Confessions of a Doubting Thomas

Evidence for God: Arguments 27-42 (Jesus)

2012-01-29T14:00:00.012Z

See the previous three posts on this book before reading this one [1,2,3]. Reading the last post on the evidence of the Gospels might help too.

This post covers the 'Jesus' section of the book "Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" edited by William Dembski and Mike Licona.

In some ways, this section is both the most interesting bit of the book (for me) and the most frustrating.

Interesting in that, for me, all of Christianity stands or falls on the question of who Jesus is (or was) and what are the facts we can know about him.

Frustrating, in that every chapter in this section of the book is fundamentally based on the assumption that the gospels contain accurate reportage about Jesus, with no editorial bias. Basically, it is assumed that all the NT writings are true. Furthermore, they assume that the gospel accounts are fully harmonious and speak with a single voice (i.e. they assume that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would agree with everything that each of the others said, which is an assumption I have already discounted). They also assume that Paul wrote all the letters attributed to him (and Hebrews), and so on. No attempt is made to defend the (unstated) claim that the NT writings are true. Maybe that comes in the final section of the book (on 'The Bible'; which I haven't read yet) but if that's the case, it is a very odd editorial decision to address that assumption after all the chapters which rely on it. Maybe its only unintentional slight of hand, or maybe it is leaving the weakest link until the end, in the hope that the reader is utterly convinced before they get there.

The problem here is that for almost all of the chapters in this section, the argument runs along these lines:

The bible says A, B and C are true.
Because A, B and C are true, we can deduce that big claim D is also true.
Furthermore, the bible says big claim D is true, validating our belief.

This is very, very, very circular reasoning. The claimed thing (Jesus, the resurrection, the trinity, whatever) is true because we assume it is true beforehand.

Anyway, here are a few comments on the chapters, one by one:

27. Did Jesus really exist by Paul L. Maier
This chapter aims at tackling a serious question, but doesn't take it seriously. The overall approach is very much one in the style of 'of course Jesus existed, Herod didn't attempt to kill a baby ghost'. I've dealt with this reasoning above, and this chapter doesn't really use any other method, other than an appeal to the majority: most Christian scholars believe in Jesus, so he must have existed. It does consider the evidence of the Jewish Talmud (written long after the time of Jesus) and the secular evidence of Josephus, et al. - which (as I've said before) only shows that there were Christians, not that the beliefs of Christians are necessarily based on real events, several decades previously.

28. The credibility of Jesus's miracles by Craig L. Blomberg
This is more of the same, although it turns the thing around and ends up concluding that if you discount the miracles as historical, then you have to discount the non-miraculous stories of Jesus, and of course we're not going to do that...

29. The Son of Man by Darrell Bock
A short chapter that boils down to saying 'the bible says that Jesus called himself the Son of Man, so he must have done this', with a few paragraphs suggesting what is meant by this.

30. The Son of God by Ben Witherington III
More of the same. Certainly no evidence or good arguments in favour of God here.

31. Jesus as God by Ben Witherington III
More of the same.

32. Did Jesus predict his violent death and resurrection by Craig A. Evans
Oddly enough, this chapter ignores the sort of reasoning used in the last few chapters and basically assumes that Jesus was human, but could see the way the wind was blowing, and knew he would die because of his convictions.

33. Can we be certain that Jesus died on a cross? A look at the ancient practice of crucifixion by Michael R. Licona
It is shown that there are comments in the gospel accounts which correlate with facts we know about crucifixion from other sources. From this the conclusion is drawn that Jesus must have been crucified, whereas all I can see from that is that the authors of the stories knew how Romans did crucifixions - something not very surprising as Romans crucified people all the time.

34. The empty tomb of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas
This is a perfect demonstration of the circular reasoning above. In this case it is basically, the bible says that B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and K are true, so we conclude that big claim A of the empty tomb is demonstrated. Its all part of the one story, and we can't use parts of the story independently as evidence.

35. The resurrection appearances of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas
Same again. Habermas says he only uses evidence that is accepted by 'non-evangelical' bible scholars, as if that matters. Non-evangelical Christians are still Christians and still, by definition, believe in the death and resurrection of Christ. How about only using evidence that is agreed upon by atheist scholars? (of whom there are very few, and they don't agree on much)

36. Were the resurrection appearances of Jesus hallucinations? by Michael R. Licona
No.

37. The Trinity by Bill Gordon
This is no evidence for anything. It is an attempt to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is consistent with the NT writings. OK, maybe it is, but how is this evidence for anything other than that some Christians believe what the bible says. I hadn't thought that that was in any doubt.

38. Is Jesus superior to all other religious leaders? by Tal Davis
Up until this point, the chapters have been presented as if they were written for a non-Christian audience, but the curtain slips here and it becomes evident that the intent of this book is to reinforce the beliefs of those who already believe. As evidence, it fails. The reasoning basically goes: Buddhism doesn't claim the Buddha was divine, Christianity claims that Jesus was, so Christianity is better... and so on.

39. Is Jesus the only way? by Michael R. Licona
More of the same, clearly written for already-convinced Christians.

40. What about those who have never heard the gospel? by Michael R. Licona
This chapter uses an amazingly placed 'apparently' as the central part of its reasoning. This is just there to say to Christians ' don't worry about this issue, its OK...' with poor reasoning and no evidence.

41. Did Paul invent Christianity? by Ben Witherington III
This chapter, like the 'Jesus didn't exist' chapter simply doesn't treat the question seriously.

To he honest, I found all of Ben Witherington III's chapters very simplistic and therefore frustrating. He is the most blinkered of all the writers in this section, unable to see past his own (big) assumptions. At least Licona pretends to see things from both sides, although the 'both' sides he seems to have looked from are both theistic - he appears to have considered other religions, but not to have considered that there might simply be no god.

And there we have it. 15 chapters on Jesus, all based on the same unstated assumptions, and therefore all flawed in the same way... unless of course the final section of the book can make a strong case for the reliability of the bible.

Jesus: his death, resurrection, and the evidence from the gospels

2012-01-27T10:30:00.000Z

Originally I was going to write a few blog posts, on related issues, but they seem to have coalesced into one. So this post addresses the issues "Did Jesus die on the cross?" and "The Gospels as history"...

Everything we know about the facts of Jesus's life death and resurrection comes from the four canonical gospels.

That's not to say that the other NT writings don't mention these events, but Paul is much more concerned about the theological implications of the events rather than the details of what actually happened. For example, you'll never find from reading Paul anything about where Jesus was crucified, when this happened, who witnessed it, etc. Nothing that Paul says about the earthly Jesus is not mirrored and expanded in the gospels. Paul says that Jesus was 'born of a woman', but not which woman. For those details we need to turn to the gospels.

Apologists often make a great deal of the secular writings about Jesus, such as Tacitus, Seutonius and Josephus, but all of these date to times several decades after Jesus, and all of the information in them merely confirms that there were "Christians" at the time of writing, and don't really tell us anything about Jesus himself.

So. Everything comes back to the gospels. How reliable are the gospel documents? Can we trust them to contain history? Who wrote them and when? These are all important questions, and we may never know the answers to them all. I've already discussed the Synoptic Problem at length, so I don't need to go into that here. But here I'll go into a couple of other questions:

1. Did Jesus die on the cross?

The first thing to say about this is that all four canonical gospels agree on this point - Jesus was crucified and died. The problem faced by anyone trying to defend the theory that Jesus was crucified but survived is that they have to show that the gospel writers were correct in some facts and wrong in others. If the gospels got the plain fact that Jesus died wrong, then how can we believe anything else in the entire story? Jesus death is the central event in all four gospels, if he hadn't died, then there is no gospel. To the writers of these stories, Jesus life only makes sense in the context of his death. If we assume that the gospels are in any way reliable, then that leads us to the conclusion that the authors of these documents were utterly convinced that Jesus died on the cross.

I have to say that if you want to doubt the gospel writers belief in Jesus's death on the cross, you also have to doubt everything else they say about Jesus's life as well.

Did Jesus die on the cross?

If we accept the testimony of the gospels, then yes.
If we don't accept the testimony of the gospels, then we don't know.
I'd say that there is no way to conclude 'no' based on the available evidence.

There is really no way to honestly use the gospels to conclude that Jesus - the man who taught in Galilee, had 12 disciples, performed miracles, and so on - did anything other than die on the cross.

Of course, using the same reasoning, we must conclude that - if the gospels are trustworthy - that Jesus also was raised from the dead (as attested in all four gospels) and appeared in physical form to his disciples after this (as attested in 3 out of the 4).

Its an all or nothing thing, as far as I can tell. And it probably works the other way around for most people - those who presuppose the death and resurrection of Jesus regard the gospels as trustworthy, those who presuppose the non-resurrection of Jesus must therefore regard all the information in the gospels as potentially untrustworthy. I can't really see a good case for the middle ground of accepting that the gospels got some details (such as the main topics in them!) wrong, but were otherwise accurate in terms of what they say about Jesus (his teaching, healings, etc.).

Now, I've come to the conclusion - in other posts - that the gospels do contain errors and misinformation, which - using the reasoning above - must lead me to the conclusion that we simply can't know whether or not Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected a few days afterwards.

The best I can conclude is that IF Jesus was crucified by the Romans, then there is an exceptionally high likelihood that he died on the cross, as history (Josephus) only records one survivor of crucifixion, and that only after being quickly taken down from the cross - a very rare event indeed.

The only thing we can really say with any certainty is that Christians in the late 1st or early 2nd century believed that Jesus was crucified, died and rose again, several decades before their time. This doesn't count as evidence one way or the other, I'm afraid.

2. The Gospels as History

I'm about to make the same point again, but in a different way.

As I see it, there are really only two options, and they don't start with the historicity of the gospels, they either end up there, or they don't. The starting point is the resurrection of Jesus.

IF Jesus was resurrected (raised from death in a physical and 'super-human' body) then the central beliefs of the Gospel writers are fundamentally true, and there is a good chance that the biographies of Christ that they wrote are grounded in reality and may contain useful historical details.

IF Jesus was not resurrected, then the apparent central beliefs of the Gospel writers are false and the Gospel writings are, at best, the writings of honest but gullible people who had been told a bunch of myths and believed them, or, at worst, complete and intentional fiction. In this case, there is no reason to suppose that any of the material in the gospels is good historical data.

Yes, I know that the gospels contain at least four secularly attested historical characters - Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas the high priest. I would argue that these characters, while they do feature in the plot of the story, are more part of the setting of the gospels than integral to the story. In much the same way, Jerusalem and Galilee are part of the setting of the stories, the fact that we know there was a Jerusalem does not in any way provide evidence that the stories in the gospels which are recorded as happening in Jerusalem actually happened. There are numerous historically verifiable locations and characters in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but that doesn't imply that Sherlock Holmes was a real person, only that the stories about him were set in a real historical setting.

So where does this leave us? I think it means we can't use the internal evidence of the gospels to prove the resurrection of Jesus. Or the death of Jesus. Or even the life of Jesus.

Without external 'secular' evidence for the person of Jesus, not merely evidence that there were believers in Christ Jesus a generation or two after the alleged events, we really cannot be sure of anything to do with Jesus in history. Anything you want to claim about him (for example that he claimed to be the 'Son of God' or that he was an apocalyptic prophet, or that he was born of a virgin, or that he had 12 disciples) relies, primarily, on the assumption that he was resurrected from the dead. Without that fundamental assumption, we cannot 'know' anything at all about Jesus.

Evidence for God: Arguments 17-26 (Science, part 2)

2012-01-22T15:00:00.004Z

See the previous two posts on this book before reading this one [1,2].

So I've now read 26 chapters (that's just over half the book) of "Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" edited by William Dembski and Mike Licona, and I'm still fed up by all the ID nonsense. At least this now brings us to the end of the Intelligent Design section, or "Science" as the book calls it.

In this chunk of the book are the following chapters:

17. Evolutionary Computation: A perpetual motion machine for design information by Robert J Marks II
This chapter had a point to make, but I have pretty much forgotten it now. I think it was something to do with how 'evolutionary computing' software actually requires an intelligent user, and without that it wouldn't work. But I may just be making that up. It didn't offer any evidence for God anyway.

18. Science, Eugenics an Bioethics by Richard Weikart
An odd title for this chapter, in that it doesn't really talk about science or bioethics. All this sets out to say is that Eugenics is a direct descendent of Darwinism. And by implication Darwinism is bad. Again, no evidence for God.

19. Designed for discovery by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards
This is an odd piece of 'evidence'. The point it makes is that our planet appears to be particularly well placed for observing the universe around us. If we'd been further inside a galaxy, we'd never see out, if we'd been inside a dust cloud, we'd never see out, etc. The case being made is that the planet we live on is 'fine tuned' for observation of the universe and this implies design.

I'm not so sure. Its a very now-centric view of the state of things. Its as if the writers of the chapter are assuming that the whole reason for creation is not just humans, but humans at this point in history. We've learned more about the universe around us in the past 100 years than in the hundred centuries before that. And it won't be too many decades in the future before we are sending probes and ships to explore distant parts of the galaxy, in other words, in not too long our view of the universe won't be limited by our place in the cosmos. The authors are basically saying that God placed us here (within the universe) so that humans (at our stage in development) can investigate the universe. Sorry guys, its not all about us.

For thousands of years, the visible universe has been a mystery to humans and has actually been the source of many, if not most, of the superstitious and pagan beliefs which have rivaled the worship of the 'true God' for most of human history. By placing us here, God promoted astrology and superstition? Not sure this reasoning works.

While it may be an argument for God, I'm not sure its a very compelling one.

20. Intelligent Design: A brief introduction by William A. Dembski
So finally, after six chapters that were devoted to ID and another five or six which were linked to ID, we finally get an 'introduction' to it. This is totally out of place, but compared to the rest is quite refreshing. It says:

"As a theory of biological origins and development, ID's central claim ins that only intelligent causes can adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable."

Which is fair enough. I agree that ID is a valid hypothesis. It may not be a truly scientific hypothesis (see another post I'll write soon), but it is valid. Of course, it explains nothing about how the world works now, it is purely a matter of deistic origin belief, but at present there is no good scientific explanation for the origin of life, so I don't have a problem with people believing it or defending it.

But ID is not a rival to Darwinian evolution - ID is a hypothesis about how things got started, evolution is a theory (i.e. a tested and validated hypothesis) of how things have progressed since then. Evolution theory has no origin explanation, ID has no development explanation.

The main issue I have with ID is that it is a science stopper. Science asks 'How?' ID answers 'No, the question is Who?' - even if it can be demonstrated that there was an original intelligent designer, I still want to ask "How did the designer do it?", ID doesn't seem to even want to ask that question.

21. Intelligent, optimal and Divine design by Richard Spencer
This chapter addresses the criticism of ID which basically says 'if we are designed, why are we not perfect?' and spends a few pages explaining why imperfect things may be desirable. Not an argument for God, rather a defence from attack.

22. Molecuar Biology's New Paradigm: Nanoengineering inside the cell by Bill Wilberforce
Another pointless ID chapter. Its basically the 'life is too complicated to be a product of chance' argument again. Sigh.

23. Panning God: Darwinism's Defective Argument against Bad Design by Jonathan Witt
This seems a rerun of chapter 21. It is a defence of God creating imperfect things. But this time the argument is that God made things imperfect because he wants to have to intervene and 'meddle' with his creation in order to keep it going. The problem this chapter faces is that there is simply no evidence - at all - that God's intervention is necessary to keep the universe running properly. God's intervention is assumed by certain theistic belief structures, but is not demonstrated. If anything, this chapter is evidence against God rather than for him.

24. The role of agency in science by Angus Menuge
This is another defence of ID. Does science assume that the universe works in an entirely materialistic way, or can the involvement of an 'agent' be considered as a hypothesis. Generally no agents are assumed. This chapter argues that by assuming no agents are active, science restricts itself and is therefore not truly 'scientific'.

25. The scientific status of design inferences by Bruce L. Gordon
This chapter aims to blind the non-science literate reader with science. It uses conditional probability as a smokescreen to cover up the fact that it is treading the same ground as the previous chapter.

26. The Vise Strategy: Squeezing the truth out of Darwinists by William A. Dembski
As I've said several times before on this blog, I do not believe there is any such thing as a perfect argument. That is, all arguments have holes in them, and if you pick at the holes the arguments will eventually unravel.

This chapter is not an argument for ID, but rather an unnecessarily detailed description of how to pick holes in the arguments of Darwinists, if you happen to get a chance to cross-examine a Darwinist in the witness box. In other words, its ammunition for ID proponents.

The chapter tells how to get a Darwinist to admit (a) that they don't know everything, (b) that evolution might not fit into a very tight definition of 'science', and that (c) ID might fit into a broad definition of science. That is all it sets out to do, and by doing so, this chapter thinks it proves its case. Maybe it does, but it is very annoying and makes me very angry while it does this. Aaaaargh!

I'm so annoyed that I now feel the need to address ID in a future blog post. So watch this space for details.

In the meantime, finally, the 'Science' section is over. Whew. We move on to 'Jesus' next.

I have to say that in the first 26 chapters of 'evidence' for God, there have only really been about five half-decent arguments for a deistic God, and none completely compelling. I had hoped for more. Is this really the best that Christianity has to offer in its defence?

Evidence for God: Arguments 8-16 (Science, part 1)

2012-01-15T14:00:00.001Z

See previous post on this book before reading this one.

I'm now 16 chapters into "Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" edited by William Dembski and Mike Licona, and I'm beginning to regret buying and reading the book. I had thought that the book was going to offer good and well reasoned apologetics arguments for the existence of God. And some of the time it does. But section 2 of the book, which deals with 'Science' and which I am not even halfway through, is getting quite repetitive and is relying heavily on 'Intelligent Design' arguments, which I have little time for. If I'd noticed that Phillip E. Johnson had a chapter in here before I'd bought it, I might not have bothered. But I've spent my money now, and started this blog series, so I might as well continue. Maybe there will be some gems later in the book.

But for now, here are my comments:

Section 2: The Question of Science

8. Creator and sustainer: God's essential role in the universe by Robert Kaita
This chapter has one basic point to make and it makes it several times. The point is this:

Everything humans make eventually breaks and needs fixed or maintained, why should we expect the universe to run without the need for ongoing maintenance?

I'm afraid I don't think this reasoning is very compelling. Why should we expect the universe to be anything like the things we make? Why should something natural behave like something manufactured? Of course, the point being made here is that the 'natural' universe is actually created, but the implication of this reasoning is that if God created everything, he wouldn't be able to do it perfectly, so his ongoing maintenance would be required. Viewed from that perspective, I'm not sure many theists would agree.

9. The pale blue dot revisited by Jay W. Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez
This chapter concerns our place in the universe. It also concerns the paradigm shift that was brought in when Copernicus and others demonstrated that the earth wasn't the centre of the cosmos. The chapter challenges the assumption that the Copernican revolution somehow demoted our place in the universe, in that we're no longer the centre of things, rather it shows that the paradigm shift actually elevated us into the heavens.

All well and good, but this is no argument for or against God in any way. So why is this even in this book? There is definitely an attempt here to muddy the waters of the debate here, to show that things are complicated and not clear cut. But really, this contributes nothing at all to the debate.

10. Oxygen, water and light, Oh My! The toxicity of life's basic necessities by Joe W. Francis
This chapter has a simple point to make. The three things that life relies on: oxygen, water and light, are all - in various ways - toxic. And all living things have very complicated ways of dealing with the toxic effects in order to maintain life. The implied question is 'how could such a complicated system have evolved?' And that is a tricky question, but so is the counter question which is not asked here 'why would an intelligent designer make living systems in this crazy way?' Of course, there is no answer to either of these questions in this book.

11. The origin of life by Walter Bradley
So here it is. The Intelligent Design (ID) defence begins. In summary: life is complicated and couldn't have occurred by chance. To be honest, the previous chapter makes this case better, without actually making this case at all. This one is just padding.

12. What every high school student should know about science by Michael Newton Keas
This is not an argument for God. This is an argument for redefining 'science'. This chapter made me angry. Most of what is said in it is kind of true, but truth with a spin. It redefines science in a way that doesn't include evolution. This chapter, which is longer than most here, annoyed me intensely.

13. Darwin's battleship: Status report on the leaks this ship has sprung by Phillip E. Johnson
Groan. I don't care about the ID vs. Darwinian Evolution debate. One of the things that annoys me the most is the constant over use of the word 'Darwinian'. There's a definite attempt to bias the debate by implying that this is all the fault of only one man.

Darwin made observations, he proposed a hypothesis, then he identified evidence which supported this hypothesis, such that it has now become an established theory. Since Darwin died, so much more evidence has been uncovered which supports the theory, that the theory is not really in question within the realms of science.

Up against this comes 'Intelligent Design', a hypothesis which is not derived by observation or experiment. As a hypothesis it has yet to be adequately refuted. True. But as a theory, it has no predictive power. You can take the theory of evolution, apply it to a certain scenario and make predictions about the outcome. The theory is frequently validated in this way. But what predictive power does ID have? None.

I could rant more, but I can't be bothered.

14. Debunking the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' Stereotype by Edward Sisson
Sigh. Another chapter that is about the ID vs. evolution 'debate' without actually presenting any evidence at all on either side of the debate. This is not an argument for God. This book is not doing what it says on the cover. I am getting really quite annoyed now.

If I'd borrowed the book from someone else or from a library I'd have given up by now, but because I paid the best part of a tenner on this I'm persevering.

15. How Darwinism Dumbs us Down: Evolution and Postmodernism by Nancy Pearcey
Finally, an ID chapter that actually has a point to make! The point is an old one, but a reasonably valid one, which is this:

"If all ideas are products of evolution, and thus not really true but only useful for survival, then evolution itself is not true either - and why should the rest of us pay any attention to it?
Indeed, the theory undercuts itself. For if evolution is true, then it is not true, but only useful."

What the chapter does not do is demonstrate why an evolved theory cannot be true. I suppose this is a kind of 'genetic fallacy'. It may be only an accident that evolution has brought about rationality, but to say that evolution could not result in rationality is false.

16. Limits to evolvability by Ray Bohlin
While I am completely bored by the ID arguments now, I'll acknowledge that this one is also valid. It does appear that selective breeding can only strengthen certain characteristics of an animal so much. Perhaps this is also the case in natural selection?

The problem with this line of reasoning is that selective breeding (i.e. intentional selection) does not involve mutation as one of its steps. Evolution by natural selection does. So the author is not comparing like with like. Its not a perfect argument, but after the nonsense of the last few chapters, it certainly feels like one.

The impression given by all the ID chapters (of which there are still more to come) is not 'here is some evidence for God and/or compelling arguments for God' but rather 'look, there are problems with evolution, look, look, a problem we can't explain... must be God then'. This does not make a compelling case or a good argument.

So nothing really to sum up here, as there's more to come. Assuming I don't smash my Kindle out of frustration at all the ID chapters...

Jesus didn't die on the cross? (Part 1)

2012-01-13T14:08:00.003Z

Someone posted this as a comment on one of my other posts, it was off topic there, but I thought I'd start a new thread with it here. I'll comment on the topic in a future blog post. (On 27th Jan: Click Here)

Have you guys ever heard of Shabir Ally? He is the best Muslim debater and is able to cast doubt that Jesus even died

Ok,that is something,if you doubt he died on the cross then Christianity is false.

READ THIS

Most Muslims believe that Jesus was never crucified,it was made to look that way.

But some accept the swoon theory of Ahmed Deedat and Shabir Ally then there is a problem.

Shabir Ally's argument

He is the most famous Muslim debater.

It is that according to the Gospel details:

1.We can not be 1OO% sure Jesus really died

2.So in that case you can not convince me,Shabir Ally,that Christianity is true.

Here are 2 articles about why scholars disagree with the Swoon Theory.It has answers to 5 of Shabir Ally's arguments about it.They are:

Reason 1

"“The centurion was a Believer in Jesus"

Reason 2

"Pilate was surprised Jesus died so soon"

Reason 3

"A Friend of Josephus survived Crucifixion"

Reason Four

"Crucifixion does not pierce any Vital Organs.”(to thus cause death)"

Reason 5

"In Antiquity there were Case of the Dead Waking from a Coma"

Read these pages: [this one] and [this other one]

Evidence for God: Arguments 1-7 (Philosophy)

2012-01-10T10:00:00.013Z

I've started reading "Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" edited by William Dembski and Mike Licona. This is (as you might gather from the title) a Christian apologetic defence of God.

So I'll comment (briefly, I hope) on each of the 50 arguments presented, and let you know how compelling, or otherwise, I find them. Please comment, if you want. Here's section one: The Question of Philosophy...

1. The Cosmological Argument by David Beck
I've commented on this argument several times recently in the posts relating to the William Lane Craig debates (e.g. here). The argument is stated slightly differently here from how WLC says it, and it doesn't go as far in its implications as WLC's version. Here the argument is:

What we observe and experience in our universe is contingent
A network of causally dependent contingent things cannot be infinite
A network of causally dependent contingent things must be finite
Therefore, there must be a first cause.

The book doesn't really go on to try and demonstrate that the first cause must be personal, etc., that is left implied. The more I think about this argument, the more I realise it should have the clause 'in time and space' in all four points, thus:

What we observe and experience in our universe in time and space is contingent
A network of causally dependent contingent things in time and space cannot be infinite
A network of causally dependent contingent things in time and space must be finite
Therefore, there must be a first cause in time and space.

Points 1-3 cannot be applied to anything outside of time and space as it relies on our experience and observations, and it relies on the assumption of a temporal chain of events, which by definition must happen within time. So the conclusions of this argument must only apply within time and space. Thus, if he is the first cause, God must be within the temporal universe, not external to it, or the creator of it. This, I am sure, is not the point the apologists using this argument want to prove.

Having reflected on WLC's version of the argument for a few months now, I think there is another flaw in the argument which I hadn't got to grips with before. It assumes time and space are independent. Einstein explained how time and space are connected. It is only our perspective that puts the arrow of time onto reality. Viewed from other perspectives, there is not necessarily a time 'origin'.

Imagine all of 4D space-time as a bubble or a sphere (in much the same way as a 3D sphere can be drawn on paper as a 2D circle). The south-north axis is our 'arrow of time' as we perceive it. What we have at the pole is not a 'beginning' as WLC would have it, but only a boundary - the edge of the space-time bubble. Not everything that has a boundary requires a cause...

