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Critical of Eternity

11:09 AM - Feb. 8, 2007 - Wild Thoughts {0} - Add to the Wildness

How can a good God allow a man in the prime of his life, with a wife and five kids who need him, to die a horrible death of suffering? Why would God allow a man who was devoted to his faith and influenced people to think about their eternity, to go through this? Is this how God repays His servants?

As I sat at Victor’s funeral, these were not actually the questions going through my mind. Those are questions generally asked (aloud, anyway) by non-Christians. The questions going through my mind were, Is this really the right paradigm? Is my outlook on life accurate? Is heaven real, and is our hope real? What am I supposed to feel and think about this? Why am I so helpless to truly know anything at this moment?

Unlike a lot of people, I lost my taste long ago for emotional reassurance. I’ve learned I can convince myself to feel just about anything. I require substance and evidence in order to actually feel good in any meaningful way.

In the current newsletter from Creation Ministries International, (www.creationontheweb.org) Jeff Chiasson writes about verifiable statements. Some statements can be verified – the example he uses is, “White crows exist.” Only one white crow would be needed to demonstrate this as fact. However, as he points out, a statement like, “All crows are black” could never be verified – somewhere in the world, unobserved, an albino crow may be living happily ever after.

This precept of logic, not some spiritual arrogance, is why the Psalms say, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Ps. 10:4, 14:1, 53:1) Somewhere, unobserved, God may be living happily ever after. This really is a foolish statement, unverifiable and un“think”able in the sense that you can’t do anything with it from logic. It is an avoidance of intellect, not a demonstration of it.

The same premise can be applied to hell, heaven, the devil and angels, and the need for salvation. Saying they don’t exist doesn’t make it so. And yet, our culture’s best answer to the Bible’s statement that Christ died for the sins of humanity remains, “There is no need for a Saviour.”

When we ask questions of an abstract nature, in order to investigate them meaningfully, there is a process for tying them to observation and fact. Without that anchor, we’re left wandering in our own imaginings. Anything could be reality, and nothing truly is.

We have to start by phrasing things in a way that’s actually helpful to us. We can’t ask ourselves questions, or make presuppositional statements, that require omniscience on our part. We have to use terms that we can work with.

In matters eternal and unseen, can this be done? Yes, I believe it can.

The problem is that people try to make the leap from observable fact to conclusion without checking on how they get there.

Let me wander back to Hebrews 11:1 for a minute. The translators in the time of King James rendered it so: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I believe I’ve already mentioned Oregon apologist Dave Hunt’s observation that in order to be the substance and evidence of anything, faith must first have some substance and evidence of its own.

The Bible I use is the New American Standard Version, translated in the 1940s, and with a feature I happen to like – the sacrifice of some small amount of English grammar for the sake of retaining some of the structure of the original languages. Some would say it “goes clunk.” Having a hobbyist’s interest in linguistics, I would say, good on ya, guys.

Here is the same verse in the NASB, which brings out a different nuance of the original words – and this is why multiple translations are not a sign of Christian equivocation and disharmony, but important to our understanding.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

This tells me that the original words are much deeper than either one translation alone can be. These words don’t signify just substance and evidence, they also signify the result of substance and evidence: Assurance. Conviction. Being absolutely, concretely convinced beyond all doubt.

Did I lose my faith at Victor’s funeral?

Hellfire in the Amazon Jungles

5:30 PM - Feb. 1, 2007 - Wild Thoughts {1} - Add to the Wildness

That evil God of the Bible again! How could He send people to hell when they’ve never heard of Him? How could anyone worship a God like that and call Him a God of love? Isn’t the innate contradiction enough to demolish the Christian religion as a whole?

Or, as my acquaintance put it to me, “A 14-year-old kid dies of malaria somewhere in a jungle where no one’s heard of Christianity, and goes to hell? I don’t buy that.”

Neither do I, because the scenario is incomplete, and assumes that the non-Christian worldview gives the correct basis from which to work at the character and behaviour of God. Let’s first examine the presuppositions behind a statement like this.

Presupposition #1: The Bible is a diverse collection of human notions about God that originate in a small area of the Middle East, possibly much later in history than its “fundamentalist” adherents like to claim.

Presupposition #2: Christianity is a regional, relatively new and isolated belief system with no global ties other than those created relatively late in history by European explorers.

Presupposition #3: World religions have evolved along the following pattern: animist – polytheist – monotheist.

Presupposition #4: God should conform to human notions of justice and goodness.

Secular assumptions can only be correct if their presuppositions are accurate. If their presuppositions fail to fully explain all the facts, the non-Christian has two options: Toss out certain observable facts as “non-factual,” or revamp the presuppositions for the sake of intellectual integrity.

Because of presupposition #1, the secularist can’t even begin to investigate the basis of his/her own argument. They’ve already disallowed any input from the Bible because the content has been presumed to be subject to error, omission and tampering. Unfortunately, that’s the secularist’s loss. They have now excluded themselves from a fascinating experiment that’s been conducted by Christians who’ve gone looking for an answer to the same question about hell, sinners and the knowledge of God. Guess we're not all heartless and thoughtless, it turns out.

