read Margaret Sanger’s “The Pivot of Civilization.” Sanger was the one who founded the organization today known as “Planned Parenthood” although it was originally known as “The American Birth Control League.” Indeed, that name is still in the back of my copy of the book.

Sanger was an atheist through and through, but the point we can forget is like many atheists, she was extremely religious. You might think that does not fit well, but indeed it does! Man is by nature a worshiping being and I find that sadly many atheists take the question of God even more seriously than many Christians do. At least many atheists live as if there are ramifications of the question. Many Christians seem to live as if Jesus saved them from their sins and can provide comfort, but apart from that, God doesn’t really play that big a part in the world today.

For Sanger, her religion was sex, much like the ancients of the past who used fertility rites to appease the gods. To be sure, the ancients were onto something. Let us not dismiss the pagans because they were pagans. We dare not say that the pagans loved sex too much. The problem was for them that they loved God and their fellow men too little.

The ancients believed that by using sex, they were tapping into contact with the gods. To go and have sex with the prostitute in the temple was to have sex with the goddess. In many myths, sex was a creative power whereby the gods came into being, and why should this surprise us since sex is the act whereby we repeat creation as it were bringing new life into existence.

There can be no doubt that our American society has a strong fixation on sex today, and again, why should it not? In fact, I would not say this is common to just Americans. There was a reason celibacy was practiced for years and still is today by several who are Christians, particularly in the Catholic faith. Somehow, the vow to avoid sexual intercourse for one’s life was seen as a sacrifice, and why should it be seen as a sacrifice unless it was a great good to be sacrificed? One would not think it a noble sacrifice necessarily to give up playing cards or going fishing or something of that sort, unless one was of course a gambler or a fisherman.

The problem in our society is not the proliferation of sex per se. It is really the ignorance of sex. Everyone knows the basics of sex who has come of age. We know what goes where and we know that this practice can produce babies and we know that it can spread STDs and that it is supposed to be for two people who love each other very much. (Of course, in our society who those two people can be is questioned) If we think sex education is the answer, when it comes to these questions, there is not much more to be said.

Perhaps what we need is the what of sexuality. What is sex? Could it be that the ancients were right in what they said? Could it be that Sanger was right in what she said?

Sanger had a connection with the ancients?

Why yes she did! All one needs to do is read chapter 10 of the Pivot in order to see this. For instance, consider this:

In the solution of the problem of sex, we should bear in mind what the successful method of humanity has been in its conquest, or rather its control of the great physical and chemical forces of the external world. Like all other energy, that of sex is indestructible. By adaptation, control and conscious direction, we may transmute and sublimate it.

Later she says in speaking of a book by Louis Berman she agrees with that:

Our spiritual and psychic difficulties cannot be solved until we have mastered the knowledge of the wellsprings of our being.

Yes. Those terms are being endorsed by an atheist. Sanger believed that we needed to harness the energy of sex to make man into what he fully needed to be. Make no mistake about it, Sanger took sex incredibly seriously. Make no mistake about this as well, she did not take it seriously enough.

Sanger saw sex as a way to build up man to man. We see it as a way of building up man to God, when does as He intended it to be, within the confines of marriage. Sex is to be celebrated as a gift of God. There is a reason the marriage relationship is compared to the relationship of God to Israel and Christ to the Church.

What if Sanger had seen sex in a theological light? She might have understood a lot more than she realized then. She had already cut that way out however. For her, there was nothing above. Therefore, when we look at a eugenics society based on her philosophy, there can be nothing above. There cannot be our monotheism or even the polytheism of the ancients. There can also not be pantheism as eugenics would imply some superiority whereas if pantheism is true, all is one so there can be no superiority.

Animism then I think makes sense, for if we are to bring out spiritual realities, there must be something spiritual, and if this cannot be located above, it must be located within our cosmos and bound by it. If there are to be gods and this cannot be a polytheism above, it must be a polytheism within, which would be more animistic.

And this could get us closer and closer to the ancient pagans as well. If we can allow for god concepts to come back in, we would reach polytheism. In fact, if we are fortunate, we will do this. After all, the pagan is essentially pre-Christian and is beyond the idea that only science has all the answers. He knows that there is a transcendent reality and is seeking to reach it.

