Quote from Paul Copan

This is a good thing to remember when in debate.

“If writing with a goal – whether it be evangelistic, apologetic, or didactic – implies propaganda, then all recorded history is propaganda. . . a work shouldn’t be dismissed simply because of the strong convictions of the writer. Should we discount the facticity or reliability of the accounts of Nazi concentration camp survivors simply because they passionately recount their story?”

- Paul Copan

God Without Arguments?

In the recent months, I have struggled with the idea that people can believe in God without taking into consideration the arguments that are in favor of God's existence such as; The Cosmological Argument, the Moral Argument, the Argument from Contingency and so on. In my ignorance, I thought that people needed to be enlightened by these augments to fully cherish and appreciate God's glory and power. For example, I have some friends in college that do not engage in apologetics but yet still exhibit faith and live very Godly lives. How is this possible? I have kept myself up late at night sometimes doubting, thinking and wondering whether God exists and more specifically that he has revealed him-self in Jesus Christ and they just believe it?. It baffled me that people just dismissed this seemingly important aspect of being a Christian. In this post, I am going to sort through this idea of belief in God without implementing arguments.

Dr. William Lane Craig teaches a class entitled Defenders. In this class, he instructs them through a plethora of different issues that pertain to the Christian faith. To my surprise, this very issue was discussed in Defenders. Dr. Craig offers an argument to help deal with this issue.

1.      Beliefs which are appropriately grounded may be rationally accepted as basic beliefs not grounded on argument.

Dr. Craig expounds on this premise by saying,

             Philosophers call beliefs like this, that are part of a person’s foundations of knowledge, “properly basic beliefs.” These are beliefs that are not based on some other beliefs. They are not inferred from those other beliefs. Rather they are part of the very foundation of your system of beliefs. Other examples of properly basic beliefs would include things like belief in the reality of the external world around you and the physical objects in it, belief in the reality of the past, that the world was not created just five minutes ago with built in appearances of age, or the presence of other minds besides yourself. [1]

Dr. Craig is saying that there some beliefs that you cannot prove or falsify. Some beliefs are just a part of foundation as human beings. One of the examples he gives is the reality of the external world around us. I cannot prove the world around truly exists but I know based on my experience that it does. This kind of reminds me of my youth and trying to catch the refrigerator light turning off. No matter how quick I thought I was, it always seemed to be on. With no way of knowing the truth, was I rational to believe that the light inside the refrigerator was always on?

                Dr. Craig offers this answer,

                Although this may be a basic belief which is not provable, nevertheless, it is not an arbitrary belief. It is grounded in my experience. It is perfectly rational to hold a belief like this unless you have some overriding reason to think that you are deluded. That is to say, unless you have some sort of defeater of this basic belief. In the absence of such a defeater, you are perfectly rational to entertain these basic beliefs.

Dr. Craig says that unless we encounter some defeater of our belief, we are perfectly rational to believe whatever it is that we believe. So although I know now that the light in my refrigerator does indeed turn off when I shut the door, I was perfectly rational, as a child, to believe that the light was always on, based off of my own experience. Now that I know there is a button that turns of the light when the door closes I am no longer incline to believe that the light is always on. But this does not give me permission to start believe in anything I want. These beliefs would be based off my own experience even though they may not be proven to be true by argumentation. Understanding this concept helped me come to terms with people believing in God without arguments. We have seen that believing in something based on experience is rationally acceptable (unless disproven) but this premise does not answer the question of why my college friends believe in God without the knowledge of arguments for the existence of God. This brings me to Dr. Craig’s next point.

2.       Belief that the biblical God exists is appropriately grounded.

Dr. Craig in this premise takes into account the Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit. This is what he means,

                I mean the experience of the Holy Spirit is veridical – that is to say, it is an experience of a genuine reality… I also mean that such a person doesn’t need to have supplementary arguments or evidences in order to know, and know with confidence, that he is, in fact, experiencing the Spirit of God… I also mean that this experience doesn’t function as a premise in an argument for God from religious experience… Rather, the idea here is that this is the immediate experience of God himself, so that belief in God is formed in a properly basic way… I also mean that, in certain contexts, the experience of the Holy Spirit will imply that we apprehend certain truths about God like “God loves me” or “I am guilty before God” or “God forgives me through Christ” or “I am reconciled to God through Christ” or “Christ lives within me,” and so forth… And I mean that such an experience gives a person not only a subjective assurance of Christianity’s truth – it is not just that he feels confident – but rather that he actually knows that Christianity is true… And finally, I mean that arguments and evidence which are incompatible with these truths are simply overwhelmed by the experience of the Holy Spirit for the person who fully attends to it.