Another of my many (and varied) thoughts on this is that the cosmological argument assumes that the cause of an event must come before the effect in time. And yet, if we accept the argument of a timeless agent, this isn't necessarily the case. Many apologists, I'm sure, would accept the claim that the death and resurrection of Jesus is the central event in history. Now, consider the salvation of Godly people who lived in Old Testament times. Did Christ's saving act on the cross influence their salvation? Many would say 'yes' - so the cause of some effect does not necessarily happen before the effect in time. Similarly, what about OT prophecy regarding Jesus - surely Jesus was the cause and the prophecy the effect, even though the effect came first?

So in arguing that there was a first cause, we do not need to argue that the first cause was before the first effect, or indeed, has even happened yet. We could still be waiting for the 'first' cause to come around. Now if the first cause hasn't necessarily happened yet, why can't it be part of a cause and effect chain itself? Maybe something we do in the future will have cosmological effects which start the whole thing off in 'the past'?

I'm not saying that this is what I believe, I just think that there are holes in the cosmological argument, such that it isn't strong enough to stand alone. More evidence is needed. Maybe the other 49 bits of evidence will make a strong case...

2. The Moral Argument for God's Existence by Paul Copan
I've been over this ground in other posts recently, so I'll keep this brief. In my opinion, this line of reasoning only leads to the conclusion that there is something greater than the individual. Morality is defined relative to the greater 'entity' not to the individual. As far as I can tell, the argument cannot take us to conclude that the greater thing is God. In my opinion, it could be simply 'human society' - the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Things that are beneficial for society as a whole are deemed moral, things which are detrimental to society as a whole are deemed immoral.

Copan's argument is clearly aimed at bible-believing Christians and probably won't wash with unbelieving skeptics. He quotes bible verses all over the place. Once again, this confirms the suspicion that apologetics is not about winning new converts, but rather about boosting the confidence of already committed believers.

3. Near Death Experiences by Gary Habermas
This is an odd piece of 'evidence'. At no point does Habermas demonstrate that the existence of NDEs requires there to be a God. He seems to take it as read that any evidence for the 'supernatural' implies there must be a God.

I've heard Habermas in debate on this topic before. His 'killer' piece of evidence concerns 'Katie' an eleven year old girl who had an NDE and during this, amongst other things, saw an angel called 'Elizabeth' and a glimpse of her family many miles away - she was able to accurately state what it was her mother cooked for dinner and what toys her brother was playing with.

Having just Googled this, the odd thing is I can find no evidence for this story outside of apologetics. The only people who discuss or mention the case are using it as evidence for God, with no further citations. For me, that raises an alarm warning bell. But even if the story is true and accurately presented, what does it tell us? Only that weird and unexplainable things happen. Nothing at all about NDEs says anything about the existence (or otherwise) of God. I'm not even sure that NDEs are evidence for 'the supernatural' - at present, all we can say is that there is some weird psychology going on near death and NDEs have not yet managed to demonstrate any extra sensory perception to anyone who is not pre-inclined to believe in it anyway.

4. Naturalism by L. Russ Bush III
Another odd one. This offers no evidence for God, but only an argument why Naturalism isn't a coherent worldview. The chapter assumes there are only two possibilities: (i) there is a God, or, (ii) there is only Naturalism. It then assumes if it can pick holes in (ii) that (i) wins by default.

The author seems to think that the naturalist's reason for reason is basically chemical reactions in the brain, and if he says that often enough he will discredit naturalism. The main point here is that the human ability to think and reason is (in the naturalistic view) the result of a non-rational process of evolution and rests entirely on chemical processes and psychological processes which we have no reason to trust. Whereas the theist view starts off with rationality and reason, so it is only in the theistic worldview that we can actually trust our own reasoning.

The problem with this is that the author's case boils down to the belief that the pre-supposition of reason at the start of the process of creation is better than the evidence based observation that reason only came late on in the process of evolution. In other words, he asserts that "reason just is" has more explanatory power than "reason evolved". He also seems to assume that humans are reasonable and rational beings, rather than just appearing that way, but offers no evidence that we actually are reasonable. Many psychologists would disagree and point out that you actually can't trust your own reasoning, much of the time. Which actually makes the naturalist case more compelling.

5. Suffering for what? by Bruce A. Little
This is the first piece of 'evidence' in this book which actually provides no evidence at all, for anything. The author contends that the Christian experiences three different types of suffering:

Suffering for righteousness
Suffering in the same way as everyone else
Suffering because of willful disobedience to God

He quotes many bible verses to explain why this should be. What he doesn't do at any point is demonstrate that Christians actually suffer in ways that are demonstrably different from non-Christians. Yes, Christians at times are persecuted because of their beliefs. But then again, so are Sikhs, so are Jews, so are Sunni Muslims, etc. Basically any group has, at times, suffered at the hands of another group who are different and more powerful than them. So point 1 is no evidence of anything. Neither is point 2, because it says there is no difference between Christians and anyone else, which is no evidence, once again. So we are left with point 3. He gives no testable examples. Certainly, some Christians interpret certain types of suffering as a punishment from God at various times in their lives. But, once again, so do Muslims, Jews, etc. Given there is nothing quantifiable about the difference between Christian suffering and the suffering experienced by anyone else, this is no evidence for any God, let alone the Christian God.

The thing I don't understand about this chapter is why it is even here? It doesn't even attempt to give evidence for God. The reasoning 'there is suffering, therefore there is God' is counter intuitive to the max, and would need some unpacking - which isn't even attempted. Literally pointless.

6. Responding to the argument from evil by David Wood
This chapter isn't evidence for God, but rather it gives a response to one of the stronger atheist arguments. The reasoning being that if it can be shown that an argument is flawed, the conclusions are therefore also flawed. Of course that is a fallacy, you can use a poor argument to try and defend a truth. Indeed, the whole point of this blog post is not to demonstrate that there is no God, but only to demonstrate that these apologetics arguments are flawed, whether or not there is a God. As this chapter points out, some of the atheist arguments have holes in them too.

The Argument from Evil (AE) is not perfect. To be honest, I've never come across a perfect argument for anything. All arguments have holes. Arguments are not the same as mathematical proofs. Mathematical proofs demonstrate that their conclusion must be the case. The best an argument can do is conclude something beyond reasonable doubt. Of course, what constitutes reasonable doubt is another debate...

So this chapter does, essentially, what I am doing to the other chapters in this book. Picks holes. It picks at the hole that assumes God wants a world free from suffering, it picks at the hole (which isn't there) that misunderstands what the Christian means by the word "faith". It also picks at the hole that misunderstands what the Christian means by the word "good", which is actually a rerun of the first hole picking, expressed in different words. The strongest part of this hole picking is the 'awareness assumption' that assumes that if God has reasons for allowing suffering that we must necessarily be able to comprehend these reasons. This is the hardest point for the atheist to defend.

But having made this point, the author basically says the best defence against the AE is to use the offence of the cosmological and moral arguments. Basically he admits he can't refute the AE, he can only cast some doubt on it and then change the subject by using multiple other arguments. I'm not sure this is good enough. I don't think this is sufficient to go 'beyond reasonable doubt'. But anyway, the author gets to say more in the next chapter...

7. God, Suffering and Santa Claus by David Wood
This chapter presents a direct contest between theism and atheism. Which worldview has the better explanatory power? The chapter uses the example of Santa. Where do the presents come from on Chrismas morning? When a child dismisses the notion that it was Santa who put them there, they don't jump to assuming 'the presents just are' but rather attribute the present giving to another agent, namely their parents. In doing this, he seems to be assuming that 'agency' as the best explanation for almost everything, which may be flawed thinking.

He asserts that if a theory can explain multiple observations, but not all observations, that the theory should not necessarily be dismissed. He explains that theism can explain: (a) the fact of existence, (b) the fine-tuning of the universe, (c) the origin of life, (d) the rise of consciousness, (e) moral values, and (f) miracles. The claim that theism can't explain (g) suffering shouldn't, by itself, be enough to dismiss theism. He then asserts that atheism can't explain any of the points (a) to (f) above, so theism shown to be a better explanation of reality than atheism.

The problem with this, is that it is a highly 'cherry picked' list of things. If there are only six things that theism can explain that atheism can't, then theism is in serious trouble. I'm sure that if I put my mind to it, I could find six things that atheism can explain which theism can't.

And I'm not sure theism actually does have a better answer to all of the above than atheism. (a) theism pre-supposes existence (the existence of God), it doesn't explain it. (b) the apparent fine-tuning of the universe is a necessary condition for our existence - the fact that we are able to ask the question pre-supposes the fine-tuning. It doesn't pre-suppose a fine-tuner. We have no idea how many universes with different tuning have been and gone with no life, or how many lifeless universes there currently are in the multiverse. All solutions to this question, whether theist or non-theist require the invocation of an unseen infinite, and so all arguments are equally flawed. (c) as with (a) this is a pre-supposition of theism, that God lives at the outset, so life is not explained, it is merely asserted. (d) is much like (a) and (c) a pre-supposition. (e) moral values - I've dealt with that above. And finally (f) miracles. The funny thing about this is that the author of the chapter claims that the resurrection of Jesus is more believable than the 'absurd phenomena' of mass hallucinations. Despite the fact that we have good hard evidence for mass hallucinations in recent history, and no hard evidence for resurrection.

The thing is, 'atheism' isn't a single explanatory theory, it is basically a rejection of the 'theism' theory which pre-supposes most of its own conclusions. So we're running around in circles here.

So that's the first selection of 'evidence' for God in this book. I must say that all the arguments presented either do not really pertain to the subject at hand, or have holes in them. Once again, that's not to say that there is no God, only to say that none of these arguments is good enough evidence to conclude his existence. The next section deals with science, so we'll see how I get on with that in a few days time...

Who do you say I am...?

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000Z

Much of my recent doubting (not necessarily all put on this blog) boils down to this question:

Who was Jesus?

(Some of you will say that the question should be asked in the present tense, but before we get to the question of who Jesus is now, let's look back into history and ask who Jesus was when he walked this earth, in the first few decades of the 'common era'.)

Its hard to ask this question without throwing some theological baggage into the mix from the outset, but I'm going to try and avoid that, wherever possible. So let's ask that question of the people who should know:

Who did Matthew think Jesus was?
Who did Mark think Jesus was?
Who did Luke think Jesus was?
Who did John think Jesus was?
Who did Paul think Jesus was?
Who did the other early Christians think Jesus was?

I'll be asking these questions again and again, over a series of posts. There may be long gaps between posts... don't hold your breath.

Given that most people think Mark wrote first, let's ask him first...

The Christian Delusion - Review

2011-12-30T09:30:00.001Z

Having just read a large volume by NT Wright (review/thoughts coming soon), and seeking to hear the opinions from the other side of the debate, as it were, I have been reading a book called 'The Christian Delusion' edited by John W. Loftus.

The title of the book deliberately nods to Dawkins's 'The God Delusion' (which I still haven't read) but this book is more focused in its aim - to demonstrate that (specifically) the Christian faith is unreasonable and irrational, rather than Dawkins's attack on religious belief in general - and is written by a number of different authors, with different viewpoints and specialities, the majority of whom once were bible-believing Christians, but for various reasons have now rejected their former beliefs. I'm far more interested in their opinions on Christianity than on Dawkins's as he never saw Christianity (or any other religion, for that matter) from the inside.

The collection is edited by John Loftus, who used to be an evangelical preacher and church pastor. The foreword is by Dan Barker, who also used to be an evangelical preacher and church pastor. What drives such people out of the church? What causes them to reject a belief in God? Could it be that belief in God is really a delusion?

This seems to have, unintentionally, turned into a very long blog post, sorry about that. Below you'll find comments on all of the chapters individually, but I think I'll summarise the main points and my conclusions here. So, if you want to read the whole thing you can, but if not, you'll get the gist here and can skip the remainder.

So, in conclusion:

This book is a very mixed bag. It contains a few chapters of really fascinating and thought provoking stuff, a few chapters of responses to Christian/Apologetics stuff which does not make for great reading if you haven't read the original books or articles, a few chapters on interesting but largely irrelevant topics and a few chapters which have clearly just been added to bulk the book up. As I read the Kindle edition, I couldn't see how thick the book looked anyway.

So, is this a Christianity killer? Well, if anyone in Churches (other than me, of course) actually reads it, it could do some damage. In the midst of this there are a couple of excellent anti-Christian arguments that I don't think have decent pro-Christian rebuttals. I'm specifically thinking of chapters 6 & 7 (see my comments below). Between them they do a pretty good job of demonstrating to the reader that (a) the bible is flawed, contains errors and fabrications and is certainly not inspired, and (b) that the history of Christianity demonstrates that if there is a God then he cannot communicate to his people at all.

The weight of all the other chapters certainly adds to the overall case that the Christian worldview is not consistent with the actual world in which we live, and so, I suppose that this is strong evidence that Christianity actually is a 'delusion'. No proof here, of course, but some of the arguments are compelling.

So where does this leave me? Well, it leaves me confused (as ever) and even less sure who Jesus was than I was before I started reading this. The writers of this collection of chapters have all gone the whole hog, departing Christianity and turning to atheism. I'm not there. This book does nothing to convince me that there is no God. However, it does go a long way to convincing me that if there is a God, then he isn't Yahweh/Jesus, at least not as presented in the Bible. (Interestingly enough, in Loftus's follow up collection of writings "The End of Christianity" there is a chapter called "Can God exist if Yahweh doesn't?" - I suspect the author comes to the answer 'no' but I'll be interested to read it anyway.)

So should I give up calling myself a 'Christian'? I'm not sure. Should I stop going to church? Likewise undecided. There's more to read on both sides of the debate, and a lot of thinking to be done, before I make any big life changing decisions. I have to 'count the cost', again. But I am not the sort of person who can choose to believe things that are contrary to the evidence. I need reasons to believe. I'm still looking for those reasons. Keep reading the blog to find out what happens...

And now the full review:

Part I: Why Faith Fails

Chapter 1: The Cultures of Christianities by David Eller, PhD
The first thing to say is that most of the chapter authors in this book have 'PhD' after their names. This is quite unnecessary and is only there to say "look, atheism is an intelligent position, we have doctorates here, you should be impressed". I have a PhD too, and know just how little that can mean regarding intelligence... but anyway.

This chapter sets out to demonstrate a few things:

That Christianity is just a culture like any other.
That Christianity itself is aware of this and uses it to its own advantage in mission / evangelism.
That actually it is not one culture, but a collective name for a widely diverse collection of cultures, many of whom would not include some of the others under the same collective umbrella as themselves. i.e. there is no such thing as Christianity, there are only Christianities.
That Christianity, much like other religions in other pars of the world, has such power over culture because it is institutionalised and has cultural dominance over birth, death, marriage, sexual practice, etc.

So, its fairly interesting, but nothing really ground breaking. I wasn't sure where the book was going to go from here, this seemed like such an odd start. And, indeed, the book doesn't really progress in a coherent and inter-linked way.

The chapter concludes with an interesting quote which is the most memorable thing in it, and which I'll repeat here:

"Christians are not easily reasoned out of religion, since they are not usually reasoned into it."

Chapter 2: Christian belief through the lens of cognitive science by Valerie Tarico, PhD.
Yes, another PhD, I'm still not impressed. This one is a psychologist. She makes a case that humans are not rational and that certainty is a feeling which is independent of truth or facts. She also demonstrates that the 'born again' experience is not unique to Christianity and actually is replicated in many other religious and non-religious contexts. I found this chapter more interesting than the previous one and more compelling in its reasoning against the case for faith. I don't really have much to say on the issue though, so I'll just give a few interesting quotes from the chapter:

"Arriving at belief in an infallible God by way of an inerrant Bible requires an unwarranted belief in yourself."
"Certainty is a confession of ignorance about our ability to be passionately mistaken."
"it is not enough to be well intentioned - even joyfully, generously so. We also have to be right."

Basically, the chapter shows how people can come to any one of the range of religious beliefs, and believe passionately in it, without any of them being actually true. This doesn't mean that there is no God or Christianity is false, but it does mean that there is an alternative explanation for why there is Christianity without the need for there to be a God.

Chapter 3: The malleability of the human mind by Jason Long, PhD
I really have to add 'PhD' to the end of my name on all things I write, it would give them such gravitas. Anyway, this is more psychology. The chapter starts with this quote, which is quite parochial in its scope:

"Why do the majority of Americans believe in the ability to predict specific details in the distant future, the existence of winged messengers living in the sky, the worldwide flood as told in genesis, and the resurrection of a man who had been dead for over a day? How can these people believe they are enlightened enough to insist upon the veracity of these outlandish beliefs when studies show they know so little about them? They believe simply because they want to believe, they believe because they always have believed, and they believe because others around them believe. The vast majority of those who believe such things will stick to those beliefs throughout life despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary"

Hmmm. This chapter basically claims that the majority of believers of any variety are indoctrinated into it, usually in childhood, then have the belief reinforced, so that when the belief is eventually challenged, the default position is to defend the belief rather than question it:

"If the Christian were genuinely interested in the truth, he would analyze the argument critically and thoroughly to see if it adequately addressed the points of the skeptical objection. But he is not questioning, he is defending."

The chapter goes into cognitive dissonance and that sort of thing and shows, once more, how reasonable people can believe weird things. He even quotes Michael Shermer's well known line:

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

This chapter by itself is nothing astounding, but this book is clearly aiming for a collective impact from all the different strands tied together.

Chapter 4: The outsider test for faith revisited by John W. Loftus
No PhD? This chapter must be worthless then. This is where you realise this book is not intended to be a stand-along work. This chapter does not really present the 'Outsider test for faith' (OTF), which comes from Loftus's earlier book, but seeks to defend it from the attacks made after the earlier book. It would really help at this point if I'd read Loftus's previous book, which I haven't.

The basic point of the OTF is that if you seriously want to question the Christian faith (or any other faith, for that matter) then you must do this from outside of the preconceptions of the faith itself. That is, view it as an outsider would. If you do this, then you start to see some doctrines, etc. as entirely arbitrary and start to see the holes in some pieces of reasoning.

I don't really have much to say here, except that this is pretty much what I am doing on this blog at the moment. However, the way the chapter is constructed makes it seem like it is part of an ongoing debate, of which I haven't heard all the earlier bits. Which is slightly a shame. I'd have preferred it if this was a presentation of the OTF, taking the earlier criticism into account. Nice quote in here, in passing is: "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby" (David Eller).

Part II: Why the Bible is not God's Word

Chapter 5: The Cosmology of the Bible by Edward T. Babinski
Another with no PhD, sigh. This is an odd chapter. It makes its point clearly, but I think the majority of Christians out there would think "so what?" about this. The point being made is that the view of cosmology is entirely contrary to modern science. Basically, the writers of the bible (both old and new testaments, but more clearly in the old) believe the earth to be flat, the sky to be something solid (the 'firmament'), which the stars are fixed onto, and above which are 'waters' (which sometimes leaks through, hence rain). The earth is supported upon pillars, and there are waters under this, and so on. God is presented as living in 'the heavens' which is up in the sky, hence the way the floor in heaven is presented as being sapphire (the sky is blue, after all).

The point is that the writers of the bible present the world in a way which is entirely consistent with the beliefs and views of the surrounding cultures, and there is noting 'inspired' here, and certainly nothing 'infallible'. By itself this argument will not achieve very much, but when heaped with all the other chapters it piles up to make the overall argument (that the bible has no divine author) seem more compelling.

Chapter 6: The bible and modern scholarship by Paul Tobin
This chapter sets out to demonstrate 5 points, that the Bible:

is inconsistent with itself
is not supported by archaeology
contains fairy tales
contains failed prophecies, and
contains many forgeries

The chapter makes its points fairly well. Part 1 quotes several contradictory pairs, including the following two verses: Romans 3v28 (A man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law) and James 2v24 (A man is justified by works and not by faith alone). And I basically agree with the point, while many of the contradictions can be explained away, the best explanation is not that they come from one infallible inspired source, but rather they come from a diverse bunch of people with contrasting and contradictory opinions.

In part 2 he demonstrates that there is no evidence for the Israelites alleged stay in Egypt, or the subsequent exodus. Furthermore, while there are stories in the bible that can be tied to real places or events, the chronology from the bible is totally at odds with the chronology from archaeology. For example, Abram came from 'Ur of the Chaldees' about 800 years before there were any Chaldeans, as far as we can tell from archaeology. The point made seems to be that almost all of Israelite history before the return from exile is totally out of sequence, exaggerated, or just plain made up.

Parts 3, 4 and 5 all do their jobs very well as well, but I don't need to give details here. Suffice it to say that this chapter is a very strong case for the non-inspiration of the bible.

The chapter ends with an interesting and, again, fairly strong argument against liberal Christianity as well. I think the author feels that he has dealt a death blow to Evangelicals (to be fair, he pretty much has) and so might as well attack the other branch of Christianity as well.

This chapter is basically a summary of Tobin's book "The Rejection of Pascal's Wager", which I think I'll read sometime (although, it is the best part of £30, so I'm in no hurry to buy it). The summary is quite interesting, thought provoking, and challenging so the full book should be worth a look.

Chapter 7: What we've got here is a failure to communicate by John W. Loftus
This chapter is also pretty compelling. The basic idea is that the history of Christianity clearly demonstrates that Christians (as a collective, not necessarily as individuals) are generally unable to hear from God. If God were able to communicate clearly to his people, then there are certain events in history that simply would not have happened, for example the many wars and persecutions between Protestants, Catholics and Anabaptists in the aftermath of the reformation - if God's message had been clearly conveyed, none of this would have happened. Furthermore, what about things like polygamy or slavery - the bible is at best ambiguous on these issues and generally seems to be in favour of them, and yet most Christians today would be strongly against both practices. So is the inference in the bible the message from God or is the evolved modern practice which goes against it really what God wants? Of course, there is a lot more in this chapter, which only serves to strengthen the case.

The chapter also considers all the usual explanations used to explain away these observations, and shows why none of them is particularly compelling. In summary:

"Christian theologians cannot even come to a consensus on what the Bible requires them to believe - that's why there are so many denominations and 'cults'. They cannot even come to a consensus on how to interpret the Bible in the first place. What is the best explanation for this? In the light of such confusion and disagreement, can anyone take seriously the idea that God communicated his perfect will to his believers?"

Chapters 6 and 7, by themselves, are the heart of this book. They make a very strong and compelling case against the inspiration of the bible, by using the bible itself. The rest of the book is just supporting evidence.

Part III: Why the Christian God is not Perfectly Good

Chapter 8: Yahweh is a moral monster by Hector Avalos, PhD
This chapter is a response to something I haven't read written by Christian author Paul Copan. Avalos demonstrates that OT morality is not significantly different from, or superior to the morality expressed in the Code of Hammurabi (Summerian law code) or various Hittite law codes we know from the time of the OT and earlier. Indeed, Avalos contends that the Bible is actually inferior to the other codes. The bible (or at least parts of it) condones genocide, infanticide and child sacrifice amongst other immoral things. The chapter makes its points clearly and compellingly, and then degenerates into a direct criticism of Copan's writings, rather than promoting its own message. Which makes this chapter fairly pointless if you read it in isolation.

Chapter 9: The Darwinian Problem of Evil by John W. Loftus
I've heard this argument before. I've heard it responded to before. But this is a clear and compelling discussion of the issues around animal suffering. Basically the point is that animals, through no moral fault of their own, suffer and die, all the time, sometimes in pretty horrendous ways. The question posed is basically 'What sort of creator would design this?'

The chapter states and then refutes the eight main arguments used by theists to defend the creator for causing or allowing animal suffering. The theist arguments are basically as follows:

Animals were herbivores before the fall. That is, man is morally responsible for animals eating each other.
Satan corrupted the beasts before the fall of man.
Animals have no souls and don't feel (much) pain.
God doesn't care about animals, why do you think he should?
God is indifferent to animals as he is much more interested in human soul making. Animals and their suffering are merely by-products of this process.
Its OK, as animals will be resurrected to a heavenly afterlife.
That animal predation and suffering is necessary to create the right environment for human development and moral decision making. (I'm not clear how this differs from number 5 above)
We simply don't know.

All of these are discussed, taken apart and more or less refuted. Loftus makes a good case and I've not really heard a good response by a Christian (in debates, etc.) yet.

Part IV: Why Jesus is not the Risen Son of God

Chapter 10: Jesus, Myth and Method by Robert M. Price, PhD
This chapter is another response to something else that I haven't read. In this case, its "The Jesus Legend: A case for the historical reliability of the synoptic tradition" by Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy (which is on my 'to read; eventually' list...). The book is Boyd and Eddy's look at 'The Christ Myth Theory' (CMT) which, of course, they reject. Price is, of course, one of the most vocal proponents of the CMT and some of his reasoning is compelling. However, this chapter is mostly a response to Boyd and Eddy rather than a straight defense of the CMT.

As with the other 'responses' in this book, this would be much better if I had read the original book. As a stand alone it makes a few points, and makes then well, but is not -by itself- particularly a compelling case for anything much.

Chapter 11: Why the resurrection is unbelievable by Richard Carrier, PhD
This chapter basically expands the often repeated statement that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' and demonstrates (fairly well, I must say) that the evidence for the resurrection is actually rather mundane, and is not sufficient to warrant belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

He starts with discussing the story of the Persian Wars, written by Herodotus about 50 years after the event. Herodotus was well educated and claims to have consulted eye witnesses in compiling his accounts, and yet there are fantastic claims in there of magical things happening.

Compare this to the gospel accounts - written some decades after the events, by well educated men, who claim to have consulted eye witnesses, and containing fantastic claims of miraculous events, the greatest of which is, of course, the resurrection of Jesus.

If you dismiss the former stories, why do you still believe the latter ones?

Carrier lays out the evidence we have for the resurrection, in detail, and then demonstrates that this evidence is insufficient to be compelling. The implication being that if you believe this reasoning that you are a bit gullible and have been convinced of something that you shouldn't have been. He appears to have a point.

Chapter 12: At best, Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet by John W. Loftus
This chapter takes the surprising presupposition that the New Testament is historically reliable and that Jesus existed, pretty much as described. From there it shows that the NT presents Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, who clearly predicted the end of the world was coming within his own generation. Given that we are looking at this nearly 2000 years later, it is clear that this didn't happen and therefore Jesus was (at best) a failed apocalyptic prophet.