Of course, this does not mean that the eugenics program is good, but if we are moved away from a scientism approach, let us not condone the evil that is done but see it as an opportunity to reach our fellow man. I would not be surprised if the bankruptcy of total secularism is nearing as it seems the new atheists could be showing.

Perhaps also then what we Christians need is exactly what Kreeft said we need in “The God Who Loves You.” We need a theology of sex. Christians need to be the ones showing the world that the world in fact does not have sexuality right and not only that, they are not enjoying it the way that they should. Instead of thinking that the popular culture has the answers on sex, the popular culture should be thinking we do. After all, we know the God who created sex. We should be the authorities.

I conclude then that the idea of this leading to animism makes sense, and what it will take is not knowledge of the mechanics of sex, but rather the God of sex.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Junko Furuta

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. At the request of my Mrs. today, I’m going to forgo a blogpost on Inerrancy and instead write a little bit about the story of Junko Furuta, a story that greatly troubled my wife yesterday and still some today. I found the story hard to believe at first, but after doing some checking, this story does not seem to be disputed and seems to be one of the greatest examples of human evil that there is.

The source I’ll be using is this one:

The True Story of Junko Furuta

My wife mainly filled me in on all the grisly details last night and how unfortunately, the culprits got away with but a slap on the wrist. (I do personally hold to the death penalty and do believe that such a punishment should have been inflicted on the criminals.)

The Mrs. was telling me last night about how she thought about this girl just going about her day planning on her future and probably with hopes of getting married and having children one day and then all of a sudden, all of that is taken from her by four men who one can only wonder what their motive for such acts was.

Of course, this gets us wondering about the problem of evil some. Where was God in all of this? Was she a Christian? Did she have a future hope? Did these criminals get away entirely? Why doesn’t God intervene more times when things like this happen? These are all difficult questions.

To be frank, in the specific, we cannot answer entirely. We do not know the mind of God and I think it is perfectly natural to want to cry out in our anguish about why this kind of thing happens. In fact, this is done regularly in the Psalms and in the prophets. Where is God when the worst kinds of evils seem to take place?

Of course, it would lead to questions as well if God intervened every time. Is that the kind of world we live in as well? For what degree of evil is it that God must intervene? Is there a certain point where if He does not intervene, then He does not exist? Biblically, God is under no obligation to us and He does not have to intervene. Any time he does so, it is grace.

Where is justice? Justice delayed is not justice denied. Because these men got away essentially in the earthly courts does not mean that they do so in the heavenly courts. A constant problem we have in our lives is that we take temporary situation and make them eternal and in turn deny the eternal realities and treat them as if they are temporal. Let us remember what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:18 on that which is unseen.

while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The problem for us in this situation is that we are emotional people as well as rational and we have to make sure that our emotions do not override our reason. At the same time, when we feel emotions like anger and sadness and have a desire for justice, there is a place for that and I believe that it is God-given.

We must also make sure we do not become the evil we hate. Were it not for the grace of God, there would be no reason why any one of us would not be one of those boys that committed the crime. We all have the evil inside of us and as soon as we start saying we do not, we’ve already fallen for the evil of pride.

What are we to do with this? Let’s not let her death be in vain. Let us see to it that such evils around the world are stopped. I’m not telling us to be vigilantes, but agents of righteousness that regularly condemn such activities and that have strict standards in place for condemning evil when we see it. Let our court systems not grow lax with their usage of the sword.

The problem of evil is the problem of us. It is our fallen nature and the one we keep giving into. If there is any evil we need to deal with most directly, it is the evil that we see when we look in the mirror everyday. Let us go to bed every night and ask ourselves how we are growing in virtue.

If we are doing such, if we are keeping up the good fight against evil in our own day and age, then the evil that this girl underwent will not be in vain for us. The best way to honor her memory would be to work to bring about good in the world, that which the gospel of Christ requires.

A Further Look At ECREE

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Before I begin the next series, which I hope to do tomorrow, I’m going to take the time to answer a message that came to me in the midst of prior series. Not wanting to interrupt an ongoing series at the time, I have decided that this is the opportune moment to look at the claim.

