Greatest or least in the Kingdom of God?

Matthew 5v19
'Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.'

Matthew 6v19-21
'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.'

1 Corinthians 3v10-15
'By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.'

What will 'heaven' be like?
Will all people in 'heaven' be equal?

Not by my reading of the above scriptures.

The thing that always struck me about the verse from Matthew 5, above, is that both the characters mentioned in it are in the kingdom of heaven. Its not as if the actions of one send them to hell and the actions of the other send them to heaven, what we have here is two characters who are both going to heaven, but one will have greater esteem there than the other. They will not be equal.

The Matthew 6 verse also implies inequality. If you can store up treasure for yourself in heaven, then it is obvious that some will store up more than others. Therefore, in heaven, some will have more (possibly much more) than others. Inequality again.

And finally we have the verse from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. I thought about these verses long and hard several years ago. The sense is much the same as Jesus's 'store up treasure in heaven' saying, but Paul speaks of building a house. The interesting bit of the passage, in this regard, is the end of it. Here we have the case of a man who hasn't built with the right materials on the right foundation - in other words everything he has done is wrong - but, his salvation is assured, he is in the kingdom. When the judgement comes, all his (misdirected) efforts come to nothing, but he is still saved. He has nothing, and even has the pain of losing everything, but still makes it through to the kingdom of heaven. In contrast to this, of course, are the folk who have built on the right foundations with the right materials - they enter the kingdom with their buildings still standing, and probably with much treasure also.

So I think it is clear that both Jesus and Paul preach a message of inequality - even if we get to heaven, we will not all be equal. This is also clear from several of Jesus's parables. How many times does Jesus say 'the kingdom of God is like...' and go on to explain a situation where one man gets 10 talents, one gets 5 and one gets only 1, or similar? If I recall correctly, there are several parables like this.

The kingdom of God is not built on equality. There will be inequality in heaven.

What are you doing to store up treasure for yourself in heaven?

Oh, and by the way, I'd still rather be least in the kingdom of heaven, than be great in the kingdom of hell...

Alternative therapies

There's a debate going on within the leadership of my church at the moment. A few weeks ago, the church building was rented out to a Reiki 'healing' group.

Several years ago the church was renovated and part of the funding came from the local council, on the understanding that the building would be available for local groups to rent it out. So we have had a film society, a gardening club, various art exhibitions, etc., all using the church building.

But should a church building be rented out to an 'alternative therapy' group?

According to a leaflet from our local Reiki practitioner, Reiki therapy involves 'channeling healing power' from a spiritual source without touching the recipient. But what spiritual source?

What spiritual powers are there? Are they all good? Are any evil? How can you be sure?

The bible makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is not the only spiritual power, even though He may be the greatest. There are angels, there are demons, there may be other spirits out there. In the bible, these are presented as being either good or evil - either on God's side or against Him.

So what spiritual source is the Reiki practitioner tapping in to (if any).

Some claim that the founder of Reiki was himself a Christian. Was he tapping into the Holy Spirit's power? What about those who practice Reiki who aren't Christians - do that tap into the Holy Spirit or do thay have to find some other source? Are there any neutral spiritual powers?

And in addition to the questions of where the alleged power comes from, is this the sort of thing that should be allowed to be carried out in a church building?

One thought keeps coming back to me - the only thing that got Jesus so angry that He resorted to physical violence was the misuse of the house of the Lord...

Answers for the Hillbilly Atheist: Part 5

Following on from parts one, two, three and four. And responding to these questions.

41. If god can do anything and loves us, why is there evil?

As stated elsewhere on this blog, I question the 'God can do anything' assumption. In my opinion the possibility of evil exists because, in order to have freewill, there has to be an alternative to good. Of course it is conceivable that nobody would ever have made that choice, but that didn't happen.

42. Why can’t we just skip this step and go straight to heaven?

What is the purpose of 'this step'? What is the purpose of 'heaven'?

One line of reasoning (which I don't really subscribe to) is that 'this step' is here to weed out the undesirables, so only the good guys get to go to heaven. Heaven wouldn't be heaven if the bad folk got in, would it?