Its a good point, well made, and certainly adds to the weight of the evidence of some of the other chapters in this book.

The problem with this chapter is that it treads on the 'historical Jesus' debate, which I've touched on in other posts, where only some of the main opinions of Jesus claim that he was an apocalyptic prophet. But this chapter is not written as part of that debate, this chapter was written to be read by Bible-believing Christians, and so - assuming any of them ever read it - it kind of works in that context.

Part V: Why society does not depend on Christian Faith

Chapter 13: Christianity does not provide the basis for morality by David Eller, PhD
Finally we come to three chapters that feel a bit like a 'grab bag' of an appendix. The moral argument doesn't fit in anywhere else, so is thrown in here. The chapter explains how morality and religion are different and don't depend on each other. It also shows a few examples of immoral things done in the name of God/Christianity for good measure. But, for me at least, this is not that interesting.

Chapter 14: Atheism was not the cause of the Holocaust by Hector Avalos, PhD
Can I just say, I never thought it was? But the chapter makes a good case for the Holocaust being the end result of centuries of Christian antisemitism, not the end result of any form of atheism. Indeed, Hitler was not an atheist but a Catholic with some strange views. Other important figures in the Nazi party had other theistic viewpoints. This chapter is just here for bulking the book out.

Chapter 15: Christianity was not responsible for Modern Science by Richard Carrier, PhD
And finally, a chapter that does exactly what it says on the tin. It overturns the quite common Christian belief that the advances of science in the past two thousand years are in some way dependent on Christianity, without which they would never have happened. On the contrary, the chapter demonstrates that at certain points in history, Christianity has hindered scientific advances, meanwhile 'pagan' cultures have promoted scientific advances. Again, this is interesting stuff, and adds to the overall weight of the argument, but I'm not sure this chapter was particularly essential.

And there you have it. My conclusions were near the beginning of the post, if you can remember that long ago. Thanks for reading to the bottom. You really are a glutton for punishment! (Hello Mike!)

What kind of God...? (#1)

2011-12-22T00:01:00.002Z

Someone at church last week shared a story of 'what God had been doing in their life' recently.

I don't need to give many details here except to say that they had experienced an unlikely and unusual sequence of positive events in reasonably quick succession, and attributed this to the goodness of God. People in the church were also thanked for their prayers.

Don't get me wrong, I think its great that this sequence of events happened to this person. But are we right to attribute this 'lucky streak' to the goodness of God?

What kind of God rewards one of his people with a string of minor blessings (like getting extra items delivered by accident in an online shop, which the store then did not reclaim) and larger blessings like a better paid job, while countless thousands of Africans, some of whom also claim to be Christians, live in poverty and die of starvation?

Furthermore, what kind of God apparently does this (shifts blessing towards a particular person) as a consequence of the number or quality of people praying? If nobody was praying, would the blessings have been withheld?

What kind of God with the will and the ability to bless, would withhold this blessing just because not enough people asked for it?

In the light of the answer that you have formed in your mind to the question above, what is the point of prayer? If it truly moves the hands of God, which otherwise would remain idle, then I'm not sure that sort of God is the sort of God I'd want to pray to...

The Synoptic Problem and some Solutions...

2011-12-20T14:00:00.001Z

I seem to have circled around the issue of 'The Synoptic Problem' on this blog for a year or two, without actually devoting a whole post to it. Given that my thinking about the Synoptic Problem led directly to to my current way of thinking about Life, the Universe and Everything (to be explained in a forthcoming post, which is taking a long time to write), I feel I should write something. So here goes, using the Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:

write down the problem
think very hard
write down the answer

The Problem Defined

So, some of you might be wondering what the Synoptic Problem actually is. Basically, the issue is this: There is a relationship between the three 'synoptic' gospels. There are some similarities in structure, order, content, and even word use. The question is which, if any came first? Is one (or more) of them directly dependent on one (or more) of the others? If so, which?

If you were to split up each of the three synoptic gospels into its constituent 'pericopes' (that's per-ih-co-pay not perry-cope; its the technical term scholars use for the individual, stand alone, stories or sayings that make up the gospels) and compare notes between the gospels you would find the following:

There is an awful lot of overlap between all three gospels. The stuff that's in all three is (not surprisingly) known as 'Triple Tradition' material.
There is quite a lot that is common to Matthew and Luke, but is not in Mark. This stuff is called 'Double Tradition' material.
There is not much at all that is unique to Mark. So little that scholars don't really have a name for it. Lets call it 'Special Mark' material.
There is more stuff that is unique to Matthew. Scholars generally call this stuff the 'M' material.
There is also a lot of stuff that is unique to Luke. This is commonly called 'L'.
There are also some places where Mark and Matthew agree, but Luke has no equivalent.
Likewise there are a few (but not many) places where Mark and Luke agree, but Matthew has no equivalent.

Look, somebody from the internet has helpfully drawn a diagram of this:

As far as I can tell, this issue has been keeping a good few theologians awake at night for the best part of four centuries now, so I'm not sure that any solutions I come to here will be final or definitive... but that's no reason not to try! Here goes...

The Proposed Solutions

As far as I can tell, there are basically four proposed solutions to the problem, there may be others, but they are generally just slight modifications from one of the main four. The solutions are:

Independent inspiration (i.e. there is no problem)
The Griesbach hypothesis (Markan posteriority)
The two source hypothesis (Markan priority, plus the Q source)
The Farrer hypothesis (Markan priority, but no Q)

So here's my thoughts on each of these possibilities.

Independent Inspiration

This view is really that there is no Synoptic Problem. The three Gospels (and indeed the gospel of John) were all inspired by God, and the evangelists wrote them down, independent of each other. Any similarities in the text of the gospels is entirely due to God and nothing to do with the men who wrote them down.

I suppose that's a fair belief, but it is a belief which is imposed onto the texts themselves, certainly not one that emerges from any study of the texts. It raises the question of what sort of God would word-for-word inspire the gospels such that in some places there is an exact wording match between Matthew and Mark, while in other places the gospels directly contradict each other, and in others the meaning is left confused and confusing?

I personally don't think this reasoning is particularly compelling. Given the apparent human character of much of the writing in these gospels, I think it is entirely justified to look for a 'human' solution to the synoptic problem. That's not to say there was no inspiration, only to say that if there was inspiration, then it was channeled through human actions.

The Greisbach hypothesis

This is the oldest solution to the problem. It basically proposes that Matthew and Luke produced their gospels first, and independently, and that Mark came along later and combined the two into one - shorter - document, by chopping out all the material that was unique to one or other, and only retaining the material which was common to both.

Of course, if you look at the pie charts above, you'll see that it can't have been that simple. 21% of Mark has no parallel in Luke, so if this theory worked, then Mark must have included some M material and got the Special Mark material from somewhere else. In other words, Mark had more sources than just the two Gospels and he had some means of selection other than just the material of overlap.

There are a few other problems with this theory. For me, the two compelling reasons not to believe that this is the way things were are the quality of the writing and the good stuff that Mark would have apparently thrown out. By quality of writing, I mean that there are passages in Mark and Matthew that are remarkably similar, except in that Matthew has better and more 'polished' use of Greek grammar, etc. Meanwhile Mark's version of the same story is expressed in clumsy wording. It makes no sense that Mark, when he was copying from Matthew, would introduce so many mistakes, yet it makes perfect sense, that if Matthew was copying from Mark, he would improve the text. Then there are things like the beatitudes and the Lord's prayer. There are versions of both in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark. The Greisbach hypothesis assumes that Mark threw out such classic passages because of only minor variations between the texts. And instead of these classics, Mark introduces a small number of unique but weird things like the guy who runs away naked in the Garden of Gethsemane.

As far as I can tell, the solutions to the synoptic problem which start with Mark make much more sense.

The Two Source Hypothesis

This is the most widely held solution to the problem. Basically, it assumes that Mark's gospel came first ('Markan Priority') and was used by both Matthew and Luke when they came to write their gospels, perhaps some decades later. Additionally, this theory supposes Matthew and Luke had access to a second document, generally known as 'Q', which is now lost, and that they both used Mark and Q to compile their gospels.

Numerous theses and books have been written about Q, with some people holding that it must have been a written document, some holding that it must have been largely oral tradition, some insisting that it must have been a written document, based on oral tradition, etc. There have even been several studies looking at the development of Q, and identifying various 'strata' in the hypothetical Q document and such like. Which is all very impressive for a book which doesn't exist and is only inferred by studying other texts.

The theory goes that Q had no narrative order, it was just a collection of sayings with no nativity and no passion narratives. This explains why Matthew and Luke's order of events are in good agreement when they also agree with Mark, but why their Q material is in completely different order to each other.

My favourite Q studies are the ones which discuss the Mark-Q overlaps. Which is interesting, as - by definition - Q is the stuff that is in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. But you can study anything, it doesn't have to be real... (it just has to be funded!)

Anyway, there are good and sound reasons for holding that Matthew and Luke used Mark as the backbone of their gospels, and added material from one or two other sources, which may have included Q.

By the way, sometimes the two source hypothesis is called the 'Four Source' hypothesis - referring to Mark, Q, M and L. but aside from that, the theory is exactly the same, as far as I can tell.

The Farrer hypothesis

Finally, we come to the Farrer hypothesis. This also supposes Markan priority, but does away with the need for Q. Basically the theory is that Matthew used Mark and some other material to write his gospel, and Luke used both Mark and Matthew, plus some other material, to write his gospel.

Using Occam's Razor, this theory is probably the most compelling as it only requires three sources, Mark, M and L, without the need for Q. Most of the problems associated with this theory (for example, why would Luke break up the sermon on the mount and spread it around his gospel at apparently random points) can be explained using plausible reasoning. That's not to say that any of the reasoning is completely compelling, but at least it is plausible.

The Final Solution

And so we come to the point - what do I find to be the best solution to the problem? Well, having read quite a lot and listened to a lot of podcasts and lectures on the topic, I am completely convinced that Mark's gospel came first, and that both Matthew and Luke used Mark as the basis for their own gospels. Thus I disregard the Greisbach hypothesis and the independent inspiration theory.

Beyond that, I am unsure. It is clear that both Matthew and Luke had access to a supply of material other than Mark's gospel. It wouldn't be particularly surprising to find that Matthew and Luke both had access to one collection of sayings that we call Q. Then again, it wouldn't be that surprising if Luke also had access to Matthew - he does start off his gospel saying 'Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us' (Luke 1v1), so it is clear that he has access to more than two gospels or proto-gospels which he used to compile his own gospel.

The implications of all this...

Actually, I don't really care if there was or wasn't a Q. For me, the most important thing to have come out of me wrestling with the synoptic problem is the realisation that both Matthew and Luke disagreed with Mark and changed his gospel to fit their purposes and beliefs. There are places in Mark where Jesus behaves in a human manner or shows evidence of limitations (e.g. Mark 6v5 where Jesus 'could do no mighty work') which Matthew or Luke rewrites (e.g. Matthew 13v58 where Jesus 'did not do' any mighty works). This one observations blows the whole case for inspiration out of the water - if Mark was inspired, then Matthew and Luke were not, and vice versa. The rewrites of Mark by the other two demonstrate that these books were written by people with human agendas, who were quite happy to change details in their sources to make the stories fit with their own beliefs. We know they did this with Mark, we can only assume that they did this with their other sources as well!

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with three different accounts of three different Jesuses, at least two of which (and we can assume the third likewise) have been modified by the writers to make the character and message of Jesus conform to their own beliefs. Thus, if the real Jesus said or did something that the authors didn't like then this will have been changed, modified or omitted.

Its not that the gospel writers believed in Jesus and tried to conform themselves to his image, it appears that they took Jesus and made him conform to their image! Thus, our only route of access to the real Jesus who walked the roads of Galilee (NB, not the 'historical Jesus' - that's a different concept altogether) is forever broken.

This brings us back to the popular question WWJD? Because of the above I now believe that we cannot know the answer to this. Sure, we can say what the 'Jesus of Luke' would do, or the 'Jesus of Mark', but not the real Jesus. So, by looking at the synoptic problem, I've led myself not to a solution, but to an even bigger problem. Sigh.

"The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know"
Socrates

Moderate?

2011-12-03T10:45:00.003Z

I was reminded of this quote this morning:

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
C.S. Lewis

On reflection, and I think this is probably true for the vast majority of people who consider this quote, I think that I live as if Christianity and Christ were moderately important. I know many people who live as if it was of no importance, and hardly anyone who live as if it was of immense importance.

I suppose that is part of all the questioning I've been going through on this blog. I know I'm in the untenable moderate middle ground, and I need to find the reasons to jump one way or the other...

Absolute objective morality?

2011-11-22T12:45:00.005Z

Following on from my recent comments on the William Lane Craig tour, I feel the need to challenge the 'moral argument' for God.

The moral argument basically states that there are 'absolute objective morals' and these must originate from a transcendent being.

I agree with half of that. I'm just not sure that there actually are absolute objective morals.

So, if you believe there are, please tell me some.

Specifically, please leave a comment telling me some absolute objective morals that do not involve violence by one person on another.

From observation of these debates, the only 'absolute morals' specifically discussed involve violence among humans - generally the strong attacking the weak. But if there are absolutes, they can't only apply to humans, can they? So show me a non-violent absolute moral...

William Lane Craig vs The God Delusion

2011-11-16T21:07:00.006Z

This post is a few comments on the event held on 25th October at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford and broadcast on the Unbelievable radio show and podcast from Premier Christian Radio. You can also watch the entire event on YouTube.

The event wasn't a debate like other events in Dr Craig's recent UK tour, but was a response by Dr Craig to Richard Dawkins's now infamous book 'The God Delusion'. Dawkins was invited to attend the event and defend his book, but he declined. The defence of the book, such as it was, was provided by three short presentations by three other atheist/agnostic Oxford dons.

The format of the evening was basically a 45 minute lecture by William Lane Craig, followed by the three 8 minute responses by the others, followed by another response by Dr Craig, then a Q&A session with questions from the audience.

As Dawkins's book (which I still haven't read) is an attack on the very concept of God, rather than a specific attack on the Christian God, the lecture by Dr Craig stayed firmly in the 'God of the Philosophers' territory - the only time the event strayed towards the specifically Christian God was in the Q&A session at the end.

This post is not a review of the event, and I don't intend to go into this in as much detail as I went into for the debate between Dr Craig and Dr Law. These are just some comments and thoughts on what I heard. In the mean time, I have also listened to another debate featuring Dr Craig (vs Peter Millican) and I may comment on that sometime too.

The Cosmological Argument

This was the core of Craig's lecture and is clearly his primary argument in favour of the existence of God. He presented it in much the same way as in previous debates. Basically, as the universe began to exist, it must have had a cause, and the cause must have been God.

Most of this argument is reasonably watertight, except Craig's leap of reasoning (about 14 mins into the YouTube video) that the transcendent first cause is "plausibly personal". He claims the personhood of the cause is implied by its "timelessness and immateriality". He then claims that the only entities able to have these properties are either (a) "abstract objects, like numbers", or (b) an "unembodied mind". Because the first cause obviously wasn't something like a number, it must therefore have been an unembodied person.

There is some clever sleight of hand going on here, and none of the other speakers picked up on it. Option (a), the 'abstract object, like a number' is there in the role of a straw man - it is only put there to be torn down. It is only put there to make option (b) seem like the only reasonable choice. Yet option (b) is not reasonable either. Craig offers no supporting arguments for there only being two options here, or indeed for there being any options here. He offers no justification for believing that an unembodied mind is actually anything other than science-fiction.

In other words, we know of no objects, entities or concepts that actually are immaterial and timeless. None. Not one. So to say that an immaterial and timeless thing must be one of two options is a cheat - it is nether of them, because we have no evidence that it is even possible, let alone plausible or probable.

Later on, Craig claimed that this timeless, changeless, eternal, infinite, unembodied yet personal entity must have had freewill in order to bring about the first cause. I think there's a logical flaw in that reasoning. In order to use freewill, the personal entity must make a decision and act. In order for a decision to be made there must be a 'time' or state 'before' which the decision was made (i.e. the entity's mind was not yet made up) and a 'time' or state 'after' which the decision had been made. Similarly with the action. A changeless entity cannot transition from one state to the other. I'd go as far as to say that personality requires change. If something is changeless, it cannot be a person and if something is a person, it cannot be changeless.

Basically I think the whole concept of God (or a god) existing outside of time is absolute bunk. (As I've said before, if it is even possible to have a being outside of time, then that being must be morally neutral - neither good nor evil.)

All this leads me to the point of concluding that if there was a timeless 'first cause' it remains so far outside of our understanding that we can't really know anything at all about it. The message of Jesus is 'God with us', God presented, as a person, in a way that we can understand. The philosophical first cause is so far removed from the person of Jesus, that I can see no justifiable way of connecting the two. If Jesus represents God for us, then the first cause is not God, and vice versa.

The ontological argument

This argument is the most bunk spouted by apologists. It dates back to Anselm in the 11th Century, although it was refined by Descartes and others. It goes like this: we can conceive of a God who is a "supremely perfect being" and who holds all perfections. One of the perfections we can conceive of is the perfection of existence and, thus, God must exist. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist.

The thing is, nobody who does not believe in a God will be persuaded by this reasoning. Its only function is to make theist apologists sound clever to their own supporters. Philosophers can tie themselves in knots over the logic, but no rational person will accept the claim that the existence or otherwise of God depends on whether or not we can conceive of him. It also relies on a lot of 'omnis', and I have very big issues with claiming that a God with all the omni-characteristics is actually compatible with reality as we observe it.

The responses

The responses were mostly adequate but not really up to the task of taking down Craig's assertions. Craig has being doing this style of debate for decades and the opponents were simply not in the same rhetorical league.

The only miss-step by Craig came in the Q&A session when he (incorrectly) claimed that God never commanded the Israelites in the old testament to kill women & children in the 'Canaanite Genocide' - the story says quite clearly that he did. Furthermore, Craig claimed that the Israelites were never told to hunt down and kill all of the Canaanites, only to drive them out. Well this is broadly true, but what of the Amalekites? The OT is quite clear, the Israelites were commanded not to allow an Amalekite to live. However, the format of the evening did not give Craig's opponents the opportunity to follow up on this, and I suspect none of them were well enough versed in the OT to actually know this anyway.

But enough of this 'brief' comment... I have some books to review for you sometime soon...

The explanatory power of the unseen infinite

2011-11-02T09:00:00.001Z

I've listened to a few debates on topics like 'Is there a God?' recently. One thing I've noted in the arguments of apologists is the use of what I'll call the 'unseen infinite' to explain the way the world is.

For example, consider the issue of suffering, one common argument against the existence of God is that there is too much suffering in the world for there to be an all-powerful, all-loving God.

The standard apologetic rebuttal to this is essentially that, in the light of an eternal life of bliss and joy, the present sufferings are as nothing.

In other words, to outweigh the known, visible, but finite amount of suffering in the world, you invoke an unknown, invisible and infinite amount of joy.

The problem with this is that the existence of the future, everlasting happiness cannot be demonstrated. There is simply no evidence for it, because future events have not happened. And we even have no evidence that people who have died in the past have gone anywhere happy (or otherwise, for that matter).

The reasoning is emotionally compelling, we want to believe it, but it is intellectually indefensible.

Almost any problem can be addressed by invoking an unseen and infinite reality, and apologists do this all the time. But its not really justifiable. If you have to invoke an unseen infinite to answer a problem, you might as well admit that your case is weak.

But what about God, is he just another unseen infinite?

William Lane Craig vs Stephen Law Debate - Does God Exist?

2011-10-31T22:00:00.000Z

Just listened to a debate between 'the world's foremost apologist' William Lane Craig and atheist Stephen Law, editor of the philosophical journal 'Think' and provost of the UK branch of the Centre for Inquiry. The debate was hosted by Premier Christian Radio and can be downloaded from their website.

The subject of the debate was "Does God Exist".

In his opening statement in favour of the existence of God, Dr Craig made three basic points:

The universe cannot be eternal and infinite, therefore it must have an origin, therefore a cause, thus a creator.
There are absolute morals, thus there must be an absolute morality, which must come from a transcendent being.
Jesus must have been raised from the dead, if the story was made up the first witnesses would not have been women.

That's it? That's the best the world's leading apologist can offer?

In my opinion, and I'm trying not to take sides here (I'll critique the atheist argument too, below), all three points are flawed.

Well, actually, I agree with most of point 1, except that exactly the same line of reasoning may be applied to demonstrate that God cannot be either infinite or eternal. So Craig is shooting himself in the foot here, or should have been if Law had picked up on this. Also, in this part of his presentation he got bogged down in a pointless discussion of the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter which relied on the assumption that both Jupiter and Saturn had been orbiting in their current orbits for eternity - as far as I know, nobody believes this, so it is a complete 'straw man' argument.

Point 2 is more slippery. What is an 'objective' absolute moral? The reasoning (and this was more or less shared by Law) is that there are certain things which are universally morally wrong. Because this wasn't really challenged in this debate, there were no examples given, so it all became a discussion (this became the main issue in the rebuttals, see below) without a well defined subject.

I've thought through this issue a few times recently and am most of the way to convincing myself that there aren't actually any universal, objective, absolute morals. The most commonly cited (at least in the debates and discussions I have heard recently) example of something that is objectively morally wrong is the act of torturing children for fun. So lets take that and think about it. Is it absolutely, objectively, universally, in all times and places, morally wrong? Well, certainly I am against it, but I don't think its universal - there are, after all, many places and times where there are and have been no people, hence no children. But ignoring that rather trivial objection, is it ever justifiable? Well, no, but does that make it objective? And fundamentally, how does that fact require us to invoke a divine source of morality?

As I see it (at the moment, this may change) this sort of morality is a product of society and doesn't actually require a higher level moral agent. That's not to say that there is no God, only that I don't think the moral argument works as a proof of God. Society is greater than the individual and I think it is entirely reasonable to see morality as an evolved product of an evolving society. And of course, all philosophers who point to an absolute moral code which transcends culture and the individual are philosophising about life from within this society. I'm not narrowing this down to 'Western' society, but rather going to a higher level and picturing all human society as being the context of morality.

Why then is torturing children for fun morally wrong? For two primary reasons, firstly it harms the child, who would otherwise grow to be a functioning part of the wider society, and secondly because it further corrupts the harmer, further enhancing an anti-societal element in society. I believe this is a highly evolved system, but falls a long way short of requiring a divine moral code.

All other 'absolute' morals I can think of also fit the context of hindering or (with regard to good morals) enhancing human society at its highest level.

By this line of reasoning, many things we consider to be absolute morals in this day and age were not, and would not have been considered absolute morals in ages past. One of the newest absolute morals to go was racism. Contemporary society is harmed and hindered by it, but that wasn't the case in ages past, when a healthy skepticism of others not like yourself actually allowed the status quo of society to be maintained. Similarly with slavery, it is morally wrong in our society, yet was an absolute requirement of the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, the Egyptian Empire, and so on. The issue of slavery in the bible is not a moral issue, because it was not a moral issue in society back then, it is only as society has evolved, that slavery has become a moral issue.

Thus, by my reckoning, the moral argument only requires a collective society that is considerably greater than the individual, it does not require a divine being that imposes morality on humanity. (By the way, why would God impose a morality on humans and not on any other creatures? The human/animal distinction is an artificial one, which even Dr Craig skirted around in one of his rebuttals, see below).

Craig's third point concerned the resurrection, and very simply put asserted that the resurrection event must have happened, because if it hadn't nobody would have believed the story, given that it rests on the testimony of female witnesses. I've heard a few rebuttals of this over the past few years, several of which question the basic premise - that the witness of women was scorned in 1st century society. But even leaving that aspect of the argument aside, the fact is that the women being the first to discover the lack of body in the tomb is merely part of the larger narrative, and that larger narrative was preached as gospel by men - men who themselves claimed to have seen the risen Christ. So the testimony of women objection is a bit of red herring, by itself it proves nothing. Craig made no particular further defense of the reality of the resurrection.

I agree that if you could prove (beyond reasonable doubt) the historicity of the resurrection, then that is considerable evidence in favour of the existence of God, the Father of Jesus. The problem is, in this debate Craig doesn't even attempt to do this, so his 3rd argument fails.

But what of his opponent?

Dr Law's opening statement focussed on two main points:

There is an immense amount of suffering in the world, in particular animal suffering - the whole eco system of the world relies on animals killing and eating each other and some of those killings involve a ridiculously high degree of suffering. Beyond that, for most of human history, almost half of human children have died before the age of five. This is the way of the world, and does not point towards the existence of a benevolent creator god.
The evil god hypothesis. Basically, this argument turns usual apologetics on its head and uses the same reasoning, as used by apologists, to propose that there is a supremely powerful but evil god as creator of the universe. The idea is to demonstrate that nobody will accept this hypothesis, so why should they accept the equal and opposite hypothesis for a good God?

This defense of atheism was less slick and less well delivered as that of Craig, so Stephen Law was up against it from the word go. Craig seemed more compelling. Also, it would appear (from the applause and general murmuring of the audience at various points in the debate) that the majority of the audience was essentially on Craig's side (the venue was a church, after all). But were the arguments any good?

The argument from suffering is quite compelling, but fails (in my opinion) because it attacks a very narrow god concept. I agree (in general terms) that the argument does a good job of demonstrating that if there is a god then he cannot be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. The reasoning goes like this: If god is is omniscient, then he would know the level of suffering in the world, if he is omnibenevolent, then he'd want to alleviate the suffering, and if he's omnipotent, then he'd be able to alleviate the suffering. Because the suffering is not alleviated, then it follows god cannot be all three omnis. QED.

However, the argument stops there. It does not do anything to demonstrate that there is no conceivable god. Yes, it does provide good evidence against the God of fundamentalist Christianity, but it leaves room for the God concepts of several branches of more 'liberal' Christianity and other streams of belief like open theism (basically an admission that God is not omniscient).

The evil god hypothesis is also quite a compelling argument, but again attacks a very narrowly defined God concept. The argument should lead to the conclusion that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, omnimalevolent deity, and by analogy that there is also no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity either. But that's as far as it goes again.

