Tag: God

Book Plunge: Time and Despondency

What do I think of Nicole Roccas’s book published by Ancient Faith Publishing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes when I have been struggling with something, I will talk to my wife’s priest. While I am not Orthodox, that is not a problem with us as he’s more than happy to help me with things. I also think wisdom can be found outside of one’s own tradition (And even religion) and if we as Christians ever think it’s only people of our theological heritage that have true wisdom worth gaining, that is a very sad state.

Right now with some present circumstances, I have been in normally a state of seasonal depression. When I mentioned the word depression to him, he turned it into despondency. At that moment, I remembered I ordered for my wife who is a catechumen in the Orthodox Church the book Time and Despondency. I decided to get it out and give it a try.

Let’s start with one excellent thing about this book. The author does not come out as someone high and holy and thus you read the book and think “I will never reach this level.” Nope. Roccas is a fellow traveler on the journey and she too would prefer at times to do something like binge watch Netflix.

She definitely writes from an Orthodox perspective, but that does not overwhelm the book so much that others won’t benefit. As a Protestant, I found much of the advice helpful. The advice of great saints is found as there is wisdom to be found in many places.

She also writes of goals that are doable. She never tells you to go and pray for an hour or so. Instead, just work on matters bit by bit and learn and grow in them. There’s even a place advocating quick prayers. Those are fine many times. When I am out in public and I hear sirens and see a first responder going by, I always pray for that situation. (Definitely not with eyes closed if driving.)

Her advice to deal with despondency is also not just purely spiritual matters. She talks about St. Antony who was scolded by someone for playing with his fellow monks when surely he should have been praying and how Antony responded to justify his actions. She talks about the use of humor, which at this point, I couldn’t help but think of Harry Potter and the spell to deal with boggarts.

For those who don’t know, boggarts are creatures that take on the image of your worst fear. The way to deal with them is to use a spell with the word “Ridiculous!” and turn them into something you can laugh at. I think Rowling at this point hit on something with the nature of fear.

Roccas also shows that this is a problem that is not just modern in nature. Monks from well over a thousand years ago dealt with this. They had times they didn’t want to pray either or work on the Scriptures. Apparently, some could have even committed suicide from sorrow. It was even called the noonday demon. The condition is the same, but today we probably have more means to encounter it.

There is also definitely good theology in here. Roccas brings out the reality of the resurrection and what it means. God being the God of all time is there to redeem every moment of time, including the moment that we are in. Again, just like before, none of this though is spoken in terminology that is over the layman’s head.

If you’re struggling with depression, or despondency if you prefer, this is a really good book to read. The advice is practical and doable and not over your head. Most of the chapters are short enough to read in one sitting and even the longest one can be broken down into manageable pieces. Give it a try. It beats living in despondency after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The God Virus Part 1

What do I think of Darrel Ray’s book published by IPC Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Oh my! There are atheist books out there that actually try to make a convincing argument, but this is not one of them. At least, that’s not the way I see it. It’s as if today atheists want to compete to see who can write the worst one out there.

This one is an older one published in 2009, but while age might improve wine and friendships, it doesn’t always improve books. I was asked to read this by someone and thinking them someone I want to take seriously if I remember rightly who it was, I ordered it. Going through this one has been funny at times, but a labor at others.

Ray writes the whole time as if religion is a virus and he uses metaphors for viruses throughout. It really doesn’t work well. The work comes across as very depersonalizing and instead of really treating religion seriously, it looks like Ray, who apparently has a Master’s in religion, doesn’t really know much about it.

For one thing, he never even defines the term. He just comes out of the gate talking about religion and I’m sitting here wondering “What do you mean by the term?” This is especially problematic when later on he gets to movements like Marxism and the rise of Lenin and those get treated like religions too. Those are atheistic movements and yet somehow an atheistic movement is a religion.

Ray also says he starts with an experiment. You talk with a deeply Christian friend (Assuming you’re not a theist) about Muhammad. You agree he was delusional thinking he was talking to God and the Koran is definitely his work and he didn’t fly to Heaven on a horse, etc. Then he says imagine you wrote a transcript of the conversation and gave it to them.