The thing is, Christians have the freedom to try working from the first chapters of Genesis and see whether it actually works or not. If the non-Christian is willing to temporarily switch assumptions, they can operate from that basis for the purpose of setting up parameters for evidence-gathering. This, at least, allows the non-Christian to answer the question of whether there even is any evidence out there that fits the Bible’s explanations.

For the sake of experiment, here are the biblical assumptions one needs to work from:

Presupposition #1: The Bible is accurate when it declares that God is perfect.

Presupposition #2: The Bible is accurate when it declares that a perfect God created a perfect creation.

Corollary Conclusion #1: When God created the perfect man and woman, He created them with perfect brain function, not the 10% we use today. This means they were not apeish cave people, but the smartest human beings ever to live. As such, they would have been capable of remarkable inventions, such as those described in the first chapters of Genesis – musical instruments, agricultural techniques, metalworking, and literacy. Working from this perspective, The Puzzle of Ancient Man by Don Chittick documents evidence from around the globe of ancient technology that surpasses modern human capability. As another point of interest, even secular musical training informs its students that entirely new innovations in musical instruments no longer happen - the saxophone was the last, and it's subject to debate whether it's overly original as an invention.

Let’s stop for a minute and take a look at Genesis. In the very first chapters is a noteworthy phenomenon known as the toledoth. In the English, it reads, “These are the generations of...”

It's a kind of signature to each section. If the secular assumptions about primitive man are correct, it means little. However, if the Bible is correct, it could be extremely significant.

After examining arguments for and against his view, the late Dr. Henry Morris, a hydrologist, speculated on the eleven recurrences of the toledoth: “It is suggested in this commentary... that Moses compiled and edited earlier written records that had been handed down from father to son via the line of the patriarchs listed in Genesis. That is, Adam, Noah, Shem, Terah, and others each wrote down an individual account of events which had occurred in his own lifetime, or concerning which he in some way had direct knowledge.”

Morris goes on: “Assuming that these toledoth divisions represent the original documents from which Genesis was collected... The weight of evidence suggests that the respective names attached to the toledoth represent subscripts or closing signatures.” (The Genesis Record, pp. 26-27)

Moses need be the original author only if secular assumptions about the course of human history and innovation are correct. Morris’s explanation is not falsified by any contradictory evidence within the Bible. Though it completely contradicts secular thinking, it contradicts it not in the realm of archaeology, sociology or world history, but in the realm of presuppositions. Morris uses the same facts as the non-Christian, but begins from a different set of assumptions (The Bible, rather than human opinion) and ends with a different explanation.

Moving on.

Presupposition #3: The Bible is accurate when it describes a common family of humanity, a global flood, and an outspreading from one point of origin thereafter, with two major religious systems manifested - that of Babel and that of the Bible.

Corollary Conclusion #2: World religions have devolved in the following manner: Monotheism -- polytheism -- animism.

Corollary Conclusion #3: The Bible has connections to world religious systems that date back to a time when humanity was unified in geographical location and linguistics, operating from a shared knowledge base.

Again, I’m calling a brief halt. Those religious systems, by the way, can be traced worldwide in several variants even today. They make perfect sense if the entire human family had access to the same religious and historical documents at some point in the past. They are ancestor and nature worship or a permutation thereof, and biblical faith. Both hold one thing in common: a Creator.

The more pervasive system of theology argues that man becomes god (or part of god, or some form of higher being or existence) upon death. In its most untampered forms, the ancestors are the direct tie back to some form of pantheon, often headed by an unknowable, vengeful god. Around the world, many “pagan” religions have been documented by Christian observers as having one particular deity set apart from their pantheon of ancestors. That deity is Creator, Judge, Avenger, and/or Destroyer. Often, that deity mixes characteristics of the God of the Bible and the Satan of the Bible.

That’s fine, from the Christian perspective. Working from the Bible’s basis, it points to a blurred memory of an original account as Morris postulates, much like the flood legends that abound in global mythology. It is the secular anthropologist who must distort the value of the cultural memories of the world’s tribes to uphold his/her presuppositions about the inferiority of ancient humanity, not the Christian.

What the Christian sees is a cultural memory of a tie to the Creator. It’s corroborated by the ancient patterns of tribal settlement and variations on the theme of monarchy – some leader who could trace his family genealogy back into the mists of history. Bill Cooper, in his book After the Flood, points out that the royal families of Europe can be traced back to Noah – if one believes Noah was a real person.

Why would they do this? Here’s a clue from the New Testament: As Luke traces the genealogy of Christ, he goes all the way back to Genesis. And when he finishes, he says, “Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”

If one gains access to God not by faith (trusting what God has done to make Himself available to us) but instead by human effort and merit, that blood tie straight back to deity would be very important. In cultures which have postulated an evolutionary origin, such as the Greeks and modern North America, the tie claimed is spiritual rather than inherent, and tends to be based on esoteric spiritual experiences.