The claim revolves the use of ECREE, which is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. My problem with this is that the skeptical community has often used it as a conversation-stopper and that in many cases, what is considered as extraordinary is often unclear.

For the second, I am in dialogue with one atheist now who I am trying to convince that nothing cannot cause something. For me, that is a highly highly highly extraordinary claim based on my beliefs regarding metaphysics. Meanwhile, for him, the idea that God created the universe, is highly highly extraordinary, based on the holding of a naturalistic worldview.

Question. Who needs to provide evidence for their view?

If you said “Both of you,” move to the head of the class.

So at this point, I am not saying that I am opposed to evidence. My friend who wrote said that he is not convinced by people saying that they feel Jesus. Something similar can be found in many other religions. After all, Mormons feel the burning in the bosom and thus are convinced that the Book of Mormon is true, but those of us outside the Mormon church who have studied it and its beliefs, just don’t find that convincing.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that subjective experiences play no part in determining what one believes, but they should not play the only part. Someone can speak about the evidences of God and of the resurrection and then also look at their changed life since becoming a Christian. That is entirely valid. (I would prefer them to start with the objective argument first however and have the effects from the subjective experience be a follow-up.)

My friend brings up the idea of someone claiming to have an interstellar spaceship and twenty people making a claim on a stack of Bibles that it is real. Now there are some questions I would have at this point. For instance, it would depend on who those twenty people are partially. If these are twenty people shown on a TV infomercial that I do not know, then I will not give it credibility. If, however, these people are people like my wife, good friends, family, leaders of my church, I’ll start thinking “Maybe I should look into this.”

Now I could go and see this supposed ship someone has for sale then and I might think “I need to get my eyes examined.” I go and get my eyes examined and I have a clean bill of health. I still see the spaceship. I think I must be hallucinating then, so I get a psychiatric evaluation and again, I’m given a clean bill of health. I still see the spaceship. I at that point have the salesman give me a ride and we travel throughout the solar system and come back. At this point, I must say that I am indeed a believer.

I have no problem with this and based on the kind of claim that it is, that is the kind of evidence I seek. An important consideration to keep in mind is that we evaluate claims based on the kinds of claims that they are. Suppose you want to know if Jesus rose from the dead. The improper way to do that, as would be found at some skeptical web sites that want to say Jesus never even existed, would be to pray and ask Jesus to heal everyone in the world of every disease and if that doesn’t happen, well then history obviously must demonstrate that Jesus did not rise.

No. The way to evaluate the claim is to look at the historical evidence that we have. If you find it to be faulty, on what grounds? Are they historical grounds or philosophical grounds or some other grounds? Suppose you accept the bedrock of Habermas and Licona for instance and say “I agree that Jesus was crucified, that the tomb was empty, that the apostles had experiences that they claimed to be that of the risen Christ, and that James and Paul, two people hostile to the message prior, became strong Christians.” Well and good. You then reply “But I don’t believe the resurrection happened.”

You are certainly entitled to that opinion, but I would then ask on what grounds do you dismiss it? For instance, Stephen Patterson in a debate with Mike Licona has said that the reason he rejects the resurrection is that he is a modern man. He believes that by resurrection it does not mean that God raised Jesus from the dead physically. Miracles just do not happen. He has to explain the data another way, and indeed he does attempt to do so. Whether someone finds his explanation to be sound or not is up to them. Does his explanation best account for the data?

Note that Patterson’s problem is on philosophical grounds. His belief is that miracles cannot be historically verified if they even happen at all. At that point, one can go to philosophy and demonstrate that miracles are at least possible. While demonstrating them as actual is best, we can at least get to possible.

The problem with ECREE at this point is just simply saying that in the face of contrary evidence that it just isn’t extraordinary enough without really explaining what is there. Now I am not saying that someone has to immediately give in to a lot of evidence. By all means, go out and study the information that you’ve been given for yourself and see if it’s valid and see if there are any valid criticisms of it.