“During the conversation you bother agree that Jesus was probably delusional to think he could talk to Jehovah. The Bible was clearly written by men and not by Jehovah. You both agree that it is ludicrous to claim that he is the last prophet and that all later ones are false. Neither of you can believe that he rose from the dead nor flew to heaven. It all sounds too crazy, and it is difficult to see how someone could believe such a religion. At the end of the conversation, you both agree that Christians did not choose their religion; they were born into it. Anyone who was exposed to both Christianity and Islam would see that Islam is the true religion.”

And thus is the experiment. Present this to your Christian friend and they will turn defensive (Imagine that. When you question what someone believes, they might actually defend what they believe! Gasp!) Will they make elaborate arguments that have no factual basis? Will they cut you off and terminate your friendship?

Some of us will give arguments and if Ray wants to say they have no factual basis, it will be up to him to demonstrate that. Good luck. Without that, he’s just engaging in presuppositional atheism.

However, on this very page after talking about a friendship enduring, he goes on to talk about an associate of his who lost a father to cancer. After that, he became a Christian and any time they talked religion crept in and before too long, Ray stopped seeing him altogether. This on the very same page as the above questions.

So if you challenge a Christian, your friendship might not endure. However, when Ray hears someone talking about Jesus so much, their friendship can’t endure. How is this not seen?

In just three paragraphs, Ray deals with near-death experiences. Does he look at any with evidential claims in them? Not a one. Does he mention any researchers in the field that endorse such arguments? No. He points to one doctor who says it’s the brain trying to make sense of an experience. He also tells us that we can bring about the emotion of NDEs by stimulating certain parts of the brain. This is likely true, but irrelevant. We can stimulate many things, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t stimulating real things.

But again, without dealing with real evidential cases, Ray is not doing his proper work. Throughout the book Ray will talk about theists shutting off logic and critical thinking. Physician! Heal thyself!

On p. 30 in a footnote he says that during witch trials in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, historians estimate that 200,000 people died. Inquiring minds want to know who these historians are. Ray never tells us. Too many atheist readers will lap this up and believe it instantly. Those of us who actually care about evidence want to know more.

In a footnote on p. 32 he mentions Bruno as one who questioned the suppositions of religion and paid a price for it. Another such example he mentions is Galileo. People who make this claim have likely never read anything by Bruno. As for Galileo, he questioned Catholic interpretations, but he never once questioned the truth of Christianity.

On p. 39, he speaks about fundamentalism where people are immune to influence and ignore any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. Note, this is from a man who at least halfway through the book has not interacted with one opposing scholar so far. Ray also regularly writes about his fundamentalist upbringing. I do not question he had one. I also do not question that he has not escaped it. His thinking is still very much the same way.

On p. 42, he says Christians early on were instructed on how to take over political institutions. I would love to know where he sees this, but he does not say. Maybe all those things about honoring the emperor and praying for him and things like that. That’s how you take over government after all.

When we get to p. 48, he describes Marxism as a god virus. How this is a god virus when it is inherently atheistic is not explained. It’s a convenient way though to avoid having to question your own movement. Any movement that has mass death behind it must be a religious movement. It can’t possibly be atheistic!

Naturally, on p. 51, he says science education is the answer to religion. There is never a connection made here. There are plenty of fine scientists who have no trouble with being theists at all. Ray gives no arguments here.

When we return next time, we’ll start with the chapter on American Civil Religion, which is definitely a hideous chapter as far as evidential claims are concerned.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Hallowed Be Thy Name

What does it mean for God’s name to be holy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Hallowed is simply a way to refer to something as holy, and holiness is something we have lost sight of. In our world today, the question “Is nothing sacred?” is entirely relevant. Most people today seem to live just for the next pleasure high, and that doesn’t necessarily mean drugs, though it can. Casual sex is all too often and apps like tinder can exist to pretty much just give a hook-up to someone.

Sometimes I look at our society and wonder what people think is worth living for. What is the true greatest good in our lives? For we Christians, we would say it’s the goal to see God one day, but while we say that, we often live like the greatest good is something else, myself included.