So, all in all, Law made two compelling arguments against a very narrow god concept, none of what he presented was really good enough to question the existence of a transcendent deity in general, and certainly did not and could not address the question of origins. Why are we here? Law had no answer for this.

1st round of rebuttals

Following this, Craig had an opportunity to respond to Law's statement. And this is where, in my opinion, Craig won the debate (the podcast version gave no indication of whether or not a vote was taken before or after the debate). His response to Law was flawed, but was done so well and with such apparent authority that Law's case never recovered.

Craig's rebuttal of the animal suffering issue was twofold: firstly he asserted (with appeal to named experts) that there are three forms of pain and that only humans experience type three pain (please excuse my simple summary of his argument, I wasn't taking notes when listening) and so the suffering of animals is a non-argument. Further to that, he explained that the 'predation' of some animals by others was essential to have a functioning eco-system. It was an excellent response, even if it was all a distraction away from the main point.

If he'd picked up on it, Law could have attacked this line of reasoning by picking at Craig's passing comment that suggested that other 'higher primates' as well as humans experience this type three pain. This was basically Craig blurring the line between humans and animals, and many of his moral arguments could be attacked by exploiting this. But Law went on the defensive, and didn't follow through. Furthermore, Law could have appealed to the pet owners in the audience, all of whom know, yes know, that their pets experience pain and even give them reproachful looks at the vet when they see you have allowed them to feel pain. That line of attack would have sunk Craig's assertion, at least for a portion of the audience.

Craig's response to the evil god hypothesis bolstered his case, without actually dealing with the main points of the argument. His attack was again twofold: firstly that, by definition, god is good, so an evil god is not a god. Of course, that's just an argument of semantics, but Craig was winning by this point, so it didn't matter to him. The second strand of his attack on the evil god concept was essentially his argument from morality again - there is an objective morality, in order to have this, there must be a good god providing that morality.

I think Craig's rebuttal was weak, but it didn't really matter as he was beating Law by this point and he knew it.

When Law had his chance to rebut Craig he made a considerable misstep by not responding to Craig's cosmological argument. He zeroed in on the issues surrounding morality and got bogged down in his evil god hypothesis again.

Both speakers had a second chance to rebut the other. Craig, who must have been patting himself on the back by this point, simply pointed out that by not responding to his cosmological argument Law had more of less conceded defeat on this issue. Furthermore he used Law's evil god hypothesis to suggest that Law believed in this god, hence was not really an atheist. Craig managed to muddy the waters on this issue so much that Law never managed to get back out of it, even through the whole question and answer session. Craig managed to keep the rest of the discussion bogged down in the same issues, going round in circles, and hence came out as the clear winner - not because his argument was any better, but because he knew all the tricks of making your opponent look like a fool.

Law's second rebuttal was slightly more considered and attempted to actually meet all Craig's arguments head on, but his assertion that Craig hadn't managed to demonstrate the existence of a God sounded fairly hollow.

So, all in all, it was a good debate, at least from Craig's point of view. Many believers will have gone away from that debate feeling that their beliefs were somehow validated, while the atheists will have gone away with their tails between their legs. I'm not sure anyone will have had their minds changed by the debate, but I'm not sure that's actually the real objective of these debates.

I've recently heard the opinion that apologetics is not about evangelism, its really about boosting (or maintaining) the faith of those who are already believers. I kind of think this is the case, whatever the sales pitch of these events actually is (e.g. "bring a non-believing friend").

Anyway, this made me think, and there'll be a spin-off blog posting from this along in a day or two.

Quotes of the day

2011-10-05T15:04:00.002Z

I heard/read two fascinating quotes today, so I share them with you, dear reader:

"It is better the world perish with the truth than be saved with lies"

from 'The Last Temptation of Christ' by Nikos Kazantzakis

and

"One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision"

by Bertrand Russell

The archetypal hero

2011-09-23T09:35:00.004Z

Just read a fascinating summary of an old book called 'The Hero' by someone called Lord Raglan. Published in 1936, the book is a study of many of the great mythical heroes from various civilizations. The book identifies a list of the 22 main characteristics common to these mythical heroes. None of the stories of the heroes actually contains all 22 elements, but each of these is common to several heroes. The list is as follows:

He is born of a virgin mother.
His father is a King.
The father has a unique relationship with the mother.
The circumstances of the child's conception are unusual, often humble.
He is reputed to be the son of a god.
There is an attempt to kill the child/god shortly after birth.
He is spirited away, escaping a premature death.
The child is raised by foster parents in a far country.
We are told virtually nothing of his childhood years.
On reaching manhood, usually at age 30, he commences his mission in life.
He successfully overcomes the most severe trials and tests.
He marries a princess.
He is acknowledged as a king.
He rules.
He prescribes laws.
He loses favour with the Gods or his subjects.
He is forcibly driven from authority.
He meets with a violent death.
His death occurs on the top of a hill.
His children, if any, do not succeed him.
His body is not buried conventionally.
He has one or more holy resting places.

Does any of that sound familiar?

The Jesus story echoes 19 out of these 22 points. This is more than Hercules who only scores 17 and Robin Hood only manages 13 of them. Oddly enough, Moses manages to outscore Jesus, managing 20 out of 22 and Oedipus is the highest scoring myth with a whopping 21 out of 22.

By contrast, the highest scoring definitely 'historical' person is Alexander the Great, who only scores 7.

If this analysis is in any way valid (and I'm not really claiming that it is) then it would imply that Jesus is either a mythical character entirely, or that a great many legendary stories have been added on to the real Jesus.

As usual, the problem becomes how to filter the truth from the legend.

Fixed points?

2011-09-10T10:50:00.000Z

As I may have mentioned, I'm working my way through N.T. Wright's magnum opus, volume 1: "The New Testament and the People of God". Its a big book and I have to say, for the most part has felt like an extended introduction to the next book ("Jesus and the victory of God") rather than a book in its own right. Perhaps all of the background is necessary, but I'm sure NTW could have been a bit less wordy at some points.

I'm nearly at the end, and its just getting interesting. At least, interesting in relation to my current doubts. These are about the origins of Christianity: how did it get started? how accurate is the 'history' presented in the new testament? what did the early Christians actually believe? how did they look at Jesus (and how does that differ from how we see him now)? and so on.

Fundamentally, I'm interested in the question posed (and apparently answered in the negative) by Richard Carrier's book "Not the impossible faith" (which I haven't read yet, but its on the list) - Did the church need the resurrection of Jesus in order to start? If the church could have got going and growing by 'natural' processes, then is it justifiable to hold to the Christian faith today? Is it justifiable to believe the New Testament writings? That's where I'm wrestling at the moment.

Anyway, NTW presents a chain of events in the early church which are attested by non-canonical (and thus historically reliable?) sources from the 1st & 2nd centuries. These 'fixed points' are:

AD155 - Martyrdom of Polycarp
AD110-117(ish) - Letters of Ignatius and his martyrdom
AD110-114(ish) - Pliny's persecutions of Christians
AD90(ish) - Domitian's investigations of Jesus's relatives
AD64 - Nero's persecutions of Christians after the fire of Rome
AD62 - Death of James in Jerusalem
AD49 - Expulsion of Jews in Rome due to Christian disturbances

NTW adds two further fixed points, which are the ministry of Paul in Corinth and Ephesus (circa 49-51AD) and the crucifixion of Jesus in AD30, but I'm not sure these are well attested by non-canonical writings. And I'll come back to them in due course.

Unfortunately for us, the earliest five of those fixed points, and the information they provide only really tells us:

There was a group of 'Christians' established in a specific place at a specific time. The earliest reliable fixed point is the death of James in 62AD, as the AD49 incident was related to the followers of 'Chrestus' which may or may not have anything to do with 'Christ'.
There were clashes of some variety between the Romans and these Christians, resulting in sporadic persecutions and occasional executions.
They were accused of anti-social behaviour and were generally despised, but the history accounts don't really tell us why. They seem to be mostly lower class and uneducated (as far as the Romans are concerned).

That's not much. There was a group of people with a name that could derive from the word 'Christ'. They were disliked and occasionally small numbers of them were persecuted and killed.

So in attempting to piece together a picture of what the early Christians believed, the earliest evidence with a fixed date is the writings of Ignatius, and that is some 80 years after the death of Christ.

Of course, most people agree that the majority of writings in the New Testament were written between about 50AD and 100AD. But I've read and heard (via podcasts) a lot recently, questioning the early date of the canonical writings and, possibly more importantly, various evidences of how many of the canonical writings were edited (changed? combined? added to? had bits removed?) in the early and mid 2nd century.

Even if Paul wrote some of the letters in the 50s AD, if these have been tampered with, how can we get back to what was originally written? I'm sorry, but I'm not able to naively accept that the versions we have are the originals because 'the church wouldn't have changed them' or some such assumption. If there's evidence of tampering, its likely that tampering has occurred...

Anyway, Ignatius. He wrote some letters. As far as I know, these don't have much in the way of signs of tampering, so if he refers or alludes to New Testament writings, then it would imply that at least these bits of the NT date back to the 1st century, and gives us some evidence for early dates of (at least) the original 'strata' of the NT writings.

So I'm off to trawl through the epistles of Ignatius and I'll comment on what I find out in due course.

Paul, Marcion & the Church Fathers

2011-08-30T09:52:00.007Z

Here are a few statements that (I think) can be widely agreed by scholars on all sides of the various fences as being 'facts':

Marcion (or his followers) compiled the first collection of 'New Testament' books. This consisted of one Gospel and ten letters attributed to the Apostle Paul. This was in the early part of the 2nd century.
The Gospel used by Marcionites (and which they thought was by Paul) was similar to the gospel we now call 'Luke' although it was considerably shorter than the canonical version of Luke we are familiar with today.
The Epistles used by the Marcionites were, likewise, considerably shorter than the canonical versions of Paul's letters as we know then today. They were: Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Laodiceans [our "Ephesians"], Colossians, Philemon and Philippians.
In the late 2nd century (and later), the Church Fathers had access to longer versions of the Epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke and compared these with the Marcionite versions.
There is no documentary evidence of any pre-Marcionite Pauline Epistle or pre-Marcionite Gospel of Luke.

It is tricky to reconstruct what might have happened way back then.

The orthodox view is that:

Paul wrote the Epistles, pretty much as we have them today. Someone else wrote Luke, pretty much as we have it today.
Marcion took them and edited them to suit his own purposes.

However, given the lack of evidence, at least two other possibilities should be considered. First that:

Paul wrote the Episles and Marcion used them without editing. Similarly with Luke.
An anti-Marcionite edited them to conform to the emerging 'catholic' worldview. Rehabilitating Paul (and Luke) in the process.

Or, possibly:

Marcion wrote the Epistles (and gospel, perhaps) and attributed them to Paul.
An anti-Marcionite edited them to conform to the emerging 'catholic' worldview. Rehabilitating Paul in the process.

How can we choose between these options? I don't think we have any evidence to refute either of the latter two. All we can do is appeal to the majority - most people believe the orthodox view, so it is more likely that it is the truth. The problem is, that most people believe the orthodox view, because it was the orthodox view that won in the battle of the ideologies. The winner in a contest isn't always the 'right' one.

The water gets further muddied when you consider 'redaction criticism' - in many places it does look like the epistles of Paul have been edited or partially rewritten by later writers. I have on my shelf a copy of J.C. O'Neill's commentary on Romans. In it he pulls the book of Romans to bits and attempts to reconstruct the 'original' Pauline letter. His reconstruction is less than a third of the canonical version. I must say that I find it implausible that quite so much additional material was added to Romans in the space of a few decades, apparently by several different editors, and that no traces survive of earlier (less edited) versions of the letter. However, many of his points are valid, and it certainly looks as if someone has padded out Romans with some additional material. Bultmann referred to this person as the 'Ecclesiastical Redactor' and David Trobisch has claimed that this was Polycarp in his book "The First Edition of the New Testament".

So does the 'fact' that the canonical letters of Paul have apparently been edited lend any support to either of the later options? Well, possibly yes, although all it really casts a question over is whether the canonical letters of Paul are the same as when Paul wrote them. The evidence seems to indicate someone has edited them - presumably with a purpose. And presumably that purpose was to either remove offending content (i.e. content that disagreed with the view of the editor) or to add in sanitising content (i.e. content representing the views of the editor, which softens the blow of some other content, which has been retained).

I've not really got a conclusion here. Except to say that I can't see a strong case for believing in the orthodox transmission route. Someone wrote the Epistles, this much is clear. Some later person edited them, this is probable. Some of the content is not from the original writer, possibly. So how can you justify using these writings as a guide for living? Well, for the most part, it works. You could choose to simply be pragmatic and live by a system that has been shown to work. But what if its not true? This is where the buck stops for me. Not whether it works or not, but whether its true.

Still don't know.

Apologetics vs the Scientific Method

2011-08-24T09:41:00.000Z

I've listened to a lot of apologetics lately. I mean a lot.

It has left me very frustrated. Apologetics is, or should be, a defense of the Christian faith. It really should stem from 1 Peter 3v15:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (NIV)

I find it interesting that the word 'reason' features so centrally in that verse. For it is the lack of reason in apologetics which is annoying me.

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is a tried and tested way of using evidence (generally, but not always, in the form of experiments) to confirm or refute hypotheses. The process goes something like this:

Propose hypothesis or range of hypotheses. These may be based on prior knowledge or may be pure speculation.
Carry out experiment or make observation which is able to provide evidence relevant to the hypotheses.
Attempt to falsify the hypotheses using the evidence.
Hypotheses which are refuted (shown to be falsifiable) by the evidence are dismissed.
Hypotheses which are unable to be falsified are considered to be reasonable and are held to be valid until further evidence is found.

Stage 3 is crucial in the scientific method. It is only by attempting to falsify each hypothesis that its worth is ultimately found.

Apologetics also considers evidence and hypotheses. However, the chain of events is somewhat different:

Apologetic Method

Start with a range of hypotheses (i.e. beliefs), generally derived from the bible or church tradition.
When new evidence is presented, formulate a plausible argument which can be used to explain why the evidence is consistent with the prior hypotheses.
If no plausible argument can be found, attempt to discredit or refute the evidence. In extreme cases, simply ignore the evidence.
If none of that works, simply get the argument bogged down in really technical theories so that the audience is bamboozled or loses interest.
Assert that the hypothesis is validated.

There are two basic problems here. The first is that the apologist assumes, from the outset, that the hypotheses are true. The apologist is convinced of that, so in the event of an apparent tension between hypothesis and evidence, it must be the evidence, or our understanding of it, which is at fault. The validity of the hypotheses is never seriously considered.

The second problem falls in the plausible argument. Just because an argument is plausible, doesn't mean that its probable or actually true.

The crux of the issue is that when there is a tension between hypothesis and evidence, science assumes that the hypothesis is flawed, while apologetics assumes that the evidence is flawed.

Of course, the evidence could be flawed. But apologetics will never lead to refinements in the hypotheses, thus will never take us closer to the truth about reality. Science just might.

The God of Moses and Joshua (and his implications)

2011-08-22T10:00:00.001Z

Every now and then, books or articles I read touch on the question of the (apparent) immoral behaviour of God as presented in the early books of the Old Testament - particularly the stories of the conquest of Canaan.

God, as presented in these books, commands his people to slaughter entire towns and nations, not merely killing the soldiers involved in battles, but killing women, children and even animals. Sometimes it is implied that the women and children of the defeated enemies may be kept as slaves, sometimes even sex slaves. But it goes beyond that, God is also presented as enacting extreme vengeance on his own people - sometimes commanding groups of them to slaughter other groups of them, and sometimes sending disease, poisonous snakes, etc. among them.

What are we supposed to do with these passages? Ignore them, explain them away, believe them, in some way base our own behaviour on them? Did these events actually happen? Did God command these events?

Here are all the possible options, as I see it (if there are others, please comment and tell me):

It happened more or less as recorded. God did and commanded these things. His people carried out genocide in his name. This makes God (and the people who obey his commands) morally responsible for the actions and would mean that the bible contains accurate history and theology.
The events happened; the people did the genocide. But not all of the events were commanded or enacted by God. This makes the people morally responsible, but lets God off the hook. This would mean that the bible contains accurate history but inaccurate theology.
God commanded such things, but the people did not carry out the genocide. This makes God morally responsible, lets the people off the hook, and would mean that the bible contains inaccurate history but accurate theology.
God did not command such things. The events did not happen. This would make the bible neither historically accurate or theologically accurate.

Ever since I first wrestled with these issues, I have kind of assumed that option 2 was the closest to the truth. That the (later) writers of the biblical accounts knew the events in their own history and theologised them by inserting the commands of God into the story to explain or defend the behaviour of their ancestors.

The reason for this choice was basically based on the presupposition that God is good. And therefore God could not have commanded such acts. The story (as presented) seems inconsistent with the known character if the loving God, so there must be something wrong. God could not have issued these commands, so they must be insertions of the authors, not historical events.

The problem with this assumption is that it reduces the biblical accounts to being simply wrong on the question of what God is like. I never really grasped the consequences of this belief before, but if the bible is wrong on this issue, then we have no basis for knowing what God is like from any parts of the bible. If this bit is wrong, why should we expect that (for example) Isaiah or Jeremiah are any more accurate, and what about Matthew or Romans?

Pretty much all we know about the character of God comes from the bible. So here all I was doing was taking the picture of God as presented in one part of the bible, and assuming that to be true, and using it to dismiss an alternative picture of God, given in another part of the bible. I never, until recently, noticed the flaw in that reasoning. Put simply, there is no way of knowing which of the pictures of God presented in the bible is the true one. Indeed, there is no way of knowing if any of them are true.

But if we can't distinguish between them, how can we have any faith? I think there's three options:

Choose to believe that all of the biblical pictures are able to be reconciled and that all, equally, paint an accurate and true picture of God. This is the view of most conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists and is more or less the view I was raised to believe. However, it is now a view I have to reject. The more I read, the more I reflect on these issues, the more I see that the bible does not present a uniform and reconcilable picture of God, rather it presents multiple pictures which, quite simply, do not present the same God. At best, the bible presents multiple flawed views and misunderstandings of the real God. At worst, it could be that none of the views contain enough truth to be trustworthy. Which brings us to point 2.
Chose to disbelieve all of the biblical pictures. If none of the pictures can be shown to be trustworthy, then all should be rejected. This way, inevitably, leads to agnosticism. Possibly the whole way to atheism. The more I read (on all sides of the discussion), the more compelling this option seems to become. Perhaps this is the only truly rational choice. But its a choice I haven't made (yet?).
The final option, as I see it, is to pick your favourite view of God, as presented in the bible, and run with it. I think that's what most believers do in practice anyway, without actually thinking about it, but it is possible to be intentional about it too. This seems to be what certain denominations do by defining a statement of faith, etc. For example, in a recent sermon from The Meeting House, they expressed the opinion that their whole belief system is intentionally viewed through the lens of the Gospels. In other words, they start with the words of Jesus and if they encounter anything that seems to disagree with that picture, the Jesus picture trumps the alternative. Jesus trumps Paul's opinions, Jesus picture of the loving Father trumps the OT God of vengeance, etc. The problem for me is that this leaves you with the problem of how to choose which picture to follow? There is no compelling reason to choose one over another. Yes, choosing the Jesus picture is more consistent with contemporary morality than choosing the Moses/Joshua picture, but that doesn't make one more true or accurate than the other. It really does boil down to picking a favourite, or, in most cases, accepting (or never questioning) the picture that you were raised with. I'm no longer sure what to believe, and I'm also not sure if I can justify (to myself) deciding to believe one option, when the evidence for any of them is so slight.

But back to the original question of the Canaanite genocide.

The more I've read on the subject recently, the more things point to options 3 or 4 (from the first list up there) being closer to reality. There is no archaeological evidence that these events actually happened. Indeed, a close look at the biblical evidence (the list of unconquered lands at the end of Joshua) makes it clear that the genocide never happened either - the unconquered lands after the alleged genocide include several of the lands which should have been wiped out already.

So, either God commanded genocide, but the Israelites did not follow through, or God did not command any such thing, so it never happened.

Believing either of these options is to acknowledge that the bible is wrong. The stories are not history, they are reduced to tall tales of the olden days, which may contain nuggets of events which actually happened, but most of the story, including the commands of God, are embellishments, added by storytellers around the campfire or added by historians with an agenda to push - perhaps bolstering the claim that the Israelites were ethnically different from the Canaanites ("We must be, there's none of those guys left...").

This leads us to the point of acknowledging, once again, that some of the stuff in the bible is simply not true. Perhaps, in some cases, it is deliberate fiction. This brings us, of course, again, to the question of how you can distinguish the truth from the falsehood, and if there is any truth in there at all. And I'm slowly coming to the realisation that you can't.

Its an all or nothing thing. Accept all of the bible as true and accurate (yes, I know that some of it is poetry and some is allegory, so some of it can't be true or accurate within its own genre type) with regard to history and with regard to claims of the character of God. Or. Reject it all as true or accurate.

Problem is, I can't accept it all without rejecting reason, logic and common sense, but I don't want to reject it all. I am more than slightly concerned that "can't" inevitably trumps "don't want to", which leads to only one inevitable outcome. Maybe I have to make that choice eventually. But not yet.

Unity

2011-08-11T23:47:00.005Z

John 17v20-23:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

I've been listening to a fascinating sermon series from The Meeting House in Canada over the past few weeks. It's called 'One Church' and each week, for the last 8 or 9 weeks, they have invited leaders from different denominations to their own to come and explain the basic beliefs of that denomination and to preach a short message in The Meeting House. So far I've listened to talks from the perspective of the Anglican Church, The Brethren in Christ (which is the denomination of the Meeting House, not to be confused with the Brethren), the Salvation Army, Presbyterians, Catholics, Pentecostals, the United Church of Canada, and Harvest Bible Chapel. There was a sermon by Philip Yancey in the middle there too.

In addition to that, the pastors of The Meeting House do a separate podcast called the 'Round Table' in which they delve deeper into some of the issues raised in the Sunday sermons. I've listened to a few of those too. Highly recommended.

The aim of the series, as expressed many times in the podcasts, is to try and learn from 'other parts of the body of Christ'. They say that there is unity in the body of Christ, even though it is split into many denominations.

And yet, when you listen to the discussions between the various denominations, it is clear that several of them (perhaps not all) have the underlying viewpoint that 'we are right and you are wrong, and your way of being Christians is fundamentally flawed'. In other words, they speak of unity, and yet it is clearly not there in any real or tangible way.

Last week, they read the passage quoted above, where Jesus prays for unity among all believers. It had never really occurred to me before, but now it seems clear to me that here we have an example of a prayer that Jesus prayed which simply, in the past two thousand years, has not been answered.

Sure, parts of the church have shown unity at various times in history, but the history of the church is largely one of schism and disunity, not one of communion and unity.

The disunity in the church has always bothered me. But I'd never noticed before that the disunity is evidence that God didn't answer Jesus's prayer. The implications of that are huge. And I think I'll leave it until another post before I unpack that one...

Nerds?

2011-08-10T08:12:00.002Z

Love Rob Wins Bell...

2011-07-26T07:45:00.001Z

I've finally got around to reading the 'controversial' Rob Bell book 'Love Wins'. Its a very short book. Shorter even than it looks. Because (as I've said before)

Rob Bell

tends to write

large chunks

of the book

like this.

For emphasis, I assume.

But leaving that aside, what are my thoughts on the book?

I'm not sure I need to warn you of spoilers here, but if you read on, please be aware that I will be summarising my take on what Rob Bell says in this book and giving my opinions on his opinions. If you don't want to know what he says until you've read the book yourself, now would be a good point to stop reading.

(Regular readers of this blog will know that my current doubts are questioning things like the historical accuracy of the stories in the bible and whether Jesus really said the things attributed to him, but I shouldn't really bring issues like that into my thoughts on this book, so here I'll comment on this book without, for the most part, questioning most of its underlying assumptions, e.g. that the gospels are reasonably accurate accounts of what Jesus said and did, and who he was.)

Let's take the book chapter by chapter:

Preface: Millions of us

This is a fair point, well made. Christianity has never been a uniform thing, with one set of beliefs shared by all. Virtually all beliefs in any part of contemporary Christianity have been held by some people in generations gone by. There is no such, well defined, 'thing' as Christianity. Also, there are a lot of folk put off by the 'hellfire & brimstone' type preaching, so he's right. This book has an audience.

Chapter 1: What about the flat tire?

Loads of questions. As yet unanswered. Case over-stated. Makes you want to read on, but is a bit irritating. Let's see if the rest of the book lives up to this intro.

Chapter 2: Here is the new there

This is where the book gets interesting. What do we mean by 'heaven'? More importantly, what did Jesus (and the writers of the bible) mean by 'heaven'? Have 2000 years of history shifted our understanding?

Well, yes they have, and Bell makes the case quite convincingly.

Christianity is not about what happens to you after you die.
The gospel is not about what happens to you after you die.
Jesus's teaching is not about what happens to you after you die.
Eternity is not about what happens to you after you die.
Heaven is not about what happens to you after you die.

The bible talks about 'the current age' and 'the age to come'. The latter of which is not necessarily a reference to something post-mortem, but comes when God has established 'the kingdom' on earth. When the earth is renewed.

Basically Bell explains that what the bible means by heaven is not what our contemporary society understands by heaven. All well and good, and ties in with my favourite ever Rob Bell sermon, but what the chapter doesn't really discuss, in any depth, is what actually does happen to the believer or the non-believer after they die.

If the 'age to come' is an earthly age, even a 'heaven on earth' age, then will people die there? What happens then?

In reading this chapter I kind of felt that Bell had done a slight of hand and had ended up answering a different question to the one posed. Or maybe the bible really doesn't answer the 'post-mortem' question?

Yes, in general, I agree with all of his points, 'heaven' can be here not there, but what does happen when we die? That question isn't adequately addressed either here or in the rest of the book!

Chapter 3: Hell

This is the flip side of the previous chapter. Just as heaven can be here and not there, Bell shows that hell is also here, not there. Is there a post-mortem hell? The book doesn't fully answer that.

So hell is a present reality for some and will be a future reality for others, but what about when you die? This question - which seems to be the main selling point of the book - is not adequately addressed. Yes, he asks questions about it, but he doesn't really have a clear message to promote - by which I mean he doesn't say 'this is what might happen to someone when they die', rather he says things along the lines of 'that can't be right, can it?'

So, its thought provoking stuff, but offers little in the way of answers.

Chapter 4: Does God get what God wants?

This is the heart of Bell's reasoning. The bible says that God doesn't want any to perish. The bible says that God is all powerful. Therefore God will ensure that all will be 'saved' - whatever saved means (but we don't really go into that here).

Here I have to question one of the underlying assumptions of the book. The problem I see here is that Bell assumes that the bible has a single, coherent message. Essentially that all parts of the bible speak with the same voice. (I commented on this a couple of weeks ago when Rob Bell was on Unbelievable). The problem - as I see it - is that your whole view of what that one message is is entirely skewed by whatever passages you start with or choose to be your favourites.

It is clear to me (from reading this book) that Bell starts with the Gospel of John and some of the parables in the other gospels. Everything else starts from that foundation. He starts with 'God so loved the world' and builds his theology from that.

If you were to start from other verses or passages, then you'd end up with a completely different set of beliefs, but still think of them as 'bible based'.

I agree, if you start with John and the parable of the prodigal son / loving father, then you will inevitably end up with a God who cannot condemn anyone to hell. But that isn't the only picture painted in the bible and there is no clear way that I can see of choosing which of the possibilities is 'right', if indeed any of them are.

Chapter 5: Dying to live

This is where the book loses the plot. He doesn't quite say this, but gets fairly close to saying that Jesus death and resurrection are just another death and rebirth motif, like leaves falling off trees in the autumn and coming back in Spring. Its like 'everything dies and everything is reborn, and Jesus is just one of those things', which isn't exactly the case. This is where some people will have serious issues with Mr Bell. But not as much as in the next chapter.

Chapter 6: There are rocks everywhere

This is the chapter where Bell basically says that some people can 'be saved' and 'come to God' without knowing about Jesus. Yes, he says, Jesus is the only mediator between God and man, but anyone, with any experience of the divine, in whatever religious context, is reaching God through Jesus, even if they don't know it. He actually does go as far as to give the cliche example of the mountain with many paths to the top.

Sorry Rob, but this isn't in the bible. No matter how hard you try, you won't find it there.

Now it may be that I am more inclined to agree with this kind of reasoning than I used to be, but this is where both Rob Bell and I diverge from what the bible says. Its just that I realise that and he apparently doesn't.

Chapter 7: The good news is better than that

Here Rob Bell pads out the prodigal son / loving father parable to the length of a chapter. For the prodigal son, he thought he could return as a servant, but the good news is better than that. For the older brother, he thought he was restricted by the Father, but everything the Father had was his, the good news was better than that. And so on.

If God is love now and shows his love to you now, will he suddenly change character, and his attitude to you at the moment of your death? Probably not. The good news is probably better than that.

This feels like an unnecessary chapter. Bell has already made all of his points, but the book needs to be a bit longer, so he's added a couple of chapters. More of the same, really.

Chapter 8: The end is here

So we get to the end. What is Bell's final message? Well, its more or less 'live life like each day could be your last'. In the end, his main question is not what happens after you die, but he is much more interested in what you do before you die.

He doesn't really say this, but I think he's saying that we should live life right now, and leave whatever happens in the future (both pre- and post-mortem) in the hands of a loving God.

And that's it. A book that doesn't really answer the question it apparently set out to answer, but does a bit of slight of hand and answers a few different ones. In ways that will make (and already has made) a lot of conservative Christians quite annoyed. But this book isn't about answering the questions, its about making the reader think about the questions and, hopefully, reach their own answers.

Some will read this book and will simply reject what it says.

Some will read this book and think 'so what?'

But some will read this book and it will give them hope for the future and a better picture of a loving God. Those people are who Rob Bell wrote his book for. I hope many of them find it.

In the time since 'Love Wins' has come out, a number of the outraged conservative types have written books in response. Books like: "Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We Made Up" by Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle (I hope he doesn't preach a message of baptism by total immersion!) and "God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins" by Mark Galli & Randy Alcorn. I have no plans to read any of these. Sigh.

Belief and knowledge

2011-07-25T06:30:00.001Z

I've touched on this subject before, but I'm back at it from a different point of view. What can we claim to have 'knowledge' about and what is only 'belief'?

The distinction I'm making is that I think knowledge is the subset of beliefs which can be validated by experience or logical deduction, whereas non-knowledge beliefs are those which is is not (currently) possible to validate or verify.

Unfortunately, for the Christian, I think that the balance is something kind of like this:

That is, the stuff we can know about God by experience is heavily dominated by the stuff that is belief by deduction (and our logic may be wrong, of course) and belief by doctrine (i.e. what comes directly from the Bible or what we're taught in Church, but which is impossible to test).

For example, I think that it is possible to know that:

Prayers are sometimes answered.

And from that, with some piled up experience we can deduce that:

God (sometimes) answers prayer.

But to go beyond that and say that the God who answered your prayer is the same God who created the world, is to go into the unverifiable realm of doctrine.

As I see it, only things that relate to the present can be experienced and hence verified, anything relating to the past (creation, events in biblical times, etc.) is mere belief, as is anything relating to the future, in particular anything relating to the 'age to come' (heaven, hell, eternal life, etc.).

Importantly, I don't see any way in which experiences in the present can validate beliefs about the past or the future, although Christianity (and presumably other faiths) more or less relies upon the assumption that the one can validate the other. The common reasoning seems to go like this: Christianity asserts N things, you can have experiences that validate M of them (where M << N), but because M are validated, then we can assume that the remaining N-M assertions are also validated. Sorry, I just can't accept that anymore.

Often we insert false correlations into our deductions. Such as we make the logical jump from:

God speaks to me through the bible

The bible must be the Word of God.

But I'm not sure that logically follows. Maybe God speaks to you through the bible simply because that's the book through which you expect him to talk. Maybe he could speak through the morning newspaper, but you're not looking for guidance there, so its easier to speak through the place you're looking in.

I just read through the 'statement of faith' of the church that I attend. Well over 90% of the statements in it fall into the (unverifiable) belief category, and the few remaining statements are all deductions (relating to the Holy Spirit) which may be partially tested based on experience.

As you can no doubt tell, I'm having a big problem at the moment justifying (to myself) making life choices that are based entirely on unjustified and untestable doctrine. Especially when some of the doctrinal assertions appear to be flawed or simply false. If some are false, my confidence in the others is greatly diminished.

I'd like to have a reasonable, rational faith. But it seems to me that in order to get there I need to jettison over 90% of my beliefs and put them into the 'I simply don't know' category.

Did God create the world: I simply don't know...
Is there only one God: I simply don't know...
Was Jesus born of a virgin: I simply don't know...
Was Jesus fully man and fully God: I simply don't know...
Did he have a bodily resurrection: I simply don't know...
Is there life after death: I simply don't know...
Is Christianity the only path to God: I simply don't know...
and so on.

Truth and filters

2011-07-14T22:59:00.001Z

Continuing from my previous thought...

Is Christianity the 'truth' or is it a lens/filter through which we see the 'truth'?

How can we discern the difference?

Of course, here I am assuming that there is something which is reasonable to call 'truth'. Basically what I'm aiming for here is some way of assessing to what extent our presuppositions and cultural filters modify the way we perceive our interactions with (what, for lack of a better, all-encompassing phrase, I will call) the supernatural realm. Of course, this presupposes a supernatural realm.

But let's start with that supposition, that the supernatural realm is a reality and that there is at least one god or supernatural being within it, and that we are able to interact with it/him somehow.

Is Christianity the best way of accessing the supernatural realm? Is it the only way of getting access to it? Does the Christian world-view in any way filter or distort the way we perceive the supernatural realm? And, most importantly, is it possible to know the answer to any of these questions without actually trying out alternative filters?

Christianity makes a very strong, exclusive claim: "[Jesus is] the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by [Jesus]". The claim is not only that Christianity is the best way to access the supernatural god, but it is the only way. All other ways lead elsewhere. Or, to use my current imagery, no other filters or lenses allow us to see the truth.

There's a couple of parables which suggest that once you have found 'the truth' you should do anything to keep hold of it - the parables of the pearl of great price and the treasure buried in the field. But even if you have found treasure in a field, how do you know there's not more treasure buried in a different field? I suppose one pot of buried treasure aught to be enough for anyone, but I think I'm losing the track here, the point is, even though you've found something, how can you know that it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth unless you keep looking in other places?

Maybe there's other sets of presuppositions that actually give a clearer picture of the truth?

Unless you consider the other viewpoints, you can never see just how skewed a picture of reality your own viewpoint actually gives...

What I'm wondering is this, does our Christian worldview completely colour our understanding of our interactions with the spiritual realm? We see all our interactions through a 'trinitarian' lens (for example), so we see God the Spirit at work in certain events. But maybe if you view the exact same interactions through a Hindu filter, you see Vishnu (or whatever) at work. Maybe we all just interpret events through our cultural filters and interpret meaning into them which validates our presuppositions.

Can we actually know God? Or do our presuppositions completely distort his reality?

Second hand revelation

2011-06-29T08:07:00.002Z

Continuing the current stream of doubting...

I go to a church where people regularly have 'words of knowledge' or 'pictures' or other apparent direct revelations from God. Some have apparently had dreams conveying meaning from God. And while they don't generally do this in the main church service, I know that many of them speak in tongues.

I have never had any of these experiences.

The only time I ever came close was when I was on a SU camp many years ago and was talking with someone who was going through a hard time. We were out in the hills and I remember looking across the valley and seeing a tree on the far side of the valley. It was a tree, standing on its own, on an otherwise featureless hillside. It was a windy and cloudy day, with the sun breaking though only occasionally and transiently, and the patches of sunlight moved and changed rapidly. Except, as I looked, the sun broke through the clouds and the lone tree was bathed in a patch of sunlight which seemed to remain on the tree and not change or shift for a couple of minutes (may have been less than that, but it seemed a relatively long time). Seeing that 'vision' (of something that was actually there) gave me an idea for the right encouraging word to say to my companion. I've always kind of interpreted that experience as a kind of 'vision', but maybe it was just part of an active imagination, while seeking to find the right words to say to a friend going through a rough patch.

But that's the extent of my experience. And yet I know people who apparently get 'pictures' or 'words of knowledge' on a weekly basis. Sometimes these seem to be specific and aimed at a particular person or situation, sometimes they are more general. But rarely (if ever) is there a way of testing these 'revelations' to see if they have a divine source. If someone says something like:

"I've got a picture of a tap, and its turned off, I think there's someone here who is feeling spiritually dry and needs to turn the tap on again..."

then it might be genuine revelation, or it might be a random thought that just occurred to them, but if its stated in a large enough Christian gathering, there's a fair chance that somebody there will be feeling spiritually dry on that day, and so will take this to be a message for them.

This is the problem I see, if a 'picture' is described, and there is somebody there who relates to it, then its taken as a message from God and boosts the faith of both the picture receiver and the one to whom it relates. But if there isn't someone who connects with the message, it is rarely taken to mean that the picture was wrong, misinterpreted or just imagination. There is no negative feedback loop - only a positive one or a no-effect one. So, basically, whether or not these pictures come from God, so long as somebody does this often enough, the net effect will be to boost their faith, not only in God (who may have had nothing to do with the process), but also in the 'picture' ability.

In addition to that, the interpretation of such pictures is always (in services that I've been at, at least) positive and encouraging. Even if the picture is of a raging torrent of water, the interpretation is never that someone is going to be swept away and smashed on the rocks, the interpretation will be something about the power of God to break into some situation or other. So, even if the pictures do come from a divine source, perhaps the interpretation is derived from church culture rather than from above? In the Old Testament, some of the prophets had no problem issuing dire warnings based on their interpretations of the revelations they apparently received, but maybe that was just part of the cultural filter of the day? I fully expect that in some Christian sub-cultures, in some parts of the world, revelations from God are still interpreted in such a manner. But not in our culture. As far as I can tell, the culture shapes the message. If that is the case, is there any need for a divine origin for the message?

My point is this. How can you know if any claimed revelation is genuine?

Someone receives a picture and interprets it that they need to open your arms and embrace their neighbours. Is that from God? Well, at least it is consistent with some bits of the bible. So maybe it is? Revelation which is consistent with culture is endorsed.

Someone else receives a picture and interprets it that they need to kill their neighbours. Is that from God? Well, that too is consistent with some parts of the bible. But I doubt that most churches would endorse this. Culture trumps revelation.

Both pictures there could be the product of an active imagination. Or both could be from God. But both are filtered through at least two interpretation layers - that of the person seeing the picture and that of the culture. So if someone shares a picture with you, how on earth can you know what to do with it?

What has to be taken on faith?

2011-06-18T08:00:00.001Z

What has to be taken on faith?

And what can we reasonably expect there to be evidence or experience for?

Does faith refer to the future, the present or the past?

Take the 'heroes of faith' chapter in Hebrews 11 as an example, here's the whole text, with interjections by me:

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Here it would seem that faith refers to God's actions in the past - we have no evidence that God formed the universe, so we have to take it on faith.

4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

Here I think it is safe to say that Abel did not need faith to know that there was a God, or that God wanted offerings. Rather, his faith related to the way he approached God.

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The Enoch verse is odd, as it doesn't tell us anything about how Enoch's faith was manifested, but verse 6 is interesting, in that it implies that even the existence of God is something we have to take on faith. Does that mean there is no evidence for God? I'll come back to this below...

7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

Here Noah receiving the warning was not an act of faith, his faith was demonstrated through the way he responded. He believed the warning was true and put that into action.

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Here again, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah show their faith through believing the promises that they were given. Receiving the promise was not an act of faith, and it doesn't seem like their belief in the promise giver was an act of faith, only the way they trusted the promise and acted accordingly.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

This is a bit odd, as some of those listed above did receive the things promised before they died. Anyway...

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Once again, faith is demonstrated in trust. Not trust that God exists, but trust that the things God says are true.

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

I'm not sure what these three examples teach us about faith, but hey.

23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

God spoke to Moses audibly out of a weird burning bush. Hearing that voice was not an act of faith, acting upon what the voice said was.

30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

And again, faith is demonstrated by believing that that the instructions of God are trustworthy and acting on them.

32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

So in almost all cases, except verses 3 & 6, faith is seen to be trusting the promises of God, and acting accordingly. Belief by itself is not enough, faith seems to be belief in action.

In almost all instances there, the pattern is this:

God speaks (audibly, visibly, clearly) to someone.
Person acts on the basis of the message, even if they can't necessarily see the end result.
Faith is demonstrated by believing the message and acting on it.

However, for us, there are a lot more links in the chain. Do we have to take all of these on faith?

For the vast majority of us, the 'message' comes to us from words written down some 1900 to 2500 years ago. It is filtered through our own personal interpretation of the words, and through the imposed interpretation of the (church) culture we are part of or were raised in. Beyond that, for most of us, there is the filter of the translation, and possibly also the filter of transmission. Next we have to contend with the filter of canonical selection (Were all the 'words of God' included in the canon? Was anything else let in by mistake? Were any genuine 'words of God' omitted?) and (so some claim) the filter of the 'ecclesiastical redactor' who may have edited some of the NT writings before they became 'canon'. Beyond that, we don't know with any certainty who wrote most of the NT writings, and we have no idea at all who wrote the majority, if not all, of the OT.

Were the gospels written by eyewitnesses? If they weren't (as seems probable), then where did the information come from? How many jumps are there between the eyewitnesses and the written documents? Did any spurious stories make their way into the gospels? If so, how can we distinguish the facts from the fiction?

There's too many question marks there. Either you accept (on faith) that our contemporary interpretation of the books of the bible is 'The Word of God' or you doubt one bit and the whole edifice begins slowly to crumble. Without faith in the end product, there's almost not compelling evidence for believing any of it.

What evidence is there that the Bible is the Word of God?

Indeed, what evidence is there that there is a God to have a Word?

I think many Christians would use the existence of God as evidence for the Bible, and would use the Bible as evidence for the existence of God. But that's circular reasoning and gets you nowhere.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not doubting the existence of the Deity in general, but I am beginning to doubt the existence of the God-in-three-persons as interpreted from the Bible. If you use the Bible as the filter through which to view God, you get a definite and fairly well defined picture of God. And that is what I am currently questioning.

I believe in 'religious experience' and I believe it is evidence for the existence of the divine. But the more I reflect on this, the greater a gulf I see between experience and the Christian picture of God. As I said in a previous post, I believe in the Holy Spirit, its just the Divine Father and the Divine Son that I'm wrestling with. Or rather, I'm wondering if the 'Holy Spirit' of Christianity today, and the 'Father' who Jesus prayed to, and the God of the Old Testament are simply the same God. Not different aspects of God, not different persons in a Trinity, just one God, the same one. I wonder if we've been misunderstanding God for the best part of two thousand years, perhaps much, much longer.

Almost all of what Christians believe is taken on faith from the Bible. What if the bible is in error? I don't see that we have any way of testing the authenticity of the bible. Indeed, historical criticism of the Bible has shown, in many different ways, that it is a human document, which has been compiled, edited, changed, rearranged and contains errors. Unless you take it unquestioningly at face value, there is no compelling evidence to believe in the God it presents, over any other God presented in any other holy book.

I'm not sure I have enough faith to believe in that God anymore. Largely because the reasons I had for my faith have been shown to be resting on very scant evidence.

Son of God?

2011-05-22T06:19:00.007Z

This may seem like an odd question to most Christians, but what do we mean when we say 'Son of God'?

In what way is/was Jesus God's son?

I had a look at the dictionary at what 'son' means, and it says this:

a male child or person in relation to his parents.
a male child or person adopted as a son; a person in the legal position of a son.
any male descendant.

Which doesn't help much. If sonship requires parents (plural) then option 1 is discounted. If sonship requires adoption then option 2 is discounted. If sonship requires a line of descent, then option 3 is discounted. So in what way is Jesus the 'son' of God?

Contemporary theology (and this goes back at least 1800 years) views Jesus as co-eternal with God the Father. So in what sense is Jesus the 'Son' of the 'Father'? If there was no 'time' in which God was and Jesus was not, then the Son is not and cannot be the descendent of the Father.

Sometimes sonship refers to inheritance - perhaps Jesus is the heir to the Father in some way? But this only works if the Father is going to die or otherwise pass on the inheritance, and I don't see that in Christian theology.

Or maybe it refers to authority, somehow? Perhaps the Father has authority over the Son? But I thought the Son was given the name above all names? Surely that means he has the ultimate authority?

Basically where I'm at is that I can't see how Jesus can be both part of the Trinity and the Son (in any meaningful way) of God. If he's part of the Trinity, then surely 'brother' would be a better human analogy. If he's the 'Son' in some rational way, then he cannot be part of the Trinity.

It would appear that in the OT times, 'Son of God' was a phrase taken to represent God's human representative on earth - generally the king, although I think it may also have been used of Moses, Elijah and a few others.

Why don't/can't we see Jesus in the same way?

Did the early church turn the human Jesus into a God? (But keep the 'Son of God' terminology and just ignore the contradictions it brought with it?)

Rob Love Bell Wins... or something

2011-05-03T08:56:00.001Z

Sitting on my bedside, ready to be read is a copy of Rob Bell's 'controversial' new book 'Love Wins'. I am not going to pre-judge it, so I can't really pass comment on it yet.

However, I have just listened to Rob Bell 'defending' his book/viewpoint on the Unbelievable podcast, with Justin Brierley and 'Christian blogger' Adrian Warnock.

Some observations:

Rob Bell does the classic apologist thing of answering a question with another question. Which gets a bit annoying after a while as there is never any resolution to any line of questioning. At the end of the podcast Rob Bell had never actually stated what it is that he believes, he had merely questioned the issues around 'conventional' belief.
He had a very good point to make about the Greek and Hebrew words translated as 'eternal' in English. And this point was entirely lost on the others in the studio with him.
Fundamentally, I think, the issue boils down to this: does the Bible paint a single, coherent picture of God, or does it actually paint a multi-faceted picture of him, which contains discrepancies and even contradictions? Both Rob and Adrian seem to hold to the former option, but both are viewing different facets of the picture as their starting point. I would argue that the former opinion is a belief that is forced onto the text, not a conclusion from reading the text at face value.

Anyway. I'll read the book soon and let you know my opinion on it after that, for what its worth.

The way and the truth and the life.

2011-05-02T12:51:00.004Z

John 14v6 is one of those verses I have known all my life:

"Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

This is one of those 'but what does that actually mean?' verses. What does it actually mean for me, here, now? In what way is Jesus 'the way'? In what way is he 'the truth' or 'the life'?

I've been reading (and listening on podcasts) a lot recently about the 'evolution' of the Christian message and how you can track developments in belief from the early writings (letters of Paul), through the early gospel accounts (Mark and 'Q'), how they change in the later synoptics (Matthew and Luke) and how there is another change in belief before the final canonical gospel is written (John), perhaps four or five decades after Paul. Basically, this is all part of the 'synoptic problem'.

Scholarly consensus seems to be that Jesus never spoke many of the words attributed to him in the 4th Gospel. The evidence seems pretty compelling. I am convinced.

So, Jesus never spoke those words. They were put - fictively - into the mouth of Jesus by the writer (or editor) of the 4th gospel, and relate to his interpretation of the message of Jesus, not necessarily going back to anything Jesus himself actually said or did.

So what of 'the truth'? If this statement is fiction, who is the Jesus who is the truth? Certainly not the one described in the 4th gospel.

What about the Jesuses described in the synoptic gospels, are any of them 'the truth'?

Here's the problem, if one of the accounts is blatantly non-historical, is there any reason to believe any of the others are historical? It seems not. The gospels contain the beliefs of their authors (who may represent specific communities) about Jesus, but not necessarily the history of Jesus. The 4th gospel writer put words into the mouth of Jesus to suit his purposes, is it not also likely that the other three did too?

So if there is/was a Jesus who was 'the truth', then he is forever lost to history. Thus the statement that he is the truth is fairly useless to us here and now.

And where does this leave the way and the life?

Pretty much in the same boat.

Where I find myself now is confused (as usual) and coming to the realisation that many of the good things associated with 'the way' (i.e. the Christian life) are not unique to Christianity. Indeed, some aspects of Christian belief might actually be hindering some people having 'life in all its fulness' (John 10v10) rather than promoting it (thinking here - for example - about the ongoing homosexuality debate, which I am not about to go into now).

The more I think about these things, the more baggage I see that can be stripped away from the Christian life to get to the essence of what 'the way' is about. Unfortunately (and I really, really, didn't want to get to the conclusion at the outset, but I can't - in all honesty - escape from it), this leaves me questioning the divinity of Jesus. There is good evidence that there was a man, revered by many, in 1st century Palestine, who preached a message of peace, repentance and simplicity, and who did not believe himself to be God. He was crucified in Jerusalem about 1981 years ago. After his death, his followers began to consider him as messiah, sometime after that they believed he was in some way divine, and eventually they elevated him to full godhood. But believing that was not part of the original 'way'.

The original 'way' was about this:

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6v8. Prayer, worship, being a blessing to others, putting others as more important than yourself, investing time in relationships, standing up for the needs of the oppressed, etc., etc. This is 'the way'.

But where, these days, can you practice all that when you're unsure if Jesus is God?

The Bible's Buried Secrets

2011-04-02T22:58:00.001Z

Did you see the recent documentary series on BBC2? Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou presented a three part series attempting to 'prove' some controversial theories with the aid of archaeology. Conservative Christians up and down the UK tweeted and blogged their outrage.

For what its worth, here's my take on what she had to say. I suppose all this contains spoilers, if you haven't seen the shows.

Episode 1. Was there a King David?
Yes. Next.
Well, the most I think you can say from the evidence presented in the programme was that there probably was a historical King David, but that some of the claims made about him in the bible may be a bit exaggerated. But when you find inscriptions relating to a king 'of the line of David' from a time, supposedly only 100 or so years after the alleged time of David, then I'm happy to believe that, yes, there was at some point a bloke called David. His descendent was a king, so its not unreasonable to think that he might have been a king too.

Episode 2. Did God have a wife?
Now this is the one that got people in a flap. But the bible makes it clear, Ashera was worshiped in the same temple as God, in Jerusalem, for at least 65% of the time that the (first) temple was there. Given the evidence, its not unreasonable to deduce that the people (well, the 'bad' kings and some priests at least, but presumably a significant subset of the people too) considered the goddess Ashera to be worthy of worship alongside God. Its not too far a jump from there to making them a couple. So if the question is 'Was God believed to have a wife by some people?' then the answer is certainly yes. The programme could not possibly address the question 'Did (the real) God have a wife?' as the assumption underlying the whole thing is that there was and is no real God.

Episode 3. Where was the garden of Eden?
This topic didn't actually sound that exciting to me, but I found this theory the most interesting and convincing of the three. The first temple was decorated as a garden? Totally plausible. The Adam character is the priest/king with the divinely appointed task of tending the 'garden'? Yes, I can see that. I'm surprised Melchizedek wasn't invoked at some point, given that he was priest and king in (Jeru)Salem. The Ezekiel stuff makes more sense in this context rather than talking about the fall of Lucifer. So, yes, I'm with the reasoning the whole way. Even the snake stuff. But at the end we never find out which king! Why not? Why not even speculate? Which King was Adam?

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham

2011-04-01T20:30:00.002Z

In recent months I've read more than my fair share of critical / liberal / unsound (delete as applicable) books on Biblical topics, so I figured it was time to read something reasonably sound for a change. Having heard Richard Bauckham defend the central thesis of this book on an episode of Unbelievable (on Premier Christian Radio) last year, I thought this might be interesting, thought provoking and possibly challenging.

The essential thesis of this book is that the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as they are commonly known) contain eyewitness testimony, and that this can be demonstrated from the texts themselves. Furthermore, the book claims that the 4th gospel was actually written by an eyewitness to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, mainstream Christian belief has always believed that the four gospels were written by the four characters whose names they bear: Matthew - one of the Twelve, Mark - a minor character in the Bible and an associate of Peter's, Luke - a minor character in the Bible and an associate of Paul's, and John - brother of James, one of the Twelve.

This book breaks away from that conventional belief by positing that the 'beloved disciple' who wrote the 4th gospel was called John, but was not John the son of Zebedee, brother of James. But we'll get there in a moment.

I found some bits of the book quite interesting, some thought provoking, tiny little bits challenging, and significant chunks of it really quite dull. The dullness reaches a peak in the final chapter of the book, when the author, having provided sufficient evidence to prove to himself that the four texts are eyewitness testimony, attempts to show why eyewitness testimony is so essential to the gospel. It is the longest and most completely unnecessary chapter in the book. And the final chapter makes the classic mistake of invoking an example from Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. As soon as someone invokes the Nazis in a debate, you know that they know that their case is weak. But anyway, back to the interesting bits.

Papias

The first part of Bauckham's thesis rests squarely on the writings of Papias, a Christian bishop who wrote in the early 2nd century, and who appears to have collected as many gospel stories as he could (earlier in his life, when eyewitnesses may have still been living) and compiled them into a written work which no longer exists. What we know of Papias, we know from later writers who quote him.

From what we know of Papias's writings, a few things are evident:

He knew of written gospels attributed to Mark, Matthew and possibly John.
He preferred oral testimony of eyewitnesses to written testimony.
He never met any eyewitnesses, but knew of two still living as he was compiling his work: 'John the Elder' and 'Aristion'. Neither of these were among the Twelve. Neither is named in any of the gospels.

From what Papias apparently wrote (I say 'apparently' as some scholars have serious doubts that what is attributed to Papias actually originated with him), it can be inferred that Mark's gospel contains the eyewitness testimony of Peter, recorded in Greek, but this account is not presented in chronological order. We can also glean that the gospel attributed to Matthew contained a translation (by persons unknown) of Matthew's recordings of his eyewitness testimony, originally recorded in Hebrew. Again, the order of events was understood to be incorrect. Finally, the gospel attributed to John the Elder was held to be both eyewitness testimony and presented in the correct order.

There is a problem here. The gospel we know as Matthew is clearly reliant on the gospel we know as Mark's. Several passages are word-for-word the same in Greek. This could not have happened if Matthew's gospel was a translation from a Hebrew original. This leaves us with two basic possibilities: either the gospel that Papias attributed to Matthew is not the same as the one we have that goes by that name, or Papias was simply wrong. Either way, this doesn't help to prove that our version of Matthew's gospel is reliable. Also, there is a further possibility that the gospel Papias knew as Mark wasn't actually the same as our Mark - there are some early, non-canonical writings which fit his description of Mark's gospel better than our Mark does.

Having said that, I found much of the stuff about Papias fascinating, and intend to read up on him at some point in the future.

The thing that Bauckham doesn't really go into detail about, and which really causes problems for his central thesis, is the incompatibility between points 1 and 2 about Papias above. Papias apparently believed the gospels he had were eyewitness testimony, and yet deferred to 2nd or 3rd hand stories transmitted orally out of preference. This makes no sense to me? Maybe its because I'm not a 2nd century person, but maybe its just because it doesn't add up. All we know about Papias's writings are a few snippets chosen, presumably selectively, by later writers. The majority of these snippets relate to Papias's opinions on the written gospels, not to the other stories he collected. Which he preferred. In other words, the material which Papias preferred is the stuff that has been lost, and our Bible only contains the less trustworthy material (as far as Papias was concerned).

Bauckham's central thesis appears to rely on giving Papias the benefit of the doubt, which certainly doesn't fill me with confidence in his conclusions.

But anyway, moving on...

Inclusio

The next pillar of Bauckham's thesis is that the gospels all contain hallmarks of witness testimony. In other words, they were all written in the style of testimony. Bauckham gets really quite bogged down into demonstrating that there is an 'inclusio' in the gospels: basically, that the text is arranged in such away as to demonstrate that the eyewitness upon whose testimony the gospel is based was present at the start of Jesus's ministry, and was still there at the end. Thus in Mark, Peter is the first named disciple, and the last mentioned disciple at the end of the story. This apparently demonstrates that the story is written from his point of view. In Luke, some unnamed women are mentioned early on and again at the end (hardly compelling that) and (least compelling of all) in John there is an unnamed disciple with Andrew right at the start (before Peter is named) and 'the beloved disciple' is the last referred to character (just after Peter's final mention). Of course, these must be the same person, right? Sorry, I'm not convinced.

Bauckham demonstrates the inclusio was used on other contemporary historical works, but - in my opinion - doesn't really gain anything by this. It almost seems like he's trying too hard to prove a flimsy case at this point. And in any case, just because a book is written in the style of a testimony, doesn't mean that the testimony is true. All this demonstrates is that the authors of these works wanted them to conform to a particular genre. (Incidentally, Luke's gospel apparently really mixes the genre styles and doesn't come across as a historical testimony, so say those in the know).

Form criticism

The next pillar of Bauckham's thesis is an attack on 'form criticism'. Bauckham paints a not very flattering caricature of the form critics and suggests that all their theories are all built on the assumption that the gospel stories existed more or less as 'folk tales' before being written down. Bauckham demonstrates that the transmission of the Gospel traditions was not of the form of folk tales, but was rather transmitted formally from named eyewitness to named 'tradent' and that the living eyewitnesses and first generation tradents functioned as a 'check' on the transmission of the stories during their circulation up to and including the time when they were written in gospel form. In other words, enough people knew the 'real' stories well enough to stamp out the transmission of false stories before they became established.

All well and good, but Bauckham's theory rests on a number of major assumptions, and the evidence of the gospels themselves tends to cast doubts on the theory. If there were a 'canonical' set of real stories ('pericopes' as the theologians say) which were handed down from tradent to tradent and kept rigorously in check by the eyewitnesses, then how can it be that the 4th gospel is so different from the others? There was clearly nobody keeping a check on this one. And this is the one that is claimed to be a genuine eyewitness testimony. Beyond that, the gospels which rely on Mark (i.e. Matthew and Luke) change details of the stories in the retelling. This implies that either they think Mark's version was wrong (that is, Mark's gospel wasn't kept in check by the tradents) or they had no qualms about modifying the stories to fit their own agendas (that is, their gospels weren't kept in check by the tradents). Furthermore, all of this relies on the assumption that the stories being transmitted were real in the first place. An eyewitness can correct a mistelling of the story of an event he witnessed, but he would be completely unable to 'correct' or refute a spurious story of a fictional event. Thus, the fictions would get wider transmission than the real events.

In summary of this, Bauckham's discussion attacks a methodology, but provides no compelling evidence that his alternative theory is able to take us back to anything real.

John

The final pillar of Bauckham's thesis is that John the Elder wrote the 4th gospel. I have to say that by the time I got here I was fairly bored with the book, and even though I stuck it out to the end, I'd lost interest. Yes, the 4th gospel appears to be written from the point of view of an eyewitness to some of the events, but I have to say that I find the case for this being Lazarus at least as compelling as the case for this being John the Elder, a character otherwise unknown in Christian literature. The evidence presented appears fairly flimsy. Yes, it does make a plausible case, but the reasoning is far from compelling and the conclusions are far from probable.

Also, the fact that the 4th gospel story flatly contradicts the synoptics is never dealt with here. In the other three gospels Peter goes to the empty tomb. In the 4th gospel the other disciple is present. Surely if there were two witnesses to the empty tomb the other gospels might have mentioned it?

Eyewitnesses?

In conclusion, I don't think Bauckham's book succeeds. It's central thesis doesn't convince me. And I'm a Christian who actually wants the thesis to be true, but sadly the evidence points the other way. I'm actually happy to believe that Mark's gospel contains some reminiscences from some of the original disciples, possibly Peter. But Matthew's and Luke's gospels are not. They're basically padded out versions of Mark and, for that reason alone, cannot be written by eyewitnesses. They were written by non-eyewitnesses who had heard some stories that weren't in Mark, and other stories that actually contradicted Mark, and they both sought to improve on the original gospel. As for the 4th gospel, while it is written from the point of view of an alleged eyewitness, I'm fairly convinced that this aspect of the narrative is fictional and the writer was someone who hadn't even spoken to any eyewitnesses, let alone been one.

I'm afraid I can't recommend this book to anyone as it is not compelling, is quite dull in large chunks, and is - essentially - wrong.

12 baskets?

2011-03-31T21:37:00.003Z

Don't know where this (minor) doubt came from, but I was listening to someone talking about the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 yesterday and it occurred to me just how fictional the story sounds.

Leaving aside the central miracle, the other details just don't ring true.

Matthew 14:

15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

The disciples and crowds didn't have any food with them but they did have 12 baskets? That sounds a bit funny. Beyond that, in a remote place, having distributed food to 5000 people, the disciples felt the need to collect the rubbish from the ground? It was just bread and bits of fish - the birds would have dealt with all that soon enough, and its not as if they needed it, they've just seen Jesus multiply food.

So even allowing the miracle as a possibility, it still seems pretty unlikely. More like a 'just so' story than a recollection of a real event.

Weaker Brother

2011-03-31T16:17:00.002Z

I came across this the other day. I might get one and wear it to church for a laugh...

I believe in the Holy Spirit

2011-03-01T10:45:00.006Z

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

"Good" I hear some of you cry. "Finally, after all that doubting, a sound post with a positive declaration of faith..."

Erm, well, sorry to disappoint you, but this isn't that post.

I'm wrestling with the whole area of faith vs experience at the moment. I'm working on a longer blog post on faith, which I'll post eventually, but I just realised this morning what it all boils down to. And that is this:

All my Christian experience leads me to believe, or rather to know that the Holy Spirit is an ever-present reality. (Hallelujah!)

I've seen the presence of the Spirit in my life and in the lives of others, I've experienced the promptings of the Spirit in my experience and I've even seen (minor) miracles and healings done in his name. Of course, I have heard tale of greater things than those, but I'm a skeptical sort, so I'll stick with "That which ... we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched" (1 John 1v1) rather than second or third hand reports.

The problem, or the doubt, is this:

While I know the existence of the Spirit, I don't (and can't) have equivalent experience of God the Father or of God the Son. Both of them are purely taken on faith. And that faith is built on things that were written thousands of years ago, by people possibly unknown to us. It takes a lot of faith to believe the words of that book. And when you doubt some of it (as I do, and have) you soon find that quite a lot of it unravels and falls apart.

Faith in the bible is (almost) an all or nothing stance. You can't have your cake and eat it. Life would be so easy if I could believe that the Bible was completely inspired and therefore infallible. But I've scratched at too many flaky bits to believe that anymore. But if bits of it are not infallible, or if bits of it are not inspired, then how can you decide which is which? And beyond that, how can you know if any of it is inspired, or indeed, if there was an inspirer?

The thing is, if you start with that which you can see and experience and go from there, I don't think you can ever get to the edifice of faith that is biblical Christian belief. Christian belief is a mixture of the experiential and the unverifiable written stuff. Most of which is just unquestioningly taken on board.

But if you start from the experiential and don't take on board the unverifiable, you end up in a radically different place to most Christians. Indeed, you end up closer to Pagans than Christians.

Confused? Yes I am! But still looking for the light.

Paul

2011-02-24T22:17:00.002Z

No, not the movie about the alien.

I've been wondering lately about the Apostle Paul. What's all that about?

Jesus had 12 disciples, 11 of whom became apostles, and they picked a 12th to replace Judas. These guys had seen Jesus, been with Jesus, learned (eventually) from Jesus, witnessed miracles, witnessed him in the flesh after his resurrection, and so on.

Basically, these guys were the best people to take the message to the world.

So why the need for Paul?

He hadn't seen Jesus, been with Jesus, learned from him, witnessed any miracles, or even seen him in the flesh (a blinding flash from heaven hardly counts, impressive though it must have been).

I think the conventional line of reasoning says that the disciples were just ordinary blokes, without a theological training, not really capable of writing epistles like those of Paul's, and also they were Jewish Jews, not really best suited for taking the Gospel out into the Greek speaking world.

The problem with this kind of reasoning is that it implies that Jesus was either not capable of getting one disciple suitable for the task, or he did not have the foresight to recruit such a disciple. Neither option is very good.

If Jesus was God incarnate, with the most amazing teaching ever heard, then recruiting intelligent and erudite disciples would hardly be a problem.

And even if Jesus 'emptied himself' of his divine foresight, surely God the Father could have manipulated the situation such that Jesus had at least one disciple up to the task of taking the message to the world.

Paul, the very late recruited apostle, seems very much like a 'plan B' to me.

Or, in my more skeptical moments, the theory that Paul and 'the twelve' come from two rival strands of belief that were merged together into 'catholic' Christianity in the 2nd century, begins to seem pretty compelling.

The book "The First Edition of the New Testament" by David Trobisch is fairly high on my 'to read' list. In it, the author presents his thesis that the compilation of the 27 books we have as the New Testament was a deliberate attempt to fuse rival factions into one unified religion. Further, he proposes that the compiler was Polycarp of Smyrna who, in addition to compiling the books, edited several of them to harmonise them and also invented (yes, invented) the book of Acts in order to put the heroes of the rival factions (on one side Paul, on another Peter) on an equal footing and to appear to be working together for the sake of the Gospel.

I will certainly blog about that when I read it!

But for now, here is a link to Trobisch's paper summarising the book: "Who Published the New Testament" from Free Inquiry magazine Vol 28, No 1, Jan 2008.

Where does it say...? #3

2011-02-09T14:11:00.003Z

This one is a bit philosophical.

I've heard a number of Christian apologists and philosophers on a number of debates (mostly on podcasts) recently stating or implying that God is outside of time. That is, that time is part of creation and God is beyond that.

Where does it say that in the bible?

Furthermore, I have a philosophical problem with the idea of God being outside of time. Basically, I think that belief in a God outside of time is incompatible with belief in a good or loving God. Goodness and love both require action. Action can only occur within time. Thus, if God is in any way good, then he (or that part of him which is good) must be within time, not transcending it.

Take a trivial example. Suppose it is bad to break something and good to fix something. Viewed from our point of view within time, breaking something is bad. But reverse the flow of time and the same action (now in reverse) appears to fix the object, which is good. If God is outside of time then he perceives both the bad breaking and the good fixing equally, and thus the moralities cancel each other out. An agent outside of time must be morally neutral.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?

2011-01-15T12:26:00.005Z

Luke 11v11-13 says this:

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Numbers 21v4-6 says this:

The Israelites had to go around the territory of Edom, so when they left Mount Hor, they headed south toward the Red Sea. But along the way, the people became so impatient that they complained against God and said to Moses, " Did you bring us out of Egypt, just to let us die in the desert? There's no water out here, and we can't stand this awful food!" Then the LORD sent poisonous snakes that bit and killed many of them.

Erm, is it just me or is there a hint in the gospel passage to the Numbers one?

The Israelites asked for food and got snakes.

There was a faction in the early church which believed that the 'Father' Jesus spoke about and the 'LORD' in the OT were two different characters. Is this gospel passage Marcionite?

Across the Spectrum: Chapter 9 - The Salvation Debate

2011-01-10T08:00:00.001Z

Previous posts have commented on:
Chapter 1 - The Inspiration Debate
Chapter 2 - The Providence Debate
Chapter 3 - The Foreknowledge Debate
Chapter 4 - The Genesis Debate
Chapter 5 - The Divine Image Debate
Chapter 6 - The Human Constitution Debate
Chapter 7 - The Christology Debate
Chapter 8 - The Atonement Debate

Chapter 9: The Salvation Debate
Position 1: TULIP (Calvinist)
Position 2: God wants all to be saved (Arminian)

So here we have another Calvinist vs. Arminian debate. As I said before, I was - more or less - raised a Clavinist and my beliefs have shifted very much towards Arminianism as time has gone on. Much of the material in this chapter parallels previous ones on the Calvinist/Arminian debate. Basically, the Calvinist position is that God chooses the 'elect', all of the elect will be saved, none of the non-elect will be saved, and nothing we humans can do will change that. If God elected you to be saved, you're going to heaven whatever you do, if God did not choose you, you're damned, even if you live a blameless life and seek to follow God's ways. The Arminian position is the flip side of this and claims that people are - in part - responsible for making the choices which determine if they will ultimately be saved or not.

I don't have much to offer on this topic that I haven't said in previous posts. As far as I am concerned, Calvinistic reasoning relies on a few concepts which simply make no sense. The one which makes me most annoyed is the idea that God decides who will be sin, and yet the sinners are held morally responsible for the sins that God decided they would do, so he damns them (eternally) for it. There is no justice or morality in that belief and I must reject it.

The only option that makes rational sense to me here is that people are responsible (at least in part) for their own choices. The way of salvation must be open to all, even if the majority reject it or do not find the path.

Across the Spectrum: Chapter 8 - The Atonement Debate

2011-01-08T09:02:00.003Z

Chapter 8: The Atonement Debate
Position 1: Christ died in our place (Penal Substitution)
Position 2: Christ destroyed Satan and his works (Christus Victor)
Position 3: Christ displayed God's wrath against sin (Moral Government)

This is an interesting one. There are aspects of all three positions that appeal to me, and other aspects of all three positions which I can't agree with. I was surprised to learn that Position 1 (which is the dominant view in the Evangelical world these days) was, essentially, an invention of the Reformation and was not how the church viewed the atonement for the first 1500 years of its existence. When you come across statements like that you have to sit back and think (although, to be fair, the introduction to the chapter was written by someone who holds to Position 2, so maybe a bias crept in).

The Penal Substitution view holds that we all need to die to pay for our sins against God. "The wages of sin is death". What I've noticed for a long time is that we all do die eventually, so we all get those wages! Maybe we all deserve a horrible death to atone for our sins, and Jesus did this in our place so that some of us can die peacefully in our sleep, but I don't think that's what's going on here. Somehow, the death of a perfect sacrifice is required to pay for our sins. That it is the one who has been wronged (God) who pays the debt (to himself) makes no sense. I'm sorry, it just makes no sense. However you phrase it, there is always an element of non-sense in there. Once again, I've got to the point of rejecting the beliefs I was raised with.

At the core of the Penal Substitution view is the understanding that we are fallen and so our understanding of the atonement is fallen - it seems unjust to us and yet, in reality, it was perfect and just from God's point of view. So we have a theory that believes itself to be corrupted and flawed, and yet this is the theory we are asked to believe. In our fallen-ness, we cannot understand it, so we are asked to just believe? Sorry. I can't go for that. If you want me to believe something it has to at least be internally consistent, and preferably consistent with my perception of reality too. This view isn't.

But the Christus Victor view doesn't cut it for me either. The main thing Jesus apparently did on the cross was destroy the works of Satan. Now I've been through this before. Satan in the old testament is not a fallen angel, he is 'the adversary', the accuser who works for God but tests God's people, on behalf of God. This continues into the gospels - when Jesus says to Peter 'get behind me Satan', he is saying 'stop playing the role of the accuser, I'm not going to give in to this temptation'. So there is no demonic Satan to be defeated on the cross! The NT understanding of 'the Devil' is a melding of Satan, Baal-zebub (God of the Philistines) and Ahriman (the evil God of Zoroastrianism), and we only view it all through the lens of the superstition of the middle-ages. Now I am not saying that there are no demons (more on that in a future post), but I am disputing the very existence of the 'Prince' of demons. But if you take him out of the picture, the whole concept of Christus Victor falls apart. What remains is quite a vague 'Christ destroyed the works of evil' concept, that I actually quite like, but the theory that goes with it is far from compelling.

Finally we get the Moral Government view - that Christ's death was to 'show righteousness'. Of the three positions, I find this the most compelling in all aspects apart from the central one. How does Jesus's death show God's righteousness? How is God's righteousness demonstrated by the death of a sinless man? It is certainly not demonstrated if you hold that God required the death of Jesus, that only seems to show injustice. Maybe (though this is not explained in the book) the point is that it shows the depravity of humanity, through the way humanity deals with the only truly righteous man - by killing him in a terrible way? Maybe I need to read that explanation again...

So what did Jesus achieve by dying on the cross? That is still unclear to me, but none of the proposed answers is fully compelling.

Across the Spectrum: Chapter 7 - The Christology Debate

2011-01-04T08:30:00.001Z

Continuing the thread started in this post and continued in this post, this post and this one.

Chapter 7: The Christology Debate
Position 1: The unavoidable paradox of the God-man
Position 2: Christ relinquished his divine prerogatives

This is an interesting one, and again I am not completely convinced by either side in the debate. If you hold the God-man position firmly, it leads on to a number of other beliefs that are apparently contrary to scripture - such as the ability of Jesus's disciples to do 'greater things' than he did. If his power was his divine power, then nobody who followed after could do things like he did, let alone transcend them. This leads to a cessasionist stance, which we will come to in a future post. It also makes it impossible for us to follow his example. WWJD? Use his divine power to resolve a situation... Not very useful as a guide to living.

Also, this leads to a very complicated 'two minds' belief in which Jesus had two distinct minds (personalities?) in his make-up, and the divine one wouldn't let the other know certain things. Eh? This just leads to inconsistencies.

But, the other position ('Kenotic') leads to the problem of what happened after the ascension (as I blogged about a few months back) - if Christ had to 'empty himself' of his divinity to become human, then either he still is a limited human (which nobody seems to believe) or he ceased to be human after the ascension (which nobody seems to believe either). So some serious 'explaining away' has to be done.

For what its worth, I find the Kenotic view more compelling, even if it raises as many issues as it solves. Once again, I find an agnostic position ('I don't know') is the best stance to take.

The more I work through these issues, the more compelled I am to talk in terms of 'hope' rather than certainty and the happier I am to say 'I don't know' on the big issues. We don't always need to hold on tightly to certainty in the face of limited (and sometimes conflicting) information.

Across the Spectrum: Chapters 5 and 6 - Divine Image and Human Constitution

2011-01-03T08:11:00.005Z

Continuing the thread started in this post and continued in this post and this one.

Chapter 5: The Divine Image Debate
Position 1: The image of God is the soul
Position 2: The image of God is our God-given authority
Position 3: The image of God is our rationality

The odd thing about this chapter is that it completely side-steps the issue of what did the original author mean? The simplest reading of the Genesis text suggests that the original author of those words thought that God was bipedal, humanoid and created mankind in his physical image - to look like him. But of course, we don't view God in those terms today, so can't possibly read the bible as meaning that. (Although, see the book I recently commented upon regarding the role of the Great Angel in creation...)

So what is it about us that bears the 'image' of God? I don't know, and none of the three options presented here is entirely compelling. Is it that we have a soul? Well, that belief is largely based on Hellenistic thinking and was bolted onto Jewish/Christian thinking, rather than coming out of it.Or is it that we have the dominance of the planet? Surely that is our status, not our image? Or is it that we are rational? Well that seemed the most compelling to me until I actually read the supporting arguments, which quickly got bogged down in arguments about the Trinity.

Does it actually matter anyway? Whichever option you choose, how does it influence the way you live?

Chapter 6: The Human Constitution Debate
Position 1: The twofold self (body & soul)
Position 2: The threefold self (body, soul & spirit)
Position 3: The unitary self

This is something that I'd never really thought about before reading this book, and it certainly isn't a major issue. Indeed, the Kindle edition of this book (which I'm reading) is the 1st Edition of it, and the 2nd Edition of the print book doesn't feature this chapter at all. Its not really an issue.

The question is whether or not we are divisible into parts. If my body dies but something lives on, is that thing that lives on 'me' in any way, or is my identity reliant on having a body? Also, the bible occasionally makes distinction between the spirit and the soul, but are these two discrete parts of me?

For me, I'm happy to understand things in terms of computer science - the body is hardware, the 'spirit' or 'soul' is software, which needs the hardware to run on. Maybe at the point of death God will do a 'backup' of my software and will then be able to download it into a new piece of hardware, but if not, I cannot see how the software can continue to run without hardware. I am a composite being and need both components. But this isn't an issue I stay awake at night pondering...

Across the Spectrum: Chapter 4 - The Genesis Debate

2011-01-02T08:10:00.003Z

This post continues the discussion from this post and this one.

Chapter 4: The Genesis Debate
Position 1: Created in the recent past (young earth)
Position 2: A very old work of art (day-age view)
Position 3: Restoring a destroyed creation (restoration view)
Position 4: Literary theme over literal chronology (literary framework view)

And so we come to the creation vs evolution debate. Except that we don't really. Here we have four different views of creation, some of which are incompatible with both the theory of evolution and the evidence of geology, while others attempt to accommodate modern scientific thinking in some way or another.

Of course, if you were to take the bible as your only source of truth in this matter, it is highly unlikely that you would arrive at any position other than the young earth view. At face value, the first chapter of Genesis looks like it is trying to be an accurate presentation of what actually happened. So positions 2, 3 and 4 are, in some sense, already compromises. And yet the young earth view requires its adherents to deny modern scientific thinking and evidence. What I find fascinating about this is that the young earth creationist view essentially sees the physical world as something that God created directly, without any possible human tinkering, and sees the bible as something God created directly, using fallible humans to write it, and yet they take the evidence of the one that would have been possible to corrupt over the evidence of the one that would be impossible to corrupt or fake. Whichever way you slice it, the geological record contains more than 10,000 years of history.

But what of the other three positions? Well, the day-age view - which is probably the most common view among evangelicals and most other theists for that matter - says that the first chapter of Genesis uses a poetic framework to describe the various ages of creation in terms of days. All well and good and I don't really have much comment to make. Except that if you take this chapter as non-literal, how do you decide which other (apparently literal) bits of the bible are also non-literal?

The Restoration view fascinated me. I actually hadn't come across the 'gap' theory before reading this, but I like it. It is an imaginative and consistent way of reconciling the apparent age of the earth and the geological record with a literal 6 day creation. Basically, the theory is that there is a giant gap (of several hundred million years) between Genesis 1v1 and Genesis 1v2. The 6 day creation described in Genesis 1 is not the first creation, but rather a re-creation of the earth out of the destroyed chaos of the previous creation. Which may also have been made out of the destroyed remains of a previous creation, and so on. Thus, when we dig up dinosaur bones, these are from previous - otherwise completely destroyed - creations. The theory goes that God created something, it went wrong, he destroyed it and started again. Repeat as necessary. Luckily for us, we live in a creation that God has chosen not to destroy completely (see the Flood story) and has, instead, provided a salvation and redemption path for us. Lucky us, unlucky dinosaurs.