In the book Eternity in Their Hearts, Don Richardson discusses instances from around the world where tribal cultures have revealed a startling similarity between their beliefs and the teachings of Genesis. He mentions hints from history that indicate the knowledge of the biblical Creator has experienced revivals in cultures as disparate from Israel as the ancient Incans. Bill Cooper corroborates, sharing cultural and textual perspectives on the Beowulf epic that point to a pre-Christian origin of the document.

This, of course, directly contradicts the secular assumption that world religions have proceeded from animism/polytheism “upwards” to monotheism. But that’s how the Bible is – in direct contradiction of human wisdom, and it really doesn’t apologize for it.

The message of humanity’s fall from communion with the Creator and the Creator’s response in sending a Redeemer is laid out in Genesis chapter 3. In fact, the whole rest of the book is meaningless without those first three chapters. But – if those chapters are accurate, and if those chapters are ancient, everything changes.

If those chapters are in fact part of earth's history, then world cultures retain a knowledge of the three essential facts of relationship with God -- the Creator, human separation from Him, and the promise of a Redeemer. It takes little logic to see that in order for a Redeemer to take on the sins of all humanity for all time in one act of atonement (symbolized by the sacrifice of an animal and the covering of Adam and Eve), that Redeemer must be the Infinite Himself. People are smart. A consistent Bible believer will give them credit for it.

In order for the non-Christian to understand the Christian’s position on isolated tribes, hell and the knowledge of God, the framework of the Bible must first be understood. The Christian framework is much more complex than this notion that the God of the Bible sends innocent, unknowing people into a fiery eternity. If that were the summary of the doctrine, there would be far fewer Bible-believers in existence – certainly none with any tendency to independent thought.

Presupposition #4: The Bible is accurate when it says that God is real and personal, and as Supreme Being, has the authority and sovereignty to express His character and behaviour without reference to human expectations.

The biblical ground is that God does not force anyone into His presence who does not want to go. Yet that’s what we were designed for – communion with the Divine. Therefore, when we choose to remain separate from Him, our experience of life is far more painful, and our experience of eternity is utter torment. At the same time, the Bible is very clear that “God is love.” God also makes firm promises about His availability to all, and in fact His seeking of those who aren’t even looking for Him. The Bible shows a God of love who has given the knowledge of Himself to all humanity -- whether humanity chooses to distort it to the point of uselessness is left to the same free will that allows us the choice of whether to trust God's promises or not.

Using the biblical worldview, Christians have been able to investigate whether there’s evidence that God really is what He claims to be in the Bible. The response from history does not contradict it, but rather tends to support it. Christians are human too, and continue to develop their understanding as they learn more. More importantly, the framework of presuppositions (the Bible) functions remarkably well in explaining diverse evidences drawn from world mythology and religion.

...If you believe in that stuff.

______________________________________________
Cited and corollary resources:

The Genesis Record by Dr. Henry Morris
The Puzzle of Ancient Man by Dr. Donald Chittick
After the Flood by Bill Cooper
Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson
Discovery of Genesis by Kang and Nelson

Critical of Faith

5:19 PM - Jul. 7, 2006 - Wild Thoughts {0} - Add to the Wildness

"People with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what world view is true."
-Dr. Francis Schaeffer

Part of the difficulty with talking to people about areas of disagreement is that you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. You also don't want to have them think anything less of you. And sometimes, you just don't want your private personality shaken up.

But like it or not, life is about pain. Lost relationships, lost moments, lost dreams. The goal of life is can't be to try never to hurt anyone. You'll go crazy. And you'll lose your identity trying to fit yourself into other people's.

May I make the radical suggestion that a higher - and, yes, attainable - goal for life is not to avoid causing people pain, but to aim for an end to all such sorrows.

How to go about it? Join the peace movement? Become a world-changer? A diversity advocate or a special-interest lobbyist? Or maybe just living a good life, the happiest life possible, will make some change.

Ah, but I'm thinking of something even greater than that. You can't choose when you'll lose a child. When your spouse may change their mind about your relationship. When your parents will die. What about those kinds of pain?

My radical suggestion includes those kinds of pain too. I've lost two children. One because of my own choices. I've lost relationships and many, many moments I wish I could have back. Life is angst. I don't propose that the end to struggle is the end to every challenge, every triumph life offers, either. On the contrary - I propose that an end to life's conflicts would open up so much more time for tackling real challenges, beautiful and worthwhile ones.

If I am crazy, it's for the sake of this vision - or for the sake of the God I draw it from. Put me in the mental, put me in jail, knock me around or kill me - nothing can shake it. This is my faith. Nothing else has lived up to its promises or its peace. This is the greatest adventure of my life, and I never know what Jesus Christ will do with each day I live.

So, crazy it is.

Let me tell you more about how I got here from there.

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