Holiness refers to something being set apart. It’s not just something common and normal. It’s to be reserved for a specific usage and time. God’s holiness means He is set apart from creation and refers to His goodness and purity. He is unique.

We can honor His name best by how we live our own lives. Do we live lives of service and gratitude to Him? Do we seek to love our neighbor as ourselves? Do we seek to do good to those around us even when they wrong us?

Also, do we treat God way too flippantly. Do we seek to speak for Him when we have no business doing so? I think about this when I hear so many people convinced that God is speaking to them. God gets treated in a casual manner. I don’t really care for John MacArthur, but I think he was 100% right when he talked about the guy who told him that God talks to him every morning while he’s shaving and MacArthur asked “Do you still keep shaving?”

My wife and I attend Celebrate Recovery together and normally, you introduce yourself as a faithful believer in Jesus Christ. I don’t say that. I try to remind myself of something else with my introduction and say “Servant of King Jesus.” Jesus is a friend for sure, but He is not just any friend. If you were friends with the president, regardless of what you think of him and if you don’t like Trump replace him with someone you do like, you would not treat that friendship casually. You would treat the president still with the utmost of respect.

Clay Jones in his latest book Immortal argues that one of the reasons we might not have such a Christian drive in our country is we have lost sight of what happens when we die. We try to not think about the fact that one day all of us will. When we lose sight of that, we also lose sight of the fact that we will be judged.

Think about that. You will give an account for every deed that you do. Really think about it.

Every deed.

So what have you done? Did you get snippy with your wife? Were you berating your husband? Did you scare the kids by being harsher than you should have been? Did you give your neighbor the cold shoulder? Did you rejoice over the suffering of a personal enemy?

Every deed.

Most of our sins against God are not directly done against God. They’re done against His creation, mainly other people. Jesus tells us this in His parable of the sheep and the goats. C.S. Lewis reminded us that we have never met a normal person. Every person we meet will one day either be a creature we would be tempted to bow down before and worship, or a creature that would come out of our nightmares.

And a lot of this starts with a low view of God. If God is treated casually, then we are missing out on Him. Most Christians don’t have a clue about the Trinity, for example, and what a difference that should make to our lives. God is really no different than Zeus to most of us. He’s just a superpowered human being.

Seeing God as holy will require a revolution in our thinking about God. We will need to take doctrine seriously and our own holiness seriously. We will need to seek to banish evil not just from the world around us, but from our very selves. Fair wager here, but I suspect most of us spend more time complaining about the evil of others around us than the evil within us. To refer to Lewis again, he said that we often seek to excuse our sins, but not the sins of others. When we sin, that is different, but the other person? They really ought to know better!

If we are going to be Christians who say Jesus is #1, our lives had better be different. Our marriages had better be different. Our parenting should be different. Our job performance should be different. Our entertainment should be different. Everything. We should be different people because we serve a God who is really different from everything else.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Your Enemy

How much do you love God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I want you to picture in your mind your enemy. Okay? This is the person you either hate the most or at the least, love the least. Who is this? Well, it could be someone historical, like Hitler. Based on your politics, it could be Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or Donald Trump. It could be a former friend or an ex-lover. It could be a family member. It could be someone who hurt your spouse and/or kids.

It could even be yourself.

Now this is a personal theory of mine. I think it’s Scriptural, but like many other theories, I welcome feedback. 1 John tells us that if you do not love your neighbor, who you have seen, you cannot love God, who you have not seen.

My theory is you can only love God as much as you love that person that I told you to think about.

I’m not saying I’m crazy about this theory either. It’s really hard when I think about it. I don’t have a lot of personal enemies I can think of, but when I think of people who have hurt my wife Allie, I do have anger towards them. One of the ways I look at how I see people is I ask how they treat my wife. If they treat her well, all is good. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter what else they do.

Yet even those people that hurt her, I am told to love them.

This doesn’t mean I have warm fuzzies with them or particularly good feelings towards them. It also doesn’t mean that I give up the call for justice. However, I think it is a problem if we want punishment for the sake of punishment itself. For some who have hurt Allie, I pray for their brokenness that they will realize what they’ve done and repent.