Dr. Craig believes that the Holy Spirit working in the heart of the believer is enough to validate one’s belief in God. Notice that, Dr. Craig is not saying that the Holy Spirit should be used as a means to prove God’s existence but that it is rational for someone to believe in God without arguments because of the Holy Spirit’s self-authentication. Dr. Craig points to Scripture to help his case. He looks as 1 John 2:20-27,

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all know. . . . but the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that any one should teach you; as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him.

Here, John says that Holy Spirit will teach us Truth. The work of the Holy Spirit is enough to believe in God in a properly basic way. Dr. Craig also looks Galatians 3:26 and 4:6, Romans 8:15-16, Colossians 2:2 and 1 Thessalonians 1:5. This is where my ignorance laid. I did not take into account the work of the Holy Spirit. In times of doubt, the Holy Spirit is there speaking to us the truth of Christ. Going through this study I have grown a much deeper appreciation for the Holy Spirit and his workings in my and the lives of others. Dr. Craig tells the story of a young man in Russia with nothing more than his Bible, struggling to give a defense of his faith. He told Dr. Craig that there is no book that he knows of in Russia that offers arguments for the existence of God every book that he came into contact with only attack the idea of God. But this man was indeed driven for Christ. Dr. Craig believes it’s the Holy Spirit’s witness that has kept this young man’s heart for God alive.

3.       Therefore, belief that the biblical God exists may be rationally accepted as a basic belief not grounded on argument.

                Although there are many areas that can be explored regarding this topic. I wanted to deal with Christians being Christians without arguments. I felt I have put to rest (for now) this issue in my head. This study has changed the way I look at Christians. If I’m honest with myself there was a small part of me that was ashamed of my fellow Christians who did not study the evidences for God. It goes without saying that I no longer feel that way. I have come to the conclusion that God’s presence in the Holy Spirit is enough to validate someone’s faith in God whether or not they know the arguments.      

 

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[1] Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s4-26#_ftn1#ixzz2oQyIKsEa

The Dichotomy of the Academy and the Church

Today I was watching a video for a prominent seminary in the United States about one of their New Testament programs. One of the things that they were adamant about was that they did not want to uphold the perceived dichotomy that there is between the academic side of Christianity and the Church. I thought this to be a very interesting point to make.

No seminary needed to deeply understand scripture!
(although it can help!)

You may be asking, what the heck are you talking about? Well essentially they were talking about how the church tends to separate academic study of the holy scriptures from the worshipful study of the scriptures.

Whether you realize it or not, you probably uphold one of these sides of scri
pture. For many we tend to cling to the idea of using the Bible as something we read to relationally get closer to God. Don't misread me, this is very good. We should desire to grow closer to God in relationship with God by learning from His writings to us, the Church. The only problem with focusing completely on this is that you miss much of the depth of scripture. You miss small nuances that could not be noticed unless you took time to academically focus on scripture and study it intensely.

Now it can be easy to write off this idea because, honestly, not everyone is an academic. Not everyone (well, almost no one) wants to learn to speak Koine Greek, Aramic and Hebrew fluently. Most people don't own Biblical commentary sets. Should this however keep you from studying God's word? Most certainly not!

Much like everything else in our age, we can learn about anything you desire with the click of a button. We have vast amounts of resources on the internet that people long before us would have loved to have access to. So that argument is invalid. You can search for knowledge from highly trained leaders to grow our own knowledge easily, and often, for free.

Now don't take me as saying that everyone in the church needs to do research papers and present them at conferences to truly be following Christ. That would be quite unnecessary. Some people are meant to lead in music. Some are to serve with children. Some are even meant to worship and serve Jesus through being a custodian. Then academics are meant to serve through their research, study, and teaching of scripture. But, we should all have an equal desire to have vast understanding of the Word of God. Clearly we will never master everything, but we can strive towards greater understanding to benefit those we serve, whether as the children's minister or the janitor.

As the professor in the video I watched said, we should use our study and research of scripture as an act of worship, not just an academic exercise to flaunt our intelligence. Being a person who studies and desires knowledge of the Word doesn't require a Ph.D. It merely requires a desire to follow Jesus Christ.