But my way of looking at this is that 'this step' was meant to be more heavenly than it is, but it got mucked up. So God has graciously provided another, more heavenly 'step' for those who opt to take it. And I have no idea if there are further steps beyond the next one.

43. Why does god need to test us if he already knows the answer?

Its not a test. Its an opportunity. He's not trying to find out how you will respond, but rather He is giving you the opportunity to make the right choice. Whether you do is entirely up to you.

44. If heaven is all great and yet has freewill why can’t the same be true here, and what about the still born that goes straight to heaven that would have been the next Hitler has he been born, will he ruin heaven for the rest of us?

Maybe. As I said above, maybe what we call heaven is just another step.

45. If nobody can sin in heaven then how did the devil do it?

Ah. That is the big question about the Devil. No idea. None. I'm not sure we can find an answer to that question. For what its worth, I'm more interested in who the devil actually is...

46. Why does god let the devil tempt people?

Its all part of the big freewill question.

47. How is Jesus the son of god if Jesus is supposed to be eternal?

In what way is Jesus the son of God? Was there a mother involved? Well, on the human level, apparently yes - Mary had something to do with it, but on the everlasting, eternal level, there was no mother. God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit are all God. They chose to present themselves to us in these three forms, with these apparent relationships. But I think its all just a simple way of explaining that they are distinct characters to simple people. We understand the father-son relationship, so they chose to use it.

48. If God is a God of light why does he require blind faith?

Ha ha. Nice one. I don't believe God requires blind faith at all. Trusting someone that you have a reason to trust is not blind.

49. Do you feel lucky you happened to believe in the One True Religion™ ?

I believe in one God (expressed in three persons). I also believe that nobody on this planet has a totally accurate belief in that God. No religion has got it all right. In other words, all religions are wrong (to a greater or lesser degree). However, I do feel lucky that I was not raised in a culture where God was presented as a tyranical ogre. I feel lucky that I was raised in a culture where I had the freedom to think through things without fear of persecution. I'm not looking for religion, I simply want to find out the truth about God (whatever the truth may be!).

50. Why isn't the One True Religion™ as obvious as gravity that way nobody would have the "wrong" religion?

All religions are wrong. All religions muck things up. All religions distort our world view so that we can't clearly see the God who is there. Even Christianity (in its present, fractured, multi-denominational form) distorts and often obscures the real God.

A world with no religion could be paradise. Just people and God and none of the stupid stuff in between. I watched the Richard Dawkins documentary 'the root of all evil' (search for it on YouTube if you haven't seen it) where he presented religion as the cause of many of the problems in the world - and he's right, religion has been responsible for all kinds of evil. But that doesn't mean God is responsible - only that religious people, with their distorted views, are responsible.

So what I'm trying to say is that there is no 'One True Religion'!

Religion

I don't like religion.

This may seem odd, coming from someone who calls himself a Christian, but I really dislike religion. I mean, what is the point?

Jesus once said to his followers that whenever they eat bread and drink wine, they should remember him. Fair enough. But along comes religion and ritualises the whole thing - the bread becomes some silly little dry wafers and the wine is frequently either (a) not wine at all, but simply grape juice, or (b) some really special fancy wine - only drunk once in a blue moon. Where has the normal, everyday bread gone? What about 'everyday' wine?

The practical aspect of this is that when Christians have other Christians round for a meal, and share a bottle of wine and eat bread with their meal - they don't pause to remember Jesus.

I am certain that Jesus intended us to remember him when sharing a meal in our homes, not by ritualising the whole thing into a ceremony - and an infrequent ceremony too, for some denominations.

From my point of view Christianity is a relationship with God. Christianity is a way of life. It should not be a religion. From observation, it seems to me that for many folk, religion actually gets in the way of the relationship. It formalises the parent-child relationship into something more like a headmaster-pupil relationship. In fact, it tends to put the religious leaders in between us and God - as mediators. But the bible says the only mediator is Jesus himself.

Another thing ritualising Christianity has done is to place Christianity on the same playing field as all the other religions. Most world religions are about the quest for the distant God, but Christianity is about 'God with us'. If we are just a bunch of people doing rituals to appease or please the distant God, we are no different to any other religion.

Can we not just abolish religion in our churches?

What does God do?

John 5: 17-23
[17] Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." [18] For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

[19] Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. [20] For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. [21] For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. [22] Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, [23] that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

Please bear with me on this one, but what does God do?

In considering my responses to the questions posed by the Hillbilly Atheist, one observation (or perhaps I should just call it a hypothesis) kept coming back to me - God generally does everything through people, not independent of people. Or, to turn that around, God does nothing (or almost nothing) by himself.

Think of any miracle as recorded in the bible. It was actually carried out by someone empowered by God, right? Not by God himself. (For reasons described elsewhere in this blog, I'm discounting everything up to and including the flood here, sorry.)

Who parted the read sea? Moses, empowered by God.
Who got water out of the rock? Moses, empowered by God.
Who brought the lightning down in front of the prophets of Baal? Elijah, empowered by God.
And so on.

In almost every instance I can think of (with the possible exception of 'manna', although that ceased when Moses died, so may have been through Moses), the miracle is carried out by means of a person. Not by God directly.

Is this right? Does God only work through His people?

If this is true, then it means that people can over-rule the will of God in certain circumstances. For example, suppose God empowers a certain person to heal another person, but the empowered person decides not to do the healing, then the sick person remains unwell.

It may also account for some of the apparenly un-loving miraculous acts in the bible. Take the example of Ananias & Sapphira (Acts 5). Peter was empowered by God (perhaps just for general ministry purposes) but Peter used that power to kill the two offenders. Were those deaths God's choice, or Peter's?

It also may give the final answer to the big questions of suffering and death. Why did God allow the 2004 tsunami? Because He needs to work through people - and the people either didn't know or didn't have the faith or whatever to stop the tsunami.

But this brings me to the passage above - Jesus says he only does what he sees the Father doing. So we must assume that the Father does something independent of people, but what?

The passage goes on to be confusing, because if Jesus only does what he sees the Father doing, and the Father does not judge, then how can Jesus judge? But that is a side issue.

No answers here I'm afraid, only questions. What does God do today?

When is the right time ... ?

A bit of self-censoring going on here I'm afraid. I've decided to delete this post. Thanks for all the comments, they were very helpful.

The fine-tuning argument

I listened to the latest Infidel Guy podcast earlier. This was "an atheist debater's primer" i.e. it discussed several subjects which commonly come up in Christian / Atheist debates, and offered arguments for atheists to use in such situations. Like the way Jehovah's Witnesses are primed with answers to common questions, but in reverse.

One of the arguments that they discussed was the 'fine-tuning argument' - this is used by some Christians in an attempt to demonstrate that life is so unlikely that it couldn't have happened by chance.

The basic reasoning goes like this: if the way this universe works was different by the tiniest margin, then life could not exist. Therefore the universe must have been designed, because it works so well. For example, if the universal gravitational constant was slightly less, the universe would have simply expanded so fast that no planets could have formed. And many other 'constants' are found such that minor variations in them would lead to an untenable situation for life to exist.

The two main arguments against this were:

1. The universe appears to be fine-tuned to produce life, but it also appears more fine-tuned to produce black holes. Some scientists estimate there are more black holes out there than there are living organisms on this planet...

2. Existence may have had a near infinite amount of time to try out all the possible combinations of fundamental constants - perhaps there have been countless universes where the constants were totally wrong for producing life, but nobody was there to observe them. We are only here to observe the universe because the fundamental constants that work in this universe are the ones which do work together to allow life to exist. Thus all arguments to probability fall apart.

This set me thinking. Given an infinite amount of (for lack of a better word) time, then all possible universes will exist at one time or another. The universe where there is a big bang that leads to life evolving on the third planet out from a small yellow sun will happen at some point. But, using this reasoning it is also reasonable to assume that the universe where there is a God who can create a small yellow sun and start life on the third planet out from it will also happen. It is neither more likely nor less likely; given an infinity of existence, both will happen at some point.

How can you tell which you are living in?

Answers for the Hillbilly Atheist: Part 4

Hello there to the Hillbilly Atheist! He's started reading my blog, so I guess I'd better get on with answering all his questions...

For what its worth, I don't think you should simply address the questions on your page to Christian Fundamentalists - if you're sticking to your atheist worldview, you are rejecting all forms of belief in all sorts of divine beings. I believe that belief in the divine is reasonable and rational, although I'm not a fundamentalist, in the contemporary useage of the word (I would like to be able to call myself a 'fundamentalist', in that I believe the fundamentals of Christianity without all the unnecessary baggage, but the word has been claimed by those who insist on believing all the baggage as well, sigh). Anyway, on with the questions:

31. If you believe the bible word for word, why does he kill two people for lying to peter and yet won’t smite a child rapist?

Well, as I've said in previous posts, I don't believe the bible word-for-word. But having said that, there are two things about the case of Ananias & Sapphira (Acts Chapter 5) that are worth noting:

The first is the timing of their actions. It could be that God wanted to get the church off to a good start, and if the rot set in too early the thing would collapse before it had a chance to grow properly. Nowadays, the church is big enough to sustain quite a lot of rotten parts (and I don't deny that they are there), so such drastic action is not required.

The second aspect in this case is Peter. As I said in an earlier response to your questions, for some unknown reason, God always works through people. Or rather, God gives his power to his people for them to use. In this instance I'm sure the decision to kill the two folk was Peter's, not God's. God empowered Peter, Peter decided to use that power to remove the rot in a spectacularly hot-headed way (he is always shown to be an impulsive character).

Or maybe the story is a myth that got added in at some later date.

32. Since Jews don’t believe in Jesus they are going to hell, now Hitler on the other hand could have converted on his death bed and went to heaven while the Jews he killed went to hell no matter how good they were, so isn’t god infinitely worse than Hitler? Also in Thessalonians 2:13-15 god apparently agrees with Hitler.

1 Thessalonians 2:13-16... My understanding of these verses relates to Paul's interpretation of world events in his time. 'The Jews' in this instance does not refer to all people who are ethnically Jewish, but to the current rulers of Judea. Who (I think) were in the process of being wiped out by the Romans at the time. Paul saw the events unfolding and interpreted the events as a punishment from God for Jesus's crucifixion.

Now, will Hitler be judged less harshly than the Jews? No. Will the Jews be judged with different criteria than Hitler? No. According to Revelation, everyone will be judged according to what they have done (Revelation 20v12).

As far as I know, Hitler did not convert on his deathbed, so this question is fairly pointless. However, I'm sure that somewhere in history a Jew will have converted on his deathbed.

33. Why didn’t god smite Hitler but did smite a guy in the bible just for touching a box? (see 2 Samuel 6:6 7)

God doesn't generally smite. As I've said on a few occasions, he generally works through people. However, the 2 Samuel story is an odd one. Maybe it's just a myth. But maybe the power of God did exist in some form in that box, if that was the case, it wasn't smiting but simply a genuine discharge of power that killed the guy.

34. If you think god isn’t happy about casting people into hell why does he say in proverbs that he will laugh at you while he does it? (first chapter start around the 2oth verse and read on)

The bible was written by people. Not all of them had a rational and reasonable view of God.

35. if Adam and eve were perfect before the fall, than how come they sinned, did god create imperfect beings, what about the devil, wasn't he perfect, how did he fall, did god mess up with him too?

See my post about Freewill. God created good things and hence the possibility of evil. And where does it say that Adam & Eve were perfect? They were merely 'good' and mucked up.

36. As an atheist I simply don't realize your god is real so how is it right to torment me for all eternity for an honest mistake?

As I've said before, 'torment' is a loaded word. And I'm certain that we have a totally wrong concept of both heaven and hell. But for what its worth, I believe that the world is filled with people who fall into one of two categories: those who, given the choice, would choose to live with God and those who wouldn't. God will not force those who don't want to live with him to do so.

37. How does the soul interact with the brain, what scientific evidence is there that shows how it happens and where it happens.

None. But there is no scientific evidence as to where consciousness is in terms of the brain. But you believe in consciousness, don't you?

38. What is a soul made out of?

Don't know. Does it matter?

39. Do retarded people have retarded souls?

This question offends me. I worked with adults with learning disabilites for a while a few years ago. These were folk right at the bottom of the IQ scale. What amazed me at the time was the way that some of them responded to God in an open and loving manner, while some totally rejected belief in God. Pretty much the same pattern that I have seen with intelligent people at the other end of the IQ spectrum. It would seem that God doesn't judge people according to their intelligence, he accepts the clever and the stupid. However, some of Jesus's parables warn that we will be judged according to the gifts we have been given - more will be expected from those who had more to begin with.

What I think God gets out of all this is love. And the capacity to love is not related to intelligence in any way.

40. Why does a righteous god think virgin women are war booty (numbers 31:17-18)

I think that was an incorrect rationalisation on the part of the writer of the book, several hundred years after the event. I think the thought process went something like this: We won the battle. This must have been because God was with us. We took the virgins as booty. This must have been because God told us this was OK...

More another time.

Omnipotence

I was surprised to discover that the word 'omnipotence' (or rather the Greek word translated as such) doesn't occur in the bible until the book of Revelation. Jesus doesn't speak of God in those terms. Neither does Paul for that matter.

In fact, the closest Jesus gets to saying anything of the sort is when he says "with God all things are possible" (Matt 19v26).

The word 'almighty' is more common, but while this appears to mean "all-powerful" at face value, apparently the words translated to 'almighty' in English have more of a "supreme ruler" meaning than "absolute power". Its the sort of title that would be given to a human emperor.

The question is, of course, is God omnipotent? That is, is he able to do anything that can be conceived?

Most Christians I know will not question this, but I had a conversation with someone a few years ago who believed otherwise. He believes that God is omnipresent and is supremely (but not unlimitedly) powerful. And pointed out that any non-infinite amount of power (however huge) spread over an infinite expanse results in only small amounts of power in any given place and time.

Using this reasoning he can explain creation (in big bang terms) in that God's vast power was not spread over infinite time and space then but was concentrated into one location and time (I realise that the words 'location' and 'time' are meaningless here, but I hope you know what I mean). He can also explain localised miracles, such as healings, changing water to wine, the resurrection and so on. But he also uses it to explain why God did not prevent the tsunami a few years ago - perhaps seismic activity on this scale is outwith the bounds of his localised power?

This comes back to the old debate about why a loving God allows suffering. Perhaps he genuinely can't deal with it all?

And if God is not omnipotent, is he worth following?

Actually, I'd answer yes to that question. Its the same reasoning I used in a previous post. The questions are 'is Jesus the son of God?' and 'will trusting in him lead to eternal life?' If you can answer yes to those, does it matter if God is unable to stop the movement of an ocean?

Anyway, can I stress that this is an issue I'm working my way through, not one on which I've made up my mind? I haven't totally slipped into heresy. Please comment.

Belief and knowledge

One of the problems with discussions between believers and non-believers is that both groups of people claim to have knowledge about the subject rather than merely belief. The Christian might think "I don't just believe in God, I know that he is there" while the non-believer probably thinks "I know there is no god".

The problem with these mindsets is that there is no room for dialogue. They can't possibly both be right.

I am of the opinion that it is possible to know God, but you know the person, but believe things about him. Over the years my beliefs about God have changed. Hopefully they're getting closer to the truth, but that might not be the case. Either way, if there is room for change, then I don't actually have definitive knowledge about God.

I used to think that I was right to talk about what I know about God, while I shunned the 'belief' word. But the more I think about it, the more I see the arrogance of that position and am more inclined towards belief. If you merely believe something, you acknowledge that you have more to learn, if you claim to know, then the door to learning is shut.

Also, if you merely believe things, the road to dialogue is open. Not merely dialogue with non-believers, but dialogue with other believers in different traditions. If you merely believe things, you can agree to differ on many things, but if you know you are right, then you probably know the other is wrong, and the common ground between you can get very thorny.

Remember Paul's words (1 Cor 13:8-12) "... where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."