If you have delight at the thought of someone going to Hell, you have it wrong. After all, if it were not for the grace of God in your life, you would be going the same way, and that’s a statement that doesn’t care if you’re a Calvinist or an Arminian or anywhere else. All is by grace.

It doesn’t mean also that you have to particularly like that person. It makes perfect sense if you don’t want to be around a past abuser and in many cases, it could even be wise, but it could mean that rather than hate them, you look at them with pity. What are they doing to destroy themselves by their actions? I don’t mean suicidal or self-harm actions, but actions where they are destroying what they are meant to be.

C.S. Lewis once said to not ask if you love your neighbor. Live like you did. We often think love is a feeling. This is particularly true in the area of romance. Many of you see the way I treat my wife on here and some have in person and you would probably think I’m constantly filled with lovely and warm feelings towards my wife.

No. Not really.

But the point is you do loving things anyway and it’s not a feeling of love that grows, but it’s rather a mindset of love. So it can be with your neighbor. If you find yourself genuinely praying for your neighbor, you will come eventually to love your neighbor, provided you come with the heart that God expects you to have.

Again, this is just a theory of mine, but I do think it’s scriptural. I welcome your feedback.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 4/4/2020

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The past is a funny place. They do things differently there. So it is that they did not see the world we do. They didn’t know about germs and viruses like our world knows about right now. They didn’t know how to explain weather. Until Galileo, they thought the sun went around the Earth. They would never have dreamed of the internet, video games, Alexa devices, automobiles, or anything we have today.

Now seeing how they didn’t have all of that and we have so much more today, why should we take what they said back then seriously? These are modern times after all! You can Google and learn anything that you want to! Modern science has shown us so much about the world! Why would we want to go to another system like philosophy?

Maybe though, just maybe, those who came before us have something that they can teach us. Maybe science and philosophy can work together. Maybe if we go down this path, we can find that we are truly not alone in the universe, not in the sense of extraterrestrial life, though that could be, but in the sense of a God who is out there.

In the 13th century, there lived a monk named Thomas Aquinas who was named the dumb ox by his classmates. His teacher said that dumb ox would roar and the whole world would hear it. His teacher was right. Today, Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy is still shaping the thinking of many people.

It’s not just Catholics either. Protestants like myself can greatly value the teaching of Thomas Aquinas. In order to discuss him and mainly his arguments for God, I am bringing on an up and coming apologist to talk about the issues, something I am prone to do as others did the same for me and still do the same. His name is Gil Sanders.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Gil studied under Edward Feser for almost three years at PCC, and got his bachelors in philosophy at Cal State Los Angeles. He co-founded a Ratio Christi at PCC, lead a philosophy club, and went on to publish a paper in the CSULA journal. Gil’s special areas of research include philosophy of religion, metaphysics, politics, and ethics. 

We’ll be discussing Thomistic metaphysics, why anyone should care about Aquinas, and how Aquinas gave a convincing argument that God exists. I hope you’re looking forward to this one. We are still working hard on uploading older episodes. Stay tuned!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Who God Is

What do I think of Ben Witherington III’s book published by Lexham Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I received this book from Lexham, I was a bit skeptical. After all, Ben Witherington is an excellent New Testament scholar, but I have not heard of him being a theologian. Still. I knew that since he wrote it, it would likely be brilliant. The book looked small as well so I thought it would be a quick read and so I decided to dive in.

First off, I was right on one point. This is a quick read. I started it in the late afternoon and I finished it before I went to bed that evening. If you want a quick read on the nature of God, a primer as you will, this is the one to go to. It’s a short read, but let’s get to the other parts.

Second, my skepticism proved to be wrong. This is really a great book. It’s not a dry read from a New Testament scholar. It’s really a passionate act of worship, something I don’t think I’ve seen like that from Witherington before, but it was an excellent work. It focuses on a select few attributes of God, and not always the ones we normally go to.