My friend also included in the message information on homeopathic medicine. I do not claim to be an authority on this so I will not act on one, but I do agree with him that if homeopathic medicine is valid, then we should certainly see some results in the laboratory, and I say the laboratory because this is in the area of science and therefore it is fitting to study it scientifically. (Since some atheists who seem to think that every truth claim can be tested by science) We can supposedly explain some recoveries by the placebo effect. Does that mean we close the door on research? I wouldn’t say that. However, there needs to be more than what can be explained by the placebo effect.

I also like at the end that my friend stated that extraordinary evidence is really simple evidence that is probable given the truth claim. That is much better since he has given criteria. The atheist who is expecting that to believe Jesus rose from the dead, he has to have Jesus appear to him manifestly I do not believe will be satisfied, especially since God gave him a brain to use to study claims for himself.

I do appreciate the rejoinder to what has been said and I hope that my response has been helpful.

Temple of the Future on Morality

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’d like today to write on something that Justin Brierley presented on the Unbelievable Facebook page. It’s an article on a site called “Temple of the Future” concerning morality and biblical truth. It can be found here.

Temple starts off with discussing recent programs of Unbelievable. To be fair, I have not got to listen to the most recent one yet on women in ministry. However, does the first one mentioned of a look at Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” really have much to do with morality? It’s quite likely that most evangelicals would agree with Bell on several moral issues. My opinion on “Love Wins” is coming sometime soon, but regardless of whether Bell is right or wrong, the question is not about whether an action is right or wrong. Bell could be a universalist or not be a universalist and still believe murder is wrong.

What of the program on the true face of Islam? It’s a wonder that this is being seen as something on the Bible when this is really something on the Koran if anything. An atheist could have been a guest on the show and could have stated that Bin Laden was or wasn’t the true face of Islam. If he knew what the teachings were in the Koran or Hadith, then he could have presented what he believed to be an accurate argument for whatever position he held. Again, whether Bin Laden was or wasn’t the true face of Islam doesn’t matter to me at this point.

The last one is the closest one we have to a moral issue, but is it really so much a moral issue? Does anyone really believe someone would go to Hell, for instance, for having a female minister? Augustine dealt with a question similar to this back with the Donatist teaching. What if someone was baptized by someone who was a heretic? Does that mean their salvation is null and void? Augustine said no.

Temple says it is foolish to let the questions of morality become exercises in literary criticism.

However, what is actually meant by literary criticism? Here are the main issues that we can raise.

Is the text that we have what we had then? This would be textual criticism. Whether what the text says is true or not does not really matter. Even if all that say, Paul wrote in Romans, is wrong, does that mean we don’t have what he originally wrote? All we want to know is if we have what he wrote.

What style is the writing in? Are we going to take Revelation in a literal sense? When Jesus says “Pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin” is he to be taken literally? At the same time, when he says “Love your neighbor as yourself” is that to be taken literally, and how do we know when to take the text literally and when not? This is part of hermeneutics, that is, the art of interpretation of a text.

Finally, we come to the questions of “What does the text mean?” and then for our personal application “What does it mean to us personally today?” The first question is the most important one although we usually skip to the second. What does the text mean? This can also be a difficult one, but it’s not just with the biblical text. It’s with any text. We wonder what the text means in Plato, the Upanishads, the Koran, Nietzsche, government laws, or just ordinary conversation. ALL texts must be interpreted and some interpretations are right and some are wrong.

Turning to the program on church leaders, Temple simply says this is a dumb question to be asking. Why? Because it’s not the way most people in the 21st century think. So what? If someone wants to remain faithful to a text, it’s an important question to ask if there’s debate on what the text means. Granted, it’s not the most fascinating topic to the secular man, but again, so what? Are Christians forced to have debates and define debates in the way that the secular person prefers?

Temple sees this as discrimination when we don’t allow women to be in ministry. To begin with, it is discrimination, but that assumes all discrimination is wrong. My work place is discriminatory. They only allow men to go into the men’s room and they only allow women to go into the women’s room.

The Boy scouts are discriminatory. You have to be a boy to participate. Places that give senior citizen discounts are discriminatory as you have to be at least 65 to get one. Restaurants that say kids eat free are discriminatory since you have to be a kid in order to eat for free.