The Syrian Conflict and the Value of Human Life

If you have noticed there is a strong possiblity of going to war with Syria. Many are for it. But the consensus, especially among the common people (you and me) is that we shouldn't go to war. I have an opinion of this and it is heavily influenced by my political positions, but I am not here to tell you why or why not we should go to war. I am here to talk about something that I find particularly odd in the proceedings on Capitol Hill.



It is on how they are addressing the value of the people in Syria.

Now this may seem to be an odd thing to take from the proceedings about a possible war, but bear with me. The biggest thing that is causing many of our countries leaders to want intervention in Syria is the use of chemical weapons by the government of  Syria on the people of Syria. Now the question I have to ask is, why does the use of chemical weapons evoke such harsh feelings, but not the deaths of people in general? Many have died in Syria due to conventional weapon attacks without much being said.

This civil war has been going on in Syria since 2011, so it is not something out of left field to the international community at this point. In that time thousands of people have died. Why is there no regard for those who have died or lost families before? There are also 2 million refugees who are displaced by the fighting. That is like having the entire population of San Antonio, Texas or Phoenix, Arizona displaced. That is a number that while seemingly small on paper, is huge when it comes to real people.

Now while the US government clearly is making this move out of political posturing and a desire to enforce international laws on chemical weapons, we must wonder, where was the outrage before? Why none for those who have lost their homes, families, or even lives?

The government cannot really see it this way, unfortunately. It is in a constant mode of self preservation. As Christians we have a different view of the value of human life. It isn't a view that is clouded by the desires of self preservation or political posturing, but out of love and true concern for people. Our response, in any situation not just this, should not be held up until we feel like it may negatively effect us. We should be proactive.

Jesus taught frequently about how we should regard those who are going through tough times. In one of his famous passages he says:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ -Matthew 25:35-40

This isn't just a call to social justice, it is a call for us to be compassionate and look outside of ourselves in the name of God. Jesus wouldn't command this if he did not see a strong of the life of men and women. Regardless of whether you die from starvation or by chemcial attack, you are still dead. All people die, but we should find value in those people regardless of what is causing them affliction.

The Christian response should be very different from that of any governments when hearing of any death. It should concern regardless of the circumstances. Our concern for a person or multiple people shouldn't spring up whenever there could be negative consequences for us. Chemical weapons and other forms of negative reinforcement shouldn't be required for kind actions and regard for others. 

We don't pick how much God values a person based on their situation. We see them as valuable because God has given them immense value.

Now may it be a bit off base to assume our government doesn't care about those who died before the chemical attack? Maybe. But I still think we can find ways to learn from this. Regardless of the political spin on this conflict God, our Father in Heaven, loves those we may call vile terrorists as much as he loves would be liberators, and also as much as those afflicted in the many refugees camps. We should reflect the same love and concern that Jesus showed for those in Matthew.

While this is a multifaceted and highly complex situation, we should always maintain our ethical grounding in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Not in the teachings of elected political figures.

Quote of the Day: Francis Schaeffer

“Christianity is not just involved with "salvation", but with the total man in the total world. The Christian message begins with the existence of God forever, and then with creation. It does not begin with salvation. We must be thankful for salvation, but the Christian message is more than that. Man has a value because he is made in the image of God.”

― Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible

The Church's Disenchantment With The Land of Enchantment

If you have gotten to read our writers bio's on this blog you would know that we are from the beautiful Land of Enchantment, otherwise known to you as New Mexico. It is the land of green chile everything, beautiful mountains, insanely vast deserts, and some very interesting people. We are even sometimes mistaken for having been lost step child territory of our southern neighbor, Mexico. This leads to awkward conversations with Texans about how I am not really from Mexico but am acutally an American and that is really why my English is good!

Out of this relative obscurity our big state with a little population has been thrust into the national spotlight, all due to a recent ruling in our state supreme court. This ruling was over a photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex wedding because of a religious conviction about not being involved in something that would give the impression that they endorsed this ceremony. Unsurprisingly, the New Mexico Supreme Court, in a traditionally politically liberal state, said that they couldn't do this becuase they trampled on the constitutional rights of the people they refused a service to.

The one thing that I have heard repeatedly from people within the church is is that acts like this trample on our rights to religious liberty. Yes, they are guaranteed in the US Constitution, but should you expect anything different?