Normally, if you pick up something like the Summa Theologica for example, you will get the far more metaphysical concepts of God. I was just looking it up. Aquinas wrote a lot, but in the Prima Pars I don’t see love mentioned. What Witherington covers is five concepts. Love, light, life, spirit, and unique.

This isn’t an apologetics book per se. You won’t find arguments for the existence of God or the reliability of Scripture. All of this stuff is just assumed, and that’s fine. This book is more of a devotional book for those who believe.

At times, Witherington does touch on some secondary issues. Towards the end, some issues I didn’t care for being discussed, but if that distracts you from the overall point of the book, you have greatly missed out. Witherington’s book is a refreshing step out of the ivory tower as it were to a place where theology is meant to meet real life.

Far too long, I have said that a disconnect is there. Too many apologists I think have been doing what Lewis said, been so intent on proving God exists that you would think He has nothing to do but to exist. Witherington’s work reminds us that theology is meant to touch your life. It should change how you live.

Are you worried you won’t understand it because it’s deep talk about God? Don’t be. Witherington’s book is very readable. Like I said, it’s short enough that you can read it in a day, but it will be a day well spent. You will find at least one gem in here that will get you closer to worship of our great God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: We Are All Philosophers

What do I think of John Frame’s book published by Lexham Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I really have a hard time reading some books that are heavily Calvinistic. I have friends that are very much Calvinist and we get along just fine, but overall, I find presuppositional thinking to be an epistemological train wreck. Still, I was sent the book by Frame and decided to give it a shot.

The book aims to answer seven questions ultimately. What is everything made of? Do I have free will? Can I know the world? Does God exist? How shall I live? What are my rights? How can I be saved? The last question I think should be seen as a question of more theology than of philosophy.

The advantage is that the book is written for a layman and there can be some good history in there such as learning about pre-Socratics like Thales and Anaximander and others. Aristotle will be mentioned and sometimes some moderns, but beyond that, not many others. I don’t remember Aquinas and Augustine being mentioned, for instance.

The questions are unfortunately all answered from a presuppositional position. If you do not hold to that position and do not find it persuasive, which is true of me definitely, then you will not be persuaded and if anything will just be frustrated. No Christian philosopher would say the text of the Scripture is not data, but let’s not just do Bible study and call it philosophy.

Most troubling though to me is the dealing of the problem of evil. Frame does agree that in some way God is the cause of evil. Why? Who knows, but it will work out for His glory. I do not doubt that all evil will work for God’s glory, but I also do not doubt that God is not the cause of it. God is not the cause of an innocent woman being raped or a child being aborted in the womb or of a family living in poverty.

On the section on the existence of God, I sadly saw no arguments for the existence of God. This could be a good thing because if it would have been anything like my reading of Greg Bahnsen’s Van Til’s Apologetic, I would have been more frustrated as Bahnsen treated Aquinas’s five ways in a way even worse than Dawkins did. I didn’t think that was possible until I read it, but it happened.

In the back is an appendix where Frame answers questions that have been sent to him on topics related to the book. The problem is sometimes you can read an answer and you’re not even clear on what the question is. None of the questions were also from people who were critical of Frame’s approach. If Frame is sure of his approach, I would have liked to have seen how he would have handled a question from a real critic.

Those wanting to learn philosophy have better sources I think available. Even though I disagree with Nash’s rationalism, his Life’s Ultimate Questions would be a good read. You can’t go wrong with Peter Kreeft’s Socratic Logic or his Philosophy 101. I don’t care for his work, but even Norman Geisler’s introduction to philosophy would be prepared.

Not all Calvinists are presuppositionalists, but if you are one, you’ll probably love this. Those of us on the outside just aren’t convinced.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/2/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that has in its own way always been around, but wasn’t its own individual branch until sometime after Descartes. Differences have gone all the way back before from Plato to Aristotle. Plato had the theory of the forms to explain how we know things. Aristotle didn’t disagree entirely with the forms, but said we know things through sense experience, or at least that’s where our knowledge begins.

Today, we can look at the material world and see that we have a lot of science and think that that is the path to knowledge. By contrast, what is religion? Religion is done by authority. The adage of “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Some leave out the “I believe it” which would be redundant in a sense.