The question is “What is the basis for the discrimination.” Does the Bible say women should not be in ministry because they are inferior? It would be good to see such a text. The closest Temple points to is Ephesians 2:22-24. Nowhere mentioned however is that the man is to love his wife as Christ loved the church which is hardly a dominating theme. As a married man, it calls me to constant self-sacrifice for my wife. Now do some people misuse this text? Of course. People can misuse any text, but does Temple want us to think the text has no meaning and is open to any interpretation. If so, then can he really say that the text teaches the inferiority of women? Can I not say “That’s just your interpretation.”?

Temple writes about two scholars of Shakespeare’s works and how they disagree over the meaning of what Shakespeare said and asks if we could ever come to a conclusion on what Shakespeare meant. Temple tells us that of course we couldn’t. Temple tells us that like any complete text, it’s open to interpretation.

Okay. Agreed. It is open to interpretation.

Then he says multiple valid interpretations.

Is this really the case? He would have to demonstrate this. Is he saying that supposing Paul wrote Ephesians that Paul believed in the inferiority of women and didn’t believe in the inferiority of women both? How could this be? If Paul puts the meaning into the text, then the text can only mean one thing. It could be difficult or even impossible for us to find out what he meant, but that does not mean that there is no meaning.

Furthermore, why should I believe that we could never reach a conclusion on what Shakespeare meant? Who knows what the future will hold. I’m certainly open to the possibility that we could someday. Temple just takes it as a foregone conclusion that we won’t. Where does this knowledge of the future come from?

Temple says to build our morality on the Bible is to be build it on sinking sand.

We’ve seen this song and dance before. One would think that Temple would have some familiarity with Natural Law thinking. Does he not read any Christian ethicists who argue not from Scripture but from the basis of Natural Law? Does he read someone like Budziszewski in a work such as “The Line Through The Heart”?

Of course, in the comments, he does present the Euthyphro dilemma as if this is something embarrassing to Christians. Granted, most don’t know how to answer it, but the answer is to ask what goodness is and if it can be defined apart from God. I believe it can just like Aristotle did and when we define goodness, which is that at which all things aim according to Aristotle, we eventually realize that God is that which is goodness in being being itself. Temple could read Aquinas in the Summa Theologica for information on goodness and the goodness of God.

The point is that this is the same idea we’ve seen over and over. So many today arguing against morality believe that Christians use the Bible and only the Bible, not realizing the Bible itself argues against such a claim in passages like Romans 2. Are we to think when the Israelites got the Ten Commandments that they had no idea murder was wrong before that? Of course not. Moses himself made sure, though not doing a good job of it apparently, to make sure no one was watching when he killed an Egyptian.

Hopefully atheists and others will soon stop making this argument and start actually interacting with Christian positions.

Thank God For The New Atheists

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I plan to start on another project of sorts tomorrow, but for tonight, I’ve been thinking about something for some time in reviewing the literature of the new atheists and now is the time to say it.

The more I read the new atheists, the more I want to thank God for them. Why is this? There are a number of reasons.

First off, new atheist literature is quickly heralded as gospel around the blogosphere. People are suddenly quoting Dawkins and Harris as authorities in areas that they are not authorities in. While that can be aggravating at times when you debate these people, I realize a blessing in it.

The new atheists are not skilled authorities in what they say. It is simply by doing some basic checking even that one can see what they say is just false. Consider how one can often hear that the New Testament is nothing like the original. The only name I ever see dealing with this is Ehrman, yet in the scholarly literature rather than the popular, even Ehrman speaks well of the veracity of the New Testament and there are numerous other sources one could check.

Second, the new atheists don’t know how to do good research. I have written further about this here. It’s not just that their bibliography is lacking. Consider how for the new atheists, an excellent rejoinder to ask a Christian is “Who made God?” This is the kind of question I expect from a small child in Sunday School. It is not one I expect from a serious thinker. Lo and behold however, there it is.

In this, they also get the argument wrong. How often have I seen this coupled with the argument that claims that we believe that “Everything that exists has a cause.” Never have I seen cited the Christian who makes such a claim. If you are out there, please be quiet. You’re hurting the cause.

They do the same with the moral argument. No one is making the argument that you have to believe in God to be a good person. I don’t deny that that should help, but that is not the argument. Yet time and time again the new atheists argue that atheists can be good people and think they’re making a point.

Lastly, the new atheists have lowered the standard for their side. If someone like Dawkins is seen as the pinnacle of atheistic thought and someone like P.Z. Myers is out saying “The Courtier’s Reply” which is simply admitting that one has not studied because one not need to because the opponent’s beliefs are just dumb, counts as having a real argument, then we are in good hands.

Of course, we Christians need to stick to our guns and do our hard study, but something like this can allow us to corner the market. The new atheists with their bad research just bring forth discarded myths about Christianity and we can deal with them even easier than we could in the past. More and more information comes showing the new atheists to be wrong about much of what they speak and their works being criticized by their fellow atheists.

So to the new atheists, I say this. Please keep writing books. Please keep going on speaking tours. Spread your message far and wide please. I just love reading your books and realizing how bad the competition is and it’s going to be so great to see the next generation of apologists, who are quite serious, rise up and be able to answer some of the weakest arguments if not the weakest arguments for atheism ever.

Tomorrow, I hope to start a new project.

A Response To Paul Baird

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. The time has come for me to address the question that I said earlier that belongs to Paul Baird. Thus far, I have found Baird to be an atheist highly capable of dialogue and when a serious question like the one he has rises up, I wish to deal with it.

Basically, the question concerns the justice of God. Is it the case that Hitler could have prayed a prayer before he died and repented and wound up in Heaven while at the same time a Jew who had simply rejected Christ all his life and died in the gas camps would go to Hell?

How is that just?

It’s a good question and an understandable one, so let’s put into play some parameters for our discussion.

First, biblically, anyone who commits any sin whatsoever knowingly and unknowingly justifiably deserves Hell. Note that I am not saying that Hell is deserved to the same degree. I do believe there are degrees of sins just as there are degrees of acts of grace.

Second, there is no action that one can do that could merit eternal favor with God on one’s own. One has to come to God on God’s terms. You cannot do a good deed in order to cancel out a bad deed.

Third, apart from the saving work of Jesus on the cross, no one past, present, or future from that event would have any chance of salvation.

Is God’s system fair? Well let’s suppose that instead he had a system that was arbitrary clearly. In order to merit eternal life, at the end of your game, you have to have 1,000 points. Bad actions cost points and good ones gain them. Why 1000? Just because. Why how many points each action has? THhat’s just because also. You lose, say, 700 for murder and gain 2 for helping a little old lady across the street. You’d on the other hand gain 700 if you threw yourself on a live grenade to save innocents.

Is such a system fair? Hardly. It’s arbitrary and leaves the person in chaos wondering if they are or are not going to make it. What do we need? We need to get rid of the points system altogether. What if we had more of an all-or-nothing system related to good deeds as well?

Say, what if we had a system that meant one was on the path they needed to be on following as best they could and not rejecting the true path?

I believe this is a closer description. For those outside the body of Christ, I believe it’s best to say that frankly, we don’t know. We do know however that the judge of all the Earth will do right. No one will be able to say on the last day “It wasn’t fair.”

Someone like Hitler also will have a harder time repenting. The further you move from the light, the less likely you are to return to it. For the seeker, the closer you get to the light, the more likely you are to turn to it.

Now this has been an interesting diversion but keep in mind, it is a diversion. The truth of Christianity does not hinge on this. If Christ is not raised, then this is all just speculation that will never matter. Now if Christ has been raised, then this is important thinking on a topic that raises much controversy but is secondary The real question is “Did Jesus rise.” One should not reject God over a secondary question.

So I would put the question in my opponent’s course. What have you done to answer the question of “Did Jesus Rise?”

Are Allah And YHWH The Same?

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I apologize for being away for so long. I unfortunately came down with the flu bug. The Mrs. is also currently recovering from some flu-like symptoms but does not have the bug. Fortunately, I’m at the point where I’m able to function again so here I am. Also, before continuing our look at “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” I’m going to break to address a question that has been raised due to some current events loved ones of mine are experiencing. Do Muslims and Christians worship the same god?

And I am regularly dismayed at the number of Christians who think we do.

I want to be clear in this post that while I do advocate Christianity, that is not my goal right now. It could be for the sake of argument that Islam is true and Christianity is false. It could be that both of them are false. However, it cannot be that both of them are true.

Let’s note some fundamental differences in the religions.

Christianity claims that in these last days, God has spoken by Jesus, namely this is said in Hebrews. Islam claims that Muhammad is the last of the prophets.

Christianity claims that Jesus is the Son of God. Islam says it is blasphemous to think that God has a son.

Christianity claims God is triune. This is blasphemy to Muslims also as it is ascribing partners to God in their view.

Christianity claims Christ was crucified. Islam claims that he was not. (To be fair, some Muslims would say the fourth Sura does not demand this, but many apologists like Deedat did deny Jesus was crucified)

Christianity claims salvation by grace through faith. Islam has salvation set up on a measuring scale of works.

Christianity claims the Bible is the Word of God and no other book has that place. Islam gives that place to the Koran.

Christianity says Jesus claimed to be ontologically equal with God. Islam has him denying he ever said such a thing.

Christianity claims Jesus rose from the dead. Islam says he never died so he never rose.

As has been asked in a book before, is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? If so, it seems that God is getting his message confused. Who is God? How has he revealed himself? What did he come to do? How can I be saved? These are important questions that these two religions disagree on.

Now someone might say Allah was a name used by Christians well before Islam came along and it’s just their word for God.

Now if you went to see some Arabic Christians who speak Arabic, they would use the word Allah for God. Their John 1:1 would say “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with Allah and the Word was Allah.” With that, we have no problem. However, the danger is an equivocation fallacy in saying that because the names are the same, the content behind the names is the same.

For instance, my parents have a cat whose name is Reagan. Am I to assume that that cat is the same as the fortieth president of the United States? Why not? They both have the same name. The difference is that the word “Reagan” is a referent. One points to one of our feline friends. The other points to a president.

But there is only one true God!

To begin with, in being honest observers, we could come out and say “Maybe there isn’t.” Now as a Christian, I believe there is, but if you think so, upon what reasons? I am not going to give mine now but just say that this would require apologetics of some sort on your part.

What will it be? Will you go with Aristotle-Thomistic thinking? Will you go with the ontological argument of Anselm? Could you use the Kalam to somehow arrive at one creator? Whichever way, you are already engaging in apologetics which is important to establish since this is an apologetics question.

Suppose however for the sake of argument that we have done our apologetics and discovered that there is only one true God. Why stop our apologetics there? Our quest for truth should make us wish to decide what this one God is like. What is His nature? Has He revealed Himself and if so, how?

Because there is one true God, it does not follow that all descriptions of him are accurate. There is only one person in the universe that is me, for instance. However, if you say that that person is 6″4′ and can throw a football 100 yards, then I’m sorry but you have the wrong guy.

If all worship the same God just because there is one, then one wonders what the big fuss was about between the Jews and the Christians at the start of the New Testament era. Were the apostles going around saying to the Jews “Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know you’re still okay since you worship one true God! No need to come and know Jesus!”

On the other hand, the Jews were of the opinion that the apostles were blasphemers based on what they were saying about Jesus. The important point is that if Jesus had been a mere man and not God in the flesh, the Jews would have been absolutely right with what they said about the apostles. If Jesus is not God, then all of us who are Christians are blasphemers.

To say there is one God is not the same as saying all descriptions of the one God are accurate. Some are wrong and in fact, the very reason we should be doing evangelism is because we do believe some of them are wrong. I do believe Muslims are not worshiping the real God. I believe they are worshiping something, but that something does not exist as there is no Allah. There is YHWH. (By that, I mean the referent of course and not just a generic word for deity)

For those of us doing evangelism, it does us no service to say they are the same God. In fact, as a Christian, if I was told the God of Christianity and the God of Islam are the same, I would find that a blasphemous statement. I find it especially so because of the glory of the Trinity, a doctrine that Islam by necessity denies.

Christianity and Islam have differences. Let’s realize that. Again, it could be that Islam is right or it could be that both religions are wrong, but both religions are not the same. It may be politically correct to say that they are the same God, but it sure isn’t biblically or theologically correct.

Is God Rational?

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! As much as I did enjoy the review of The Amazing Atheist on how badly he botched the arguments of Aquinas, I am glad it’s over in the sense that I no longer have to return to that video, a video I believe my wife was also getting annoyed with.

However, in all of this, a reader who identified himself as Rolo asked a question.

I’ve really enjoyed many of you’re posts so far especially the ones where you examine the many shallow soundbites used unfortunately by both Christians and atheists. Something that’s always bothered me about many of the philosophical arguments for God is that many of them hinge on the claim that God is rational and logical. I think the transcendental argument is a prime example of a philosophical argument that hinges on God being by nature rational and logical. The problem I have with these arguments is that where in the scriptures does it say that God cannot do something illogical or that logic is a part of God’s nature? I’m hoping that maybe you in enlighten me on this issue.

I do appreciate the compliment and I do hope I can help with this question and if you have some further questions about what I say, feel free to ask.

There are some philosophers who would disagree with what I say, like Descartes. However, it is my stance that God cannot do that which is illogical. Now note by illogical, I mean something that is necessarily contradictory. We all act in ways that to some people seem illogical, without violating any law of logic. It could be that we are acting without proper thinking in some cases, but not always.

I say this because I do not believe a contradiction can exist in the real world for it is impossible for something to be and not be in the same time and in the same sense. I have yet to see a strong case for any event being otherwise. I cannot for instance know that two plus two equals four and non-four.

Throughout the Scriptures, we are invited to know God. To know God means that there are truths about Him that can be known. We Christians accept that God exists, for instance, and that He exists in Trinity and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Of course, if a reader wishes to paint the Trinity as a contradiction, they are free to do so, but it is a failed attempt. The earliest formulators of the Christian creeds on this topic made sure to avoid contradictions.

How can we know God if God is contradictory? A contradiction is something that cannot be known and a point I make to atheists when asked if anything could disprove God’s existence is to be shown that there is a necessary contradiction in the doctrine of God. Note that there are apparent contradictions, but not necessary ones. Apparent ones are more like contradictions you think you see when you watch a murder mystery. How did the killer commit the crime when they were miles away? It seems like a contradiction at first until you study it.

As for being rational, that would depend on what is meant. Can we say God has a thinking process? Not in the sense that He thinks on things to find out what he doesn’t know, for He already knows all things. Does He think to feel better about something? No. That would be change. Does He think on something so He’ll know to deal with it? That would make him temporal as well. God simply knows all truths eternally. These he knows by knowing Himself. In knowing Himself, He knows all ways being can be and is.

Note also that when God reveals Himself, He makes the claim that what is said is true. He is the God of all truth. I believe this is a valid claim and a true one as well, but it only makes sense if he does not contradict. Now some of a more presuppositional bent might say that I’m using man’s reason.

This is not going to work however, for our minds are creations of God and our reasoning powers. They are not invalid and we are invited to use them to come and see Him as He is. There is not man’s reasoning and God’s reasoning. There is simply reasoning. There is good reasoning and bad reasoning however.

But doesn’t Isiaah 55:8-9 say His thoughts are not our thoughts.

Question. Why is that being said? If you look at the context, it is about how God judges those who go against Him and rewards those who live righteously. Our thoughts would be that the wicked should be punished and we want them to be punished and God ought not have mercy on them. We should be careful when dealing with evil people that we do not become like Jonah.

God however says let them come forward and repent so they will live. Your thoughts may be on their destruction, but I am thinking of their salvation. My way of dealing with people is better than yours for even if they don’t repent, my judgment is perfect judgment from an eternal perspective.

The verse is not saying anything about God’s mind ontologically, but only on the outworking of God’s mind to us.

I conclude then that the reason God invites us to know Him is that He can be known. I do not mean to say He can be comprehended. No one should have a problem with the idea of knowing God. Those of us who are married know that we know our spouses, but at the same time, we are still learning new things about them. Couples who have been married for fifty years are still learning things about their spouses.

I hope this answers the question.