The problem with this is that it doesn't quite fit with current scientific knowledge, or with current theology. Science tells us that we (and all other contemporary animals) are decended from the ancient ones. We can track the divergence of genes etc. by comparing our DNA with that recovered from ancient fossils. In other words, there is a continuity path between the allegedly completely destroyed creation and us. It couldn't have been completely destroyed. Genetic material survived, and survived in such a way as to suggest that there was no total destruction which the gap theory needs. Also, we believe God to be the kind of God who seeks to redeem and restore his creation, not destroy it and start again. So all in all, this is a good effort, but ultimately an unsatisfying theory.

Finally, the literary framework position suggests that the author of Genesis 1 had other points to make than what actually happened. Its all about God and not all about creation, it would seem. While, for the most part, I agree with this, it does seem to be dodging the issue a bit.

So, after all this, what do I think? I don't know.

I mean, I really don't know. I am happy to accept scientific thinking on this and accept the scientific picture of how this earth came to be. Science, of course, still can't explain the origin of life, but aside from that the explanations are OK. But where does God fit into this picture? Is he a deist God who starts the whole ball rolling then stands back and watches the whole thing unravel? Is he a tinkering God who continually adjusts and tweaks his creation as it continues? Is he (somewhat controversially) a part of this 'creation' rather than being the creator? I do not know. I have no good evidence to hold to any of these positions, or any of the countless others I haven't presented. But I'm happy to be agnostic on this issue. It doesn't really matter one way or the other, does it?

Surely the present and the future are more important than the distant past?

Across the Spectrum: Chapters 2 & 3 - Providence and Foreknowledge

2010-12-31T08:34:00.003Z

This post is a continuation from the previous post...

Chapter 2: The Providence Debate
Position 1: God is sovereign over all things (Calvinist)
Position 2: God limits his control by granting freedom (Arminian)

The Calvinist position is, essentially, this: that everything that happens was pre-ordained and planned by God. If you are saved, it is because God chose you to be one of the 'Elect', if you are damned, this is because God created you to be a 'creature of wrath'. You have no say in the matter. The Arminian position is that while God could have supreme control of everything, he chooses not to, in order to allow us to have the choice to love him or reject him.

As will be repeated in future comments on later chapters, while I was raised a Calvinist, I have had much more of an Arminian outlook for many years now. I just don't find the Calvinist beliefs particularly consistent with life experience, common sense or, indeed, a belief in a loving and just God - which is supposedly what Calvinism is all about. The Calvinist stance seems to be based on the assumption that because God has complete sovereignty over everything, he must assert complete authority over everything. Why? There's lots of things I can do, but choose not to, or only do them occasionally. Why should it be any different for God? The Calvinist approach seems to limit God's own free will, by asserting that because he can act a certain way, therefore he must act that way. Surely God can choose how he wants to act?

I once started reading J.I. Packer's book on evangelism and sovereignty - basically, what is the point of evangelism if God chooses who will be saved anyway? - and got a couple of chapters in before I realised that I really wasn't interested in the 'problem' the book was addressing. God is God as he is, not as Calvin imagined him to be.

Chapter 3: The Foreknowledge Debate
Position 1: God foreknows all that shall come to pass (Classical view)
Position 2: God knows all that shall be and all that may be (Open view)

This is another debate that I'm actually not that interested in. It doesn't really question the nature of God, but rather questions the nature of reality. Is the future pre-determined or is probability real? In a moment, I am going to walk to my fridge and get a drink of fruit juice. In the fridge there is a carton of apple juice and one of orange juice. Some days I have one, some days I have the other. Is it predetermined that I will have one or the other today or are both futures equally real possibilities? Does God know which I will choose or does he simply know that I will choose one of them, because I'm thirsty? The classical view is that God knows exactly what will be because the future is predetermined and foreknown. The open view is that both possible futures are just that: possible. That is, both are potentially real. God knows both futures but doesn't (indeed, can't) know which it will be. The classical viewpoint is that this limits God's foreknowledge, so can't be the case.

Half a sec... Mmmm. Nice drink of orange juice... Now where was I?

The main objection to the 'open' view seems (to me) to be based on a false assumption. For example, the reasoning goes like this - God planned that Jesus would be crucified, in order to achieve the salvation plan, if probability was in play, there is a chance that Judas wouldn't have betrayed Jesus, or Pilate could have released him without charge, etc. Basically, if its all a mess of probabilities, then the crucifixion might never have happened, and then where would we be?

The false assumption in there is that all God's activity happened at the start of time when he set the ball rolling, and that he is not required to be an active participant in ongoing history. Why? If God decides to achieve something, I'm sure he's big and powerful enough to ensure it happens, even in the midst of messy probabilities. Maybe we view prophesy in the wrong way. Maybe its not predictions of the future, but rather declarations by God of what he will do, irrespective of the flow of probability.

So I don't really see a problem here. I'm happy to accept that much of the future is unwritten, but some important parts of it are pre-planned.

Across the Spectrum: Chapter 1 - The Inspiration Debate

2010-12-24T07:31:00.006Z

I'm currently reading 'Across the Spectrum' by Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy. The book is an overview of 'Evangelical' belief on most of the primary areas of belief in the Church today. Basically, for each topic covered, the book aims to describe each of the beliefs and justifications for holding to those beliefs, as if that section was written by a proponent of that position. Its quite interesting stuff and not as 'text book' as it sounds. Its certainly food for thought.

But, of course, the reason I am reading it is to figure out what I believe, and my reasons for believing what I believe, and whether my beliefs are justifiable and reasonable. And, of course, to have a critical look at the beliefs of others expressed in this book.

There's a lot in here, so I'll split this discussion across several posts. Here I'll look at the first chapter...

Chapter 1: The Inspiration Debate
Position 1: Without error of any kind (inerrantist view)
Position 2: Infallible in matters of faith and practice (infallibilist view)

I suppose I was raised with the 'inerrantist' belief, but I think I must have slid into the other camp as a fairly young Christian, possibly the first time I ever considered the issues. To me, the 1st position seems a bit blinkered, it basically says that the bible is right on all matters and if reality appears to disagree, then it is reality that has it wrong. Or rather, our perception of reality (whether through scientific or historical study, etc.) must be wrong.

The basic thing I find to be wrong with this point of view is that it does not allow you to question your pre-suppositions. It takes 'the bible' as its starting point, never questioning how that particular combination of 66 books came to be, or indeed, how those individual books came to be written or compiled. So all books in there are equally valid, and any excluded books are not at all valid. And yet the books of Revelation, James and the pastorals only made it into the canon by the skin of their teeth. And what about the Shepherd of Hermas? It was only just excluded.

The position is defended by asserting that Jesus had a very high regard for 'Scripture' - this is certainly the case, but what was Jesus calling scripture? Certainly not any of the 27 books of the New Testament which hadn't even been written yet, possibly not even large chunks of what we now call the Old Testament. Jesus's quotes of scripture are fairly limited to Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy and a couple of prophets. There is good evidence that the 'canon' of the OT hadn't actually been settled upon by the time of Jesus, so we can't use this as evidence for a blanket acceptance of the 66 books we now have.

Also, the position tries to explain away some minor 'apparent errors' by blaming them on scribal and transmission errors. It is only the original manuscripts (which we don't have) that were inerrant, so what we are left with is a 'mostly inerrant' book. Hmmm. I'm not sure I can reconcile that. If God went to all the trouble of giving mankind a perfect book, why didn't he then take the trouble to make sure it was kept perfect. Surely he could have saved at least one copy for posterity?

But that's not to say that I hold to the infallibilist view either. This view has its problems too. Of course, given the nature of this book, these are discussed, but I'm still not left very satisfied. Here, at least, I think the inerrantist view is more defensible. The inerrantist view is internally consistent, if you accept the unquestionable presuppositions, the whole thing works. You have clear cut lines of guidance. Not so if you consider the bible to only be infallible with regard to matters of faith and practice. How does that work? Did God inspire part of the work and then, effectively, say to the authors "you fill in the blanks"? That's not very satisfying. What criteria do you have for deciding which bits are infallible and which aren't?

So what about me? What do I believe? Well, I guess if all of Evangelical Christianity falls into one or other of those positions, then I have fallen out of Evangelical Christianity.

What I find myself believing is that believers in God have honestly written what they believed to be right about their experiences of God and the way he dealt with his people. In some cases these writings have been taken by later believers and compiled into the documents we have, which may have been modified in relatively minor ways during transmission.

So what we have is a record of belief. It may contain factual errors, it may contain misunderstandings, but it also contains the honest beliefs of people like you and me, who encountered God in some way. This makes reading it both more interesting and more tricky as sometimes you have to read between the lines and search elsewhere for context that will make the meaning clear. There's an element of detective work in trying to piece things together.

God speaks through people. He has always spoken through people. None of them were perfect and some of them wrote things down. But don't worry, God can still speak to you through imperfect people, even the ones who wrote thousands of years ago.

The Great Angel by Margaret Barker

2010-12-12T08:00:00.002Z

Margaret Barker's book has, as its core thesis, a concept so heretical that it almost goes full circle and comes back to being 'sound' again. I find the theory fascinating, and reasonably convincing.

It is fairly widely known and agreed by scholars that much of what we call the Old Testament was compiled and edited around about the time of the return from the Babylonian exile, that is to say a little longer ago than 500 BC.

Barker's central thesis is that during this time of compiling, the 'redactor' who compiled the work rewrote or selectively edited significant portions of the text to give a very biased account. Her specific main claim is that the pre-exilic religion of Israel had not been monotheistic at all, but had worshiped at least two gods, but this fact was written out of history by the (monotheistic) redactor, although vestiges remain in the writings.

Very broadly speaking, she says, before this the temple worship was directed to Elyon, the 'Most High God' and to his son Yahweh, who went by a number of names and was understood by some to have both male and female aspects, resulting in the female personification of Ashera/Wisdom.

Erm, so the theory is that there was an ancient religion with a Heavenly Father, an incarnated Son and a less well defined third persona linked to wisdom. Does that sound at all familiar?

Barker, by drawing on the books of the OT and a lot of extra-canonical writings, both from the OT and NT eras, does a fairly convincing job of demonstrating that her thesis is at least worthy of serious consideration, even if she doesn't necessarily manage to prove anything.

I'll admit I got a bit lost in her explanations of how the female persona of Wisdom was understood to be a second aspect of the second God, but I find her evidence that the pre-exilic religion worshiped both the 'Most High' God and Yahweh as discrete and distinct gods as compelling and even convincing.

Why is it heretical - from a Christian viewpoint - to claim that the Jews misunderstood the nature of their God and mis-represent God in the OT? We believe that the Father God and Jesus His Son are discrete and distinguishable persons, and that the Jews are wrong in believing otherwise. What if they once had the right belief and rejected (or lost) it in favour of monotheism? Is it just because their (wrong) belief got incorporated in our Bible that we can't consider that maybe they knew the right stuff and then rejected it?

Barker claims (and provides evidence) that while the monotheism of the redactor is the dominant belief of the written texts (at least, the canonical ones) from the OT era, that the 'common people' (i.e. those who were never carried away to exile) continued to worship the plural Gods long after the exiles returned. Indeed, when Philo was writing 500 years later, there is clear evidence of a plurality of Gods in his (just pre-Christian) writings. He even uses the word 'Logos' to refer to the second God, something that the writer of the 4th gospel would use for Jesus 50 years or so later.

What she suggests (but does not explicitly say in this book, I believe this is the core of her other book 'The Older Testament) is that, basically, the ruling class of Judah/Israel was removed to Babylon and indoctrinated out of their pluralistic belief into a monotheistic one, and then they were returned to Judea to impose the same beliefs on the common people. But the common people never really lost these beliefs, only those who were the recorders of history lost them. So when, several centuries later, Jesus comes along claiming to be the 'Son of God', the common people understood this, and exactly who he was claiming to be. However the priests and rulers, who had long abandoned the pluralistic beliefs, were the ones who rejected Jesus.

The book bombards the reader with evidence. To be honest, I'd have been just as convinced if about half of the stuff was removed - the chapter covering the writings of the gnostics, for example, was more confusing to me than revealing, as were some of the other chapters on "The Name" and the non-canonical 'Wisdom' writings.

However, the final two chapters (where she addresses the writings of the early Christians and the books of the New Testament) are probably the best demonstration of her thesis. Reading the final chapter is an ongoing 'why had I never noticed that before' revelation to the reader and more than convincingly demonstrates that, whatever else the early Christians believed about Jesus, they equated him (God the Son) with Yahweh (the God of Israel in the OT). This is demonstrated by comparing numerous NT passages about Jesus with OT equivalents about Yahweh. Its not that they saw Jesus as being like Yahweh, it is clear that they saw him as being Yahweh.

So even if the reader is not convinced by the other evidence (although I am, reasonably) then you still are faced with the final conundrum. If the first Christians believed Jesus to be Yahweh, and were taught by Jesus to pray to His Father, then who is the Father? The Father cannot be Yahweh, as he is the Son. Ancient traditions, although obscured in the OT, still clearly make reference to the Father of the gods, the Most High God. This is the Father of Jesus.

All this will make me read both Old and New Testaments in a new light...

Elijah and John the Baptist

2010-12-09T14:00:00.004Z

I was listening to a podcast this morning which touched upon the expectation of the Jews, in New Testament times, that 'Elijah must come first'.

This comes from the incident in the gospels immediately after the transfiguration.

In Matthew 17v9 and Mark 9v9, Jesus tells his disciples:

“Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Following this, in both accounts, the disciples ask the following question:

“Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

This strikes me as a very odd question, in context. It doesn't appear to follow from what has gone before. It could be that the disciples are thinking "We've just seen Elijah. He's supposed to come before the Day of the Lord. Therefore, the Day of the Lord is coming. Should we not tell people about this?" but that is perhaps stretching the written story too far.

Its interesting that Luke, in his telling of the transfiguration story (chapter 9), completely omits this discussion. In his telling, the disciples simply do not tell anyone about the transfiguration, even though Jesus never prohibits this, and the disciples do not discuss Elijah further.

I guess the disciples are thinking about the last two verses of the Old Testament (Malachi 4v5&6) which read:

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

In Matthew & Mark, Jesus's answer to their question also raises a few issues, he says:

“To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.”

Then Matthew goes on to say that the disciples then understood that Jesus was talking to them about John the Baptist, but Mark's version of the story does not.

It is interesting to note that in John 1v19, John the Baptist is quoted as explicitly denying that he is Elijah.

So what's going on here? Was John the Baptist, in any way, Elijah?

Matthew says Yes
Mark implies Yes
Luke says nothing
John says No

Erm, that doesn't really help much. But assuming, for the moment, that Matthew has it right, in what way was John the Baptist Elijah?

Reincarnation? Seems a bit unbiblical... but what other options are available?

Skipping past that issue for now, what did John do that "restored all things"? Did he do what Malachi predicted and "turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents"?

Going by what is recorded in the gospels, no. John preached a message of repentance, which is about 'turning hearts' - but this was about people turning back to God, and was nothing to do with child-parent relationships. I might be inclined to read into this story something of the God as Father and us as his children reasoning, were it not for the fact that Malachi's 'parents' are emphatically plural, and something Elijah was going to do involved the parents having a turn of heart. Elijah wasn't about to turn the heart of God, was he?

But what did John the Baptist achieve? A handful of people repented and turned back to the Lord. Hardly restoring 'all things'. OK, so John baptised Jesus, but that raises more issues than it solves, and that also isn't restoring all things.

For now, the only conclusion I can come to here is that the whole thing is a mess. There is no consensus amongst the writers of the gospels as to whether or not John was Elijah or what John achieved if he was.

But the words attributed (by Matthew & Mark) to Jesus are interesting. How can anyone reconcile "Elijah comes and restores all things" and "Elijah has already come" and "They did not recognise him"? Surely if he came and was not recognised then he did not restore all things? If Elijah's mission failed, does that mean that the Day of the Lord cannot come? Or if he did come, does that mean that all things have already been restored? Confused.

Even the passage in Malachi itself is confusing. It says that:

Elijah will come before the dreadful day of the Lord comes
His mission will be to restore families back to loving relationships with each other
His mission will be accomplished
If his mission fails then the Lord will strike the land with total destruction

How can the mission fail if it will be accomplished? And what is the threat here anyway? These verses imply that 'the Day of the Lord' is not as bad as total destruction. What exactly is the 'dreadful' Day of the Lord as described here?

You know, the whole thing appears to be a confusing mess. I'm not sure any of it actually can be reconciled by someone who believes all these passages are inspired and infallible. It only makes sense using the understanding that all of these writings were written by fallible people with different (perhaps half-baked) ideas about what was going on.

After the ascension

2010-11-28T07:38:00.001Z

What happened to Jesus after he ascended?

Luke (Acts) describes him leaving in bodily form, and Revelation pictures his eventual return in bodily form, and various other places talk of him being 'seated at the right hand of the Father' - which suggests wherever he is right now, he is in bodily form (although, it also suggests the Father is in bodily form too).

But Paul (e.g. Ephesians 4v10: "He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe") talks in language that suggests that Jesus does not remain in bodily form.

Which is it?

Why does it matter?

Well, the former option has a few problems for me, specifically where exactly Jesus is, but more importantly, what he can do. In the gospels, even in resurrection appearances, Jesus appears to be limited in capabilities by his physical form - sure he can appear in locked rooms, but he can only interact with small numbers of people at any given time. Today literally millions of people pray to him on a daily basis, if he's constrained in any way by humanity, I kind of doubt that he can actually deal with all that.

If, however, he has returned to his pre-incarnation form, then will he have to re-incarnate for the second coming? (and then de-incarnate again at some time after that in order to interact with all his people?) - That all starts to get a bit messy.

The more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking that the former option (remaining in the body) is more consistent with the faith I was raised with, but is less consistent with reality and practicality - in other words, I can't see how it would actually work - while the latter option (returning to spirit) might make more spiritual sense, but starts raising questions about some doctrines like the second coming.

Anyone got any insights here? I have to say I'm really struggling with this one - the ascension seems pretty mythical to me, but if it is a myth, then either the story ended a different way, or a lot more of it is myth...

Agnostic Christian

2010-11-20T08:06:00.004Z

Being a Christian does not mean having all the answers. It does not mean that you have no doubts. It means seeking to follow Jesus wherever he leads.

One of the things I find myself considering and re-considering at the moment is the Bible. What is it? What is its role in the life of the Christian? Here's what I'm thinking:

The bible is not a book of answers, rather, it is a guide book - containing a pattern of how to live or what to do, rather than actually answering the big questions in life. In fact, I'd go further than that and say that it isn't so much a guide book as a record of what believers in the past did and believed. Sometimes the stories are there as a warning rather than as a guide.

Amazingly, its now over four years since I wrote this post about the role of the Bible and this post about 2 Timothy 3:16-17. I was basically thinking the same stuff back then, although I'm probably about to be a little bit more heretical now than I was then...

You see, I don't think I can consider the Bible as, in any way, a proof of anything anymore. I'm not sure I was ever of the opinion: "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it", but I'm now a bit further from that opinion. I'm now more like: "The Bible says it, that shows us something of what the person who wrote that bit of the bible believed, that opens up a whole heap of interesting questions..."

You see, for many years I read the Bible, and occasional books by apologists about the Bible, and occasional 'sound' commentaries on the Bible, but all stuff written from the perspective that the Bible is the inspired Word (with a capital 'W') of God.

More recently (and I guess this goes back to about 1994, when I read Robin Lane Fox's "The Unauthorised Version", if you call that 'recently') I've been reading some books which take a more 'liberal' or 'critical' look at the Bible and the more I read, the more layers of interesting (yet 'heretical') stuff I begin to see in the Bible. Stuff that's always been there but that I was prevented in seeing from my 'Evangelical' perspective.

The problem is, the more you read, the less sure of the Bible you become. Take, for example, the first couple of chapters of Genesis. I was taught to read this as one continuous creation story, and yet when you look at it closely, there are two different stories which are completely irreconcilable. In one, God creates everything, with man being the pinnacle of creation - made in the very image of God - to rule over creation. In the other, God creates the world and sees that it needs a caretaker, so he creates man to work in the garden, and gives strict commands to the man to work and stay in his place. Basically, God has not created a ruler, but a slave. And its into this situation that the Prometheus character comes, offering the man the chance to break his chains and become free. Not a devil, but the one who frees mankind from slavery. These are two conflicting and contradictory versions of the character of God. The weird thing is that most modern Christians believe that God has the character from the first story, but that we originated in the second...

Here, viewed 'critically', it is clear that there were (at least) two different ancient stories, which some later editor lumped together into one edited work. As far as I can tell, based on some of the things I have read, this editor lived in the time of the Babylonian exile, possibly later than that. That is, several thousand years after the events he's compiling a book about. I wonder what stories he left out? Presumably ones that didn't fit with his world view?

But if this is an edited work, representing the beliefs of the editors, that means that quite a lot of information may be missing, and the 'facts' may be nothing of the sort.

So where does that leave us now?

Doubting.

That means I have to be agnostic on many issues. Many, many issues. Almost everything, if we're honest.

Lets go for a biggie... Did God create the universe?

I dunno. The bible says that he created 'the heavens and the earth' (Genesis) or 'the worlds' (Hebrews), but as the bible doesn't count as proof, and nothing I can experience of God now can tell me about events thousands or millions of years ago, I have to remain agnostic on this one. God might have created utterly everything, or he might be part of that everything and only have created a little bit of it, or he might not be the creator, but still be God. (I said I was going to get heretical, didn't I?)

While I'm not denying the actual reality of God, through his Spirit, in the here and now, I'm beginning to perceive a fairly large chasm between our current experience and the written word. No current experience can count as evidence for any historical claim.

The problem with that statement above is that all we know about the relationship between 'God' and 'his Spirit' comes from the book that I've just said we can't be sure about.

Hmmm. Seems like I don't know anything anymore. I am agnostic.

Portofino

2010-11-14T07:52:00.001Z

Portofino is a seaside resort in northern Italy, and is the setting for a novel by Frank Schaeffer - the son of the well known Presbyterian missionary, writer and preacher Francis Schaeffer. The book claims to be fiction, but apparently (if you read Frank Schaeffer's autobiography 'Crazy for God') it is largely based on Frank's real life experiences as a child.

The family presented in the book are fairly extreme, fundamentalist, Presbyterian types. The book is from the point of view of the youngest son - Calvin - who isn't quite as extreme in his views as the rest of his family. (This very much mirrors Frank Schaeffer's own life, as he rejected the fundamentalism of his upbringing and is now part of an Orthodox church).

As someone who grew up in a 'Conservative Evangelical Presbyterian' church, an awful lot of this book is frighteningly familiar. The characters are slightly (but only slightly!) exaggerated versions of people I grew up around. All the attitudes and opinions are real.

And the book shows just how ridiculous and unrealistic some of the attitudes and opinions are, in the context of the real world. The book also shows the hypocrisy of the main family and the tensions within the family, all of which rung very true.

If you want a (not very flattering) look into the minds of Conservative Evangelicals in the 60s (and not much had changed by the 70s, when I came along) then this is the book for you. The opinions regarding the 'lost', trying to out-pray each other to show who was more pious, praying extended graces over meals in public places as 'witness', all this was frighteningly accurate. I particularly loved the ongoing joke about the Presbyterian church the family were part of, which kept on splitting into factions, and so the PCUSA became the PCCUSA and later the PCCCUSA.

Anyway, if your upbringing was anything like mine, you'll find this an entertaining, if cringeworthy, read.

The Historical Jesus: Five Views

2010-10-10T06:50:00.012Z

I've just finished reading this book. My wife thought it looked 'the most boring book ever' but I stuck with it and found it fascinating, for the most part.

The book starts with an essay (by the editors) walking the reader through the history of the 'quest' for the historical Jesus, highlighting all the main players in the debate and all the major schools of thought over the past couple of hundred years. What becomes clear in all of this is that the quest for the historical Jesus is highly dependent on the initial assumptions of the quester, and it is not clear from this essay (or any of the five that follow it) if any set of conclusions about who the 'historical' Jesus might have been are ever anything but an extrapolation from the assumptions, with little or no input from the historical research.

I should explain, just in case you don't know what is meant by the 'Historical Jesus', that this is a quest for the real Jesus - the man who actually lived and walked in Galilee - and the quest is somewhat (possibly entirely) based on the assumption that the Jesus described in the Gospels is not an accurate or unbiased picture of him. Some claim that the gospels present - at best - a view of Jesus as seen through rose tinted spectacles, while others claim that the majority of stories of Jesus in the gospels are purely mythical, with little or no basis in anything historical.

And so we come to the five essays that form the bulk of the book. These cover the range from Robert M. Price (aka 'The Bible Geek'), who presents the opinion that the Gospels are an attempt to ground an entirely mythical character in history, and there never was a real or historical Jesus, through to Darrell L. Bock, who basically takes the modern Evangelical view that the Jesus depicted in the gospels is the real Jesus, these stories are literal and fairly accurate. In between are three essays from established names in theology who - more or less - fill in the middle ground between these two extremes, occasionally agreeing with one another, occasionally disagreeing on fairly important points.

One of the most interesting things in the book is that each of the five contributors is given the opportunity to respond to each of the essays of the others. In general they do by presenting a short rebuttal that points to their own essay for details, but it is fascinating to observe the debate and the reasons each player holds for their position. Once again, it becomes apparent that in most cases, their initial assumptions completely bias their conclusions.

I must say that I found the two most extreme views (the first and last essays) to be the most interesting, while the others in the middle contained some interesting stuff, but also contained a lot of (apparently) groundless assumptions.

So I suppose the most interesting question for you to ask of me at this point is which version of the historical Jesus am I most persuaded by? The problem in this is highlighted in a few of the essays which distinguish the 'Jesus of Faith' and the 'Historical Jesus'. Indeed, some point to a significant disconnect between Jesus in his earthly ministry and the resurrected Lord Jesus. Your view of the latter inevitably colours your view of the former. In other words, if you believe that Jesus is Lord and God now, you will inevitably attribute the same characteristics back onto the historical man. So the Christian is, almost by definition, biased towards the beliefs expressed in the final essay.

And yet, there are things in the other four essays that I found compelling. I must say, less so in the case of the essay by John Dominic Crossan, who presented the historical Jesus as a secular and non miracle-doing political activist.

Of particular interest to me at the moment was the importance of Jesus's non-violent stance, emphasised by the fact that none of Jesus's followers were crucified with him - clearly Rome expected no resistance from Jesus's disciples, clearly non-violence was at the core of his teaching. And yet, this aspect of Jesus's teaching is notable by its absence in much of contemporary Christianity - indeed, many Christians actively support war and soldiers, etc. If such a wide spectrum of theologians are convinced Jesus was all about peace, why is the wider church not preaching this today?

One of the issues I had with a couple of the essays is that they started with the premise that Jesus was a product of his society. Of course, this is in part true, but if Jesus was in any way sent from God to try and change society (whether you believe he was God incarnate, in some way divine, or just a tuned-in holy man) then he was not a product of the society, but an external factor attempting to change it. Assuming that he was a product of society is to assume that God has nothing to do with it.

And this is, of course, where most of the quest for the 'historical' Jesus falls apart - if he was unique, if he did miracles, if he spoke directly from God with authority, then historical searching cannot reveal this. History deals in possibilities and probabilities. A once-in-history event is amazingly improbable and, by today's standards, impossible. History cannot confirm anything miraculous, it can only show that some historical people believed this to be true. And so the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith will always be different. It doesn't mean the latter is not true, it just means that history cannot lead us to him.

So what do I believe? I believe that someone hears prayers and sometimes answers. I believe that the blind can have their sight restored, the lame can be restored to walking, those with leprosy can be cured, the deaf can hear again. I believe there is good news for the poor. I believe the Jesus of history changed lives and restored broken people, and I believe the Jesus of faith still does.

I'm just not sure how much of a disconnect there is between the two.

Grasping equality with God

2010-09-15T14:07:00.001Z

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts (from different viewpoints) on the subject of 'The Synoptic Problem' this week. (I don't get much chance to read these days, but I do get a couple of hours a day commuting time in which to listen to stuff...). I'll probably blog about the core issues sometime soon. But here's a tangent from it.

One of the basic threads running through the synoptic debate goes like this: Jesus gets more and more divine as the documents describing him get later, in Mark (probably the first gospel written), he is presented mostly as a man, in John (the last) he is presented as fully God. The implication of this is that the very first Christians did not see Jesus as being God (not part of the trinity, or anything like that) and this is a later addition to Christianity.

So. What is the earliest writing about Jesus?

It seems to me that most theologians agree that the writings of Paul predate the gospels. And there appear to be bits in Paul that he quotes from even earlier sources, including the hymn in Philippians 2.

In other words, this is possibly one of the earliest writings about Jesus:

Philippians 2v5-8

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Now, I'm not going to get bogged down into the old debate about what 'being in very nature God' means (maybe another time), but I am interested in the second part of that line: 'did not consider equality with God something to be grasped'.

I've had a look in multiple translations (and in the Greek dictionary!) and it seems to me to say (or at least to imply) that while Jesus had the very nature of God, he did not have equality with God. Equality was within his grasp (i.e. he was slightly lower, but not by a long way), but he chose not to try for it, rather he chose to step down.

Hang on, if Jesus didn't have equality with God to begin with, who or what is he?

The 4th gospel, which most scholars are agreed is one of the later documents in the NT, clearly presents Jesus as equal with God. But here we have a much earlier statement being fairly clear that Jesus is not equal with God. Both are in the bible. Which is true?

Where does it say...? #2

2010-09-03T13:44:00.003Z

I'm reading a book at the moment that is very 'evangelical' in its view of the world. A review will probably follow when I'm finished it. But there is one thing that has been niggling me right the way through reading the book, and its this:

An awful lot of the reasoning in the book relies on the underlying assumption that this world isn't important, and that all this is really just a preparation for 'heaven', which is real life. In essence, what happens in this world doesn't matter except insofar as it gets you ready for the life to come.

Where does it say that in the bible?

How can there be two opposing desires within the Trinity?

2010-08-28T08:21:00.000Z

Inspired by a recent episode of the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

I'm still wrestling with the whole issue of the Trinity. The concept is not found 'fully formed' in the bible, but there are a smattering of verses that provide a foundation for an embryonic belief in the trinity.

What is not clear to me is how exactly the whole Trinity thing is supposed to work?

Take the situation in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14v32-36):

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch."

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Here we clearly have the situation where the Father and the Son 'will' opposite things. They are not united in the desires of their hearts. One has to set aside his own will to do the will of the other.

Now this is perfectly understandable if they are two discrete persons, but not really understandable if they are two parts of a perfect unity.

How do trinitarians manage to harmonise this? Anyone got any insights here?

Where does it say...? #1

2010-08-16T07:05:00.002Z

This is the first in an occasional series of short posts asking the simple question

'Where does it say [such and such] in the bible?'

I believe that many current 'Biblically based' Christian beliefs are based on nothing of the sort.

So where does it say that God is infinite?

Lots of Christians believe this, but where does it say it?

The forgotten twist in 'The Prodigal Son' story

2010-08-05T19:43:00.004Z

I've heard this story preached many times before, including twice this week. The emphasis used to be on the son. Then people used to focus on 'the loving Father'. More recently I've heard an awful lot about the elder brother.

But in all the times I've heard this preached, there's one aspect of the story that I've never heard a sermon on...

Luke 15v11-13:

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
And so on...

Did you notice the first twist in the story?

The younger son goes to the father and said (in essence) "Give me everything I'll get when you are dead". This is fairly shocking in itself, but the amazing thing here is that the father does this!

What does this tell us about God? He's prepared to give the full share of inheritance to those who reject him, wish him dead, or even deny his existence? What does that mean in practice?

Post-evangelical?

2010-07-07T06:44:00.006Z

I've just read 'The Post Evangelical' by Dave Tomlinson. I read it on holiday in the space of 24 hours, its a short book.

Its a good book, on the whole. Like many of the people on the Amazon reviews page, and elsewhere online, I read it with a sense of relief - there are other people out there like me. And yet, it still leaves a slightly odd aftertaste and a slightly uncomfortable feeling that I can't quite put my finger on.

So what is a 'post evangelical' you might be wondering?

Well, the book is making a case for a third flavour of modern Christianity. Like the author, I was brought up in an 'Evangelical' church where it was believed that there were only really two types of congregation - 'evangelical' or 'liberal'. If you weren't evangelical, you were liberal by default. Evangelicals are the ones who take the bible literally as the Word of God, while liberals are the ones who critically question (i.e. doubt or disbelieve) almost everything in there...

The book makes the case that there are a number of people (the book is based on a number of interviews, we are told) who don't really fit into evangelical churches, who question beliefs and doubt bible stories, but still hold to the 'evangel' - the gospel. These people are not, and do not want to be liberals, but they're not really evangelicals either - they just don't hold the same certainties about the bible or God as most evangelicals do. There is a lot more uncertainty and mystery in post-evangelicalism than there is in evangelical churches.

So there are many good points, well made in this book. And then you realise that the book was written 15 years ago and surely the post evangelical 'movement' it was describing the start of should have come to something by now...? Where are the post evangelical churches? Have I missed it, or did the movement just never happen?

While the main emphases of the book are good and well presented, it does occasionally stray off the path - it goes too far into its discussion of aspects of 'post modernism' and sociology at times, and sometimes there is no clear reason why the author holds so close to some evangelical beliefs whilst drifting so far from others. For example (and, to me this was the most clanging mis-step in the book) early on the author questions the place of marriage for the Christian - basically asking the question 'is it OK for Christians to live together before / instead of marriage?' - and coming to the out-of-place conclusion that the actual marriage ceremony is not that important to the post evangelical! And this without much justification. And then a few paragraphs further on he asserts that the post evangelical will agree with all of the Apostles Creed. Dunno about most people who the book resonates with, but I get those the other way around.

It was a good book. Not a great one. It'll only take you a couple of hours to read and it does contain some gems. Definitely recommended, despite the flaws.

The dynamics of prayer...

2010-06-07T23:15:00.005Z

There is a strange dynamic in corporate prayer. Maybe you've noticed it yourself, or maybe its just me.

Every now and again in a corporate prayer setting, like a prayer meeting or - in the specific instance I'm thinking of here - during 'ministry time' in a church service, an odd thing happens.

I don't know about you, but for me in a corporate prayer setting, I never jump right in straight away when someone else has finished praying, I usually leave a gap. And during this gap I generally formulate what I'm going to pray for when I open my mouth. And quite often, someone else will start praying before me, and - weirdly - will start praying for the exact same thing I was about to pray for.

This has happened to me too many times for it to be coincidence. Clearly there is a dynamic going on in prayer beyond me just phrasing the words to say and saying them. Something external to me inspires me to pray certain things.

Of course, I'm assuming that this external factor is the Spirit of God.

It happened on Sunday morning this week. I was praying with two others for a guy in the church. During a moment's silence I decided that I would pray for God to bless the guy's business - which was not really connected to the things we'd just been praying for. And just as I was about to open my mouth, one of the other guys jumped in and started praying for the profitability of the guy's business.

So what I'm noticing is this - in a corporate prayer setting, the Spirit of God inspires you to say certain things to God. In other words, God decides what we ask him for.

So who benefits from such a prayer? If God knows what we're going to pray for, because he Himself decided it, what is the point? Why bother involving me in the process?

I once heard it said that when we pray, we move the hands of God. But if we're moving the hands of God to the place that he decided to move them to anyway, what is our involvement in it worth?

Is it for the benefit of me - the person doing the praying, or for the benefit of the guy being prayed for? Indeed, I have had this experience in settings when we've been praying for people far away, so I guess its - in part - for the benefit of the person doing the praying.

But I find it an odd dynamic.

Anyone else have this experience? Anyone got any insight?

Hell

2010-05-29T18:16:00.009Z

I've recently discovered the 'Unbelievable' podcast from Premier Christian Radio. Its quite good, if a bit biased, and cheesy. The basic format is to have a Christian guest and a non-Christian guest on each week to debate the issue of the week. Occasionally they break from this format to have, for example, a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim on the show to debate some topic. On other occasions they have Christians with different viewpoints debating the issue.
I've just listened to the podcast on 'Hell' (from August last year). On the show they had three Christians representing two different viewpoints: James White was defending the "eternal conscious torment" position while Roger & Faith Forster were defending the "conditional immortality" position, that is, that at some point the people in hell will be utterly destroyed and will not live forever.

I found the whole debate to be a bit pointless, quite annoying and, to be honest, the in-built beliefs of both sides were pretty distasteful at points.

Its amazing what you can end up believing if you build your world view and your belief of God on certain selective verses.

The most distasteful (in my opinion) belief that the "conditional immortality" camp put forward was this: that the sinner cast into hell would experience suffering and torment for a period of time, more or less proportional to the amount of sin, after which they would be annihilated and would cease to exist. In other words, they believe in a God who tortures people before killing them. There is no love in that picture. Sorry, but I can't reconcile that with an awful lot of statements about God which are in the bible.

However, I have to say that on the whole, if I had to ally myself to one side or the other in this debate, theirs was the more agreeable position. I found much more to disagree with in the other opinion.

The other opinion seemed to rest on this assumption - that any sin committed against an infinite God requires infinite punishment. Sorry, what? How do you come to that conclusion? The bible never paints God as being infinite for a start (infinity is a mathematical concept that cannot be applied to real things; if God were infinite, there would be no room in the multiverse for anything else except God, so if its true, then we're all God, and so is the devil, and so is the internet, etc. - this is clearly not the case), but beyond that, the bible is quite clear that the punishment should always fit the crime. There is no logic in this deduction, a finite crime should always have finite consequences.

Where the debate really broke down, for me, was when they came to the subject of the Cross. Somehow - in the mind of James White at least, and in the others to a lesser extent - Jesus was able to pay for all the sin of all those who believe in his name in a period of suffering and death that lasted about a day, followed by up to three days in hell (according to some). Meanwhile, it is not possible for one sinner to atone for his own sins in an infinite eternity of suffering in hell. Sorry, I just can't go along with that view of the atonement.

If sin can be atoned for by suffering & death, then finite sin can be atoned for by finite suffering and death. Therefore hell should not be eternal.

If sin cannot be atoned for by suffering and death, then an eternity of suffering counts for nothing, and a loving God would not impose this on anyone. Therefore there should be no hell.

Am I missing something here? Or over-simplifying it?

Personally I hold to the opinion that 'hell' is the destroying fire where the rubbish is thrown. The fire may be eternal, but the rubbish is consumed and destroyed. It is not a place of consciousness, but of annihilation. Anyone cast into hell will cease to be. But this is not a belief that is foundational to my belief system, and I admit that I may be wrong on this. Its just what I currently believe. Listening to this debate has not provided me with any compelling evidence or reasoning to change my stance on this belief.

Am I a hypocrite?

2010-05-22T19:56:00.003Z

There was some discussion of a minor issue in a bible passage at housegroup on Thursday. Doesn't really matter what the passage or issue was.

I have my own personal opinions on the subject under discussion, some honest doubts that are really quite technical and not really suitable for the level of discussion we were having in housegroup.

But I also knew the 'orthodox' answer. And so when the discussion started to get messy, I stepped in, quoted the appropriate verses from the appropriate passages and resolved the discussion to the satisfaction of the group.

Thing is, I have some serious issues with the passage I quoted and (along with some proper bible scholars) am reasonably convinced that it is a very late-written passage, written by someone other than the person it claims as author. Basically, I'm not sure that the passage has any right to be included in the canon of scripture. Thus the reasoning I used is (in my opinion) false.

Does that make me a hypocrite?

In my defence, I did it 'for the sake of the weaker brother'. It was the appropriate way to deal with the discussion and it probably helped boost the faith and understanding of some of the group. But I do feel a bit of a hypocrite.

I wonder, do ministers often have this feeling? Presenting the opinion that the congregation needs to hear, even if they personally disagree? If you're a minister reading this, please let me know. Anonymously (or, preferably, pseudonymously) if you like.

The Apostles' Creed

2010-05-03T12:20:00.000Z

The Apostles' Creed (3rd Century, or thereabouts) says this:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy Catholic Church;
The Communion of Saints;
The Forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.
Amen.

What I find interesting about this creed is not necessarily what it says, but rather what it doesn't say, and what is implied from the things it does say. Of course - and this will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog - I don't agree with all of it. Its not necessarily that I disagree with all of it, but just that I think some of it is treading on that shaky ground where I'm happy to say 'I don't know' and not happy to land on one side or the other.

Most of the 'I believe' statements actually need some unpacking. When it says 'I believe in the Holy Ghost' what does that mean? For example, it doesn't say 'I believe that the Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity'. Its more like 'I believe that there is something or someone called The Holy Ghost', but it tells me nothing about what the claimant believes about the Holy Ghost.

And what about the 'Communion of Saints' - we say these words, but what do we actually mean by them? As I understand it, Catholic teaching traditionally means that there is some mystical unity between Christians who are currently alive and those who are currently in Purgatory or Heaven. But I've never, ever, in nearly 40 years of church-going heard this preached upon, and I very much doubt that the majority of Evangelical Christians actually believe this, although they might repeat these words in Church every now and again.

What else? Well, why is the virginity of Mary such an important point here? If I believe all of this, except the virginity of Mary, does that mean that my salvation is lost? I doubt it, so why specify it? Even more than that, why include 'under Pontius Pilate'? The only conceivable reason for mentioning Pilate here is that, at the time the creed was formulated, there must have been some debate - some voices must have been claiming that Christ died at some other point in history, and this creed was aiming to stamp out the heresy.

And what about the 'descended into hell' bit? Is there a hell that is a physical place? Is it below? Was it there 2000 years ago or is it a future thing, like Revelation seems to imply? So much of Jesus's teaching relates to lifestyle-choices which will keep you out of hell, surely he is the least likely person ever to have gone there, if such a place even existed?

But what doesn't it say? It says nothing about how to live, it says nothing about love, relationship, service of others, acts of generosity or sacrifice. It doesn't acknowledge that Jesus did or said anything during his earthly life. The only thing he was born to do was suffer and die, if this is any kind of basis of faith. His commands were clearly not fundamental to faith.

The more I think on these issues, the more annoyed I get. I reject this creed and all others.

'What the Bible really teaches: A challenge for Fundamentalists' by Keith Ward

2010-04-12T11:00:00.001Z

I can't remember how this book ended up on my Amazon wishlist, but somehow it did and I bought it.

To be honest, I found it a bit of a struggle to read, but not for good reasons.

The basic purpose of the book is to demonstrate that the range of "Bible based" beliefs of fundamentalists are not 'what the Bible really teaches'... This purpose, the book sort of manages. But it fails in other regards.

The main problems with the book are:

the author occasionally uses a really clunky writing style
he repeats himself far too much
that the word 'sublated' is used several times per page (if I never read that word again, it'll be too soon)
and that the author attempts to give a 'true' picture of what the Bible really teaches while demonstrating that the fundamentalist view is false...

You see, the author does a pretty good job of demonstrating that several views of fundamentalists are flawed. And if he'd stuck to that, the book would have worked (although it would have been very negative). But instead he proposes an alternative belief/interpretation for each view and ends up proposing something that is equally as flawed as the fundamentalist view he has just trashed.

I think the main problem is that he tries to maintain that 'the Bible' has a single, unified message. Of course, a simple reading of it will show that this is not the case. There are disagreements and inconsistencies within the bible. For example, does the follower of Jesus have to follow the Torah law? - absolutely yes, if you go by the teaching of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, absolutely not, if you go by some of the letters of Paul. The author can't bring himself to admit that it is possible that Matthew had a biased opinion which colours his gospel, so he ends up explaining how Paul's writings 'sublate' the teaching of Jesus. Hang on. He's saying that the incarnated Son of God appears and teaches a simple message, which is then overturned and superceded by the teachings of a mere man less than a generation later and before the original teachings had even been written down? Seems a bit unlikely.

Me, I think its more likely that the Son of God preached a message that would stand for all time, and both Matthew and Paul interpreted it through their own preconception-filters, and its this interpretation which they then wrote down. Of course, that doesn't allow the Bible to be infallible, but that's probably a blog post for another time.

But its not all bad. I really quite liked the discussion of belief in the 'Second Coming' (to be discussed in a future blog post) and the bits about Jesus's death as atonement or otherwise. But the take on 'Salvation' was bamboozling and inconsistent, as was the discussion of morality.

So I can't recommend this to anyone. But there was some interesting stuff in there. You might like it.

"I hope you've got your bibles with you..."

2010-03-21T07:23:00.001Z

The church seems to go through seasons of repeating this refrain, but I have noticed it as a recurring theme in recent weeks, not just in church services that I've been at, but also in podcasts I've listened to: "I hope you've got your bibles with you..." (or words to that effect).

Generally, the stated purpose of this is along the lines of: "If you don't have your own copies of the bible with you and read along, you have no idea if I'm deceiving you or not..."

Eh, what? You know, in all my years of attending church I don't think I have ever heard anyone deliberately misquote the bible in order to teach a non-biblical message.

So why should the congregation members have to bring their bibles along and read along? For most of history this would have been impossible for people to do - before the invention of the printing press bibles were only for the very rich, and beside that the majority of people were illiterate. Back then, the ordinary believers had to trust the reader and preacher, so why not nowadays?

But I've just realised that this refrain can actually be used for a slight deception if the people do bring their own bibles along and read along. For you see, the preacher will generally be preaching an interpretation of a bible passage or a message resting on the foundations of several biblical passages. And if the congregation member sees that the bible passages referred to are genuine, then that lends support to the interpretation or message presented. Even if the interpretation is not good or the message is flawed in some way. If the congregation member sees that it has its roots in the bible, they're more likely to believe it.

Now I'm not saying that everyone who encourages their congregation to bring their bibles along is doing this, but it might be happening somewhere...

Think I'll leave my bible at home this morning.

Witness vs demonstration

2010-03-10T07:52:00.005Z

Further to my earlier post, I have to comment on one aspect of one of the talks from last year's Vineyard Leaders Conference (UK) that I've been listening to. The rather uninspiringly titled "The reformation today: Theology 2" (link to mp3) is one of the best and most challenging talks I've heard in a long time. Highly recommended, even if the audio quality is a bit lacking.

One of the points made in the talk was that when Jesus sent out his disciples (Matt 10, Mark 6, Luke 9) to preach, his instructions were simple:

Preach the simple message "the Kingdom of Heaven is near"
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons
If anyone is unwelcoming, simply move on to the next place

At no point in there is the instruction to debate non-believers, or attempt to convince anyone of anything - if people don't want to hear, just move on, leave them alone, someone else will want to hear.

How come nobody seems to view evangelism in those terms today? Some folk seem to go out of their way to try and persuade those who aren't interested about the reality of the gospel.

Oh, hang on, the problem with the 'proclaim and demonstrate' model of witness is that (for the most part) we don't seem to be willing or able to do the 'heal the sick' bit these days. Or rather, it is easier to try to engage with non-believers on an intellectual level, because if they don't believe this is due to some fault in their perception of reality. Whereas if we tried to heal people and nothing happened then it would be our lack of faith, our fault.

Hmmm. Maybe we should be more about demonstration than debate.

“Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words” as St Francis of Assisi once supposedly said.

Witness vs Gospel

2010-03-09T07:30:00.000Z

I have a bias.

I don't think I ever really thought of it as a bias until last week. It concerns the content of sermons, or talks at Christian events, whether it be a Sunday morning church service or a weekend conference or an event like Greenbelt.

The bias is this: speakers who preach from the bible and expound what it says = good / speakers who preach about their own life and experiences of God, occasionally using seemingly random verses and passages to support what they're saying = bad.

I know where the bias comes from, I was raised with it. This is exactly the opinion of my parents and the church I was raised in. It was instilled in me from a very young age. So I never really noticed it before, or that it might be a bad thing.

You see, I've always thought that witness really involved telling people about what Jesus did 2000 years ago. And it kind-of annoys me when people / preachers talk about what happened in their lives last year, even if what they're telling is what Jesus did in their lives last week. I suppose my bias could be summed up by saying: 'if it isn't in the bible, its not worth preaching'.

Is this a good bias? Is it right? I'm not so sure.

For about three years now we've been attending a Vineyard church, and the teaching style generally treads the line between the two styles - generally there's a lot of preaching from the bible, but there's also the personal experience stuff too. Sometimes I like this balance, sometimes I wish there was more exposition. Usually I don't notice my bias. But it generally comes out when we have visiting speakers - most of the visitors we have had over the past few years have preached their experiences of God, not expounded. And as a result I have been biased against them without realising it. It came to my attention this week as I've been listening to the talks from the Vineyard Leaders' Conference from last year (I actually meant to listen to this year's talks but downloaded the wrong ones by accident, doh!).

The main speaker, Steve Nicholson, tells some fascinating stories of what God has done in his life and church, with only occasional reference to the bible. And along the way he mentioned that 'witness' is talking about what you've seen. And I realised that he's right. I didn't witness anything 2000 years ago, indeed, I have only hazy memories of the 1970s! If I'm to witness it must be about things I've seen - better still, it should be about what God has done in my life.

So, I've finally realised that witness is not equal to gospel.

Hopefully I can work around this bias, now that I'm aware of it.

Kingdom Theology: Part 1- Inaugurated Eschatology

2010-02-27T08:00:00.002Z

My housegroup has started doing a short course from the Vineyard Biblical Institute called "The Nature of the Kingdom". Its one of the basic 'School of Ministry Level' courses. We're doing one session every few weeks, so we won't be getting through it in a hurry. But I'll post my thoughts on each session as we go.

The only really theological part of the first session consisted of the assertion that Jesus message was one of 'Inaugurated Eschatology' - a phrase that clearly baffled some members of the group.

Eschatology is: "The branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind."

Inaugurate is: "to make a formal beginning of; initiate; commence; begin"

So Inaugurated Eschatology is to formally begin the end of the world. Which sounds a bit worrying.

I understood the point of the explanation (there was a video of a talk explaining all this), but I'm not sure I totally agree.

You see, in my opinion, Jesus' teaching of the Kingdom is only inaugurated eschatology if you assume that 'the Kingdom of Heaven' is the thing that is only fully realised after you die, if heaven is your future state after the end of the world.

Is this what Jesus taught? Is this what his listeners would have understood by the phrase 'the Kingdom of heaven'?

I don't think so.

I used to think that way. That heaven was the place you go when you die (if you've been good). But now (and for a few years now) I have understood that the place of future hope is not heaven, but a restored 'new earth'. So heaven is not an unrealised future ideal, but heaven is the place where God rules now.

This is somewhat supported by the fact that the gospels use the phrases 'the kingdom of heaven' and 'the kingdom of God' reasonably interchangeably. God isn't a future hope, he's a present reality, so the kingdom of God isn't some future thing, its a present reality.

Does this actually change things? Well, perhaps not much. But maybe it does - if your hope is fixed in some (far?) future event your actions will be different than if your hope is fixed on some achievable near future event - the kingdom being (at least partially) realised on earth now...

Larry Norman once sung "I'm only visiting this planet. This world is not my home. I'm just passing through..." but I'm not sure if that's the way things are - this world is our home. This world will be redeemed and transformed and will continue to be our home. My hope is to see the kingdom established here, not to endure here until I can go elsewhere to the kingdom.

Surely by imagining the kingdom as a future thing we are changing the message of Jesus - who proclaimed that the kingdom is near and the kingdom is here?

Zaccheus

2010-01-15T10:09:00.004Z

Luke 19v 1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house." And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, "He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

I've heard a number of sermons that touch on the subject of Zaccheus, and most of them point out that he was (as far as the Jews were concerned) in the pay of the evil Empire and therefore a sinner.

What never occurred to me before was that at no point in the story does Zaccheus quit his job. Salvation comes to his house, yet he remains in the pay of the evil Empire.

What does this tell us about the way we relate to certain employers or occupations?

Ezekiel 20:25

2010-01-10T21:19:00.002Z

Ezekiel 20:25 (New American Standard Bible)
I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live

Eh? What's going on here? This is one of those 'thus sayth the Lord' passages. So here it appears that God himself is saying that he gave the Israelites laws that were 'not good' and impossible to live by...?

Can God give bad laws? More importantly, did God give bad laws, and if so, which of the 613 laws are the bad ones?

And all this is just the run up to verse 26 that implies that one of the bad laws involved human infant sacrifice:

I let them become defiled through their gifts — the sacrifice of every firstborn — that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.

So many questions here...???