Is that the way religion is done? Do we just believe something because we read it in a book? How can we know God exists? How can we know what He’s like? Can we have a proper experience of God? How could we tell if that was a valid experience? Can one just intuit God exists even if they don’t know how to articulate the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

We’re going to be discussing religious epistemology today. How can someone know something that is a religious claim? Does one just have to take something by faith? What is faith anyway?

To discuss all of this, we’re bringing on a young scholar. Young is the word as just checking, my wife and I were surprised to see he’s just a few months older than she is, and yet he already has an Oxford published book called Religious Epistemology.. His name is Tyler McNabb.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Tyler Dalton McNabb (PhD, Glasgow) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Macau. Before taking his current position, McNabb taught three years at Houston Baptist University. McNabb is the author of Religious Epistemology(CUP) and co-author of Plantingian Religious Epistemology and World Religions (Lexington). He has also authored/co-authored various articles published in journals such as Religious Studies, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, The Heythrop Journal, and Philosophia Christi.  

We are busy working on getting episodes up. I know we’re behind on schedule, but thanks for bearing with us. Please keep listening.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Two Dozen Or So Arguments For God

What do I think of Jerry Walls and Trent Dougherty’s book published by Oxford University Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Around thirty or so years ago, Alvin Plantinga gave a talk on two dozen arguments for the existence of God. It’s my understanding these were brief synopses of some arguments. Some Plantinga favored and some he didn’t. These are also generally outside of the usual classical traditional arguments. You won’t find the Thomist arguments in there and Bill Craig adds in the Kalam and the moral argument isn’t there as much and even the fine-tuning argument has some updating to it.

Now that topic has been fleshed out further and each of these arguments has a fuller explanation of it given. Some arguments people will like more than others. Each should give the reader something to think about. It will be interesting to see what replies come from the other side in response to this project.

Let me start with a criticism here also. I consider myself a classical theologian and think in those philosophical terms. As it was, most of the arguments in the book then I did not understand the logic of. I don’t speak in terms of modal logic and possible worlds and much of the symbolism found did not make sense to me. This work then I would say is not really layman friendly. It would be nice to see another work done like this that would work on the popular level for the rest of us.

My favorite essay then in the book was actually Tim McGrew’s on the argument from miracles. This is because much of it spoke to my area of history and there were even side notes in there I can use such as problems with the argument from silence, a favorite of mythicists and others on the internet. Other arguments did give me something to think about when it came to things that I did understand.

Consider something like the argument from numbers. Does this point to an eternal mind? The same kind of idea could be at work in my debate with Dan Barker where Barker actually said that 2 +  2  = 4 was not true in the time of the dinosaurs. If that is the case, then that would mean all truths like that would be truths that depend on us for their making. If we make them, we can change them. That would also include the moral truths that Barker emphasizes such as behaviors he thinks are evil when done by God, which would refute his whole argument.

The book also has an appendix with a brief interview of Plantinga discussing various questions about the project. Many people could be interested in his answers to questions about day to day Christian living. There is a notes section at the end looking at the arguments in the book, but I found it unclear if this was Plantinga’s musings going on or something else.

Those who enjoy philosophy will appreciate this book, but I think it will be those who enjoy philosophy of a certain kind. For the layman, I recommend waiting for a version to come out friendly to the layman. I hope the editors will seriously consider that as it would be another great gift for the man in the pew.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Does The Love Of God Mean?

When we say that God loves us, what do we mean? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Love is one of the most meaningless words in the English language. Another one of the most meaningless words in the English language is god. Some of you might be shocked to hear me say both of those. I hope before too long, you’ll actually agree with both of them.

When I speak of something like say, a cat, you have a good idea what I mean. Most of you would probably think of your regular housecat. Some might think of lions and tigers and other animals. You won’t think of a wolf or a fish.

When I speak of a pizza, you also know what I’m talking about. You might have disputes about what kind of pizza it is, such as pepperoni or just cheese or a veggie pizza, but you will get the general idea. The word has some substance to it.