Anyone who has spent any considerable amount of time in New Mexico, even in the affectionately labelled "Little Texas" region in Eastern New Mexico, you know that most of the people in our state are lost. Tradition overruns piety and desire to follow after God. Skepticism keeps many from even accepting the reality of a God. This is the reality of New Mexico. While we are a remote outpost in the Southwest, the culture is just as skeptical and unwilling to accept Jesus as anywhere in the world.

Going back to my question "should we expect anything different?" To truly treasure a right and liberty you have to understand why it is important. For Christians we know what is right and wrong in the eyes of God. Those who reject the Gospel of Jesus do not. And why should they? I have no desire to practice international tax law, so why would I take time to learn the tax code of France if it doesn't even apply to me as a taxpayer? This is the dilemma that we are in. We as a church are expecting non Christians to suddenly realize that what they want nothing to do with is relavant to them, because we said so.

As a Christian in the world you are truly a stranger in a foreign land. The ideals that are held here are not the same as the ones that Christians hold, so why should we expect them to hold our religious liberties and ideals as sacred as we do? We shouldn't. Not because we want to resign people to sin, but out of realization that people, especially the quirky people of my home state, are steeped in sin. Like an unruly child they don't know right from wrong.

On Cannonization and Innerrancy

Apostolic Authority



When many people ask about how we arrived at the Bible we have, in length and books, we sometimes wonder what made the compilers of this collection of writings choose some books and hold others out, like the sensationalized gnostic gospels. There are many reasons for the inclusion and the exclusion of books.



One of the first and greatest reasons for inclusion was the necessity in Aposotolic authority in the writings. When we hear the word apostle in this setting we are reffering to the eleven disciples of Jesus (sorry Judas Iscariot!) and Paul. The thing that qualified them as apostles is that they had all seen Jesus after his ressurection. This apostolic authority is the reason why some epistles and writings, by godly men who meant well, were not added to the canon of New Testament verses.



Wrong kind of "cannonization"



In this we can see that these men whose writings were placed into what we now call the New Testament were not inherently special on their own, but it was their relationship with Jesus that allowed them to speak with this kind of authority. They essentially spent three years at the worlds greatest unaccredited seminary at the feet of the greatest theologian who has ever lived, Jesus Christ. This gives them great authority to write about God.





Innerrancy

Now the thing of the inerrancy is a sticky subject, many people refuse to give it any credence, because it is a difficult thing to unravel. One of the primary objections to this doctrine is that men could not have written something about God and it not be messed up. As written in 2 Timothy 3:16 it says "all scripture is God breathed", meaning this was not something concocted by psychos (no matter how many atheists would beg to differ) on a power trip.

One trip up of this doctrine for many people is that many do not realize that this state of innerrancy is usually preserved for the autographs, or the original writings. Many churches hold to this belief that the original writings are what is innerrant, the ones inspired by God. We can make the bible seem to have many errors by way of things like improper interpretations of scripture that cause contradications (like that of the Branch Davidians) or in the use of translations that do not fully communicate the Biblical truths conveyed in the original languages (especially in The Message translation).

Another thing to consider is that in the early times of Christianity much of the world was illiterate. They relied on spoken traditions that transmitted ideas and concepts accurately rather than unneccesary details that held no theological weight, like what color Jesus robe really was! It's like if your mom starts telling you a story about how a man who got into a car crash was wearing a brown hat. Does you knowing what color his hat was add depth to the story? No, because it doesn't contribute to what happened. It is merely a descriptor and at the end of the day if you lose this portion of a story, you will still know that a man crashed his car. Losing minor details is not necessarily bad when the essence and the main point of the teaching is intact. When a detail that contributes to the story is lost, then it is time to be worried. 

Checks and Balances

Now one of the checks and balances that many of the leaders of the early church was the use of councils. Now these councils didn't sit down in one chunk of time and set up the layout of the Bible in one sitting. It was a long ardous journey that lasted many years. The reason for this was that they wanted to keep scriptures from being canonized that were flawed and were not consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some gospels were barely chosen as part of the Canon, even though we consider them to be integral to our Biblical regimen today. Even some books that were chosen took many years to gain universal recognition in the Christian church. These churches were clearly not haphazardly jumping at the new coolest gospel, but that they wanted what was true and consistent.