Such is not the case when I speak of god or of love, and god is intentionally lower-case for now. When we say those things, we can say something and totally confuse any other person we’re talking to because they mean something different by them. Let’s start with the idea of what god means.

In my debate with Dan Barker, as some people noted and I agreed, Barker’s god sounds more like Zeus than anything else. He’s a god eager to strike someone down for any wrongdoing and any concept of love and grace was foreign. That’s why the term god is meaningless without some concept. Speak to a Hindu or a new ager or a Muslim or a Mormon and you’ll get radically different ideas when you use the same word god.

So it is with love as well. When we talk about love today, often what we speak of is a feeling for one person. Love can produce feelings and that’s fine. Some people are very feelings oriented. I have great admiration for my own wife in this area in the way she talks about feeling the love of God. For me, that doesn’t often register.

Yet if love means warm feelings, it’s not much. It’s saying “I feel something very special in me because of you.” That’s nice, but the love is not really about the good of the other person as much as it is about the good of the self. Biblically, love is giving to the other for the good of the other and seeking the good of the other for their sake.

1 Corinthians 13 naturally comes to mind. One good exercise to do is when you get to verse 4 and start going through love is patient and other such things, take out the word love as you read it. Put your own name in it. Do you really think you’re saying true statements still? If you’re not, then you have to ask if you’re really loving.

Now if we have the real concept of God, we have someone who is the greatest good, and goodness itself, who loves us. This is not some toting grandfather in the sky who is saying as long as the children are happy. This is a love that wants the very best for us. As Lewis would say, unfortunately, we are far too easily pleased and hold on to things sometimes and get scared of what it would be like to not have them.

It’s not to say you have to give up everything. God gives us many things richly for our enjoyment. What we have to ask is if something is really becoming a hindrance between us and God. Anything that comes before God is not being good for us, no matter how good it might be in itself.

I’m a gamer, and I love playing my games. Still, if God told me that I had to give them up for Him, I would honestly hope that I would do it. I’m not going to tell you it would be easy. I’m not going to tell you I would be thrilled with the thought. I am not going to make a foolish boast and say I would do that in a heartbeat. I’m not so foolish as that. We all know what happened with Peter and his boasting.

But if we’re not willing to sacrifice for the love of God, we have to ask if we really want it. Sometimes, I don’t think we want to be loved by God. If we are loved by God, then we are in danger of being changed by God. When my wife and I attend Celebrate Recovery, sometimes this skit is played by the Skit Guys about this kind of love and it’s really powerful.

But not only that, if we sacrifice anything for God, we are told we will receive 100 times as much in the world to come. This is a promise. God is interested in our happiness and joy, but it might be that we have to go through short-term suffering to get long-term joy and happiness.

If we trust God though, then we need to trust Him with everything in our lives. Note that I don’t think God will call us to give up anything that involves committing a sin in giving it up. If you are in a Christian marriage, God will not call you to give that up. We can also be assured that Abraham is a rare exception and God will not call us to kill our children for Him.

But if we want the love of God, it should be worth it. If we don’t really want it, then we really have a low concept of the God that we are claiming to love. In our day and age, it’s easy to love other things more than God. I really admired it when I heard Peter Kreeft say that sometimes he fears he is a bigger Red Sox fan than he is a Jesus fan.

We could also fear the judgment of God. God will look on us we fear and find something He doesn’t like. This is something odd to fear because God already knows how we are. We’re not going to keep any secrets from Him. He loves us just as we are.

What could you do today to make God love you more? Nothing. What could you do to make Him love you less? Nothing. God will always be seeking your good which is also His good in the long run. It’s not that God has special feelings about you. He has a commitment to you.

That’s what real love is. It’s a commitment. Anyone can be loving when they have good feelings for a person. That’s easy. What’s really loving is when you do the right thing to that person even when you don’t have those feelings and maybe even when the negative feelings are there. Talk to most any married couple and you’ll find there are times they have less than loving feelings towards one another. That’s the time when it’s the most important to be loving, and it’s the most worthwhile.

Seek the love of God today. It’s always there. It’s always been there. It’s always worth pursuing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters