# articles

title: Overcoming the Bully
topic: Christian Living
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 03/05/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/overcoming-the-bully
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Our knowledge that we are made in the image of God should determine the way we treat others...even bullies.</em></p>

<p>On March 5, 2001, shots rang out at Santana High School in Santee, California. When the bullets stopped, two students lay dead and thirteen others injured. The cause? Was this another deadly gang shooting?</p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>The shooter, Charles “Andy”&nbsp;Williams, seemed the typical high school student. Sports. Honor roll. Drama. So why did he open fire on his fellow classmates? According to friends, Williams was bullied mercilessly. The result was deadly.</p>

<p>Such tragedy speaks to the seriousness of bullying. In fact, it has become an increasing problem among teens. Recent studies show bullying rising dramatically, surpassing substance abuse and sexual pressure as the biggest problem teens face.</p>

<p>And you have probably seen it firsthand. At your school. In your neighborhood. With your friends. In fact, for many the experience is all too real. Maybe you have been the victim of a bully and know just how painful it can be.</p>

<h2>Bullying: More Than Just Physical</h2>

<p>Let’s get clear on what a bully is. It is someone who intentionally intimidates or harasses others. You probably have the stereotypical picture of a bully in your mind: that student who is just a bit bigger than everyone else, knocks over anyone who comes near him while demanding their lunch money, and physically abuses the scrawny kid each and every day.</p>

<p>However, bullying is not always physical. Oftentimes it is dished out in the form of verbal or emotional abuse. It can be a barrage of taunts meant to belittle their target. It can be a simple turn of the shoulder or entire body, making clear someone is excluded from the group. Or it may be that daily stream of gossip intended to destroy the status of another. Indeed, non-physical forms of bullying are often more painful than the physical.</p>

<p>Whatever form bullying takes, at its very root is injustice. Clearly, nobody deserves to be bullied. No student should have to endure physical or verbal attacks. But why not? On what basis can we defend the bullied? Only Christianity offers an adequate answer.</p>

<p>According to Scripture, we are made in the image of God (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%201:26-27&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Genesis 1:26-27</a>). For that reason and that reason alone, every human being has dignity, value, and worth. You see, our value is <em>intrinsic</em>, not <em>instrumental</em>. Okay, okay—those are big words but what do they mean? Simply put, your value and my value come from who we are (intrinsic), not what we do (instrumental). We are created by God and therefore, every single human being deserves to be treated with dignity. When the bully strikes, it is a violation of that dignity and the very intentions of the One who made us.</p>

<p>But get this: even the bully is made in the image of God. That’s right, and he or she has dignity no matter their actions. That is why Jesus can say something seemingly outrageous like, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206:27-28&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Luke 6:27-28</a>). This is not to say that a bully’s action should be tolerated in the least. Remember, God is not only a God of love and mercy but also a God of justice. Evil does not go unpunished. However, if you want to see <em>all</em> human beings through God’s eyes, even the bully, you must start here.</p>

<p>Indeed, considering the bully as loved and valued by God should radically alter your thinking and in turn, your actions. It should move you away from hatred, our natural response to the one bullying us. It should move us toward prayer—prayer for the person antagonizing us, prayer for the guy who just socked you in the arm for the hundredth time, prayer for the girl spreading rumors about you all over school.</p>

<p>Let me confess right now, it is a bit difficult to write this let alone do it! My natural reaction is to push back, to fight back, to belittle in return. I don’t want to pray, I want to make them pay. Of course, this is not God’s way but the way of the world, the way of the bully himself. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I am called to a very different path. I cannot escape His words: “...if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%206:14-15&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Matthew 6:14-15</a>). Or when he says, “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%205:39&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Matthew 5:39</a>).</p>

<p>Without doubt such a response doesn’t come naturally or easily. But imagine being able to respond to the bully in this way. Rather than harboring bitterness, anger and pain, you are able to let God transform them into love, compassion and prayer. Imagine being able to say to the bully, “No matter what you do to me, I love you because God loves you.”&nbsp;That is radical. That is the way of Jesus.</p>

<p>As you can see, the image of God is a foundational concept as we think about bullies and those they harass and intimidate. Surely this divine truth should guide our thought and action when it comes to bullying.</p>

<p>All right, let’s get really practical. Ask yourself these three questions and answer them honestly. Figure out which category (or categories) you fall under and then let God’s truth transform you.</p>

<p><em>Question #1: Are you being bullied?</em></p>

<p>If so, remember God’s truth.</p>

<p>First, remember you do not deserve this kind of treatment. God created you. You bear God’s image. Therefore, you are precious in the eyes of God Himself and you should be treated as such. Sometimes those who are bullied have a tendency to think they somehow deserve it. They begin to let the opinion of others shape their opinion of themselves. But what others think does not determine your value. Not even your own opinion determines your value. God’s opinion does. And his opinion is set in stone. He looks down upon you and says, “I love you because you are my child, my precious creation. I made you and no one can wipe that truth away.”</p>

<p>Second, remember that God relates with you all too well. He tells us as much in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=heb%204:15&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Hebrews 4:15</a>: “For we do not have a high priest [Jesus] who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.”&nbsp;Remember that Christ Himself was bullied. He was continually harassed by the popular leaders and power brokers of His day. Think about it. Jesus was bullied to the point of death, “even death on a cross”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%202:8&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Philippians 2:8</a>). Indeed, his murder was the greatest injustice the world has ever known. If anyone knows injustice, it is Jesus. He can understand your pain in the deepest possible way.</p>

<p>Third, remember God’s people are there to help. So tell someone. Do not keep silent. Did you hear me? Do...not...keep...silent. Isolation is the worst possible thing for those being bullied. Bullying is already intended to isolate you in some way. It is intended to make you feel you are somehow less valuable than others. As bullying continues, this message is reinforced. And if that is all you hear, you will eventually believe it. So confide in your friends, share it with you parents, or tell your youth pastor or pastor. God has given us the community of believers so we can hear His truth reinforced by others. We do not have to go it alone.</p>

<p>In addition, the bullying needs to be stopped by the proper authority. That cannot happen unless a teacher, school administrator or parent knows about it. God Himself has put in place certain authorities to stop evil and injustice and to promote the good (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom%2013:1-7&amp;version=NIV" target="_self">Romans 13:1-7</a>). So let them step in and give you the help you need.</p>

<p><em>Question #2: Are you bullying others?</em></p>

<p>If so, remember God’s truth.</p>

<p>First, remember the one you are bullying is made by God. The sin of bullying is a sin against God Himself. How we break the heart of God when we treat His creation with such contempt.</p>

<p>Second, remember your actions can inflict great pain on others. When I was a freshman in high school, I got off to a very bad start with one of my classmates, Joe. I can’t even remember the reason why, but clearly we did not like each other. And my response to Joe? I began to bully him verbally. I began calling him names. Every time I would see him around campus, I would make some demeaning comment. He would return the favor.</p>

<p>About a year after high school graduation, I accidentally crossed paths with Joe. I had just finished filling my car’s tank at a local gas station. As I was pulling away, I glanced over at another customer who had just started filling his tank.</p>

<p>It was Joe.</p>

<p>We made eye contact. Instant recognition. The look on his face quickly turned to disgust. Then he proceeded to raise his right arm and flash me the universal symbol of peace and goodwill. Okay, it was actually his middle finger. I did not respond but just drove off.</p>

<p>Fortunately, I had matured just a bit since my freshmen year and I reflected on the incident. That day Joe sent me a crystal clear lesson about the emotional pain I caused him through our high school years. I was awash with sadness and regret. To this day I wish I could find Joe again and ask his forgiveness for my actions.</p>

<p><em>Question #3: Are you watching others being bullied?</em></p>

<p>If so, remember God’s truth.</p>

<p>First, (you guessed it) remember the person being bullied is made in the image of God. They are to be treated with respect and dignity, no matter what others say about them or do to them.</p>

<p>Second, remember that Jesus did not stand back and simply watch others being bullied. He had the courage to step in and stop it. Do you remember the story of the adulterous woman who was brought before him in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%208:1-11&amp;version=NIV">John 8</a>? The Pharisees thought they would trap Jesus with a little “holy bullying.”&nbsp;They dragged the adulteress before Him. The woman had even been caught in the act. The Pharisees were ready to stone her. With stones in hand, they confronted Jesus. Even at the risk of physical harm, Jesus did not back down. He defended the woman until one by one, her accusers left. Then he offered her words of love and hope.</p>

<p>Indeed, Jesus always seemed to be on the side of the loser, the outcast, the bullied. Remember Zaccheus (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%2019:1-10&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Luke 19:1-10</a>)? Remember the woman at the well (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%204:7-26&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">John 4:7-26</a>)? Remember the blind, the sick and the lame? Throughout the Gospels, we discover a Jesus who seeks out the bullied. The next time you see someone being physically pushed around or verbally ripped apart, do or say something. Grab a teacher. Speak up and ask the bully to stop. Don’t sit back and do nothing.</p>

<h2>Bullying: Everyone’s Problem</h2>

<p>Unfortunately, bullying is a reality for everyone, whether you see it around you or experience firsthand. But we cannot respond to the world’s ways <em>with</em> the world’s ways, bullying in return for bullying. Jesus calls us to live differently, radically. On an individual level, our calling is to meet harassment and intimidation with the radical love of Jesus. As you do so, trust in His words: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world”&nbsp;(John 16:33).</p>
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title: The Most Important Social Justice Issue of Our Time
topic: Bioethics
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 03/05/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-most-important-social-justice-issue-of-our-time
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Abortion is unjustly denying the most fundamental human right to thousands of human beings every day, and we should act to restore justice.</em></p>

<p>It’s abortion.</p>

<p>I know, I know. That’s the least cool thing I could’ve said. If I really wanted to be a hip young Christian, I would’ve said poverty, or the environment, or pointed to some need in Africa (and certainly, these are very important issues). Recently, it’s been trendy to move away from “out-dated”&nbsp;and more volatile social issues like abortion or homosexuality. Oh well. I’m not much for being cool anyhow.</p>

<p>In the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, seven Supreme Court justices gave us license to kill growing human fetuses in a mother’s womb. Oooh, sound harsh? There should be nothing controversial about that last phrase because it accurately describes abortion. “To kill”&nbsp;is accurate because the fetus is alive biologically, so whatever it is, we’re killing something that is alive and growing. That’s supposedly the problem, right? “Human fetuses”&nbsp;is accurate because it’s in the fetal stage of development and it has human parents. Human parents are only capable of procreating something human. And of course, “mother’s womb”&nbsp;is accurate because that’s its location.</p>

<p>Why is this the most important social justice issue? Well, we must first get clear on justice. There are two primary types of justice: retributive and distributive. Retributive justice has to do with when and why punishment is justified. This kind of justice demands the guilty are punished and the innocent go free. Distributive justice has to do with the fair distribution of resources. If humanitarian aid is being given to one of group people over another because of ethnicity, it violates distributive justice. (Side-note: Oftentimes, the issues we associate with “social justice”&nbsp;should not fall under this category, strictly speaking.)</p>

<p>Fundamental to the issue of justice is the issue of rights. A right is simply a just claim. The proper source of rights is our Creator. Jefferson summarizes in the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”</p>

<p>Yes, the issue of abortion is a human rights issue. Human beings have a fundamental right to life. This right is our most basic human right. Without this, all other rights are irrelevant. This right is God-given. When it is violated, we are obligated to act.</p>

<p>On my view, the unborn child is fully human (of course, I have an argument for this view) and therefore, has a right to life. Abortion kills that life. Therefore, justice demands that we act.</p>

<p>It happens everyday. It happens in our country. It happens right under our noses. Almost 4,000 each day. Almost 1.3 million each year. Innocent human beings killed each year is the greatest injustice in our country today.</p>

<p>And that’s why abortion is the most important social issue of our time.</p>
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title: We Need Knowledge, Not Just Belief
topic: Philosophy
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 03/05/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/we-need-knowledge-not-just-belief
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Knowledge, not just belief, about God leads to spiritual transformation. So what is knowledge, and how do we get it?</em></p>

<p>I don’t want you to <em>merely</em> believe true things. That’s a good start, but it’s not enough. I want you to have knowledge.</p>

<p>You may be thinking, “What’s the difference?”&nbsp;Well, the difference is crucial.</p>

<p>Philosophers generally take knowledge to include three components: truth, belief, <em>and</em> justification. Consider each for a moment. Truth is a relationship between the way I take the world to be (represented by my thoughts, ideas, beliefs, etc.) and the way the world really is (or reality). If my beliefs correspond to reality, they are true. So in terms of knowledge, it’s just common sense that if I know something, that means it’s also true. Wouldn’t it be odd to say I know something but I’m not really sure if it’s true?</p>

<p>Secondly, consider the relationship between knowledge and belief. Again, wouldn’t it be odd to say I know something but I don’t <em>believe</em> it? All the facts we think we know are also facts we believe.</p>

<p>Finally, knowledge requires justification. Justification is simply the reasons we believe things—it’s the “why”&nbsp;behind the “what.”&nbsp;We believe many things we think are true, but how can we be sure we’re right? We justify those things with reasons, evidence, or proof. Justification gives us confidence our true beliefs are not merely guesses but actual instances of knowledge. The more justification we have, the greater our confidence.</p>

<p>And this is why I don’t want you to have mere true belief. I want you to have confidence what you believe is actually true. In other words, I don’t want you to just know what you believe, but also <em>why</em> you believe it.</p>

<p>The “why”&nbsp;is crucial because it transforms true belief into knowledge. Did you know the Bible has as much, if not more, to say about knowledge than faith? Consider just a few of the things God says about knowledge:</p>

<ul>
	<li>“My people are destroyed for lack of <em>knowledge.”</em>&nbsp;<strong>Hosea 4:6</strong></li>
	<li>“<em>Know</em> therefore today, and take it to heart, that the Lord, He is God in heave above and on the earth below; there is no other.”&nbsp;<strong>Deuteronomy 4:39</strong></li>
	<li>“It seemed fitting for me as well...to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may <em>know</em> the exact truth about the things you have been taught.”&nbsp;<strong>Luke 1:3-4</strong></li>
	<li>“My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of <em>complete understanding</em>, in order that they may <em>know</em> the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of <em>wisdom and knowledge</em>.”&nbsp;<strong>Colossians 2:2-3</strong></li>
</ul>

<p>This is a brief sample of the Bible’s rich and robust view of knowledge in our spiritual transformation. Unlike much of what is offered by contemporary writers on spiritual formation, the Bible paints a picture where knowledge is absolutely central to our transformation. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”&nbsp;Dallas Willard summarizes our discussion and its implications perfectly:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Knowledge has a unique and irreplaceable function in human life. Unlike any other human capacity, it authorizes individuals to act, to direct, and to teach, and the lack thereof disqualifies one in those same respects...Knowledge therefore lays the foundation for confident and successful dealings with reality and, as such, is one of the most precious things one can acquire. People “perish for lack of knowledge,”&nbsp;as the Bible tells us, precisely because, without it, disastrous encounters, or lack of encounters, with reality are certainly to occur; most importantly, they occur with reference to God, God’s Kingdom, and any possibilities for an eternal kind of living. (In Dallas Willard’s foreword to the book <em>The Kingdom Triangle</em> by J.P. Moreland.)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If we want to have a “foundation for confident and successful dealings with reality,”&nbsp;then we must seek to understand the reasons for believing what we believe.</p>
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title: Theistic Evolution: Drifting toward Darwin
topic: Science
author: Greg Koukl
date: 03/01/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/theistic-evolution-drifting-toward-darwin
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It seems like every time I turn around I hear of another prominent Christian thinker or theologian who has embraced Darwinism.</p>

<p>It’s deeply disconcerting. In light of the stature of these Evangelical leaders, some people are going to ask, “What do they know that I don’t know? I thought this was a done deal. It’s either Darwin or God.”<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p>Indeed, a host of committed evolutionists see the equation that way, incorporating the notion of randomness into the very definition of Darwinism.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> Others are convinced of just the opposite: Evolution and God are not at odds, and they’re making an issue of it.</p>

<p>A full court press led by Francis Collins<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup>—the driving force of the Human Genome Project—and his colleagues at <a href="http://biologos.org">BioLogos</a>—an advocacy group attempting to broker peace between science and religion—pressures Christian stragglers to wake up and join the 21st century, all for the sake of the Gospel. On their view, a spiritual message out of step with scientific facts holds no appeal for the scientific establishment.</p>

<p>Evangelicals like Os Guinness, founder of the Trinity Forum, Tremper Longman of Westmont College, and Peter Enns, formerly of Westminster, have endorsed some form of theistic evolution.</p>

<p>And the discussion is heating up. Indeed, the situation has gotten so tense that Dr. Craig Hazen of Biola University has asked whether it’s still safe in Evangelical circles to doubt Darwin at all.</p>

<p>Commitment to theistic evolution is driven by two impulses. The first is fidelity to Scripture and Christian orthodoxy. The second is a growing conviction that evidence for Darwinism is so overwhelming, Christians must accommodate it for the Gospel to be credible. The goal: make peace with the reigning paradigm and still maintain a meaningful hold on orthodox Christian religion.</p>

<p>Can that be done? The answer depends entirely upon the meaning of two words: “theistic”&nbsp;and “evolution.”</p>

<h2>What’s in a Name?—“Evolution”</h2>

<p>Before Darwin, conventional wisdom held that God was responsible for designing the biological world. Darwin argued for an alternative: Nature was capable of accomplishing this on its own. Changes in organisms happened “naturally”&nbsp;through an unguided process, and an equally unguided process (natural selection) safeguarded whatever novel traits aided survival and reproduction.</p>

<p>Refinements of Darwin’s ideas followed, notably the addition of genetic mutation as the agent of change that, coupled with natural selection, is called Neo-Darwinism. Thus, life descended with modification from simple beginnings, branching out with increasing complexity and diversity to form Darwin’s evolutionary tree of life.</p>

<p>Though the word “evolution”&nbsp;has itself evolved over time into a variety of permutations (limited common descent, punctuated equilibrium, etc.), what I’ve described above is bare-bones Darwinism, at least according to current assessment.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>

<p>Two details are central. One, the neo-Darwinian synthesis necessarily entails a particular mechanism—natural selection—that <em>determines</em> (an important word) what biological novelty gets passed on to future generations. Without it there is no evolution in the Darwinian sense. Two, the creative capabilities of the mutation/natural selection duo make God superfluous to the process.</p>

<h2>Darwin’s Dangerous Idea</h2>

<p>Natural selection is the “blind watchmaker”—a term Richard Dawkins coined in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393315703/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359249479&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=blind+watchmaker">now-famous book</a> of that title.&nbsp;This was “Darwin’s dangerous idea.”&nbsp;It seized the day not because of scientific data. The fossil record was virtually untouched in 1859 when Darwin published <em>The Origin of Species</em>. Living cells were just “black boxes”&nbsp;of protoplasm and nothing was known about genetics. Darwin shook the world because he offered a plausible, <em>non-theistic</em> explanation for the existence and development of life.</p>

<p>Darwinism is a Designer substitute. Note evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala:</p>

<p>It was Darwin’s greatest accomplishment to show that the directive organization of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup></p>

<p>Lest the significance of these two points escape you—that the evolution we’re enjoined to embrace 1) entails the blind watchmaker thesis, and 2) makes God superfluous—listen carefully to these pillars of Darwinism:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Ernst Mayr: “Natural selection...is so important for the Darwinian because it permits the explanation of adaptation...by natural means instead of by divine intervention.”<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup></li>
	<li>Douglas Futuyma: “Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms—but this seems to be the message of evolution.”<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup></li>
	<li>Harvard’s Stephen Jay Gould: “No ’vital forces’&nbsp;propel evolutionary change, and whatever we think of God, His existence is not manifest in the products of nature.”<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></li>
	<li>George Gaylord Simpson: “All the objective phenomena of the history of life can be explained by purely naturalistic or materialistic factors...Therefore, mankind is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup></li>
</ul>

<p>Clearly, if these notables are taken seriously (and quotes like these are legion—even Darwin understood his theory this way), then Darwinism cannot easily be baptized. Indeed, the world’s foremost popular apologist for evolution, Richard Dawkins, famously remarked, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”&nbsp;“Evolution,”&nbsp;William Provine cheers, “is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.”<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup></p>

<p>These are no idle words. If evolution <em>in the sense that is meaningful to the scientific establishment</em> can coherently co-exist with Christian theism, why are Darwinists so buoyed by atheism’s prospects because of it?</p>

<p><em>This</em> is the Darwinism Christians are being asked to make peace with. And make no mistake, <em>this is the only kind of “evolution”&nbsp;that will purchase the respect of the scientific nobility</em>. Never forget the candid admission of Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin: “We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup></p>

<p>And this is precisely how some theistic evolutionists understand it. Anglican John Polkinghorne writes, “An evolutionary universe is theologically understood as a creation <em>allowed to make itself</em>.”&nbsp;Biologist Kenneth Miller insists that “mankind’s appearance on this planet was <em>not preordained</em>...We are here...as an afterthought, a minor detail, a <em>happenstance</em> in a history.”<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup> [emphasis added]</p>

<p>John West points out, “According to many new theistic evolutionists, God chose to ’create’&nbsp;the world by setting up an undirected process over which he had no specific control and about which he did not even have foreknowledge of its particular outcomes.”<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<p>In what sense can an undirected process be considered “theistic”? Again, the answer depends on definitions.</p>

<h2>What’s in a Name?—“Theistic”</h2>

<p>The Christian account starts this way: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”&nbsp;(Gen. 1:1). What follows in the next three chapters is a characterization, of some sort, of the details.</p>

<p>Genesis is the book of beginnings: the beginning of the world, the beginning of mankind, and the beginning of a problem. Adam and Eve acted in a way that caused a problem for all mankind descending from them. The rest of the story records what God has done to repair the breech.</p>

<p>However one understands the beginning chapters of the narrative—as a straightforward chronological description of events or something else<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup> (Genesis 1), with an historical chronology following (Genesis 2-3)—some details seem theologically inescapable.</p>

<p>First, God made everything. Second, God deliberately organized everything in a very particular way. He made the raw materials, then He (somehow) made particular things from the raw materials—Adam, for instance. Third, though humans are biologically diverse, certain non-biological things remained the same for all.</p>

<p>Humans are distinct from every other kind of creature in that they bear the image of their Creator passed on from that first pair. They also share equally in the guilt resulting from the couple’s freely-chosen rebellion against their Sovereign (“...by nature, children of wrath”&nbsp;Eph. 2:3), an act of sedition that corrupted their original moral purity.</p>

<p>Standard Christian theology dictates that all human beings are both transcendently valuable and morally culpable before God as a group in virtue of their <em>common descent from their first parents</em>.</p>

<p>This summary strikes me as absolute, bare minimum, initial Christian theology. If these claims are not to be understood as facts of history, it’s hard to imagine how anything in the narrative that follows from Genesis to Revelation makes any sense.</p>

<p>So, in what way are both theism and evolution true? My question at this point is not whether the Darwinian model as commonly characterized is true (I don’t think so, but that is a separate matter). Rather, is the model Christians are being asked to embrace as scientifically certain consistent with classical Christianity? Can <em>that</em> kind of evolution be squared with <em>this</em> kind of theism?</p>

<h2>An Idle God?</h2>

<p>Darwinism offers a description of how biological diversity came about. If “theistic evolution”&nbsp;is a meaningful phrase, it’s appropriate to ask the question, “What did God do?”&nbsp;It’s clear what Darwinists think evolution did (pretty much everything). But for <em>theistic</em> evolutionists, what was God’s role?</p>

<p>Imagine I was untutored in culinary basics and asked for directions on boiling water. You tell me to heat water to 212º, add a leprechaun, and water will boil. I ask if water will boil at 212º without the leprechaun. Yes, you say, it will. Heat can do the job all on its own. I decide to leave the leprechaun out; he’s superfluous.</p>

<p>When theists affirm the standard Darwinian model, then try to insert God, it sounds like invoking a leprechaun to boil water—maybe out of religious habit or theological necessity, but not to make a difference in the outcome. God, like the leprechaun, seems superfluous.</p>

<p>How do theistic evolutionists escape this problem? If Darwinism is true, in what specific way did God <em>use</em> it? “If you tell an attentive child that evolution is just God’s way of creating,”&nbsp;Jay Richards observes, “she’s going to ask you what you mean.”<sup id="fnref:15"><a href="#fn:15">15</a></sup> That’s my question. I’ve been offered three possible answers.</p>

<h2>Stacking the Deck—1</h2>

<p>First, if biological development is a result of genetic mutations sifted out by natural selection, God might have directly manipulated those mutations in just the right way at just the right time to accomplish His goal.</p>

<p>This is certainly a plausible option. The problem is, when DNA no longer randomly mutates and natural selection no longer blindly selects, then the process is no longer Darwinian. It’s intelligent design, hardly the kind of “evolution”&nbsp;to satisfy the critics.</p>

<p>Suppose I wanted a straight flush for a hand of poker. I could either use sleight of hand to stack the deck while I deal, or I could shuffle the cards randomly and see if the flush is dealt me. It wouldn’t make any sense, though, to “design”&nbsp;the hand by shuffling the deck and dealing. There’s no way to ensure the results. There’s no <em>telos</em>; no ultimate goal I’m shooting for.</p>

<p>In the same way, either God designs the details, or nature shuffles the deck and natural selection chooses the winning hand. The mechanism is either conscious and intentional (design), or unconscious and unintentional (natural selection). Creation is teleological; it has a purpose, a goal, an end. Evolution is accidental, like a straight flush dealt to a poker rookie.</p>

<h2>Stacking the Deck—2</h2>

<p>There’s a second option. Maybe the deck was “stacked”&nbsp;from the beginning with God either front-loading all the information in the initial conditions or endowing nature with a self-organizing principle that could manufacture information along the way.<sup id="fnref:16"><a href="#fn:16">16</a></sup></p>

<p>One version, called “fully gifted creation,”&nbsp;was formerly advanced by Calvin College’s Howard Van Till (I say “formerly”&nbsp;because Professor Van Till apparently is no longer a Christian). According to Van Till, God “generously gifted the creation with the capabilities for self-organization and transformation”&nbsp;resulting in “an unbroken line of evolutionary development from non-living matter to...existing life-forms.”<sup id="fnref:17"><a href="#fn:17">17</a></sup></p>

<p>There are two problems with this approach that seem insurmountable. First, there is no empirical reason to believe that colossal amounts of information were “deposited”&nbsp;at the beginning of the universe, then unwrapped at just the right moments by mechanistic means to propel the progress of living organisms.</p>

<p>Second, no such inherent “self-organizing principle”&nbsp;(i.e., “chemical necessity”) is evident in chemistry.<sup id="fnref:18"><a href="#fn:18">18</a></sup> Stephen Meyer has shown conclusively that no mechanistic process can ever produce information, since a law-like process can only generate rigidly ordered redundancy that is biologically meaningless.<sup id="fnref:19"><a href="#fn:19">19</a></sup> The results will be more like mantras than intelligible “sentences”&nbsp;of information (compare BABBA BABBA BABBA to “I do not like green eggs and ham”).</p>

<p>If there is no evidence the information necessary for life was bundled up in the initial conditions of the Big Bang, and no self-organizing principle in chemistry that can produce that information “on the fly,”&nbsp;then this option is off the table, too.</p>

<h2>God in the Shadows—3</h2>

<p>There remains one alternative for God “using”&nbsp;evolution: All appearances to the contrary, God is working behind the scenes in ways we cannot detect. Collins writes:</p>

<p>Evolution could appear to us to be driven by chance, but from God’s perspective the outcome would be entirely specified. Thus, God could be completely and intimately involved in the creation of all species, while from our perspective, limited as it is by the tyranny of linear time this would appear a random and undirected process.<sup id="fnref:20"><a href="#fn:20">20</a></sup></p>

<p>While a possibility, strictly speaking, Collins’s alternative strikes me as worse than God of the gaps; here God is filling gaps no one even knows about. Like John Wisdom’s “invisible gardener,”<sup id="fnref:21"><a href="#fn:21">21</a></sup> this is a classic leap-of-faith move that is impossible to verify or falsify. It simply saves the paradigm. Plus, even Dawkins admits biology doesn’t “appear driven by chance”&nbsp;at all, but just the opposite: It gives “the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”<sup id="fnref:22"><a href="#fn:22">22</a></sup></p>

<p>One might invoke God as the primary cause of all things, using secondary causes to accomplish His aims—a completely legitimate option in principle. However, secondary physical causes leave trails leading back to their initial causes. Today’s rainfall can, theoretically, be traced back through a multitude of secondary causes to a primary cause at the big beginning.</p>

<p>Yet that is precisely the trail missing here. Do not forget what problem needs solving: the infusion of enormous amounts of information at various stages of biological history. As we’ve seen, no naturalistic secondary cause is capable of explaining that. It seems ad hoc to appeal to God as primary cause of a physical process when there is no trail of secondary causes that lead to the final result.</p>

<p>I guess theistic evolutionists could just shrug and say, as an article of faith, though materialistic processes are completely adequate for evolution, God somehow did it all since “the Bible tells me so.”&nbsp;But that same Bible has a lot to say about details that are not at all friendly to Darwinism.</p>

<h2>WWJD</h2>

<p>For many, the largest obstacle to theistic evolution is theological. Certain features of Christian orthodoxy seem impossible to reconcile with the Darwinian model. Is it true, for example, that Adam and Eve might not have been our first parents, as some suggest?<sup id="fnref:23"><a href="#fn:23">23</a></sup> If so, it’s hard to see how the redemptive story in the Bible holds together.</p>

<p>If the human race has multiple evolutionary origins, then mankind is not related physically in one fallen family. In what sense is Jesus “made like His brethren in all things”&nbsp;(Heb. 2:17) if we’re not all brethren? If Adam or the Fall are figures of some sort, when did the moral wound <em>occur</em> in history that would actually be <em>healed</em> in history at Golgotha? If the first Adam is a fiction, why need a second Adam to repair the breech? Read Rom. 5:12-19 carefully and ask if anything Paul says there about salvation makes sense if Adam wasn’t our first father.<sup id="fnref:24"><a href="#fn:24">24</a></sup></p>

<p>For Peter Enns, Paul was a first-century man employing the limited (and ultimately inaccurate) conventions of his day (like a literal Adam).<sup id="fnref:25"><a href="#fn:25">25</a></sup></p>

<p>Luke declares Jesus “...the son of David...the son of Abraham...the son of Adam, the son of God”&nbsp;(3:23-38). At what juncture does this record cease to be actual history and fade into myth? And how far does this go? How is Genesis an account of any <em>historical</em> beginnings? Was there no Satan? No original temptation? No primeval lie? No original sin? No proto-evangel promising the seed of woman would crush the serpent’s head?</p>

<p>If the Darwinian model advanced by theistic evolutionists like those at BioLogos is sound, it becomes very difficult to imagine how core elements of redemptive history have any meaning at all. Genesis 2-3, Francis Schaeffer observes, ceases then to explain either man’s wonder or his flaw.<sup id="fnref:26"><a href="#fn:26">26</a></sup></p>

<h2>Catching the Gingerbread Man</h2>

<p>Problems like these are precisely why Daniel Dennett declared Darwinism a “universal acid”&nbsp;cutting right through traditional religion—why, as Casey Luskin laments, “Many atheists believe Neo-Darwinian science guts theism to its core.”<sup id="fnref:27"><a href="#fn:27">27</a></sup> Ironically, rather than making Christianity <em>more</em> credible, Darwinism <em>undermines the Gospel</em>, negating everything that makes the Good News good.</p>

<p>Adopting Darwinism “for the sake of the Gospel”&nbsp;is counterproductive. The only evolution acceptable to the scientific establishment is not the kind that makes the Gospel more attractive. Rather, it undermines it. Therefore, it is unlikely theistic evolution will have any persuasive effect on those we’re trying to reach.</p>

<p>The fabled Gingerbread Man thought himself safe crossing the river first on the fox’s tail, then on his back, and finally on his snout. In an instant, though, he was eaten with one big gulp. That was the end of the Gingerbread Man.</p>

<p>In the final analysis, Christian theism contains necessary elements that Darwinism renders meaningless. If one is convinced the second is true, the first will be overhauled. Adjusting our theology to accommodate Darwinism, however, adjusts Christian theism right out of existence.</p>

<p>Every concession brings us closer to the fox’s mouth.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Clearly, mere <em>belief</em> in God is not inconsistent with Darwinism. Rather, people have assumed that only one <em>explanation</em> for biodiversity can be true, either the Darwinian story (as currently understood), or some version of the Christian account. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">By “randomness”&nbsp;I mean the process was unguided. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Collins is author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/1416542744/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359234628&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=francis+collins"><em>The Language of God</em></a>&nbsp;and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Language-Science-Faith-Straight-Questions/dp/0830838295/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359234628&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=francis+Collins"><em>The Language of Science and Faith</em></a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Henceforth, this is my meaning of “Darwinism”&nbsp;and “evolution.”&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Ayala, as quoted in William A. Dembski ed., <em>Mere Creation</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 113. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">Michael Ruse, <em>Darwinism Defended</em> (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1982), xi-xii, as cited in Jay Richards, ed., <em>God and Evolution</em> (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2010), 22. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Douglas Futuyma, <em>Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution</em>, Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc., 1983), 12-13. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">Stephen Jay Gould, “In Praise of Charles Darwin,”&nbsp;<em>Discover</em>, 2/82, cited in Johnson’s “<a href="http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or151/151johngould.htm#anchor444698">Response to Gould</a>”.&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">George Gaylord Simpson, <em>The Meaning of Evolution</em> (Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, 1967), 344-345. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">William Provine, “Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning in Life,”&nbsp;<a href="http://bevets.com/equotesp5.htm">http://bevets.com/equotesp5.htm</a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">Richard Lewontin, “<a href="http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/nave-html/faithpathh/lewontin.html">Billions and Billions of Demons</a>,”&nbsp;<em>The New York Review of Books</em>, 1/4/97. The full citation is stunning in its clarity, candor, and hubris: A distinguished member of the scientific aristocracy admitting that the apparatus of science is rigged to produce philosophically acceptable answers.&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">John Polkinghorne, <em>Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity</em>, 113; Kenneth Miller, <em>Finding Darwin’s God</em>, 272; both cited in <a href="http://www.discovery.org/a/10121">West, Discovery Institute</a>, 5/1/09.&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">Richards, 41. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14">Find alternative views in John Lennox’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-That-Divide-World/dp/0310492173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359149676&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=lennox+seven+days"><em>Seven Days that Divide the World</em></a>, and Miller and Soden’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-We-Misunderstood-Interpreting-Original/dp/0825439272/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1359149629&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=soden+in+the+beginning"><em>In the Beginning...We Misunderstood</em></a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:15">Richards, 12. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:15">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:16">Proponents like Denis Lamoureux call this “teleological evolution”&nbsp;or “evolutionary creation.”&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:16">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:17">Howard Van Till, “The Fully Gifted Creation,”&nbsp;in <em>Three Views on Creation and Evolution</em>, ed. J.P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 171. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:17">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:18">Stephen Meyer in Richards, 157-160. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:18">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:19">Stephen Meyer, <em>Signature in the Cell</em> (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009), chap. 11. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:19">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:20">Francis Collins, <em>Language of God</em> (New York: Free Press, 2006), 205, as quoted in Richards, 44-45. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:20">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:21"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Invisible_Gardener">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Invisible_Gardener</a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:21">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:22">Richard Dawkins, <em>The Blind Watchmaker</em> (New York: W.W. Norton &amp; Company, 1986), 1. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:22">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:23">Note Longman, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Pk1vXL1WE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Pk1vXL1WE</a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:23">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:24">The same can be said of 1 Cor. 11:8-9, 15:21-22, 15:45; 2 Cor. 11:3, 1 Tim. 2:13-14. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:24">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:25">Enns, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_daT7chLPZE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_daT7chLPZE</a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:25">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:26">Francis Schaeffer, <em>The Complete Works</em>, vol. II (Wheaton: Crossway, 1982), 3. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:26">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:27">Richards, 68. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:27">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Abortion Rhetoric
topic: Bioethics
author: Greg Koukl
date: 03/04/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/abortion-rhetoric
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em><strong>Domestic terrorism. "A brutal, cowardly act of murder." "Mass murder." "A national conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism." These are perfect descriptions of what abortion is.</strong></em></p>

<p>It's a heck of a way to end the year. Another killing at an abortion clinic Friday. Two more people killed, three others wounded, some in critical condition at an abortion clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts. John Salvi the alleged shooter.<br>
<br>
I would love to do a light-hearted show on this the last day of 1994. I would love to do a reflection on all the great things that have happened--interesting calls that we've had, exciting events that have taken place. I really think it's been kind of a slow year for bad news, by and large. It's not like other years and that's a good sign. To listen to the other radio stations as they are doing a montage of the year, and to hear about the earthquake and the O.J. Simpson trial--it could have been a lot worse. It's been a lot worse in other years. But then the year ends on this particular note, especially with the impact that these killings are going to have for the pro-life movement. It's just absolutely maddening.<br>
<br>
I am so upset about a couple of aspects about this. I hate responding to these kinds of things. I have a tremendous internal conflict in dealing with things like the killings on Friday. This is the third occasion of killings since March of 1993 when David Gunn was gunned down in Pennsacola, Florida. We had two more killings since then, before this one on Friday. So there have been five killings in the last year and ten months. I hate talking about it. The obvious reason is that two more people are dead over this issue. I am pro-life on this issue. I want fewer people to die here, not more people to die.<br>
<br>
But it creates a tremendous conflict inside of me because I want to speak in the strongest possible terms against such a thing and I do. I think this is tragic. I've argued coherently in the past that we ought not do this. When I say coherently it does appear that there is an inconsistency between saying that abortion is the taking of an innocent human's life and that it is also wrong to take the life of those that are taking the lives of other innocent human beings. It seems like there is a contradiction there. I don't think there is and I've gone to great pains to explain why. I've explained that all in the past, but it's very hard for me to deal with these incidents because I want to say this is a terrible tragedy, this ought not be done, without at any point taking away from the moral weight of this tragic institution of abortion.<br>
<br>
When this thing happens, when people are killed, when there is violence at abortion clinics, it takes all of the focus away from the fact that 1.5 million innocent human beings lose their lives every year, and it puts all the focus on the abortionists that are doing such a thing in a favorable way. So I am angry at this. It is maddening to me.<br>
<br>
I'm angry at the killings because more people are dead, including in this case, a magna cum laude Boston College graduate, Shannon Lowney. But I'm also angry because more children are going to die as a result. I have mentioned before that if any tactic sets the cessation of abortion back even a single day, that 4,109 more children lose their lives at the rate of 1.5 million abortions a year. If we set this back because of our tactics, and because of our attitudes, and our lack of wisdom, and our impulsiveness, more children die, more people die. This last tragedy is a case in point.<br>
<br>
Pro-abortionists all over the country are now having an absolute field day with emotional and misleading rhetoric. It's especially misleading because it obfuscates the issue so that one can't see what ought to be obvious to all. It clouds things so that the actual facts of the circumstance are distorted. It makes those who are arguing for the lives of unborn children look like Hitlers. Here's what I mean.<br>
<br>
President Clinton called this "domestic terrorism" in the <em>L.A. Times</em>. U.S. Attorney David Stern called it a "brutal, cowardly act of murder." Eleanor Smeal called it "a mass murder." Listen to this. The killing of two people at two clinics is called a mass murder--abortion clinics, of which one alone takes 3,000 babies lives a year! Kim Gandy, Vice President of N.O.W. sees Friday's killings as proof of a "national conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism." Proof? National conspiracy? What should be obvious is that all of these are phrases that accurately describe abortion, not those who oppose abortion.<br>
<br>
"Domestic terrorism." "A brutal, cowardly act of murder." "Mass murder." "A national conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism." These are perfect descriptions of what abortion is. These were random lives, by the way, because John Salvi walked in and just started spraying bullets around, shooting everyone in his path. First, lovely Shannon Lowney who was a receptionist there took three bullets in the chest. This is the result then, this hue and cry for this tragic event. But then the guns of our society and culture are leveled not at the true perpetrators of the circumstances that allow this, but at those that are fighting for just the opposite.<br>
<br>
What is the most bizarre claim of all? The most ridiculous and offensive charge is that pro-lifers are responsible. It puts pro-lifers in a very awkward position. They look like the bad guys. Pro-abortionists have an absolute field day with emotional and misleading rhetoric that confuses the issue so that people can't see what is really obvious here: In the face of five deaths of abortion providers, you stand that next to over two million deaths of children in the same time. But the most bizarre claim is that pro-lifers, a group of people and organizations--which to a group and almost to a man have deplored and condemned violence of any kind here--pro-lifers are accused of being responsible for this.<br>
<br>
Kate Michelman, the President of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said in the <em>L.A. Times</em>, "There could be no doubt that the roots of this violence lie in the long-term anti-choice campaign that is based on intolerance and irresponsible emotional appeals to action. Opponents of choice must take responsibility for creating a climate in which this terror thrives." Here's another quote. It looks like it's from Ann Lewis, Vice President for Public Policy for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She holds that pro-life groups are responsible and has bitterly attacked them for creating a climate that spawns violence through their "continued use of inflammatory rhetoric, such as repeatedly referring to doctors as murderers and baby killers."<br>
<br>
This is not inflammatory rhetoric. Doctors are called baby killers for one simple reason. If they're abortionists, they kill babies. What's rhetorical about that? What's misleading about that? What's slippery? Is it dead? Yes. Is it a baby? No, it's a fetus. Fetus is Latin for baby. No rhetoric here. None needed, frankly. All pro-lifers are doing is calling a spade a spade. If it's inflammatory, it inflames for one reason: because of the egregious nature of the act itself.<br>
<br>
It is almost as if Michelman is saying, See what you've done? You keep complaining that we are killing children. Somebody is going to try and stop us if you keep doing that. It's all your fault.<br>
<br>
Well, let's get our facts straight. There is only one reason why such a thing can happen. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying it is good that it happened. I think it is terrible that it happened. But don't anybody point the finger at pro-lifers for this. There is only one reason that this kind of thing can happen: innocent children are being destroyed every day. If people like Kate Michelman weren't promoting and participating in the killing of children, there would be no protests of any kind against this.<br>
<br>
Just to add a little more perspective. Since March 10, 1993, when David Gunn was killed there have been five deaths of abortion providers. I am flat out against that. I've explained why. I think it is a terrible thing. But let's not lose perspective. In that same amount of time, abortionists have taken the lives of 2.8 million children. Do you know how many major American cities it takes to add up to 2.8 million? Now you figure out who is the domestic terrorist. You figure out who are the national conspirators. You figure out who are guilty of brutal, cowardly acts of murder. The ax is not going to fall on the pro-lifers because they are not responsible. They have campaigned for life. They have done so peaceably. And in 22 years of the anti-abortion movement there have been five tragic deaths of abortion providers or those connected with it. But in that time, there have been close to 30 million deaths of innocents that had nothing to say about this, no vote, no opportunity to defend themselves.<br>
<br>
If five deaths are tragic, then thirty million deaths are several million times more tragic. If you want to call me anti-choice, well, by golly, go ahead and do it. I'll wear that label because this is a choice nobody ought to participate in. Nobody. If you want to call me anti-choice and use that kind of rhetoric, fine. I'll take it. I'll wear the label. I am proud to stand against that kind of choice. Call me anti-choice.<br>
<br>
My concern this time has to do with abortion rhetoric. These kinds of killings, in addition to setting the cause back in other ways and taking the lives of people that ought not be killed--especially Friday, people who were almost bystanders in the process--is that it gives opportunity for a bunch of ridiculous and abusive rhetoric to be used by those who are in favor of taking the life of an innocent human being, a human being that can't defend itself, principally because they are in the way.<br>
<br>
Sometimes the objection is raised that there is nothing against abortion in the Bible. My response is, not so! The Bible says thou shalt not kill. Now if the Bible says that we ought not kill--and of course, in the Hebrew it clearly means we should not murder or take the life of another innocent human being--it certainly leaves open the possibility, and certainly later in the Scripture it commands capital punishment for certain offenses. I don't think the Scripture is pacifistic in that regard. But it clearly says that we ought not take the lives of innocent human beings, and an unborn child is an example of an innocent human being. Therefore taking its life in abortion is wrong even if the Scripture doesn't use the word abortion.<br>
<br>
I would argue, by the way, that the burden of proof is not on the pro-lifer. The burden of proof is on those who would take the life of an innocent human child.<br>
<br>
I used a phrase a few moments ago. I talked about those who approve of taking innocent human life which can't defend itself, simply because it is in the way. You ought to memorize that, frankly because that is a perfect description of what abortion is. Back in the last election, when Vice President Dan Quayle was debating Al Gore, Al Gore raised the issue of abortion and asked, "Why do you want to take away a woman's right to choose?" In other words, he was attempting to frame the issue. I wish Vice President Quayle would have used this line: Why do you want to approve and pay for people who want to take the life of innocent human children simply because they are in the way?<br>
<br>
Some people might object to that characterization, and if they do my response is, there is not a single word in that sentence that any pro-abortionist can take exception with. Are you saying that it is not the taking of a human life? It is human. Are you saying that it is not innocent? It is innocent. Are you saying it is not taking the life? It is taking the life. Can it defend itself? No, it can't defend itself. Why are you taking it? It's in the way. Everything about that statement is true.<br>
<br>
What bothers me is that pro-abortionists have hardly lifted a single finger to prove otherwise. They put all of the pressure and all of the burden upon pro-lifers to prove their case, and all they've done is scream slogans. Why? For a very good reason. All of their arguments are bad ones. Their slogans don't wash because they don't deal with the real issue. The real issue is worth committing to memory. If the unborn child is not a human person, no defense for abortion is necessary. You can have an abortion for any reason. You can slice it, dice it, roast it on a spit, as far as I'm concerned, if it's not a human person. Who cares? Eat your own appendices if you want to do that. It doesn't matter. But if the unborn child is a human person, then no justification for abortion is adequate. And all of these other ridiculous slogans simply fall away.<br>
<br>
Just to show you how ridiculous they are, let me just recite a few of them for you.<br>
<br>
"This will force women back into the alleys with coat hangers." If abortion is made illegal it doesn't force women to do anything except allow their children to live. That's all. There are plenty of alternatives to choose from if you are really interested in choice, some of which are actually financed liberally by the government. Furthermore, why is it someone else's fault if you hurt yourself in the process of killing another innocent human being?<br>
<br>
"Women have a right to privacy with their doctor." No privacy argument is a legitimate cover for a conspiracy to do egregious harm to another innocent human being. What if the doctor and the parents decided that pederasty would increase the closeness of the family? Does a right to privacy protect them? What could be more private than family sex? Why get the government involved in this private decision between a woman and her doctor?<br>
<br>
"But women have a freedom to choose." False. No one has an open-ended freedom to choose anything they want. You only have the freedom to choose morally acceptable alternatives. Killing innocent human beings because they are inconvenient is not one of those morally acceptable alternatives.<br>
<br>
"It's my body and I can do anything I want with it." False on two counts. Even if I agreed that we are only talking about one woman's body, the law does not allow you to do whatever you want with your body. You can't do anything you want with your body. Secondly, an unborn child can have a penis and women don't have penises. That is proof that there is a separate individual human being involved. By the way, that is a nice way to get to the point quickly at a cocktail party.<br>
<br>
This kind of personal property argument was used to declare black slave Dred Scott a non-human, so you are in good company if you are arguing that way (facetiously, good company being Judge Taney). The point is, we are not talking about the woman's body. We are talking about another human being domiciled within the woman. Does the dentist become part of the woman's body when he sticks his hand in her mouth to do her teeth? No, of course not. It just goes to show how ridiculous these kinds of slogans are.<br>
<br>
"Nobody knows when life begins." That is utter nonsense. We have known for ages that the independent life of an individual being begins at conception. Check any biology textbook.<br>
<br>
"Unwanted children shouldn't be allowed to come into the world." That may be a good argument for birth control, but not for abortion because the child in this case is already in the world, resting in what used to be the safest place for it to be, its mother's womb. Now nearly 50% of children discovered in this location meet a violent death by their mother's own hand.<br>
<br>
"But these children create a drain on the economy." That's a good one. So when human beings get expensive, we kill them? That's civilized, right? Maybe you create a drain on society. Let's start with you. There are a lot of others out there that are a burden too. Why don't we get them all out of the way in one final solution? There were some other people in the past who kind of liked that idea. Burdensome individuals, people who were expensive, we just kind of deep six them. That solves the problem.<br>
<br>
"You're just insensitive to the feelings and circumstances of the mother." Maybe. So what? What does that have to do with anything? What does the fact that I am an insensitive creep have to do with justifying the killing of an innocent human being?<br>
<br>
You may be picking up on something here in all of my responses to this ridiculous, empty rhetoric. All of these responses presume that the unborn child is a human person. You're absolutely right. Virtually all pro-abortion arguments presume the contrary. That's why this is the only important question in this debate. This question, what is that unborn child? What is it anyway? Is it just a nothing? What is it? Is it a part person, part human? Is it a potential human? Is it sui generus, as some argue, that it is in a class all by itself? That's the question that needs to be dealt with.<br>
<br>
You know what? It's a question you will never ever hear pro-abortionists address because they can't defend their argument. This is the simplest thing to answer. That unborn child is a living, separate being and it's only one kind of being. It is a human being because when it comes out it doesn't have fur. It doesn't pant or lap or bark. It doesn't swim through the water. It doesn't crawl into a chrysalis and fly away when it grows up. It is none of those other types of creatures. It is a human being.<br>
<br>
And for those of you who want to hide behind the personhood argument, you say it's a human but not a person, my question is simply this, what is the difference? That question has been raised so many times by people who are trying to get away from what is obvious. They get away with it because no one asks the simple question, what is the difference? That's a fair question because these people are trying to disqualify the life of an unborn child because it may be human, but it is not a person, so you can kill it. Now if you can kill a human being that's not a person, but you can't kill a human being that is a person, you better darn well know for sure what the difference is. If you don't know the difference, then quit sacrificing these kids, pretending like you do.<br>
<br>
The fact of the matter is, this is just another rhetorical ploy to get away from the obvious fact that human beings are personal type beings. It is what they are, it isn't a quality they develop. That's what it means, by the way, when it is written in our Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal because there is nothing physically equal about any human being. The thing that is equal about all human beings is something that is non-physical, it is immaterial, their personhood. It is inherent to being a human being. You can't be a human being without being a person. That's why we say all human beings are created equal. That, by the way, is the foundation for all human rights in general, and equal rights in particular. We are all equal in that we are personal human beings because human beings are personal beings. If personhood is something you develop willy-nilly as time goes on, then those who develop those things identified as personal better than others, are more personal than those others and ought to have more rights because they are more of what makes them valuable. That sounds ludicrous because personhood isn't one of those kinds of things. It is what you are from the beginning.<br>
<br>
I think the pro-abortion side has forced the pro-life side to shoulder the burden of proof far too long. The irony is, the pro-life side has taken the burden and has proved the case and still no one listens. You know what this proves? It proves that abortionists can only sustain their argument with empty, inflammatory rhetoric, the very thing they vacuously accuse the pro-life movement of using.</p>
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title: Regarding Apologetics, an Apology
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/regarding-apologetics-an-apology
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>If we shouldn’t use arguments to promote the Gospel—because it’s leaning on human wisdom and not God—then what are we to say?</em></p>

<p>I have been challenged a number of times recently on the use of intellectual arguments and rational suasion in the defense of the gospel. In other words, the whole idea of Christian apologetics is called into question as being unbiblical. Two verses are usually offered as proof texts:</p>

<p>1 Corinthians 2:4-5 “And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”</p>

<p>2 Timothy 2:24 “And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome...”</p>

<p>And so with regard to apologetics—making a rational defense for the gospel—let me make an apology—a defense.</p>

<p>I’ll tell you how I deal with verses like these. First, I take a look at the verses in context and see if that helps clarify anything. “But why clarify anything?”&nbsp;you might ask. “The verses themselves are clear enough. It’s plain as day. Just read them.”</p>

<p>This brings me to a second element. It’s a principle called “the analogy of faith.”&nbsp;It’s also referred to as interpreting the unclear in light of the clear. The point of the analogy of faith is we presume God isn’t going to say one thing in one place that contradicts what he says in another. (And if you’re not inclined to think that God is speaking here, if you want to leave God out of it, would it be fair to say that men like Paul are reasonably intelligent human beings and are not going to contradict themselves from page to page? It is fair to concede to them that they are reasonably careful and unified in their thinking? I think so.)</p>

<p>So the task is to give the text the benefit of the doubt and try to find a way to reconcile what appears on the surface to be a contradiction. And that’s why you can’t just seize on these two verses and say, “It’s so clear.”&nbsp;because it’s not clear this is the biblical teaching when you take other texts into consideration.</p>

<p>Take, for example, 1 Peter 3:14,15. Peter is speaking here and says, “And do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart always being ready to make an apologeo (a defense) to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. Yet with gentleness and reverence.”</p>

<p>So here it seems like Peter is commanding us to use apologetics. And if the Scripture has God as its ultimate author, would Peter writing under inspiration contradict what Paul is also writing under inspiration?</p>

<p>Acts 17:2-4 “And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”&nbsp;And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas...”</p>

<p>Colossions 4:5-6 “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person.”</p>

<p>Both Paul and Peter argued from the Old Testament (as did Jesus) using the Scriptures to make a reasonable defense for Jesus as Messiah. What are they doing? They’re saying, “Look, the Scriptures prophesied the resurrection of the Messiah. Jesus rose from the dead. Therefore, Jesus is the Messiah.”&nbsp;That’s using reason, rationality.</p>

<p>“No, that’s using Scripture. It’s different.”&nbsp;Is it? Even though one of the elements of this argument is a verse, that by itself explains nothing. Even a Scriptural quotation doesn’t do any work for you if it’s not a chunk of a reasonable argument. Quoting a verse is really only shorthand for a more lengthy argument. The full argument goes like this: The Bible predicted Jesus’&nbsp;resurrection before it happened. Mere man couldn’t do that. That’s supernatural. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead proves His claim to be God and the Bible’s claim to be the word of God.</p>

<p>Let me give you another argument. The Psalmist says, “The heavens tell of the glory of God, and the firmament speaks forth His praise.”&nbsp;What you have here is a cosmological argument for the existence of God, a reason for God’s existence based on the existence of the world.</p>

<p>Paul argues in Romans chapter 2 that the law of God is written on the hearts of men even though they don’t have the Law, the Bible, in front of them. This is a moral argument for the existence of God. Paul says we observe morality built into man. This is evidence that there’s a moral God who is the moral lawmaker of the universe and we’re accountable to Him. Paul says you don’t even need the Bible to prove that.</p>

<p>Both Paul and the Psalmist are arguing philosophically based on the existence of particular things—the universe or morals. God must exist as an adequate explanation for these things. The fact is that Paul and others in the Bible actually argued philosophically.</p>

<p>The same applies to Jesus. Jesus argued with the Pharisees all the time. Even His enemies reported that “no man speaks as this man speaks.”&nbsp;If Jesus merely relied on the power of God and the particulars of His speech were inconsequential, if His mind and intellect and cleverness didn’t enter into it, then why don’t we behold unimpressive, muddled, uncompelling words in His discourses? No, it was quite the opposite.</p>

<p>When we look further in the New Testament we see heated and intense disputation—polemic, argumentation—at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. We see Paul going after Peter hammer and tongs in Galatians 2:11.</p>

<p>You can immediately see the problem with any interpretation of a verse to the effect that one must not use reason and rationality in the proclamation of the Gospel. Such a person runs smack into an army of counterexamples from the Scripture itself.</p>

<p>There are other problems. Such an approach makes it virtually impossible to contend for the Gospel. When one contends for something he gives reasons why a person ought to adopt his viewpoint, in this case believe a particular thing, the Gospel. Clearly the Apostles did this, as did Jesus.</p>

<p>Even if you say, “God said it, therefore you ought to believe it”—which I think is a rather shallow apologetic—it still is apologetics employing reason. What’s the reason? “If God said it, then it must be true and you’re obliged to believe it and obey it, because God is God.”&nbsp;That’s a reason; that’s apologetics.</p>

<p>There’s another problem, and it’s a practical one. I’m not supposed to seek to be clever or persuasive or to use arguments to convince, apparently. Then what am I to do? If we shouldn’t use arguments to promote the Gospel—because it’s leaning on human wisdom and not God—then what are we to say? What do I say then when communicating my faith? If I’m not supposed to seek to be clever or persuasive or to use arguments to convince, then what am I to do? Should I work at being clear when I communicate? Or should I try to be muddled lest I depend on clarity and not the Spirit to make the difference? Should I give reasons for what I believe or only gently make assertions with a smile on my face being careful not to respond to challenges someone might raise lest it sound like I’m trying to argue for the Gospel and not depend on the Holy Spirit?</p>

<p>Maybe we should just say, “Believe in Jesus”&nbsp;once and leave it at that, then let God do the rest? In fact, if it’s just the power of God, then why speak at all? God certainly doesn’t need my words. Ought we not, to be safe (if this line of argument is valid) not say anything, but simply point at a verse? Then there’s virtually nothing we’re doing that could be construed as helping the process, except maybe pointing accurately.</p>

<p>You see friends, this argument simply proves too much. It makes a virtue out of being dull, boring, muddled, and obscure in our communication. It disallows us from doing anything that might present the Gospel in a clear and convincing light. This isn’t a point of view that can really be practiced. When taken at face value it becomes virtually impossible to apply.</p>

<p>This isn’t the biblical position at all. It also doesn’t seem to square with the actual behavior of those we see in the New Testament. Paul was intelligent, clear, clever, and persuasive.</p>

<p>But didn’t Paul count all his learning to be dung (Philippians 3)? Well, yes and no. Yes, he counted everything dung compared to knowing Jesus. Yes, his great learning was nothing to him compared with knowing Christ. But even his love for other people was nothing, his Scriptural knowledge was nothing, his personal piety and holiness were nothing, his tremendous obedience on behalf of Christ was nothing. All were dung too, by comparison. In this passage Paul is simply comparing anything and everything else to the value of knowing Christ. In that sense they’re all dung. But in the broader sense they are not worthless, and in fact Paul employed those other things aggressively and effectively for the cause of Christ. So my point about Paul stands.</p>

<p>1 Corinthians 2:4-5 “And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”</p>

<p>My first thought when people approach me with things like this is, “If the Scripture says we’re not to argue, then why are you arguing with me?”&nbsp;These folks approached me three different times on this. Why wasn’t once enough, merely stating the truth as they saw it and then trusting that the Holy Spirit would work? And they didn’t just drop a word and let the Spirit take over. They were kind, but they were persistent, seeking to convince me of their point of view.</p>

<p>We’re still faced with the question, “What about the verses? What do they mean?”</p>

<p>2 Timothy 2:24 “And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome...”</p>

<p>As far as the 2 Timothy passage is concerned, Paul tells Timothy not to be quarrelsome, that is, don’t be contentious and petty. He didn’t say not to have arguments in the sense of having intelligent disputations on important issues. In fact, he says the opposite: “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition”&nbsp;so that they may “come to their senses”&nbsp;(2 Timothy 2:25-26). Later he challenges Timothy to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction”&nbsp;(2 Timothy 4:2).</p>

<p>What did Paul mean when he said in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 that “my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”? This one’s a little more difficult.</p>

<p>First, it may be that, in the case of the Corinthians, this is precisely the way he proceeded, that he presented the simple Gospel coupled with displays of power to persuade them. But he is not giving a blanket guideline for all occasions.</p>

<p>Second, he may have been referring to the foolishness of the content compared to reigning Greek philosophies, as he mentioned just a few moments earlier:</p>

<p>1 Corinthians 1:18-24 “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ’I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’&nbsp;Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”</p>

<p>Finally, he didn’t mean that we shouldn’t characteristically seek to be persuasive. How do I know? Because he spoke contrary to that view in other passages and he and Jesus and many others in the Scriptures actually modeled something different.</p>

<p>And that’s my method: to stand for the truth as persuasively, intelligently, clearly and carefully as I can with kindness and gentleness and trust God to work in the process.</p>

<p>As the wisdom of Proverbs puts it: “The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord”&nbsp;(Proverbs 21:31). We need to prepare ourselves for battle, but when it’s won, the victory is the Lord’s.</p>
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title: America’s Unchristian Beginnings?
topic: History
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/america-s-unchristian-beginnings-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Greg responds to an L.A. Times Op-Ed article by this title (sans question mark), subtitled “Founding Fathers: Despite preachings of our pious Right, most were deists who rejected the divinity of Jesus.”</em></p>

<p>There has been a lot of confusion on the issue of whether or not we’re a Christian nation, and I’m not exactly sure why. But it is hotly debated in our culture right now. The reason I say I’m not sure why is because the historical record is quite clear. I think that Christians, though, often make inappropriate, unfounded, or inaccurate applications of some of the information, and I want to speak to that in just a moment.</p>

<p>As to the faith content of those who were our Founding Fathers, there can be absolutely no confusion about the fact that virtually every single one of them shared a Christian, biblical world view. There is some question as to whether every single one of them held to all the orthodox teachings of classical Christianity; but it seems to me that there is very little question as to what their religious persuasions and world views were.</p>

<p>There was a piece in the L.A. Times on the third of this August on the Op-Ed page entitled “America’s Unchristian Beginnings.”&nbsp;It is subtitled “Founding Fathers: Despite preachings of our pious Right, most were deists who rejected the divinity of Jesus.”&nbsp;There are a couple things that trouble me about this article, the biggest thing is the word “most”&nbsp;in the subtitle. “Most of our Founding Fathers”&nbsp;apparently were deists, according to this person’s assessment. This is a canard that’s been tossed around even by some Christians who ought to know better. This piece was written by Steven Morris who is a professor of physics at L.A. Harbor College and he is also a member of the L.A.-based Atheists United.</p>

<p>Some might say, what does a physicist know about history? Just because he is a physicist doesn’t mean that he can’t have an accurate opinion about this particular issue. I take issue with his research. It’s simply bad.</p>

<p>He goes on to reply to the Christian Right, who he says is trying to rewrite the history of the United States in its campaign to force its view of religion on others. His approach is to quote seven different people: Thomas Paine, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and Ben Franklin. His point is to quote these individuals who he thinks apparently are, first of all, Founding Fathers, and secondly, characteristic of the lot of them in rejection of Christianity and in acceptance of deism.</p>

<p>I am frustrated by this because it is characteristic of the way a lot of people want to treat this issue. They think that they can take names that we associate with that period and are well known, sift through their writings and find some things that they think are hostile to Christianity, and therefore conclude that not only these people are anti-Christian, but all of the rest of them are anti-Christian, as well.</p>

<p>It’s an example of Steven Morris turning the exception into the rule. Since he can find what he thinks are seven different people that are important personalities during this period of time, who at some time in their lives may have written something that can be understood to be non-Christian, then that characterizes the whole group of them as deists, ergo the subtitle “Most were deists who rejected the divinity of Jesus.”</p>

<p>Morris’&nbsp;sightings are simply specious. Thomas Payne and Ethan Allen, for example, were in no- wise intellectual architects of the Constitution. Rather, they were firebrands of the Revolution. Was that important? Sure, they made an important contribution, but they weren’t Founding Fathers. Period.</p>

<p>Now, as for Washington, Sam Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. If one looks at the literature of the time--the personal correspondence, the public statements, the biographies--he will find that this literature is replete with quotations by these people contrary to those that Mr. Morris very carefully selected for us. Apparently, he also very carefully ignored other important thinkers: John Witherspoon, for example, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry. All individuals who were significant contributors to the architectural framework of this country and who had political philosophies that were deeply influenced by Christianity, especially Calvinism.</p>

<p>But there is another thing that he completely overlooks in this analysis. Something that makes a mockery out of his analysis, and also answers the question quite simply and directly and in the affirmative for us about the Christian beginnings of our Republic.</p>

<p>This issue is actually very simple. The phrase “Founding Fathers”&nbsp;is a proper noun. In other words, Founding Fathers refers directly to a very specific group of people (although I think you could be a little bit flexible and include a little wider group of people). Those who intellectually contributed to the Constitutional convention were the Founding Fathers. If we want to know whether our Founding Fathers were Christian or deists, one needs only to look at the individual religious convictions of those 55 delegates of the Constitutional convention.</p>

<p>How would we know that? We look at their church membership primarily, and also at their correspondence. Back then church membership was a big deal. In other words, to be a member of a church back then, it wasn’t just a matter of sitting in the pew or attending once in a while. This was a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical faith, adherence, and acknowledgment of the doctrines of that particular church.</p>

<p>Of those 55 Founding Fathers, we know what their sworn public confessions were. Twenty-eight were Episcopalians, eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutheran, two were Dutch Reformed, two were Methodist, two were Roman Catholic, one is unknown, and only three were deists--Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin.</p>

<p>To heap more fuel on the fire of my point, of the 55, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Dutch Reformed (which make up 45 of the 55) were Calvinists, for goodness sake! In other words, these weren’t just Christians, these were among the most extreme and doctrinally strict Christians around. Of the 55 delegates, virtually all of them were deeply committed Christians. Only three were deists. Even Franklin is equivocal because, though not an orthodox Christian, Franklin seems to have abandoned his deism early in life and moved back towards his Puritan roots. Indeed, it was 81 year old Franklin’s emotional call to humble prayer on June 28, 1787, that was actually the turning point for a hopelessly stalled Constitutional convention. We have his appeal on record thanks to James Madison who took copious notes of the whole proceeding. His appeal contained no less than four direct quotations from Scripture. This does not sound like a man who was hostile to the Christian religion.</p>

<p>But this assessment doesn’t answer a more fundamental question: Are we a Christian nation? It seems clear that most of the Founders were Christians, not deists. But what about the question “Are we a Christian nation?”&nbsp;I think the answer depends entirely on what is meant by “Christian nation.”</p>

<p>Are the theological doctrines of the Bible explicitly woven into the fabric of government? The answer is no. The non-establishment clause of the First Amendment absolutely prohibits such a thing. However, was the Biblical view of the world--the existence of God who active in human history, the authority of the Scripture, the inherent sinfulness of man, the existence of absolute objective morality, and God-given transcendent rights--was that the philosophic foundation of the Constitution? The answer is, without question, yes. The American community presumed a common set of values which were principally biblical. Further, the founding principles of the Republic were clearly informed by biblical truth.</p>

<p>A question can be asked at this point. Given the fact that most of the Founding Fathers--either those who are among the 55 delegates to the Constitutional convention or those outside of that number who were significant architects to the Constitution--were in fact biblical Christians and had sworn to that, and those that weren’t were at least deeply moved and informed by a biblical moral view, one could ask the question, “So what? What does that have to do with anything today?”</p>

<p>I think that Christians may be a little out of line on this part of the issue, and I want to bring it into balance. Regarding the question, Is America a Christian nation?, if we mean by that that Christianity is the official, doctrinal religion of this country, the answer is of course not. That’s prohibited by the exclusion clause of the First Amendment. If we mean that we were founded on Biblical principles by Christian men who had a deep commitment to the Scriptures by and large, the answer is certainly yes.</p>

<p>But then the question is, So what? How does what happened 200 years ago influence what is going on now? I actually have two points to make.</p>

<p>This fact doesn’t give Christians a trump card in the debate on public policy, in my view. Just because Christians were here first doesn’t mean that their views should continue to prevail. Within the limits of the Constitution, the majority rules. That’s the way this government works, ladies and gentlemen.</p>

<p>But let’s not rewrite history to relegate those with religious convictions to the sidelines. That is the other half of this. The privilege of citizenship remains the same for all despite their religious convictions. Everyone gets a voice and everyone gets a vote. Christians don’t have a leg up on everyone else because we were here first. Even the Christians who wrote the rules didn’t give us that liberty. They didn’t give us that leg up. They made the playing ground even for everyone, every ideology, every point of view.</p>

<p>Having said that, though, in writing the First Amendment and the non-establishment clause, they did not have in view this current idea of separation--that the state is thoroughly secular and not informed at all by religious values, especially Christian. This view that is popular now was completely foreign, not just to the Founders, but to the first 150 years of American political thought. It’s absolutely clear that the Fathers did not try to excise every vestige of Christian religion, Christian thought, and Christian values from all facets of public life. In fact, they were friendly to religion in general, and to Christianity in particular, and encouraged its education and expression.</p>

<p>As to the durability of this tradition, I suggest that anyone who has any doubts about this simply read Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which is etched into the marble of the northern wall of the Lincoln Memorial. Go there and read it. Face Lincoln, turn right, and there it is. It contains no less than three or four biblical references.</p>

<p>After that you can reflect on <a href="http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&amp;id=5651" target="_blank">Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation</a>&nbsp;of October 3, 1863. It begins this way: “It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions [By golly, how did that get in there?] in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon. And to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.”</p>

<p>I think that pretty much settles it.</p>
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title: Does the Trinity Make Sense
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/does-the-trinity-make-sense
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Some people say the Trinity—the idea that there is one God Who subsists in three fully distinct but fully divine persons—doesn’t make sense. This depends entirely on what one means by the concept of making “sense.”</em></p>

<p>If one means that the Trinity is irrational, that it violates some law of reason, then the challenge is simply false. There is no violation of the laws of reason in the Trinity. Anyone who thinks I’m mistaken on this point must identify the specific law being breached in light of the orthodox teaching on the Trinity (as opposed to some misrepresentation; we don’t believe in three gods, for example).</p>

<p>One might argue that the Trinity doesn’t make sense in that it doesn’t appeal to any sense perception, that it’s hard to conceptualize the Trinity because it can’t be pictured in the mind. This seems accurate, but it’s hardly relevant. Individual spiritual beings—God, angels, souls—can’t be pictured. Though they may manifest themselves in physical form (we find this in the Bible), this is not what they actually look like. Even so, the concepts are certainly intelligible.</p>

<p>The same is true with immaterial things like love, kindness, or vengeance. Each of these may be evidenced in actions that can be seen, but they are not themselves physical, and indeed no accurate physical characterization or “sense”&nbsp;of them can even be imagined.</p>

<p>So, it is no liability that no one can picture the Trinity. It is not “sensible”&nbsp;in that way. This tells you nothing about the truth of the doctrine. That question is answered by a different means: Does God’s own self-revelation give us reason to believe that the doctrine of the Trinity, classically understood, is an accurate and true description, as far as it goes, of God’s nature? The answer to that is clearly yes.</p>
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title: The Faith of Our Fathers
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-faith-of-our-fathers
content:
            <div> 
		<p><strong>Was the faith of the Founding Fathers deism or Christianity? What does the answer mean for us today? Both the secularists and the Christians have missed the mark.</strong></p>

<p>There's been a lot of rustle in the press lately--and in many Christian publications--about the faith of the Founding Fathers and the status of the United States as a "Christian nation." Home schooling texts abound with references to our religious heritage, and entire organizations are dedicated to returning America to its spiritual roots. On the other side, secularists cry "foul" and parade their own list of notables among our country's patriarchs. They rally around the cry of "separation of church and state." Which side is right? Oddly both, after a fashion.</p>

<p>Historical proof-texts can be raised on both sides. Certainly there were godless men among the early leadership of our nation, though some of those cited as examples of Founding Fathers turn out to be insignificant players. For example, Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen may have been hostile to evangelical Christianity, but they were firebrands of the Revolution, not intellectual architects of the Constitution. Paine didn't arrive in this country until 1774 and only stayed a short time.</p>

<p>As for others--George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, John Witherspoon, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and even Thomas Jefferson--their personal correspondence, biographies, and public statements are replete with quotations showing that these thinkers had political philosophies deeply influenced by Christianity.</p>

<h2>The Constitutional Convention</h2>

<p>It's not necessary to dig through the diaries, however, to determine which faith was the Founder's guiding light. There's an easier way to settle the issue.</p>

<p>The phrase "Founding Fathers" is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group of men, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other important players not in attendance, like Jefferson, whose thinking deeply influenced the shaping of our nation. These 55 Founding Fathers, though, made up the core.</p>

<p>The denominational affiliations of these men were a matter of public record. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and only 3 deists--Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin--this at a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical faith. <b>[</b>John Eidsmoe, <i>Christianity and the Constitution</i>, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), p. 43.<b>]</b></p>

<p>This is a revealing tally. It shows that the members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were almost all Christians, 51 of 55--a full 93%. Indeed, 70% were Calvinists (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and the Dutch Reformed), considered by some to be the most extreme and dogmatic form of Christianity.</p>

<h2>Benjamin Franklin</h2>

<p>Even Franklin the deist is equivocal. He was raised in a Puritan family and later adopted then abandoned deism. Though not an orthodox Christian, it was 81-year-old Franklin's emotional call to humble prayer on June 28, 1787, that was the turning point for a hopelessly stalled Convention. James Madison recorded the event in his collection of notes and debates from the Federal Convention. Franklin's appeal contained no less than four direct references to Scripture.</p>

<p>And have we forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. [Benjamin Franklin, quoted by James Madison in <i>Notes on Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787</i> (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966, 1985), p. 209.]</p>

<p>Three of the four cornerstones of the Constitution--Franklin, Washington, and Madison--were firmly rooted in Christianity. But what about Thomas Jefferson? His signature cannot be found at the end of the Constitution, but his voice permeates the entire document.</p>

<h2>Thomas Jefferson</h2>

<p>Though deeply committed to a belief in natural rights, including the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, Jefferson was individualistic when it came to religion; he sifted through the New Testament to find the facts that pleased him.</p>

<p>Sometimes he sounded like a staunch churchman. The Declaration of Independence contains at least four references to God. In his Second Inaugural Address he asked for prayers to Israel's God on his behalf. Other times Jefferson seemed to go out of his way to be irreverent and disrespectful of organized Christianity, especially Calvinism.</p>

<p>It's clear that Thomas Jefferson was no evangelical, but neither was he an Enlightenment deist. He was more Unitarian than either deist or Christian. [Eidsmoe has a very thorough and even-handed section on Jefferson.]</p>

<p>This analysis, though, misses the point. The most important factor regarding the faith of Thomas Jefferson--or any of our Founding Fathers--isn't whether or not he had a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The debate over the religious heritage of this country is not about who is ultimately going to heaven, but rather about what the dominant convictions were that dictated the structure of this nation.</p>

<p>Even today there are legions of born-again Christians who have absolutely no skill at integrating their beliefs about Christ with the details of their daily life, especially their views of government. They may be "saved," but they are completely ineffectual as salt and light.</p>

<p>By contrast, some of the Fathers may not have been believers in the narrowest sense of the term, yet in the broader sense--the sense that influences culture--their thinking was thoroughly Christian. Unlike many evangelicals who live lives of practical atheism, these men had political ideals that were deeply informed by a robust Christian world view. They didn't always <i>believe&nbsp;</i>biblically, having a faith leading to salvation, but almost all <i>thought</i> biblically, resulting in a particular type of government.</p>

<p>Thomas Jefferson was this kind of man. In <i>Defending the Declaration</i>, legal historian Gary Amos observes, "Jefferson is a notable example of how a man can be influenced by biblical ideas and Christian principles even though he never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord in the evangelical sense." [Gary T. Amos, <i>Defending the Declaration</i>, (Brentwood, TN: Wogelmuth &amp; Hyatt, 1989), p. 9.]</p>

<p>When you study the documents of the Revolutionary period, a precise picture comes into focus. Here it is:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Virtually all those involved in the founding enterprise were God-fearing men in the Christian sense; most were Calvinistic Protestants.</li>
	<li>The Founders were deeply influenced by a biblical view of man and government. With a sober understanding of the fallenness of man, they devised a system of limited authority and checks and balances.</li>
	<li>The Founders understood that fear of God, moral leadership, and a righteous citizenry were necessary for their great experiment to succeed.</li>
	<li>Therefore, they structured a political climate that was encouraging to Christianity and accommodating to religion, rather than hostile to it.</li>
	<li>Protestant Christianity was the prevailing religious view for the first 150 years of our history.</li>
</ul>

<p>However...</p>

<ul>
	<li>The Fathers sought to set up a just society, not a Christian theocracy.</li>
	<li>They specifically prohibited the establishment of Christianity--or any other faith--as the religion of our nation.</li>
</ul>

<h2>A Two-Sided Coin</h2>

<p>We can safely draw two conclusions from these facts, which serve to inform our understanding of the relationship between religion and government in the United States.</p>

<p>First, Christianity was the prevailing moral and intellectual influence shaping the nation from its outset. The Christian influence pervaded all aspects of life, from education to politics. Therefore, the present concept of a rigid wall of separation hardly seems historically justified.</p>

<p>Virtually every one of the Founders saw a vital link between civil religion and civil government. George Washington's admonitions in his Farewell Speech, September 19, 1796, were characteristic of the general sentiment:</p>

<p>Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports....And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles. [<i>The Annals of America</i>, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976), vol. 3, p. 612.]</p>

<p>Second, the Founders stopped short of giving their Christian religion a position of legal privilege. In the tradition of the early church, believers were to be salt and light. The First Amendment insured the liberty needed for Christianity to be a preserving influence and a moral beacon, but it also insured Christianity would never be the law of the land.</p>

<p>This ought to call into serious question a common tactic of the so-called Religious Right. "We were here first," their apologists proclaim. "Our country was stolen from us, and we demand it back." Author John Seel calls this "priority as entitlement."</p>

<p>The sad fact of the matter is that cultural authority was not stolen from us; we surrendered it through neglect. Os Guinness pointed out that Christians have not been out-thought. Rather, they have not been around when the thinking was being done.</p>

<p>Choosing cultural monasticism rather than hard-thinking advocacy, Christians abandoned the public square to the secularists. When the disciples of Jesus Christ retreated, the disciples of Dewey, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, Skinner, and a host of others replaced them.</p>

<p>Seel warns of the liability of an "appeal to history as a basis of Christian grounds to authority."[John Seel, <i>No God But God--Breaking with the Idols of Our Age</i>, Os Guinness and John Seel, eds., (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p. 64.] Playing the victim will not restore our influence, nor will political strong-arm tactics. Shouldn't our appeal rather be on the basis of truth rather than on the patterns of the past?</p>

<p>The faith of our Founding Fathers was Christianity, not deism. In this regard, many secularists--and even some Christians--have been wrong in their assessment of our history. On the other hand, many Christians have also been mistaken in their application of the past to the present.</p>

<p>Christians have no special privileges simply because Christianity was America's first faith. "If America ever was or ever will be a 'Christian nation,'" Seel observes, "it is not by conscious design or written law, but by free conviction." [John Seel, <i>No God But God--Breaking with the Idols of Our Age</i>, Os Guinness and John Seel, eds., (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p. 69.]</p>

<p>Success for the Christian cannot be measured in numbers or political muscle, but only in faithfulness. Our most important weapon is not our voting power, but the power of the truth freely spoken and freely heard.</p>

<h2>Recommended Reading:</h2>

<p><i>Let Freedom Ring--A Basic Outline of American History</i>, available through the Family Research Council, 700 Thirteenth St., N.W., Suite 500, Washington D.C. 20005, 1-800-225-4008</p>

<p><i>The Light and the Glory</i>, Peter Marshall and David Manuel (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1977)</p>

<p><i>Christianity and the Constitution--The Faith of Our Founding Fathers</i>, John Eidsmoe (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987)</p>

<p><i>Defending the Declaration--How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence</i>, Gary T. Amos (Brentwood, TN: Wogelmuth &amp; Hyatt, 1989)</p>

<p><i>Positive Neutrality: Letting Religious Freedom Ring</i>, Stephen T. Monsma, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993)</p>
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title: Ten Tips to Help Your Prayer Life
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/ten-tips-to-help-your-prayer-life
content:
            <div> 
		<p>For a few hardy prayer warriors, talking with God is as easy as breathing; it happens almost effortlessly. When you ask them how they do it, they simply shrug and reply, “I just pray.”&nbsp;Unfortunately, that’s about as helpful as John McEnroe saying “I just hit the ball,”&nbsp;when asked for some tips on more effective tennis. It may be easy for him to “just hit the ball,” but most of us hackers need a little more fundamental instruction to get the job done. With that in mind, we’ve included here some practical guidelines that might make your time with the Lord more fruitful. Not all of the suggestions will apply to your particular situation, but if you begin by incorporating a few of them, I’m confident your prayer life will improve.</p>

<p>1. Choose a specific place to pray away from distractions so you can concentrate. Ringing phones and crying children will sabotage your “quiet time”&nbsp;before it gets started.</p>

<p>2. Pray at the same time every day, if at all possible. Make it part of your regular routine and it will become habit. Write it into your schedule and then treat it just like a daily appointment.</p>

<p>3. Pray out loud. Many people can pray under their breath or in their minds for long periods and still maintain intensity, but for most of us it’s a quick ticket to dreamland. When we pray out loud we have to form intelligent sentences. We have to concentrate more on what we’re praying about.</p>

<p>4. Keep a note pad handy so you can jot down different things that come to mind while you’re before the Lord. Sometimes you’ll get great ideas totally unrelated to what you’ve been praying about. If you jot them down you can quickly get back to the topic at hand without being too distracted.</p>

<p>5. Make a list to keep track of your prayer needs. This can be done several ways. Prayer needs can be listed by category like “Church,”&nbsp;“Family,”&nbsp;or “Unsaved friends.”&nbsp;Or they may be listed by the days of the week. Each day you pray for a different set of needs. You may want to include prayer everyday for a different area of society that has a tremendous influence on the direction of our nation. These seven categories include 1) the church and religion, 2) the family and the home, 3) the media, 4) government, 5) education, 6) business and commerce, and 7) the arts and entertainment.</p>

<p>6. Redeem time for praying out of unused corners of your schedule. Those who have to drive to work can use the time talking with the Lord instead of screaming at traffic (just don’t close your eyes!). Busy homemakers can combine prayer with housework, especially if the task doesn’t require a lot of concentration. Joggers, swimmers and cyclists can use their workout time for prayer. Sometimes my best times with the Lord have been chats during long, early morning walks or jogs along the beach.</p>

<p>7. Change the pace during your prayer time. Include praise, thanksgiving and singing as well as petition. Spend some of your time reflecting on the Scripture, meditating on it and digesting its meaning.</p>

<p>8. Keep a prayer journal. Here are two variations of this idea. The first is to keep track of what you prayed for and when you prayed for it. Leave a space to jot down the answer when it comes. This will help you to keep alert to God’s answer so you can thank Him promptly. Sometimes prayer answers come in the back door and you don’t want them to slip by you. The second variation is to write the entire prayer in your journal. Make it a personal letter to the Lord on a daily basis. Just write “Dear Lord”&nbsp;instead of “Dear Diary.”</p>

<p>9. Pray with someone else. Though some prayers can only be said in solitude, there will be times when you’ll want to join hearts with another person in prayer. If you commit to meet on a regular basis, the accountability can really help build consistency. Such prayer trysts can become powerful, life-changing events.</p>

<p>10. Pray one-sentence prayers. If the thought of laboring over a topic wears you out, pray short, sincere prayers instead. A sentence or two may be all that’s needed to exhaust the topic for you for the time being. If so, just move on to the next item without feeling guilty for your brevity.</p>

<h2>7 Things to Pray For</h2>

<p>In addition to following the suggestions above, here are a few more thoughts that will help. In the front of your prayer diary list three or four promises from the Scripture on prayer. Read them as an encouragement before you start. Start your prayer time with a hymn, focusing your heart and mind on the Lord. When you pray through your prayer list for the day, include the items on your daily schedule. Pray also about the things not on your schedule but still on your heart. Be sure your prayer time includes some of the specific things that God tells us in His Word to pray for. Below are a few examples:</p>

<p>1. Pray for the harvest.</p>

<p><em>“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest”&nbsp;(Matt 9:37-38).</em></p>

<p>2. Pray for national and local leaders of government.</p>

<p><em>“I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity”&nbsp;(1 Tim 2:1-2).</em></p>

<p>3. Pray that God will open doors for ministry of the Word.</p>

<p><em>“Praying at the same time for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ...”&nbsp;(Col 4:3).</em></p>

<p>4. Pray for those who have mistreated you. Forgive them.</p>

<p><em>“Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”&nbsp;(Lk 6:28).</em></p>

<p><em>“So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart”&nbsp;(Matt 18:35).</em></p>

<p>5. Pray that you may do no evil.</p>

<p><em>“Now we pray to God that you do no wrong...”&nbsp;(2 Cor 13:7).</em></p>

<p>6. Pray that your love may abound toward all people.</p>

<p><em>“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment...”&nbsp;(Phil 1:9).</em></p>

<p>7. Pray that your whole spirit, mind and body be preserved blameless.</p>

<p><em>“Now may the God of peace sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”&nbsp;(1 Thess 5:23).</em></p>
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title: Christianity and Naturalism
topic: Philosophy
author: Melinda Penner
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/christianity-and-naturalism
content:
            <div> 
		<p>James Sire describes naturalists as monistic materialists who deny the existence of immaterial entities and their ability to act in this world.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> Though naturalism can be characterized in broader term, which I will address briefly later in this paper, Sire’s characterization is really of materialism. Ontological or metaphysical naturalism is defined in <em>The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy</em> as the view that everything is composed of natural entities constructed of properties as the sciences allow.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> The worldview I wish to address is the version of naturalism that holds that all abstract entities are determined by the factual or descriptive judgments of science. I will label this view materialism.</p>

<p>Materialism requires that all entities in the world are physical or physically determined. However, most materialists want to preserve free will of human action. Materialists deny the existence of universals, yet most still attempt to find a place for objective morality in their worldview. My thesis is this: Materialism is a monist ontology that attempts to account for moral and mental properties, but cannot; these properties require a pluralist ontology to maintain their irreducible qualities. Two common strategies of materialism to accommodate these properties are functionalism and reduction, but these strategies do not adequately capture these facts about the world. Given that failure (and that of other strategies that are beyond the scope of this paper), we should seek a worldview that accomplishes the task.</p>

<p>Many materialists offer a defense for morality and mind in terms of functionalist and supervenience theses, which are part of a monist account of ontology. (Though these are not the only strategies to defend morality and mind in materialism, they are very common and I will restrict my critique to these.) The strength of this sort of justification for moral realism will depend upon the virtues of functionalism and supervenience. However, these two theories fail to account for moral facts and can provide no adequate grounds for moral realism; a monistic worldview is insufficient for this sort of property. Only ontological pluralism is explanatorily sufficient to justify real moral facts.</p>

<p>Materialism denies that moral realism requires ontological pluralism. Moral facts are just like other kinds of physical facts that science can account for. To justify this thesis, materialism must be able to give an account for the reality of morality in wholly physical terms.</p>

<p>The primary way that materialism describes morality is in terms of functionalism. A functionalist theory of moral value describes moral facts as facts about human well-being and flourishing. Supervenience is a way of accounting for the existence of moral properties in a monistic universe. If these are undermined, there is inadequate justification for moral realism and the worldview fails to account, not only for what it claims to account for, but a feature of the universe that it seems prima facie obligated to explain.</p>

<p>Is causal supervenience sufficient to explain moral facts? Materialism draws a comparison between the supervenience of moral properties with mental properties supervening on physical properties. They are both understood in causal terms of the physical properties that they supervene on (whether or not they are ontologically reducible to these properties).</p>

<p>Materialism may be able to tell a story about how moral properties supervene on physical properties, but this account cannot capture the irreducible features of morality that we are referring to when we speak of morality. Describing moral entities in terms of causal properties of the physical facts does not mean that the nature of moral facts are physical. Moral facts are unnatural entities in materialism. Supervenience does not explain how real moral facts, which have no physical features, come from unconscious matter. Morality cannot be deduced from the composition of physical structures. Correlation between moral and physical states does not answer the question of why morality arises from physical states at all.</p>

<p>Materialism explains morality in terms of the causal interaction among elements of the physical system. Physical states are causally sufficient for mental states, either ontologically or in an emergent way. Extending physical categories to include moral facts is not adequate when the moral facts bear different kinds of features than the physical facts, such as a sense of oughtness, a central feature of morality. When we carve the world up at the joints and find unique moral facts, that has metaphysical consequences.</p>

<p>Materialism has no persuasive reasons why we should accept the causal identification of moral and physical categories except that it is stipulated in a materialist worldview. It attempts to stretch the categories of the physical world to encompass any facts we find in the world, but materialism will not accommodate ontologically unique facts. Moral facts resist this reduction.</p>

<p>Supervenience also presents a problem for moral responsibility. J.P. Moreland points out that “it is part of the nature of libertarian acts that there are no sufficient conditions for such acts to occur or for the chances to be fixed for such acts to occur.”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> Supervenience requires a necessary causal connection between a brain state and an action, and cannot allow for free moral agency. Supervenience is not explanatorily sufficient to allow for this feature of morality.</p>

<p>Materialism also defends a functionalist account of moral realism. Functionalism is a causal role in which a mental state plays a role in the activities which are characteristic of the person as a whole. According to functionalism, moral facts are just like other scientific facts that have natural explanations based on physical laws. Basically, morality is a matter of inputs and outputs that perform a certain function, that in the case of morality brings about human flourishing and well-being.</p>

<p>Functionalism would account for pain as a mental state that has the tendency to result in certain outputs, such as tissue damage or injury-avoidance behavior. Similarly, there are moral states of the brain that fulfill certain functions; in fact, they just are functional properties. Moral properties are moral in virtue of the causal role they play in human activities. Morality is that which provides for the survival and well-being of humans. The physical states that contribute or interfere with these functions are the ones on which moral properties supervene.</p>

<p>Functionalism treats mental states as secondary properties; that is, they are properties of properties. A mental property is a property in virtue of playing the right causal role. A pain is not a pain unless it disposes one to have certain outputs (e.g., tissue damage or injury-avoidance behavior). Inverted qualia arguments demonstrate the weakness of functionalism, underscoring the failure of functionalism to capture the subjective, non-physical features of morality.</p>

<p>Two creatures could be in the same functional state, but be in different moral states.</p>

<p>To take a moral example, Smith and Jones on separate days each trip Brown as he runs down the sidewalk to cross the street. What Smith and Jones can see that Brown cannot is an oncoming semi-truck. They both exhibit the same functional output, but the morality of each act is wholly different. Smith trips Brown because he is next in line for Brown’s job and wants to ensure that he will fall in front of the truck; but Jones trips Brown to save him from running in front of the truck. Both Smith and Jones exhibit the same functional output, but the moral facts are quite different. Functionalists define mental states as second order properties, but the inverted qualia argument shows that the mental state is first order, not second in determining the morality of an action. Functional roles are not non-rigid designators; they do not always refer to the same moral state.</p>

<p>Materialism makes morality a dispositional concept that is about the relevant behaviors or desires. Morality turns out to be a term that is apt to produce certain types of behaviors that are conducive or detrimental to human well-being. Morality is not morality unless it disposes one to behave in a certain way. This seems backwards. The case of pain might be clearer. We avoid pain because it hurts; we do not call it a pain because of avoidance behavior. We call an action moral based on the mental state, not only or even primarily because of the behavior output.</p>

<p>In addition, human well-being and flourishing are teleological terms which materialism cannot adequately account for. Well-being can only be a material concept in functionalism, such as survival. But that does not seem to be what we mean when we talk about human flourishing. It seems to connote achieving an intended purpose, yet final causes are done away with in modern science. Flourishing and well-being seem more at home in a pluralist ontology.</p>

<p>Naturalism, as a larger category than materialism, can give a more credible account for moral realism than the narrower thesis of materialism. Naturalists that allow for essences and teleology can account for morality as part of human flourishing and natural properties of the universe, but this requires a pluralist ontology. Naturalism in a classic sense of this word (ala Aristotle) is a “thick”&nbsp;naturalism that hold that things have natures and essences. Value is irreducible to physical properties. Value, such as moral properties, can be found in natures; fact and value are linked, and morality flows from this view. It is metaphysically and normatively rich.</p>

<p>But the question is which worldview is the most natural home for moral realism? Christianity is a worldview that provides a reasonable explanation for immaterial properties. It is superior to classic naturalism in that it gives a personal source for morality and a personal explanation for moral obligation. Morality may be understood as a natural property, but it seems unique that these properties require minds of a certain sort to perceive them (i.e., animals do not seem to behave in moral ways so must not perceive these properties). It is a unique feature of human minds to perceive these properties and to understand the obligatory nature of moral properties. The mind, then, also requires a reasonable explanation and this is best understood in terms of a personal Creator who made our rational minds to function similar to His.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>

<p>Materialism also attempts to explain mental properties in the same terms as moral properties, that is as functional states or supervening properties of physical properties. Evolutionary and atomistic theories are adequate to explain the nature of the world, including minds. Consciousness is an obvious feature of the world, therefore, materialism makes room for consciousness as a biological feature that arises from evolved physical forms.</p>

<p>John Searle addresses the problem of mental properties in the scientific model of consciousness.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> Materialism holds that consciousness necessarily rises at a certain level of brain complexity. But why does consciousness arise at all on brains? How does something intrinsically subjective and first person generate from a purely physical, third-person kind of material?</p>

<p>Materialism mistakes the correlation of minds and brains with causal necessity. Brain states are not modes of consciousness. There could be a world in which there were highly evolved brains functioning like incredibly sophisticated computers, but no consciousness. Brain states and mental states are not the same thing. Inverted qualia examples, as given for moral states, illustrate this, as well.</p>

<p>Materialism attempts to maintain moral properties in their ontology and free will along with it. But if mental states are causally dependent on physical states, then physical necessity is required and free will is lost. In a materialist world, mental states have no causal powers; it is a bottom-up atomistic world in which free will cannot be maintained. Free will requires a pluralist ontology in which minds are causally efficacious.</p>

<p>The strength of materialism’s explanation for moral and mental properties rests on the strength of the supervenience and functionalist theses. These theses are part of a materialist worldview that cannot account for the uniqueness of moral and mental properties or the real nature of human actions. Ontological monism cannot provide adequate justification for the properties. If moral and mental properties are to be maintained in a robust sense that fit our prephilosophical understanding, then we should embrace the metaphysical implications of these facts and look for grounds in a pluralist ontology. Naturalism in a the broader sense can make more sense of these properties, but the are most adequately justified in a Christian worldview that gives a personal explanation for moral and mental facts, and the implications of these properties.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Sire, James, <em>The Universe Next Door</em> 3rd ed., Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press), 53-55. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Post, John F., “Naturalism,”&nbsp;Ed. Robert Audi, <em>The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy</em> (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press), 517. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Moreland, J.P. and Scott Rae, <em>Body &amp; Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics</em> (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), 149. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">I credit Howard Short with this insight. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Searle, John, <em>The Rediscovery of the Mind</em> (MIT Press). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5"> ↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
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title: Oprah’s Religion: A Brief Evaluation of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Melinda Penner
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/oprah-s-religion-a-brief-evaluation-of-eckhart-tolle-s-a-new-earth
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Is Oprah’s religion (ala Eckhart Tolle) compatible with Christianity and the Bible? This brief article isn’t an exhaustive analysis of Eckhart Tolle’s work but a brief evaluation of that question. This question has been brought to STR a number of times. Oprah claims the answer is yes. And surprisingly, more than a few Christians think the answer is yes. But even a cursory reading of Tolle makes it obvious the answer can only be no, and that he is actually teaching Hinduism, not Christianity. But he carries on in the Hindu syncretistic tradition of wrapping all religions under Hinduism, teaching that “all roads”&nbsp;lead to God but via Hinduism.</p>

<p>Eckhart Tolle might concede that his philosophy is not compatible with Christianity because he contends that Christianity has been corrupted from the original teachings of Jesus. His assertions are based on the long refuted idea that the Bible was changed by the church and what is known as the Gnostic gospels suppressed. These ideas have been so thoroughly debunked elsewhere, I won’t go into the details now. Suffice it to say that he repeatedly quotes from the Bible as we know it now claiming that Jesus is on His side. So since we share that source of authority of Jesus’&nbsp;teachings, and because this critique is aimed at the claim that Tolle’s teachings are compatible with what Christians believe, I’ll rely on showing the explicit claims Tolle makes that are on their face incompatible with Jesus and Christianity.</p>

<p>p. 6 Tolle makes a claim about Jesus’&nbsp;identity, a central fact of what Jesus Himself said marked His followers: “Who do you say that I am?”&nbsp;He asked His disciples. Clearly, the answer is significant. The answer Jesus agreed with: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”&nbsp;Tolle’s claim: Jesus is a messenger along with Buddha and others who are precursors of what transformed humanity can become. In his view, Jesus isn’t divine. He’s not unique. Who Jesus is is what we should all aspire to become. Not like him, but just as He is since that’s what “precursor”&nbsp;means.</p>

<p>p. 7-8 Another central tenet of Christianity is what mankind’s problem is: sin. According to Tolle, we need an “awakening,”&nbsp;not redemption. Our problem is the “workings of the ego.”&nbsp;And by that he doesn’t mean self-centeredness but an Eastern view of our sense of identity that we need to empty ourselves of. According to Tolle, we have the resources needed to reach the new level of humanity he is encouraging. The Bible says that we’re dead in our trespasses and sins; we have no resources to help ourselves. That’s why we need Jesus. Jesus said that He Himself was the “light of the world.”&nbsp;Tolle states, “The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light.”</p>

<p>p. 9 Tolle redefines sin to conform with Hinduism and Buddhism. He claims that the word sin has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. “Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence.”&nbsp;Now he’s correct in what the word sin literally means, but notice that he also defines what the target is: the point of human existence. That’s a point of interpretation in which he inserts Eastern philosophy. According to the Bible, from which Tolle is drawing the word, the target is perfection, the Law. The point of the Law was to show us how far we’ve missed the target and are in need of the Savior. Again, according to Tolle, we’ve missed the target but we also have the resources within ourselves to hit the target. We don’t need a Savior; we need “awakening.”</p>

<p>p. 16 According to Tolle, Jesus gave us one take on Truth using the conceptual framework of His religion. In other words, Jesus didn’t give us the truth, He gave us a perspective on truth that is one perspective among others that are just as valid and helpful. He goes on to commend the rediscovery of Gnosticism, a heresy roundly condemned by the Early Church. Again, I won’t take the time to dispute Gnosticism here. I can point to resources on that. But Gnosticism and the secret knowledge it taught is inconsistent with Christianity and not another source of truth that can be syncretized.</p>

<p>p. 23 Tolle writes: “We need to understand that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness. This is the esoteric meaning of the word, and this is also its meaning in the teachings of Jesus.”&nbsp;Jesus refers to Heaven repeatedly as a place, albeit not a physical place as sometimes simplistically stated. He referred to it as another place, not our consciousness.</p>

<p>p. 32 “...[T]hinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.”</p>

<p>p. 57 This is the worst one of all. “You realize your true identity as consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness had identified with. That’s the peace of God. The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am.”&nbsp;“I Am”&nbsp;is an Old Testament reference to Yahweh, which Jesus used for Himself and is what instigated blasphemy charges against Him since the Jews understood this claim to deity. This is the most explicit religious claim Tolle makes that comes from Eastern religion and is utterly incompatible with Christianity and the Bible. Jesus is God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity. He is unique, and no man can become deity. This one claim alone should make it obvious that Tolle’s claims are not what is taught in the Bible, and that his teaching is utterly incompatible with Christianity.</p>

<p>p. 71 “The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time. The very Being that you are is Truth. Jesus tried to convey that when he said, ’I am the way and the truth and the life.’&nbsp;These words uttered by Jesus are one of the most powerful and direct pointers to the Truth, if understood correctly. If misinterpreted, however, they become a great obstacle. Jesus speaks of the innermost I Am, the essence identity of every man and woman, every life-form, in fact.”</p>

<p>The sentence Jesus uttered immediately after this statement makes unequivocal what His meaning was: “No one comes to the Father but by Me.”&nbsp;Jesus wasn’t teaching that the truth is in all of us, that we are all “I Am’s.”&nbsp;He was pointing to His unique identity, not a secret identity in all of us; and He was underscoring why He is the only Savior. There is no other way to God besides Jesus, yet that is what Tolle teaches.</p>

<p>p. 196 Tolle writes that “good”&nbsp;and “bad”&nbsp;are mental labels that are ultimately illusory. There is no distinction between good and bad. In fact, all distinctions are illusions and what we must extinguish. That is Hinduism, which is the religion Tolle is teaching. Good and bad are not mere illusions. God Himself uses good as an objective property when He declares His religion good. And subsequently, evil is introduced as an objective problem He sends His Son to reconcile. The evil that resides in all of us because of our sin is a real problem separating us from God, and the solution in Jesus is the essence of Christianity. If sin isn’t a problem, then Christianity is pointless and Jesus isn’t needed.</p>

<p>Tolle fundamentally misdiagnoses man’s problem, and therefore his solution is wrong. The Bible says that man’s problem is sin, and Jesus, the unique Son of God, is our solution.</p>
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title: Jesus’ Missing Years
topic: History
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/jesus-missing-years
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Did Jesus study in India for the “missing”&nbsp;18 years of His life and then bring back a message reflecting eastern religious thought?</em></p>

<h2>1. There is no historical information what-so-ever that places Jesus in India.</h2>

<p>Most “documentation”&nbsp;comes from psychic messages (e.g. <em>The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ</em> and the readings of Edgar Cayce) and they conflict with each other. The only evidence that even claims to be historical was supposedly viewed by Nicolas Notovich in 1887 in a monastery in Tibet. The alleged scrolls about the prophet Issa have never been produced and the monks who were supposed to have them denied any knowledge of either the scrolls or Notovich.</p>

<h2>2. The Gospels teach Jesus stayed in Israel.</h2>

<ol>
	<li>Our best historical accounts strongly imply that Jesus stayed with his family the entire time He grew up, as would be expected of a young Jewish lad.
	<p>Matt 2:23 “...and He came and resided in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ’He shall be called a Nazarene.’”</p>

	<p>Lk 2:51-52 “And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”</p>
	</li>
	<li>Both of these accounts are immediately followed by the account of John the Baptist, implying Jesus’&nbsp;baptism was the next significant event in Jesus’&nbsp;life. If Jesus had traveled to the East it would have been a critical theological event and would not have been left out of the historical record. Jesus’&nbsp;earlier trip to Egypt as an infant (Matt 2:13-15) was included.</li>
	<li>Other references tell us that the townspeople of Nazareth were taken aback at Jesus’&nbsp;wisdom as He preached. The implication is that He grew up in their midst as a normal Jewish boy. They were amazed at the Messianic emphasis of His ministry. This was an entirely new element.
	<p>Lk 4:22 “And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, ’Is this not Joseph’s son?’”</p>

	<p>Matt 13:54-56 (cf. Mk 6:3) “And coming to His home town [i.e. the place where He grew up] He began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they became astonished, and said, ’Where did this man get this wisdom, and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Where then did this man get all these things?’”</p>
	</li>
</ol>

<h2>3. The expense and distance make such a trip unlikely.</h2>

<p>This kind of travel would have been extremely difficult for a youngster. The distances that had to be covered were incredible for anyone in that time, adult or child, given the methods of transportation. In addition, Jesus came from an extremely poor family who could not afford the incredible expenses a trip like that would incur.</p>

<h2>4. Gentile culture was repugnant to Jews.</h2>

<p>At that time in history Jewish involvement with gentiles was strictly limited. Non-Jewish culture was repugnant to a Hebraic (as opposed to Hellenistic) Jew. Jesus would have little cultural tolerance for living in the midst of idol worshiping gentiles in India.</p>

<h2>5. Jesus taught Judaism, not Hinduism.</h2>

<p>Theologically, Jesus’&nbsp;teaching was completely antithetical to the world view of eastern religions. His theology was thoroughly grounded on a Hebraic concept of God and reality. Jesus continued to refer to the Old Testament, indicating His respect for the Law and the prophets and the God of Israel. In fact, He kept the Law impeccably. He never quoted or even alluded to the <em>Vedas.</em></p>

<h2>6. Conclusion:</h2>

<p>Every shred of hard evidence we have places Jesus in the land of Israel for His entire life except the brief sojourn in Egypt (which the historical accounts are careful to note).</p>
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title: God Can’t Do Everything
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-can-t-do-everything
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Are non-Christians claiming that a half-full glass has more in it than a full glass? It would appear so.</em></p>

<p>Let me just go over that argument very quickly. I hope you don’t get lost in the details. It’s important.</p>

<p>There were actually two different arguments going on there. The first argument, as I summed up when I started my response, was an argument to show that Christianity was contradictory in the things that it believed about God. This is the attack on the existence of God based on the existence of evil, at least the deductive attack. The deductive argument based on the existence of evil is of this form. It’s a very aggressive kind of argument because, if it can be demonstrated that there is something Christians believe that is inherently and internally contradictory, then Christianity cannot be true, at least at that point.</p>

<p>John’s argument was this:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>You say that God is omnipotent and He is also perfectly good. Those are in contradiction. Why? Because omnipotent means He is able to do anything, which would include being able to do immoral things. But a perfectly good creature would not be able to do so, and so you Christians are essentially saying that God is able to do immoral things and He is not able to do immoral things at the same time. This is a violation of the Law of Non- contradiction, therefore it falsifies the Christian’s point of view at this particular point.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That is his argument.</p>

<p>The solution is quite simple. He had misconstrued or misunderstood what Christians mean by the term “omnipotent.”&nbsp;We do not mean that God can do everything. One thing that is specifically denied in the Christian revelation, the Bible, is that God can do evil. That is denied. He cannot do evil. So Christians hold that God is omnipotent, but what that entails is not the belief that He can do everything, because some things He can’t. He can’t commit evil, for example. So there’s no contradiction in the Christian’s view that God is omnipotent and He is good.</p>

<p>The second argument is a variation of the first.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Well, then it seems that it’s possible to imagine a being that is greater than your being. If your being is the greatest of all possible beings, [this would be kind of an ontological argument in the spirit of Anselm], if your being is the greatest of all possible beings and I can imagine one even greater than that, then your being must not be the greatest of all possible beings. I can imagine one greater. I can imagine one that can do all kinds of good things and more; he can do bad things, too. Therefore, your God who is not capable of doing bad things is an inferior God.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>See the way that argument is? Now, I did my best to show that this was a misconstruing of evil. It sees evil as a positive additional attribute rather than a lack or a privation of good, as Augustine argued, and Aquinas after him, and others have argued in this fashion. Many do nowadays as well. I mentioned Doug Geivett’s book as an excellent example of that.</p>

<p>But let me give you one other illustration, because I think this is hard for people to see. It’s as if you were arguing regarding two glasses of water. Picture two glasses of water. One is full and one is half full. Which one has more? Well, the full glass, of course. Oh no, you misunderstand, I respond. The glass which is half full has more because it has something the first glass doesn’t have. What’s that? It has emptiness. Well, you say, it doesn’t have emptiness. Emptiness is a description of something that is not there, not something that is there. And that’s my point.</p>

<p>You can’t argue the half-full glass, morally speaking, that a god who can do evil is greater than the God who can do only good, because all you’ve said is that this god is only half full, not all the way full. He is half full of morality and the other half is missing morality, making him capable of immoral acts, compared to the Christian God, which is all full up with morality. He is not capable of doing bad because He is not missing anything good.</p>

<p>Therefore, the God of the Bible is the superior God, not this imaginary god who can do evil who is, in fact, less. You would have to argue then that Satan would be a greater god than God because Satan is, at least theoretically, capable of good things (or he did good things at one time in his existence) and he is also capable of being desperately evil. So we would have to say that Satan is better than God and is greater than God because he can do more than God can do. As you can see from the illustration of the glasses, this is just a misunderstanding of the problem. It’s identifying a lack, or something missing, as something more than.</p>

<p>It’s kind of like saying that a donut with a hole in it is more than a donut without a hole in it. Why? Because it has something the other donut doesn’t have. A hole. Do you see how silly that is? It’s just a misconstruel of the facts.</p>

<p>I took a few moments to go over the details because this is a question that has come up before and I think that, unless you see it—unless you kind of “get it”—at first it may be a bit confusing. But as we talk about it a little bit, I think you might see the truth that a God who is totally good is more than a god who is capable of doing evil, even though the one who is capable of doing evil, in a sense, can do things that the totally moral God can’t do.</p>
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title: Don't Assume Masculine Contributions Are More Valuable
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/don-t-assume-masculine-contributions-are-more-valuable
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In a post titled “<a href="http://marccortez.com/2013/02/14/gender-how-movies-teach-our-kids/" target="_blank">How Movies Teach Our Kids about Gender</a>” at Everyday Theology, Marc Cortez summarizes a recent TED Talk given by Colin Stokes:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I’d never heard of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test" target="_blank">Bechdel Test</a>, but it’s a way of gauging how a movie portrays its female characters. And it’s a pretty simple test.</p>

<ol>
	<li>Are there at least two women who actually have lines?</li>
	<li>Do these women talk to each other at any point in the movie?</li>
	<li>Is there conversation about something other than the guy that they both like?...</li>
</ol>

<p>[Q]uite a few movies fail to achieve even this low standard. Either the movie has almost no significant female characters, or it fails to show them interacting with other women on issues unrelated to dating and/or marriage.</p>

<p>Although I always notice when a movie fails to have a significant female character, I’d never considered the importance of showing female characters talking meaningfully about important issues. The male characters do it all the time, and thus provide strong reinforcement that men can have those kinds of conversations. Even if it’s becoming more common for female characters to engage in the same conversations, we rarely see them having those conversations with each other, reinforcing the notion that women don’t talk about those things. I certainly don’t want my girls growing up thinking that they have to sit at the guys table if they want to talk about politics, theology, and other important issues (like football).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The problem I have with this analysis is that he’s made an assumption that’s never challenged, and it’s this: the macro issues are what’s really important.</p>

<p>Imagine if someone had created the opposite test in order to bring attention to how rarely Hollywood shows a group of men talking about issues relating to dating and/or marriage, chastising Hollywood for reinforcing the notion that men don't talk about these things. Do you ever hear concern expressed about that? No, because there’s an unspoken assumption that of course everyone should be like men.</p>

<p>I appreciate that this man thinks he’s helping women, but he’s actually devaluing them because here’s what he’s saying: “Men are better than women because we focus on macro issues (politics, nation, etc.—notice how he refers to these as the “important issues”) and they focus on micro issues (relationships, family, etc.). Therefore, to help women, we must encourage them to become more like men.”</p>

<p>If our culture valued micro issues, then women would feel more free to invest themselves in them without feeling guilty they’re not acting like men, and our society would be much better off. Just think how different things would be if our culture valued motherhood as highly as involvement in macro issues. Think of the sacrifices families would make to have and care for more children. Think of how issues like abortion and low marriage and birth rates (with all their accompanying societal problems) might be improved. There’s a macro cost to devaluing micro strengths.</p>

<p>I don’t fit in well in women’s groups because I do tend to focus more on macro issues. I don’t know how to do crafts, or create beauty, or entertain small children, or most anything that women usually excel at, but heaven forbid I should look down on those women and think they should be more like me! On the contrary, I know I’m womandicapped—lacking something truly good. I honor the unique contribution of women, and we should be encouraged to excel in all these micro things.</p>

<p>And I hate to tell him, but we usually <em>do</em> have to “sit at the guys’ table” if we want to talk about macro issues. If more than two women are together, we don’t tend to gravitate towards macro topics. That’s just reality. Why not celebrate what women have to offer rather than turn <em>every</em> table into a “guys’ table”?</p>
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title: Science Isn’t, Science Is
topic: Science
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/science-isn-t-science-is
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Stephen Jay Gould, evolution’s popular icon from Harvard, has fired his latest salvo against creation in his new book, Rocks of Ages. He continues to advance the idea that the term “creation science”&nbsp;is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.</p>

<p>There are even some Christian thinkers who agree with him. Creation, they suggest, is theological. Science is empirical. Religion and science, like oil and water, don’t mix. They represent two entirely different “magisteriums,”&nbsp;in Gould’s words. Science is the domain of fact and reason. Religion is the domain of belief and faith.</p>

<h2>Line of Demarcation</h2>

<p>Implicit in such statements is the assumption that there is a precise definition of science. Any discipline that does not conform to this definition is “unscientific,”&nbsp;being outside of science. Add to that the prevailing mood of scientism (only the methods of science can be trusted to tell us what’s true) and the result is that all other disciplines—including theology—yield nothing but interesting beliefs, not facts.</p>

<p>To say that any form of creationism is not science involves two assumptions. First, it presumes there is a clear line of demarcation between science and non-science (with creation on the non-science side of that line). Second, it presumes that disciplines outside of science have no place intruding upon scientific conclusions. That would pit fact against faith.</p>

<p>However, the exclusion of intelligent creation from the realm of science is arbitrary for two reasons. First, the fact is there is no clear line of demarcation between science and non-science. Second, even if there were such a line, it wouldn’t automatically mean that well justified conclusions from other disciplines could not have a bearing on scientific thinking.</p>

<h2>Necessary and Sufficient</h2>

<p>Three things are required to establish a clear line of demarcation between science and non-science. First, one would have to identify necessary conditions that any discipline must satisfy to qualify for the label “scientific.”&nbsp;A necessary condition is a minimal requirement, an essential element that must be present in every case. It allows us to point to clear examples of things that are immediately excluded as science.</p>

<p>Second, one would have to identify sufficient conditions that any discipline must satisfy to qualify for the label “scientific.”&nbsp;What constellation of factors are adequate for a definition? When is enough enough? Sufficient conditions allow us to point to clear examples of things that are immediately included in the class.</p>

<p>For example, for a geometric figure to be a square, it must be a closed, two-dimensional form consisting of four straight lines that are connected. This is absolutely necessary. Any form that does not have these characteristics isn’t even in consideration.</p>

<p>This isn’t enough, though. It’s not sufficient. A parallelogram and some rectangles fit this description, yet are not squares. More is needed. If you add that each line needs to be the same length and all connecting angles are 90°, then you have added other conditions that, in sum, are sufficient to encompass all squares. Anything fulfilling the necessary conditions might be a square, and anything satisfying the sufficient requirements must be a square.</p>

<p>To get a good grade on an essay test it is necessary that one know the material, but that is not enough. He must also be able to articulate the correct answers clearly in writing. That would be sufficient.</p>

<p>Both boundaries are needed. If there are only necessary conditions, then you can clearly know some things that are not scientific, but you can’t state with certainty what things are. On the other hand, if there are only sufficient conditions, you can clearly know some things that are science, but you can never state with certainty what things are not.</p>

<p>Note that sufficient requirements are not always necessary. Owning a billion dollars is sufficient in itself to qualify you as rich, but there are many rich people who are not billionaires.</p>

<h2>In or Out?</h2>

<p>The third requirement for a valid definition of science is that the necessary and sufficient conditions must include everything we already understand to be science and exclude those things that clearly are not.</p>

<p>This is where the real problem lies. Virtually any attempt to list necessary and sufficient conditions for a definition of science either includes things clearly not scientific, or excludes things that clearly are.</p>

<p>Let me give some examples. When the question “What are the elements of science?”&nbsp;comes up, certain components are cited. Characteristics are offered like observation, experimental repeatability, falsification, conformity to natural laws, etc. But are any of these elements either necessary or sufficient to identify an activity as scientific?</p>

<p>None of these are really necessary, in our sense of the term. Too many bona fide scientific procedures do not use them. No one has observed a magnetic field itself. It’s hard to imagine a repeatable experiment that would address the issue of the extinction of the dinosaurs. The concept of “survival of the fittest”&nbsp;is not falsifiable. And the Big Bang is allegedly a singularity that is the source of natural law, and therefore could not be caused by it. However, each of these is unquestionably within the realm of science.</p>

<p>It seems equally clear that none of these could be sufficient conditions for science either. Biblical exegesis relies on observation. Spiritual regeneration is a repeatable event (by another “experimenter,” that is). Theological doctrines are, at least in principle, falsifiable. And math and logic conform to a type of law. Yet none of these, by virtue of the presence of those elements, would be considered scientific.</p>

<p>The point is simply this: Apart from a clear line of demarcation identifying both necessary and sufficient conditions for science, it is presumptuous to exclude intelligent creation from the field of science. If, on the other hand, science is defined not by necessary and sufficient conditions, but by a constellation of endeavors that generally characterize clear-cut cases of science, that allows us to make meaningful distinctions between science and non-science. However, this method also qualifies intelligent design as scientific because it employs that same constellation of techniques the other disciplines do.</p>

<h2>Problems on the Outside</h2>

<p>One other element—the notion of external conceptual problems—bears on the issue of the singular authority of science in the area of knowledge. These are problems raised in a discipline outside of science that are reasonable and rationally justified, yet conflict with the conclusions of science.</p>

<p>For example, one conclusion of science may reduce man to a brain and a body, denying the metaphysical dimension of the soul. Man is simply a machine made of meat, locked in a mechanistic universe of cause and effect. If, however, other disciplines—like philosophy, ethics, or theology—could provide legitimate reasons for the existence of the soul, this would weigh against the “scientific”&nbsp;conclusion.</p>

<p>In the twentieth century, science has become an elitist, parochial enterprise. This is unwarranted. First, there is no clear set of conditions—either necessary or sufficient—that distinguish science from non-science. Second, even if there were, non-scientific enterprises like philosophy, theology, and ethics might contribute legitimate, defensible conclusions that represent problems for some scientific views.</p>

<p>Well-justified conclusions from other disciplines ought not be dismissed out of hand. To disregard a view simply because it’s “religious”&nbsp;or “theological”&nbsp;is obscurantist. If truth is really the object of the scientific enterprise, scientists should welcome it from any source.</p>
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title: Jesus, the Only Savior
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/jesus-the-only-savior
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Greg explains why there is no such thing as a pluralist Christian.</em></p>

<p>A caller alerted me to the fact that apparently there’s a president of a Baptist college who believes Jesus is not necessary for salvation. If I’m understanding his view correctly, this would make him a pluralist—someone who says that other religions are legitimate and appropriate avenues to God and that the work of the cross is not necessary at all for salvation. We Christians happen to believe in Jesus because it’s “our thing.”&nbsp;Jesus, though, could be completely out of the picture and salvation could still be secured through other religions.</p>

<p>As a point of information, this would be different from the “inclusivist”&nbsp;Roman Catholic view. On this view, Jesus’&nbsp;work on the cross is necessary for forgiveness, but one need not believe in Jesus—and could outright reject Him—and still enjoy the benefits of the cross. The forgiveness that comes through Jesus can be mediated through the sincere pursuit of other religions. Therefore, all people, regardless of there belief systems, are potentially included—ergo the word “inclusivist”—in God’s Kingdom. To put it most directly, the good Buddhist is cleansed by the blood of Christ (though one might as why he needs the blood of Christ if he’s good already).</p>

<p>My caller asked this question: Should a person who is a religious pluralist be allowed to continue as a president of a Baptist college? I think the answer may be obvious when we ask the question another way: Should a non-Christian be allowed to run a Christian institution? It seems the answer to this question must be “no.”</p>

<p>You’ve probably noted, of course, that I’m presuming the president of this Baptist college is not a Christian simply because he’s a pluralist, which may seem like a bold thing to say. I have a very good reason for this presumption, though, and it has to do with what it means to be a Christian.</p>

<p>The word “Christian”&nbsp;has a definition. It has a broad cultural meaning, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Rather, I’m talking about a theological definition. It seems to me, at bare minimum, being a Christian in a genuine, theological, biblical sense requires believing a particular thing to be true about Jesus. And the thing we believe to be true is not that Jesus is <strong>my</strong> savior. Rather, the thing we believe is that Jesus is <strong>the</strong> Savior, and because He is <strong>the&nbsp;</strong>Savior, He can therefore be <strong>my</strong> savior. Because Jesus is the Savior, He can save me.</p>

<p>There are other things, to be sure, that are necessary to believe in order to call yourself a Christian. But you’ve got to&nbsp;<strong>at least</strong> believe that Jesus is the Savior. This is the beginning. This is the foundation, that Jesus did something for us we absolutely need to have done for us, something we would perish without. We turn to Jesus because we need Him, that is, we desperately require something only He can give—forgiveness. If He doesn’t give us forgiveness, then we’re in hot water—or, I should say, hot fire.</p>

<p>Now, this seems so basic to Christianity I feel a bit foolish belaboring the point. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Savior. He is not just the savior <strong>for me</strong>; He’s not just a savior for others—one of a number of possible rescuers, like a team of lifeguards might be. The Bible teaches—and Christianity is built on this teaching—that He is <strong>the</strong> Savior of the whole world, and without Him the world could not be saved.</p>

<p>If this is a core teaching of Christianity—so vital that denying it effaces the religion entirely so that it no longer is the same thing—then what are we to make of someone who denies this truth? If someone believes that members of other religions are as easily saved through their own religion as Christians are through Jesus, what does this tells us about the beliefs of this person concerning the nature of the work of the cross and the person of Christ?</p>

<p>If you say people can be saved without Jesus, then Jesus is not <strong>the</strong> Savior. These people either save themselves (making each of them a savior), or they are saved by others. Is this possible?</p>

<p>If Jesus is a savior, then what does He save someone from? The Bible makes it clear that Jesus saved me from the judgment <strong>I would have received</strong> if He hadn’t save me. Therefore, if one repudiates their need for Jesus, then Jesus isn’t saving them and they stand in the path of God’s judgment. What could be simpler? What could be more clear?</p>

<p>Now, if you believe other people can be saved through other religions, then you certainly don’t believe that Jesus is&nbsp;<strong>the</strong> Savior. And if you reject that Jesus is the savior, it really calls into question whether He’s even <strong>your</strong> savior, because if other people could be saved without Him, why couldn’t you? You need Jesus to be saved because you’re lost without Him. If you’re lost without Him, so is everybody else who’s in your same position, a sinner. That, by the way, includes <strong>everybody</strong> else, according to the biblical account. Therefore, everybody else needs Jesus, and it doesn’t make any sense to say that everybody else can get to heaven without Him, but that you happen to need him.</p>

<p>If you do say that, it’s the same as saying Jesus is <strong>not</strong> the Savior, and if you reject that Jesus is <strong>the</strong> Savior, then you’re rejecting the foundational tenet of Christianity. You are, therefore, denying the heart and soul of the faith, and it doesn’t seem to me that you can then call yourself a Christian.</p>

<p>This is not that hard, friends. In order to call yourself a Christian, you must fulfill certain foundational and fundamental requirements, and there’s nothing more foundational or fundamental about Christianity than that Jesus is <strong>the</strong> Savior. Not <strong>a</strong> savior, not <strong>my</strong> savior, not the savior of <strong>some</strong>, but <strong>the</strong> Savior, the Savior of the world. And because He is <strong>the&nbsp;</strong>Savior, He is capable of saving all of us. Because He’s <strong>the</strong> Savior, there is no other savior, and we can’t save ourselves.</p>

<p>Which is precisely why the apostle said, “There is salvation in none other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved”&nbsp;(Acts 4:12).</p>
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title: Only One Question
topic: Bioethics
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/only-one-question
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The logic of the pro-life position can be expressed in a simple syllogism:</p>

<ul>
	<li>It’s wrong to take the life of an innocent human being without proper justification.</li>
	<li>Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being without proper justification.</li>
	<li>Therefore, abortion is wrong.</li>
</ul>

<p>The key, of course, is the second premise.</p>

<p>There’s only one question to answer in the abortion debate: What is the unborn?</p>

<p>Imagine that your child walks up when your back is turned and asks, “Daddy, can I kill this?”&nbsp;What is the first thing you must find out before you can answer him? You can never answer the question “Can I kill this?”&nbsp;unless you’ve answered a prior question: What is it? This is the key question.</p>

<p>Abortion involves killing and discarding something that’s alive. Whether it’s right or not to take the life of any living thing depends entirely upon what it is. The answer one gives is pivotal, the deciding element that trumps all other considerations.</p>

<p>Let me put the issue plainly. If the unborn is not a human being, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human being, no justification for abortion is adequate.</p>

<p>This distinction simplifies what, to many, seems to be an intractable moral problem. Talk-show hosts, educators, politicians, even religious thinkers reflect and nod solemnly, “Oh, yes, abortion. It’s a very complex issue. There are no easy answers.”</p>

<p>Answering the foundational question “What is it?”&nbsp;removes the complexity. The answer to this most fundamental question—What is the nature of the unborn?—is the key to answering virtually every other objection about abortion. Most issues raised in the abortion debate are irrelevant rabbit-trails that drag us off the track of the only pertinent consideration.</p>

<p>When one clears away the irrelevant thoughts on both sides—the name calling, the misrepresentations, the circular reasoning, the medical misinformation, the emotional language—the issue becomes very clear and, I think, reasonably easy to answer. The hard part is applying what we discover.</p>

<p>Should you do something to stop abortion?</p>

<p>Answering the question “What is the unborn?”&nbsp;makes the answer to our final question crystal clear. If the unborn is not a helpless, innocent human being, don’t trouble yourself. If it is, then children are being killed for frivolous reasons, and you must do something.</p>
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title: Bigots Among Us?
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/bigots-among-us-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Bigot. It’s a nasty term. Usually, it’s reserved for the most intolerant individual. Usually, it refers to closed-minded and angry people. And usually, it’s applied to Christians who oppose same-sex marriage (SSM).</p>

<p>That’s right. If you’re a Christian and oppose SSM, then hundreds of news articles, thousands of blog posts, and millions of people think you’re a bigot. If your opposition to SSM is in any way connected with your faith, then your chances of being labeled with this term increase exponentially. Of course, you’re still homophobic, but now they think you’re also a bigot.</p>

<p>What is it with all the name-calling? Have people given up on offering a reasoned, well-thought argument against our position? In many instances, yes. That’s why they resort to name-calling. Plus, it’s quicker and more convenient.</p>

<p>Like them, I’m all about convenience. In fact, I have a quick and convenient suggestion for dealing with these verbal assaults. Next time you’re called a bigot (or any other name), just ask for a definition of the term (at Stand to Reason, we call this the Sticks-and-Stones Tactic). It’s just that easy.</p>

<p>Now, they’re not likely to offer the dictionary definition (a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her opinions), but they’ll think of something. What you’ll find is that asking for a definition can accomplish three things:</p>

<ol>
	<li>It will give them pause the next time they think about calling you a name. If they have to define every “bad”&nbsp;word they call you (intolerant, narrow-minded, homophobic, judgmental, etc.), then they’re less likely to call you a name and more likely to explain their concern. That makes for a more productive conversation.</li>
	<li>It will make it more difficult for them to define you, a friendly person who is merely asking for a definition, in a horribly negative way. Instead, they’ll soften the definition and it won’t have the same negative rhetorical impact that the word had.</li>
	<li>Their definition will likely also apply to them. My guess is that they are also a “person who is obstinately devoted to their opinion”&nbsp;about marriage and you, the alleged “bigot.”&nbsp;If so, then point out how the definition applies to them. After all, both of you in the conversation have an opinion about SSM.</li>
</ol>

<p>So, don’t be bullied by the term bigot. Instead, turn the conversation around and ask for a definition. It will make your conversation more productive and give you a better chance at making an impact for Christ.</p>
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title: Jesus: The Antidote
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/jesus-the-antidote
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Jesus is an antidote to a deadly disease. Some people have the symptoms of the disease more obviously or in a greater manner than others. But everybody is sick.</em></p>

<p>Let’s start with this call yesterday. Many of you heard the call. I think his name was Charles. The important thing is that Charles raised an objection based on the observation of an absurd circumstance it seems could obtain if Christian theology about forgiveness is actually true. The Christian theology is that anyone can get forgiven if they believe in Jesus, but if they don’t believe in Jesus they’re not forgiven at all.</p>

<p>Often times when this issue comes up, the question of forgiveness isn’t discussed too much. The notion of forgiveness is collapsed into another kind of statement that I think Christians are guilty of saying by itself, and it creates confusion as a result. The more bleak way of saying it is, if a Hitler believes in Jesus, then he goes to heaven, and if a Mother Teresa doesn’t believe in Jesus, then she goes to hell. (Apparently she does and apparently he didn’t, so this is hypothetical. But according to Christian theology, that’s the way it <em>would</em> be.) It just seems absurd that someone like Hitler, as evil as he was, could be admitted into God’s holy heaven, and unconscionable that someone like Mother Teresa could be condemned to hell.</p>

<p>The reason people raise this question is because Christians have not been careful in how they’ve explained their faith. They’ve not been careful to communicate what’s going on here and why belief in Jesus is the pivotal factor. It’s because belief in Jesus solved a problem. The problem itself is what condemns people to hell, and if He doesn’t solve the problem then the problem doesn’t get solved. He’s the only one capable of dealing with it.</p>

<p>Think of it like sickness. People with cancer die unless they get a doctor. And if they get the right doctor, with the right medicine, they can be rescued. But only if they get the right medicine. So, it’s not just an incidental detail of theology:&nbsp;<em>Well, if you just happen to believe in Jesus, you go to heaven. Lucky you. But if you just happen to think He’s not worth believing in for whatever reason-maybe you don’t like Him, maybe you like another religion better-you just happen to reject Him. In other words, you get one wrinkle of theology mistaken and God gets so mad at you that He sends you to hell forever.</em> Put in those terms, it sounds rather ridiculous because Christians haven’t been careful to explain what exactly is going on here.</p>

<p>So I tried to back up a little bit and explain it to Charles yesterday, to make it more clear to him. I don’t think he called interested in getting a clear answer, to be honest with you. I think he had formed his opinion already and was making a statement and trying to make Christianity seem as ridiculous as possible. But, in any event, I gave an answer yesterday and I’m going to articulate it a little bit more clearly now.</p>

<p>Here’s the way it works: Jesus is not a wrinkle in theology. Jesus is an antidote to a deadly disease. Some people have the symptoms of the disease more obviously or in a greater manner than others. But everybody is sick. The sickness, the Bible says, is sin. The manifestation (or the symptom) of the disease is evil behavior.</p>

<p>Some people have more symptoms than other people. They have much more evil behavior symptomatic of their sinful condition. Hitler was one of those. Jonas Salk, on the other hand, though a sinner, didn’t have the same symptoms that Hitler had. He had fewer symptoms. In fact, he did great good for everyone. But the fact is, even though he did good, it didn’t nullify his sin. The good that he does isn’t a medicine that cures his sickness. It’s just behavior that happens to avoid the sickness for a period of time. It’s like some people who have a disease, and in having that disease, their bodies deteriorate and they turn into irascible people because they’re in pain. And others not.</p>

<p>I was watching A&amp;E yesterday. Annette Funicello has MS. What a stunning thing. Yet here is a woman who glows so powerfully in the midst of this awful sickness that you can hardly tell she is withering as the sickness takes hold of her body. So here two people can have the same disease but some display the symptoms of the disease more aggressively than others. Some seem to weather the disease with a smile and with goodness coming out of them in spite of the disease. But note that the goodness they do doesn’t cure the disease. It just seems to delay, or set aside for the time being, the symptoms or the adverse affects. But eventually the disease kills everyone. Unless...</p>

<p>The proper way of looking at this is not as a wrinkle in theology, but seeing mankind as desperately ill, deathly ill with a disease that will kill everyone. The disease manifests itself differently in different people such that some have more egregious symptoms of it, and some less. In fact, some seem to have almost no (from our perspective) symptoms at all and instead have what appear to be symptoms of moral health, not moral decay. But every single person, in spite of appearances, is still deathly ill. The goodness that they manifest morally at some occasions before us has value, but it’s not enough to heal the sickness. Sooner or later, the sickness will get everyone, unless they have the antidote.</p>

<p>What is the antidote? The antidote is forgiveness. It’s available to everyone from the very One whom we have offended—God Himself. He offers forgiveness to the great and the small, to those who are the greatest sinners and the least sinners, the ones who have the most manifestation of the symptoms of their moral sickness and the ones that have the least manifestations of their moral sickness. God says, in fact, <em>You are all deathly sick and here is the antidote, my Son Jesus who I have given to you. Now you have a choice. Take the medicine or don’t.</em></p>

<p>Some seem to think it’s unreasonable of God to heal some who are especially sick, and others who don’t seem to be sick at all, not to heal them. My response is, God gives the offer to all. The fact is, some with the most bizarre manifestations of the symptoms of their moral sickness (because of the nature of the symptoms) are more ready to accept the antidote because <strong>they know they are dying.</strong> The symptoms of their disease are overwhelming them.</p>

<p>That’s why someone who is an egregious sinner might be more likely to acknowledge his need. That’s why Jesus said, <em>I’ve come to heal the sick, not the healthy. A physician comes to heal the sick. I’ve come to call sinners, not the righteous. That’s why the whores, the tax gatherers</em> (extortionists), <em>the scum of the earth will make it into the kingdom before you will...</em> pointing at the self-righteous religious leadership. Why? Because the self-righteous religious leadership was looking at their own symptoms of sickness and they’d say, <em>This ain’t so bad.</em> Yet, the others looked at their lives and were consumed with the symptoms of their moral decay and they said, <em>God help me!</em></p>

<p>Those who say <em>God help me</em> get God’s help. Those who say <em>I can do it on my own</em> don’t get God’s help. That’s the long and short of it.</p>

<p>You see, it’s nothing bizarre from God’s perspective because the offer goes out to everyone. It’s made to each individual who is dying of this desperate disease. Some who have greater symptoms see the wisdom in receiving the antidote, which is forgiveness in Christ. Those who don’t think that maybe they can get by just eating health food and exercising a lot. But it’s not going to happen.</p>

<p>The fact is, everyone owes God. Some owe a little, some owe a lot. But everyone owes God because of the sin they’ve committed. God is willing to offer amnesty to every single one. That’s the greatness of His mercy. That’s the fullness of His mercy. This does not speak of a bizarre and unrighteous God. It speaks of a God who is abundant in mercy, who can save—as Paul said—even the greatest of all sinners. If He is capable of saving the greatest of sinners, then He can save all the pedestrian sinners like you and me.</p>

<p>That’s the answer to the question. The offer of forgiveness goes out to everyone. The antidote to the deadly disease is available to each and every person. It’s up to us to accept it or not. If we don’t, we perish, not because of God but because of us. If we do accept it, we don’t perish, we live forever, not because of us but because of God and His mercy.</p>
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title: Arguing Is a Virtue
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/arguing-is-a-virtue
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Is it OK for a Christian to argue with other believers?</em></p>

<p>I do want to respond to Sandy just a little bit more before I get to the next caller regarding this issue on Christians arguing. What she suggested is, why should Christians argue since there are many other people to argue with and that is much more important? I guess my response is, why on earth would it be a mistake for Christians to argue about something? A mistake, per se. I can think of things that Christians might dispute about that are rather useless; but I can think of a lot of things that Christians dispute about that are actually quite important. In fact, the conversation we were having was a dispute with another Christian about something that was very important. Now, the other Christian wasn’t present, but nevertheless we were still having an argument, i.e., we were disputing about particular ideas and we were giving evidence why one set of ideas was more truthful and more worthy of being believed than another set of ideas. That’s what an argument is.</p>

<p>Now, some people may view disputation as wrong in itself because they view it as quarrelsome. We ought not be quarrelsome, as Paul tells Timothy in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20timothy%202;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">2 Timothy chapter 2</a>. But having disputations, differences of opinion in which you argue for a point of view, and being quarrelsome are two different things. In fact, it’s absolutely imperative that Christians argue. Some of the fight phobia that Christians have had in the past actually has done more harm than good. It is good and healthy for Christians to dispute about important issues, meaning they give their opinions about what is true, and they support their opinions with evidence and reasoning and Scripture. Then they allow those opinions to be looked at very closely by someone else, and then he gives his reasons and ideas and Scripture. It’s only in and through that process of disputation, sharing ideas, and trying and testing our ideas in fire that we will be able to determine what truth is.</p>

<p>A group of people who refuse to dispute about anything will have a very poor chance of coming to truth. Then it seems to me that the first person to express his opinion wins. You jump in first, you express your opinion and that prevails because no one is allowed to dispute. They think it is divisive. But it doesn’t have to be divisive. There is sometimes this attitude that if we have a difference of opinion, we can’t express it, we can’t get exercised and feel strongly about these things because that’s divisive and we don’t want people fighting. That is actually a dangerous attitude in the church. We ought to be taught how to fight fairly and reasonably and graciously, rather than just abandoning the contest at all. Once we abandon the contest then it’s very easy for bad teaching to rule.</p>

<p>If you look at <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2015;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Acts 15</a> there was quite a polemic going on there—and for good reason. Something important was at stake in the nature of the gospel itself. Paul went at it with Peter hammers and tongs, and he did it in front of people. We read about that in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=galations%202;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Galatians 2</a> as he opposed Peter to his face because he was caught up in the hypocrisy of the Judaizers. If you think about it, much of the Epistles are arguments with Christians in written form. An argument is an argument, whether it’s written down or spoken face to face. Is not that what we see consistently in the Epistles? Paul, Peter and the others are arguing about a critical point of doctrine, a critical point of application, a critical point of truth. We ought to do that, and I rue the day—and maybe the day is upon us—when we shirk that entirely because we want to keep the peace.</p>

<p>There is a peace that is not worthy to have, frankly, if it’s at the cost of truth.</p>

<p>I think the goal ought to be learning how to dispute in an aggressive fashion, yet still maintaining the harmony of the body and the unity of peace. Maintaining harmony doesn’t mean that we abandon all disputation. We have an obligation to guard the gospel and that means we ought to dispute critical things. Paul warns us in 2 Timothy not to dispute frivolous things, foolish things, things that are merely old wive’s tales—that, of course, we should abandon. There is no reason to threaten our unity by frivolous debate. However, there are many things that aren’t frivolous at all, and they are certainly worthy of our best attempts at meaningful and aggressive discussion.</p>

<p>The church ought to be characterized by those kinds of discussions. That’s how we separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s how we come to some certitude that what we believe is, in fact, the truth and not some wild-eyed idea of a pastor who doesn’t know any better.</p>

<p>This is why, by the way, I think it’s a mistake in discussions in Bible studies when someone raises an opposing view for someone else to shout him down, or suggest that in the context of that study that we ought not differ. We ought not argue. Yes, we should argue, but we ought to do it sanely and reasonably. We ought to dispute. That’s good for us. It’s healthy. It protects us from religious despotism. It keeps us from getting weird.</p>
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title: Is the Bible Sufficient?
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-the-bible-sufficient-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Evangelicalism is currently embroiled in a controversy of no small proportion. Authors we have looked to for years, whose counsel has elevated our Christian experience and deepened our understanding of ourselves and of God, have been branded as “heretics.”</p>

<p>Why have these men been vilified? Because they promote principles gleaned from psychology and not specifically from the Bible, thus producing a poisonous amalgam of godless philosophy and biblical wisdom.</p>

<p>The Bible is fully sufficient, say critics like the Biblical Counseling Foundation. “The Word of God has been given to man as the <em>sole</em> source for finding God’s solutions to the real problems that plague him.”<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> (Emphasis mine.) The Foundation decries “futile attempts to mix God’s Word with unregenerate suppositions and theories.”<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>It’s hard to argue with the noble desire to focus on training materials that are more directly biblical. It’s also possible that respected leaders in our midst can do us harm. Wolves come in sheep’s clothing, Jesus warned.</p>

<p>Sometimes, though, the distinction between fleece and fur is not so easily determined. Even proof texts that seem crystal clear at first, take on a different sense when examined more closely or balanced against other Scriptural teaching.</p>

<p>I won’t comment here on the role of psychology in the life of the Christian except to say I’m a centrist on the issue. I’m concerned with a more foundational idea: Is the Bible “sufficient”&nbsp;in the sense that these critics claim?</p>

<h2>Scripture on the “Adequacy”&nbsp;of Scripture</h2>

<p>“Bible only”&nbsp;advocates rely on a handful of references to prove that Scripture provides the sole solutions to life’s problems. These three are characteristic:</p>

<p>“You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you”&nbsp;(Deuteronomy 4:2).<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<p>“Do not add to His words lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar”&nbsp;(Proverbs 30:6).</p>

<p>“And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book”&nbsp;(Revelation 22:19).</p>

<p>None of these verses teach what is claimed. The Deuteronomy passage only prohibits anyone from changing the specific revelation Moses has just given. Note that 61 additional books of the Bible were written after Moses penned these lines in the Pentateuch. The passage does not forbid the use of man’s observations about life and human behavior.</p>

<p>The Proverbs passage simply says not to add to God’s Word. No Christian I’m aware of, though, considers principles of psychology equal to Scripture in authority.</p>

<p>Revelation 22:19 forbids adding to the “words of the book of this prophecy,”&nbsp;that is, the revelation itself. This verse is not even limiting the extent of the canon, much less excluding human wisdom about man’s problems.</p>

<p>The passage in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is more substantial.</p>

<h2>2 Timothy 3:16-17</h2>

<p>Paul writes in his last epistle, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”</p>

<p>The reasoning of “Bible only”&nbsp;advocates goes something like this. Paul says that Scripture is adequate. If Scripture is adequate, then nothing more is required. If nothing more is required, then the use of outside material implies the inadequacy of the Bible, contradicting Paul’s statement. Therefore, nothing in addition to Scripture can be used to equip us, because nothing else is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”&nbsp;This function is the sole province of the Bible.</p>

<p>That’s the argument. Here’s what’s wrong with it. First, in the 2 Timothy passage the word “adequate”&nbsp;modifies the believer, not the Scripture. The words Paul uses to describe Scripture are “inspired”&nbsp;and “profitable.”&nbsp;The Bible is useful to accomplish a certain end—an adequately equipped Christian—because it is the very counsel of God. Paul’s teaching in Second Timothy was meant to <em>qualify</em> the nature of Scripture, not to <em>disqualify</em> the usefulness of other material.</p>

<p>Second, the argument proves too much. The Scripture Paul has in view is the Old Testament, specifically the sacred writings of Timothy’s childhood (note verse 15). These are what Paul identifies as being able to “give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”</p>

<p>If the Old Testament Scriptures are adequate, and if Paul means to suggest that the addition of any useful information about man is wrong, then how do we justify adding the words of the New Testament to the fully adequate Old Testament? Even Paul’s words (as well as Peter’s, John’s, etc.) would be inadmissible, including the very words of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which make this claim.</p>

<p>Since this is ludicrous and self-defeating, the entire objection crumbles. Paul did not mean to convey that other sources of knowledge were an assault on the Scripture’s completeness.</p>

<p>Third, and more debilitating to this view, 2 Timothy 3:15 doesn’t even teach that the Scripture is adequate. A close look at the text reveals that the words “inspired”&nbsp;and “profitable”&nbsp;describe the Scripture. However, the word “adequate”&nbsp;does not describe the Scripture, but rather “the man of God”&nbsp;who uses the inspired Scripture in a profitable way. Note carefully: “...that <em>the man of God</em> may be <em>adequate</em>, equipped for every good work.”&nbsp;Once again, the proof text itself has unwittingly been maligned to say something it just doesn’t say, given the context.</p>

<p>What does “adequate”&nbsp;mean here? It probably means what adequate usually means, that the man of God has everything that is essential. Food and air and water are adequate to keep one alive, but their adequacy doesn’t imply that nothing else is beneficial.</p>

<p>Some have pointed out that my argument could be used to teach that Paul thought only the Old Testament was inspired, not the New. Not so. Paul’s statement was about Scripture, which at that time was what we now call the Old Testament. He did not say that no more “God-breathed”&nbsp;writings would be forthcoming. The corpus of Scripture was expanded by the New Testament writes and therefore it’s included under the claims of this verse.</p>

<p>The problem only arises if one imposes a foreign sense of adequacy on this passage, i.e., nothing else is allowed. If we hold that Paul and the Apostles wrote legitimate Scripture, then that proves Paul’s didn’t intend such a restriction. That’s my point.</p>

<h2>Proverbs and Wisdom from Nature</h2>

<p>There are other problems with the “Bible only”&nbsp;view. Scripture itself seems to encourage us to take counsel from other sources of information. The mandate to be fruitful and multiply in Genesis seems to require that man observe his environment, learn useful things, and then employ them to improve his condition—all apart from direct revelation.</p>

<p>This is precisely what we find in the book of Proverbs. According to Solomon, wise counselors are those who are skilled at life, including the ability to observe the natural realm and deduce spiritual truth, moral knowledge, and skills at living.</p>

<p>Note this statement in Proverbs 24:30-34:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I passed by the field of the sluggard, and by the vineyard of the man lacking sense; and behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles. Its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. When I saw, I reflected upon it; <em>I looked, and received instruction</em>. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,”&nbsp;then your poverty will come as a robber, and your want like an armed man.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Dr. John Coe, professor of psychology at Rosemead University, has this to say about Proverbs 24:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Though the sage elsewhere acknowledges the Scriptures as a source of wisdom (Prov. 29:18), here he informs us that his own reflections and observations were sufficient to gain this piece of practical and moral wisdom. In fact, this pattern seems to fit well with many of his proverbs which do not explicitly depend upon the <em>Torah</em> or some further divine revelation. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that the sage’s peculiar task, in contrast to the priest and prophet, <em>involves keenness in observation and reflection for interpreting natural, particularly human phenomena.</em> His reflections result not only in the theoretical and technological knowledge for the natural sciences, but especially in moral knowledge for the human sciences (viz. the <em>Proverbs</em>). In the above case the sage, on the basis of observation and reflection, discovers that laziness leads to financial ruin and self-injury.</p>

<p>The sage, then, is convinced that by observing and reflecting upon the ordering structures particularly of the human situation he will discover quasi-causal laws which govern the human situation. From these observations he claims to receive instruction and wisdom for living, hence, moral knowledge<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> [Emphasis in the original].</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Dr. Coe’s point is an important one. Proverbs 24:30-34 shows that we can draw true conclusions about right conduct through astute observations of the world. Even before the sage says, “My son, observe the commandment of your father”&nbsp;(6:20), he says, “Go to the ant, O sluggard. Observe her ways and be wise”&nbsp;(5:6).</p>

<p>Coe continues:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The Scriptures in general, then, find their authority in the fact that they are given by God. However, the Scriptures recognize another source of wisdom as well, to which the OT sage appeals for his wise principles. Of course, <em>as a member of the believing community</em> the Hebrew sage recognizes that God is the ultimate source of all wisdom (2:6), that a relationship with Him is requisite for a fully wise life (1:7), and that the Scriptures are necessary for the mental health of a community (29:17, 30:5-6). However, <em>as a member of a community of sages</em> he ventures out into the natural order of things—with Scriptures in hand and God in mind—in order to discern the wisdom available as well in natural and human phenomena<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> [Emphasis in the original].</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Dr. Coe argues that God’s will is expressed in propositional form (Scripture) and non-propositional form (nature). Through observation and reflection on either—if they are properly interpreted—one can infer principles for living because <em>both</em> inform man how to live well.</p>

<p>Taking his own advice, the sage of Proverbs makes this observation:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Four things are small on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are not a strong folk, but they prepare their food in the summer; the badgers are not mighty folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks; the locusts have no king, yet all of them go out in ranks; the lizard you may grasp with the hands, yet it is in kings’&nbsp;palaces (30:24-28).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Consider this scenario. When a city is plagued by violence, the people decide to execute murderers. Immediately the murder rate drops and peace is restored to the city. These people used their fallen, human wisdom to employ a biblical solution—government bearing the sword to mitigate the impact of evil. They accurately assess and solve a human problem, even with no knowledge of Scripture. This kind of thing happens all the time.</p>

<h2>Wisdom from the Heathen</h2>

<p>The <em>Wisdom Literature of the Amenomope</em> is a body of work from the Middle East that pre-dates Proverbs. It’s of interest because it contains a section of material almost identical to Proverbs 22:17-24:22. It seems evident that the authors of the latter part of Proverbs borrowed this material from the <em>Amenomope</em> and inserted it into the inspired text.</p>

<p>Some scholars see this as a serious compromise of the doctrine of inspiration. However, a more robust (and, I would say, more biblical) view of natural theology removes the objection. Clearly, natural man apart from God is capable of discerning truth that, according to the writer of Proverbs, is from God.</p>

<p>Paul’s classic teaching in Romans 1:18ff identifies the universal, innate ability to draw conclusions about God’s nature without the aid of special revelation—a capability so effective that the willful suppression of it brings God’s judgment.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that the specific details Paul identifies here—“His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature”—are only <em>examples</em> of natural revelation, not the <em>total sum</em> of it. He doesn’t limit our knowledge to only basic information about God’s existence.</p>

<p>In Genesis 18:25, Abraham challenges God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah: “Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”&nbsp;Where did Abraham get his notion of justice? It was innate, natural revelation, a moral law built into his humanity.</p>

<p>One thing at stake here is natural theology—that which can be known about God and about man’s spiritual condition through general revelation. Can unregenerate man know anything significant without the aid of special revelation? The Bible seems to teach he can know much.</p>

<h2>Knowledge from Natural Revelation</h2>

<p>The late Dr. Francis Schaeffer pointed out, the Bible is true truth, but not exhaustive truth. It’s completely true about everything to which it speaks, but it doesn’t speak about everything there is to know. Much more can be discovered.</p>

<p>Dr. Bruce Demarest, Professor of Systematic Theology at Denver Seminary, makes this observation:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Although man is a sinner, he uniquely bears the image of God. The crippling effects of sin in the human mind are overcome in part by a general illumination of the Logos (John 1:4, 9). God wills that man, the pinnacle of His creation, should use his reason to secure truth, including elementary truths about himself. Equipped with an intuitional knowledge of God, including the light of conscience, and enabled by common grace, man by rational reflection on the data of the natural and historical order draws inferences about God’s character and operations. By inspection of the created order that surrounds him and by the discursive workings of the mind by which one thing is inferred from another, man reaches conclusions that confirm the fact of God’s existence and enlarge his understanding of the character of the Creator, Preserver and Judge that stands over him.<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Man, made in the image of God, gains knowledge based on general revelation. He has an innate ability to know first principles and basic rules of logic, Demarest argues, and knows how to apply these abilities to learn truth, not just about his world, but also about spiritual things.</p>

<p>Demarest concludes, “Scripture supports our thesis that further truth content about God is acquired by rational reflection on God’s general revelation on nature in history.”<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup></p>

<p>A case in point is Dr. Bernard Nathanson. An atheist, he was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Nathanson ran one of the largest commercial abortion operations in the country. He later repudiated the practice and has become an ardent advocate of the rights of the unborn child.</p>

<p>Why the change of heart? Because he became convinced that abortion was a serious violation of human dignity.</p>

<p>The irony is that Bernard Nathanson remained an atheist. One could argue it’s very hard to justify the concept of human rights—a type of transcendent law—if there is no God. Nathanson’s reversal, however, proves that even those with faulty philosophical foundations (like Freud, Maslow, Jung, etc.) can reason <em>inconsistently</em> to a conclusion that turns out to be true. Nathanson’s thinking is inconsistent with his world view, but his intuitive knowledge of human value—a function of general revelation—is correct.<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></p>

<h2>The View of the Reformers</h2>

<p>Even the Reformers, aggressive in asserting total depravity and advocates of <em>sola Scriptura</em>, did not hold to this radical version of “Bible only.”&nbsp;Note Calvin:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator...How then can we deny that truth must have beamed on those ancient lawgivers who arranged civil order and discipline with so much equity? Shall we say that the philosophers, in their exquisite researches and skillful description of nature, were blind?...Therefore, since it is manifest that men whom the Scriptures term natural, are so acute and clear-sighted in the investigation of inferior things, their example should teach us how many gifts the Lord has left in possession of human nature, not withstanding of its having been despoiled of the true good.<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Calvin does not take lightly this “despoiling.”&nbsp;Regarding spiritual discernment—“the knowledge of God, the knowledge of...our salvation and the method of regulating our conduct in accordance with the Divine Law”—he said that “the mind of man must ever remain a mere chaos of confusion. To the great truths, what God is in Himself, and what He is in relation to us, human reason makes not the least approach.”<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup></p>

<p>Calvin distinguished between two kinds of knowledge. He calls them natural gifts and supernatural gifts. Calvin holds, with Augustine, that man’s natural gifts were corrupted by sin, but not withdrawn.<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup> He then continues for almost five pages in his <em>Institutes</em> detailing the capabilities of fallen reason.</p>

<p>According to Calvin, only man’s supernatural gifts were lost, specifically “the light of faith and righteousness, which would have been sufficient for the attainment of heavenly life and everlasting felicity.”<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup></p>

<p>Would this great Reformer condemn the contributions of modern psychology as mere worldly wisdom? No, that’s all part of the natural gifting God has given to man. Calvin even extols what he calls the shrewd observations of Aristotle:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Aristotle seems to me to have made a very shrewd distinction between incontinence and intemperance. Where incontinence reigns, he says, that through the passion particular knowledge is suppressed: so that the individual sees not in his own misdeed the evil which he sees generally in similar cases; but when the passion is over, repentance immediately succeeds.<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The broader context of this passage makes Aristotle’s point clearer. People have a tendency to acknowledge general moral principles, but go into denial when they personally contemplate committing sin. Afterwards, guilt and remorse set in.</p>

<p>Whether one agrees with the particular point or not is incidental. What is important is that John Calvin—a principal Reformer utterly dedicated to the biblical doctrine of “total depravity”<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup>—quotes an unregenerate Greek philosopher on the vicissitudes of the human psyche. <em>Calvin is using Aristotle’s psychology to help articulate an aspect of man’s fallenness.</em></p>

<h2>Adequacy</h2>

<p>The question “Is Scripture adequate?”&nbsp;is much like the question “Is Christ adequate?”&nbsp;The answer depends entirely upon what one expects either to do. Each one does something specific for us; neither does everything. In one sense, God wasn’t even adequate for Adam in the garden. Though Adam was walking in unfallen fellowship with the Father, God still said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him”&nbsp;(Genesis 2:18).</p>

<p>The Bible is sufficient to give the “wisdom that leads to salvation”&nbsp;and to enable the godly person to be “adequate, equipped for every good work”&nbsp;(2 Timothy 3:15,17). Such sufficiency does not preclude other sources of learning that give further instruction in mental health and skill at living.</p>

<p>The Scripture is the standard of truth to be studied, applied, and cherished. The Bible itself, however, doesn’t support the “Bible only”&nbsp;view. It does not teach that man is so distorted by sin as to lose his ability to discover useful truth on his own. It teaches rather that man has an extensive ability to draw from general revelation making accurate and useful assessments about life and its problems.</p>

<p>Christians who, however well-intended, promote this narrow view, encourage unnecessary conflict in the church. They also deny believers a source of wisdom and knowledge the Bible itself encourages us to consider.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Broger, John C., <em>Self-Confrontation</em> syllabus (Rancho Mirage, CA: Biblical Counseling Foundation, 1991). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">It’s not clear what “unregenerate suppositions and theories”&nbsp;are, except possibly those suppositions or theories coming from unregenerate people. Ideas and theories aren’t the subjects of regeneration; people are. Why is a theory false, though, simply because it comes from an unregenerate person? Would the same theory coming from a believer be true? <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">All Scripture quotations are from the <em>New American Standard Bible</em>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">“Why Biblical Counseling is Unbiblical, or Speaking Psychology Gently into the Church,”&nbsp;Dr. John Coe, p. 20-21; from a paper read at the 1991 Evangelical Theological Society, Far West Regional Annual Meeting (paper on file). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Ibid., p. 26-27. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">Bruce Demarest, <em>General Revelation: Historical Views and Contemporary Issues</em> (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1982), p. 233. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Ibid., p. 234. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">Incidentally, it’s my understanding that Nathanson has since become a Christian. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9"><em>Institutes</em>, Book II, ch. 2, para. 15. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">Ibid., para. 18. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">Ibid., para. 12. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">Ibid. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">Ibid., para. 23. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14">“Total depravity”&nbsp;is the accepted term, but I’ve put it in quotes because it’s actually a misnomer, giving the mistaken impression that man is incapable of producing anything good or of value. Our term “total depravity”&nbsp;actually means that no part of man is untouched and untainted. The <em>extent </em>of the impact of the fall is total, not the <em>degree</em>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Jesus is Jehovah
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/jesus-is-jehovah
content:
            <div> 
		<p><strong>“THERE IS ONE GOD”&nbsp;1 Cor 8:6</strong></p>

<p>This chart demonstrates that Jesus and the God of the Old Testament are one and the same by showing that the very same titles applied to Jehovah in the Old Testament are applied to Jesus in the New Testament.</p>

<table class="table" style="width: 100%;">
	<thead>
		<tr>
			<th scope="col">JEHOVAH IS...</th>
			<th scope="col">JEHOVAH IS JESUS</th>
			<th scope="col">...JESUS IS</th>
		</tr>
	</thead>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>Gen 1:1</td>
			<td rowspan="3" style="text-align: center;">CREATOR</td>
			<td>Jn 1:1-3</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Job 33:4</td>
			<td>Col 1:12-17</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 40:28</td>
			<td>Heb 1:8-12</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 41:4</td>
			<td rowspan="3" style="text-align: center;">FIRST &amp; LAST</td>
			<td>Rev 1:17</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 44:6</td>
			<td>Rev 2:8</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 48:12</td>
			<td>Rev 22:13</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ex 3:13-14</td>
			<td style="text-align: center;">I AM</td>
			<td>Jn 8:24, 58; 13:19</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Gen 18:25</td>
			<td rowspan="3" style="text-align: center;">JUDGE</td>
			<td>2 Tim 4:1</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ps 96:13</td>
			<td>2 Cor 5:10</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Joel 3:12</td>
			<td>Rom 14:10-12</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ps 47:1-9</td>
			<td rowspan="3" style="text-align: center;">KING</td>
			<td>Matt 2:1-6</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 44:6-8</td>
			<td>Jn 19:21</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Jer 10:10</td>
			<td>1 Tim 6:13-16</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ps 27:1</td>
			<td rowspan="2" style="text-align: center;">LIGHT</td>
			<td>Jn 1:9</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 60:20</td>
			<td>Jn 8:12</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ps 106:21</td>
			<td rowspan="3" style="text-align: center;">SAVIOR</td>
			<td>Acts 4:10-12</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 43:3, 11</td>
			<td>Acts 4:10-12</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 45:21-23</td>
			<td>1 Jn 4:14</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ps 23:1-6</td>
			<td rowspan="3" style="text-align: center;">SHEPHERD</td>
			<td>Jn 10:11</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Ps 100:3</td>
			<td>Heb 13:20</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Is 40:11</td>
			<td>1 Pet 5:4</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>
</div>

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title: Gospel Fodder
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/gospel-fodder
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Are non-Christians merely “gospel fodder,”&nbsp;or are they valuable in spite of their eternal state?</em></p>

<p>I want to start out this segment responding to a letter. I receive letters on occasion. Often times there is nothing to respond to because they’re not that kind of letter. Other times there’s a lot to respond to but I’m not capable of making the full response in writing that is required. But there are times when things come up that I think represent a misunderstanding of something I’ve said, and also if it’s delivered in somewhat of a challenging tone which bothers me and I want to respond. I don’t like being misunderstood. I don’t mind when people disagree with me, but if they disagree, I want them to disagree with me for the right reasons—and certainly not disagree because they misunderstand. I’ll say one other thing here and this is on a more personal note. I bet most of you people think I’m a real tough character, but actually I’m quite a softy in a lot of ways and I do take things personally. And sometimes when something strikes a little close to home I like to try to respond to it. I especially take things personally when I feel like I’ve been maligned because I’ve been misunderstood.</p>

<p>There are some things that I’ve said in the past about a theme I’ve played a number of times that have apparently been misunderstood by one listener and she wrote to me. I think my response to this letter goes beyond answering this one particular writer. I think we can all learn something from it as well. I want you to understand my point of view on this issue because I think the point of view is important.</p>

<p>The writer seems to state a point of view that I genuinely and strongly disagree with and it has to do with whether we are inherently valuable and, if we are, then doesn’t that work against God’s unmerited grace? That seems to be part of her objection. Here’s my way of answering that, and I’ll be very careful to be as clear as I possibly can on the idea of goodness and virtue and unsaved people, and on the idea of “gospel fodder,”&nbsp;which is a term I’ve used before, and on the concepts of what makes us humanly valuable.</p>

<p>There is a distinction between innate goodness and innate value. Having worth or value on the one hand and earning forgiveness—in other words, goodness—on the other are two different things. Let me give you an illustration. When we love our own children unconditionally, does it follow that our unconditional love implies that our children are innately worthless? No, of course it doesn’t. We don’t love our children based on what they do, but on who they are. They are our children, and because they have worth as our children we love them regardless of their performance. We love them because they have value, precisely because they have value, not because they are good. See the distinction? This distinction is critical because God loves us in much the same way, as unique beings that He created with transcendent value; and because He loves us that way, He can extend mercy to us even when our actions are rebellious. Thus the distinction between innate <em>value</em> which we have, and innate <em>goodness</em> which we don’t have.</p>

<p>Now the truth is that God is always the full source of our value, but the value that we have is not based on the cross. It’s based in something else. Our value doesn’t come subsequent to the cross because God just chose arbitrarily, as it were, to die for human beings—rather than for rocks or for animals or for birds—and then in dying for us, invested us with value as a result of the cross. No. Our value comes from God, but not from the cross. Our value comes from God through creation. The cross is grounded in man’s intrinsic value, not the other way around. The cross is the result of man’s value, not the cause of it. This is what I mean when I say that people are not valuable because we save them. We save them because they are valuable. Their value is prior to the cross, not a consequence of it. And that’s why—and this is very important and this is where I was deeply misunderstood—we are not to treat human beings merely as opportunities for spiritual conquest. Human beings are not merely valuable because of the end of getting saved. We don’t treat them as means to ends. We treat them as ends in themselves, and as valuable ends at that.</p>

<p>When I say that people are not just gospel fodder I mean that they have more value than being merely the object of our witness so they can get saved. They have value prior to the cross because they were created by God as valuable creatures in His image. I’m glad this woman was witnessed to by others, but I hope she was not simply treated as gospel fodder and as a spiritual conquest. I hope she was treated as a human being who had value in herself in spite of the fact she was not surrendered to God, and may never have surrendered to God. This is what I mean when I say that humans have intrinsic value. They have value in themselves based on creation and on nothing else. The cross is merely an expression of the value that God sees that men have because God has placed the value in there when He created man. Do you see that?</p>

<p>Here’s another way of looking at it. This time I’m going to use a Scriptural argument. The worth of a particular thing to an individual is measured by what that person is willing to pay for it. If you see a car you like and you are willing to pay a million dollars for that car then that implies that the car has a lot of value to you. Well, what price did God pay to redeem us? Peter tells us in First Peter 1:1-19, “Knowing that you are not redeemed, or purchased with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless the blood of Christ.” Folks, our value to God is measured by what God was willing to pay to obtain us. What did He pay? His price was the precious blood of Christ. That tells us that our value was very, very high intrinsically. And this is why such a high price was paid to purchase us. Yes, we have fallen short and yes, we are guilty. But that doesn’t take away the high value that we have by virtue of creation.</p>

<p>Now, more needs to be said about this letter. I hope that part is understood. But I have more to say. That’s the part she misunderstood and I’m trying to clarify, but there’s something else that I think that I would disagree with her on.</p>

<p>The writer seems to suggest that teaching people to be virtuous is without value because their virtue can’t get them to heaven. That was the “niceness”&nbsp;issue in the letter. My point isn’t that virtue gets people to heaven. I have never held that. Those of you who have listened to me more than two or three times know that I am very, very strict on the grace of God. As a matter of fact, I lean towards the reformed position in that regard rather than the Arminian position. I feel strongly about the grace of God and the total depravity of man—the incapability of any human being to earn his way to heaven.</p>

<p>My point isn’t that virtue gets people to heaven. My point is that virtue has intrinsic value and those that manifest virtue partake of the value that virtue has, and that’s a good thing. Now this introduces a new concept—something that maybe you’ve never thought about before. It’s the concept of human flourishing. This concept is rooted in the idea that we were created by God to be certain kinds of creatures. That humans have natures which are nurtured by specific behaviors. In other words, our souls grow and are shaped by our conduct. Yes, of course we have fallen far short of that fullness of humanity that God intended for us which is perfectly exemplified in Jesus of Nazareth. You can see this perfect exemplification and the perfect fulfillment of human nature and all God intended for it in the person of Jesus Christ. And yes, because we’ve fallen short of that we are culpable, we are held to blame for our error, and we will pay dearly at the hand of God’s justice.</p>

<p>But even so, it is also good for our natures to continue to be nurtured by conduct that is fitting to our humanness even if we eventually will face God’s judgment for our human shortcomings. In other words, it is still a good thing that we be the best humans we can be even though the best of humans are deeply in need of God’s mercy.</p>

<p>It is good for man to fulfill the nature God gave him. It is kind of an expectation God has of a creature. God made man in a certain way to be a certain kind of being. We have fallen short of that. Jesus exemplified it perfectly. The classical idea of living the good life meant not working less and enjoying it more, or getting paid more, or sex, drugs and rock and roll, that kind of thing. That’s not the classical understanding of the good life. The classical understanding of the good life is to fulfill our natures, to live virtuous lives that are in keeping with what we are intended to be.</p>

<p>Now, can one really argue that it makes no difference whatever whether men are as bad as they can be or whether they are as good as they can be? We are setting the issue of salvation aside right now. Given men that are ultimately going to go to hell, do we really want to argue that it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever, in any sense, how these people live or how they act? Well, I think your answer depends in some degree on your view of human nature. If humans have no value in themselves and they have no nature to fulfill, then it does seem hard to argue for the value of virtue because it could contribute neither to goodness nor to the fulfillment of a man’s nature. But listen, if man is made in the image of God and because of creation has intrinsic value, then it seems that his conduct matters in a valuable temporal sense, even if it doesn’t ultimately change things eternally.</p>

<p>Let me put it another way. Man has a physical body. The body can be healthy or unhealthy, but even the healthiest body dies. Now, does it follow that since we’re all going to die eventually that there is no value in being physically healthy while we live? It doesn’t follow at all. It seems like a silly argument. It’s like saying, “Well, why wash the dishes, I’m just going get them dirty tomorrow. Why wash the clothes, I’m just going to live in them tomorrow.”&nbsp;Of course not. Even though we are all going to die eventually it still seems to be valuable for us to live a healthy life while we are here.</p>

<p>Well, in a parallel way we all have soulish bodies, so to speak. We all have souls that can be healthy or unhealthy. Many of those soulish bodies are destined to perish eventually, to die eternally in the destruction of God’s judgment. That’s a given. But does it follow from that that there is no value to having a healthier soul while people live? No, it doesn’t. It does follow that we ought to be healthier if we are made in the image of God because we ought to pursue soulish health—precisely because we are made in the image of God—even if we eventually face God’s judgment. And this is why I argue for the value of niceness, as the writer of the letter put it, not to commend us to God, but to fulfill our natures. When we fulfill our natures—natures that God has given us—we do something that has intrinsic value. This is why it is good for people to be as good as they can be—they remain valuable creatures in the image of God even though they are fallen, and as image- bearers they have a nature that is appropriate to nurture through virtue and goodness.</p>

<p>By the way, this understanding also helps to explain why it’s right for Christians to treat others as valuable souls, to care for them, to feed them, to protect them and to see that they are treated justly even though they may be destined for eternal death. If a human being’s value is merely in the fact that he gets saved, and he has no value as an image- bearer, there is no justification for saving unborn children or for feeding the poor who are of a different faith. There is no justification for arguing for justice for humans because justice is good because these people are all going to hell anyway and it doesn’t matter. Well, it matters immensely because even people who are going to hell are valuable individuals made in the image of God. They are the object of God’s love and therefore should be the appropriate object of our love as well, and part of our love is to help them to be more fully human, even in the midst of their rejection of the truth of salvation. Why? Because they are made in the image of God and it’s a good thing for them to experience that to the fullest as God intended.</p>

<p>A caller said that science has demonstrated that if you feel good about yourself, or feel good inside, you have a healthier physical body. I want to clarify so you don’t misunderstand that when I talk about soulish health I am not talking about merely feeling good inside because it is possible to feel good inside about bad things—things that are destructive to your health. I’m not talking about a good self-image or a good feeling inside that makes you more healthy. I am talking about those things that genuinely and objectively cause your spirit to grow. I should say your soul to grow.</p>

<p>By the way, oftentimes those things that cause your soul to grow are painful. God lets us go through painful circumstances, and even engineers them for us, so that our souls will grow. What I’d like you to start doing is thinking about yourselves not merely as physical beings but as soulish beings also. Beings that have a soul and the soul as a kind of body, not physical. But it’s a substantial thing that can grow. We talk about giving each other a piece of our mind. When we give our minds away we don’t lose part of our mind, but other people’s minds grow. We get a piece of another’s mind and we grow that way. Our souls are nurtured by ideas. They grow by behavior and they grow by virtuous living. I want you to be thinking about helping your soul to grow.</p>

<p>Seek after soulish health and this will put the question of suffering and hardship in an entirely different context for you because the Bible clearly teaches, Paul says, “Though my outer body is wasting away, my inner man is growing.”&nbsp;He says, “Physical exercise profits little, but godliness is a means of great gain because it holds the promise not only of the present life, but also for the life to come.”&nbsp;Your body as it is right now, in the physical condition it is in right now, is not going to continue on in the life to come. It will be resurrected as a glorified body. But whether you’re healthy or unhealthy physically in this life is not going to influence the quality of your body in the next. But the soulish health you obtain while you are here will influence the level of soulish maturity that you have in the life to come. I would suggest that there are good arguments that there are types of soulish growth that you are capable of in this life, that because of the nature of the other life to come you will not be capable of experiencing. Certain types of growth you can have right here, right now in this life and you won’t be capable of growing through suffering in the life to come or growing through exercising faith.</p>

<p>Think about growing your soul.</p>
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title: A Matter of Interpretation
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-matter-of-interpretation
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>If there is no truth, that’s precisely the reason we should not be open-minded to other people’s points of view.</em></p>

<p>It is true that every Bible passage is open to interpretation, but oftentimes the way that objection is raised is to discount one person’s particular interpretation. That objection doesn’t really do that. Everything needs to be interpreted. In fact, the words you’re listening to now need to be interpreted by you because I must use language to communicate my thoughts to your mind and you must understand that language before my thoughts can become your thoughts.</p>

<p>If it’s true that everything needs to be interpreted, it does not also mean that it’s impossible to know anything, because interpretation is not a willy-nilly type thing. It’s not a matter of us taking a verse and applying any meaning to it that we want. The issue, when it comes to interpretation, is to try to determine what the intent of the original writer or speaker was. What were the thoughts of his mind? So we go through a process of reasoning to determine the factual information that the writer was seeking to communicate to the listener or to the reader.</p>

<p>This is why, even though it’s a matter of interpretation, not every interpretation is equally valid. This is why when we interpret we must interpret critically. That means that our interpretation should be able to be defended. In other words, I should be able to tell you my interpretation and explain why I think this interpretation accurately and validly reflects the thoughts of the person writing, since that’s our goal. It’s not simply enough to say “that’s your interpretation,”&nbsp;because of course it’s my interpretation.</p>

<p>What one needs to do is not raise that objection but point out why my interpretation does not naturally follow from the words of the text. This is very important when dealing with points of view that are different than classical Christianity.</p>

<p>Yes, there are interpretations that are wrong that have some merit. You say, “How can a wrong interpretation have some merit?”&nbsp;What I mean is that there is evidence that a person can offer that their interpretation is a reasonable one. But it may be that there are better reasons to reject that interpretation and accept another interpretation. What I try to do is be as fair as I can with people who differ from me. If they have made a point that is reasonable or fair or can be made from the text, I try to acknowledge that. But acknowledging that their particular viewpoint is a possible way of viewing the text doesn’t mean I think it’s the best way or the way that the writer intended us to view it. So I try to give credit where credit is due and then also try to persuade somebody why that isn’t the best way of looking at it. But the fact that there is evidence on one side and I have evidence too doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a toss up.</p>

<p>What I’m saying is that each text has an interpretation, and the interpretation is ultimately what the person who was writing was trying to communicate to his audience. Our job is try to use good reasoning to get at the heart of it. But that doesn’t mean that everybody who works with reasoning comes up with a good interpretation; some have better reasons than others, so it’s not a toss up.</p>

<p>As far as the spirit of the law and the letter of the law is concerned, that doesn’t really have anything to do with this conversation. Yes, I’m concerned with the letter of what’s being spoken here but that’s because I’m trying to let the verses themselves speak meaning to me. And I can’t ignore the meaning of the verses and say that I’ve somehow captured the spirit of the law. In fact, you can’t know the spirit of the law unless you know the letter of the law. In other words, you must know what the law is actually saying before you can get to the spirit behind it. Arguing for the spirit of the law doesn’t therefore nullify the letter of the law itself.</p>

<p>This is why we talk doctrine here. We discuss what the words mean because we believe that in God giving us the Scripture He is giving us something to understand. He’s trying to communicate truth to us and truth is a very particular thing. We don’t draw back from truth because we don’t like what it says, it’s a little too pointed, a little to hard. We don’t just get the general spirit or flavor and say it’s just about love because there are distinctions in that law that disallow us from doing that sometimes - not always, but sometimes.</p>

<p>I want to put this whole issue of the spirit of the law, letter of the law, verses and interpretation in it’s context. And I hope what you see from me is my attempt to interpret critically, in other words, not just to read a meaning into the text or to offer you an explanation of what I think it means because that’s not an argument, that’s a position. An argument comes after the position. The argument is the support one offers for their position or opinion. That’s the critical thing in understanding the Scriptures.</p>

<p>Part of the whole concern of this “your interpretation”&nbsp;business is rooted in our conventional notion of pluralism. Now, I’ve spoken about this before and I’ve made the point that words have changed their meaning in the last ten, fifteen, thirty years. The word pluralism is one of these words. The word pluralism meant that in the marketplace of ideas, in the public forum, we could discuss our points of view and everybody had a right to voice their point of view. The marketplace was where everybody got to have their say, put their two cents in as it were. Everybody had input. But the notion now has become that there is no particular viewpoint that is any better than anybody else’s viewpoint. This has happened as a result of the relativizing of truth. In other words, no one believes that truth is truth anymore; it’s somebody’s opinion. If that’s the case, if there is no truth then there is no truth to argue for. There is just the giving of opinions.</p>

<p>It puts us in a very unique place because we still have people that say they’re searching for truth, but they never have any hope of finding it. If you’re searching for truth, you’re a true seeker and you’re enlightened. But if you find truth then you’re a bigot because you’ve suddenly become narrow-minded. What that has forced upon us is a circumstance in which we search for something that we are never allowed to find. If truth is relative then there is no truth to find because truth is a matter of my own opinion and I can’t improve my truth. It’s just a matter of my own opinions.</p>

<p>This is why the idea of argumentation in it’s classical sense has been lost. When people have a difference of opinion it’s now viewed not as probing intelligently to find what the truth is, but it is viewed as mean-spiritedness and hard-headedness because one person is trying to force his arbitrary opinion on someone else and that’s impolite. In this culture we don’t do that and it’s all because we’ve lost the notion that there are in fact things that are true.</p>

<p>I was talking with Frank Beckwith from UNLV on Thursday morning and he was telling me about his sister going to Loyola Marymount. There was a nun that was teaching one of the classes. She’s a liberated, intellectual nun and she started the class by saying, “Since there is no truth that we can all know, we should be open-minded to other people’s points of view.”&nbsp;His observation was a great one. He said, “If there is no truth, that’s precisely the reason we should not be open-minded to other people’s points of view.”</p>

<p>If there’s no truth what are we doing here? Who cares what another person’s opinion is? I have my own opinion and that’s all that is important. There is no way that I can be enlightened and improve my point of view if there is nothing true to shoot for. This is why in the book <em>The Closing of the American Mind</em> the argument was that if there is no truth then the mind truly is closed. If there is something absolute then the mind is open to search for that and to garner arguments on the basis of that.</p>

<p>When I talk about arguing on this program I don’t mean banging heads and being mean-spirited. That’s not my intention here. Sometimes that may happen and that’s unfortunate. But my goal is to discuss intelligently with an aim to discover that which is true and right and good objectively, something that is out there that is true and right and good, something that we can both discover. It isn’t just a matter of throwing some opinions about and one person trying to force his opinion on someone else.</p>

<p>It’s this kind of disputation that is unfortunately becoming rare in the marketplace because it is interpreted as being unfriendly and mean-spirited and impolite because in a pluralistic society we don’t do those kinds of things. If we say one person is right we’ve got to say somebody else is wrong. We want to be open-minded. It’s that kind of open-mindedness that leads to the comment you’ve probably heard, “Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”</p>

<p>We can’t say anything is true because we might imply that what someone else says is false. That’s exactly the point. That’s the whole reason to pursue truth - divide truth from error. If those people are in error, something bad is going to happen to them. They don’t know what is true so we seek to correct each other. It doesn’t have to be done in a harsh and mean way, but we need to make those kinds of distinctions. If we are people who say that there is no truth, there is simply relativism, everybody has their own opinion then why talk? Why even discuss it, unless it’s just for fun? What’s the point?</p>

<p>The point is intelligent discovery of what is true. If there is nothing to discover that is true then there is no reason discussing, disputing, arguing, making an issue of anything because there is nothing to believe in. There is nothing to discuss. There is nothing to live for. There is nothing to die for. There is nothing.</p>

<p>But if there is something, by God it’s worth talking about. If there really is something out there it is worth disputing over.</p>

<p>My point is that if you’re a pluralist and you don’t like people disputing about ideas, then don’t dispute about ideas. Don’t dispute about any ideas. Even the idea about disputing about ideas.</p>
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title: The Argument That Wasn’t There
topic: Arts and Culture
author: Melinda Penner
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-argument-that-wasn-t-there
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Brian Fleming’s film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455507/" target="_blank"><em>The God Who Wasn’t There</em></a>, described by a reviewer on the front cover of the DVD as “provocative.”&nbsp;That’s putting it mildly. From the very first moments, event before the film in media interviews, Flemming jumps right in to a film that is less documentary than a autobiographical polemic. By his own admission, this is essentially Flemming’s story of how he came to renounce Christianity. At the end we witness Flemming’s visit to his Christian grade school, aggressive (even hostile) questioning of the headmaster, and an on-camera affirmation of his renouncement.</p>

<p>The film is entertaining. It’s also manipulative, rather than informative. And it’s not the least bit persuasive. I doubt even many who think Christianity isn’t true would find it so because it’s full of fallacies, bad reasoning, bad facts, and emotional appeals. There are some decent (though not in the end definitive) arguments against Christianity, but Flemming didn’t use any of them. I could have made a better case, though admittedly not nearly as entertaining.</p>

<p>I did enjoy watching it, though, because it was so outlandish. Flemming is creative.</p>

<p>The cover of the DVD, part of the opening of the film, is a composite picture of Jesus made up of different images of Jesus. It tells us Flemming’s view Jesus is only what people think he is. He’s not real.</p>

<p>The opening salvo shows the sun revolving around the earth because that’s the way it was for hundreds of years according to the church. Flemming (narrating the film) makes the first of many fallacious conclusions. If Christianity could be wrong about that, they could be wrong about Jesus. Of course, one has nothing to do with the other and he offers literally nothing more to connect the two ideas. If the argument is supposed to be that Christians aren’t infallible, well, that’s hardly a news bulletin. I really was at a loss to understand what his point was other than an ad hominem.</p>

<p>Next the movie shows a number of people Flemming claims are offensive and dangerous Christians. These people range from Charles Manson to Jerry Falwell. He just shows them without any commentary, letting the weight of whatever bad baggage they have do the work. A lengthy section of the film next offers a summary of the Bible using corny, old-fashioned Bible movies. It was pretty funny, but also very manipulative. I guess we’re supposed to get the message that Christianity is corny and old-fashioned. My niece who watched the movie with me could see through that device.</p>

<p>Flemming tells us that Christians are ignorant of their own history. He interviews several, ordinary Christians at some location asking them about Christian history. Not surprisingly, they can’t answer the questions. I doubt 95% of Christians could. That’s hardly an argument against Christianity, and it’s a criticism STR and many others have made of the church. The recent attention surrounding the Da Vinci Code motivated a lot of good teaching, but it’s a sad statement that Christians were caught off guard when they should have been prepared already.</p>

<p>But Flemming’s point is a very different one. The reason Christian leaders don’t teach what happened in the early years of Christianity, is because it’s all fiction. He narrates the early years of Christianity by showing a timeline that starts with 0 A.D. (There was no year 0.) He says that Mark was the first Gospel written and we know that it was written after 70 A.D. because it mentions the destruction of the temple. Did you catch that sleight of hand? He just smuggled in a huge presupposition and argument without stating it.</p>

<p>The book of Mark mentions the destruction of the temple in the form of a prophecy. But because Flemming doesn’t believe in prophecy, he concludes that it had to have been written after 70 A.D. There’s no other evidence for that late date other than a presupposition that goes unstated in the narration.</p>

<p>Then he tells us that Paul, who had a vision that apparently we’re supposed to think made him suspect, wrote most of the New Testament and never wrote about Jesus’&nbsp;life. Why is that? Because he didn’t know anything about Jesus’&nbsp;life no one had told him. And we even have Paul’s own admission in Hebrews 8:4 where he write hypothetically about Jesus’&nbsp;existence. Of course, Flemming has taken the statement out of context, which is actually a lengthy argument Paul is giving for why Jesus is the final High Priest who Himself is the sacrifice for our sin. And you have probably realize this already, but the reason Paul didn’t write bout Jesus’&nbsp;life is because three other authors had already written extensively about it by the time Paul wrote his letters. According to Flemming, this is all supposed to prove that Jesus at least the Jesus of the New Testament never lived and none of it ever happened. He interviews a handful of people to bolster his case that Jesus’&nbsp;life is mythology. The oddest of this array of guests are the proprietors of Snopes.com, experts on urban legends. Two others scholars tell us how the Gospels have much in common with other hero legends of the ancient world. And stacked against a checklist of typical events in these legends, Jesus doesn’t even rank first. But all of this is another example of fallacious reasoning. Because mythological deities are found in ancient literature, doesn’t mean that Jesus is one of them.</p>

<p>Flemming then examines what he considers to be Christians’&nbsp;obsession with blood. As his prime evidence he shows a series of the bloodiest scenes from “The Passion of the Christ.”&nbsp;He, probably accurately, states that seeing that movie was the most significant spiritual experience in most Christian’s lives. What seems totally lost on him is that the movie was significant, to the extent it was, not because of the blood and suffering, but because of the significance of what it meant substitution for our punishment and forgiveness. The movie was violent, but then so is the darkness of our sin and condition without forgiveness. That’s what was significant to Christians.</p>

<p>Flemming interviews Richard Carrier who builds on the violence involved in Christianity by citing the ways Christians have mistreated others. Flemming shows pictures of Abu Graib. For all the perspectives Abu Graib has been mustered to support, I never heard that it was motivated by Christianity.</p>

<p>Flemming’s final problem with the cross is that it means that God killed His own child. This is the divine child abuse some Christians have claimed is an unwarranted stumbling block. Greg responded to this on the June 18 radio show. A long section of the movie is concerned with end times prophecies, the rapture, and threats of Hell. He interviews Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith (you can find a critique of this book on this blog by using the search engine), who calls Christians maladaptive because of this doctrine since it discourages people from planning for the future. That, he points out, is dangerous in the electorate. Flemming includes clips of an extensive interview he did with one Christian man at Raptureletters.com. This is supposed to be an indictment of all of Christianity. Of course, this kind of theology isn’t characteristic of the entire church or even church history. And because he can find some odd Christians, doesn’t indict all of Christianity. Flemming cites the popularity of the Left Behind series, assuming that all who read the books believe them as literally true. But that doesn’t follow. The Da Vinci Code was wildly popular, but that doesn’t mean readers of the book believed it. Could we make a similar indictment of Dan Brown or Da Vinci or conspiracy theorists because some who read the book did believe it? No. Harris talks says that “faith is a conversation stopper.”&nbsp;And in the way he and Flemming and some Christians use the word, he’s right. Harris uses faith as wishing, irrational belief. Faith in that sense is a conversation stopper because why should someone else believe your personal fantasy? While that isn’t the Biblical sense of faith, it’s the one too many Christians practice as they offer Christianity as a personal preference.</p>

<p>What’s unfortunate is that no Christian whose faith is a conversation starter is included in this film. That’s why it’s a polemic rather than a documentary.</p>

<p>And the final scenes reveal why it’s Flemming’s autobiography. Apparently the Christian school he was raised in majored in end times theology and appeals to become a Christian, not because it was true and reasonable, but to avoid the terror of Hell. He tells us he was born again several times, but struggled with the kind of Christianity he learned about. Apparently, he never learned anything beyond this to build his faith. He never felt an encouragement to think about Christianity. His reading of the Bible is that the only sin that can’t be forgiven is denying the Holy Spirit, which is equivalent to doubting, which is equivalent to thinking. So the greatest sin in Christianity is to think. He shows us the equation: doubt = death. Sitting in his grade school chapel he turns the camera on himself and says, “I deny the Holy Spirit.”&nbsp;In the end, I was left feeling quite sad for Flemming, though I doubt he wants my sympathy. He seemed to me very angry at God and the Christians who he believes did something to him. And I think that’s what the documentary is really about.</p>
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title: The Bible or the Book of Mormon?
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-bible-or-the-book-of-mormon-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Do you know how to show a Mormon person the difference in reliability between the Bible and the Book of Mormon? Find out here.</em></p>

<p>The question of the authority of the Bible and its divine inspiration can be stated very simply: Is the Bible a book given by God to man, or is it a book produced by man—and merely by man—about God? Those are the only two options I think we’re faced with. The Bible is either a divine product, or it isn’t a divine product, but a mere product of human thinking. If it isn’t a divine product, then human authorship is the whole story.</p>

<p>The way you can attempt to answer the question, “Is the Bible really inspired?”—does it have a divine origin—is to see whether the Bible has marks of the supernatural.</p>

<p>It isn’t enough to simply assume the Bible’s authority from the beginning. Christians assume from the get-go that the Bible is God’s word, and frequently they won’t take it any further than that. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to be good enough for most people. Many non-Christians assume from the get-go the Bible’s not inspired. They revere the book, or respect it in some fashion, but as for it being the word of God? No. It’s written by men and men make mistakes. That’s their view.</p>

<p>Now, I think somebody who takes this view has to at least acknowledge, first of all, that they didn’t actually reason to the conclusion that the Bible was not inspired. Unless, of course, they thought it was reasonable to conclude that since men were involved, the Bible must have errors.</p>

<p>That certainly doesn’t follow, that since human beings may be prone to err, they’re necessarily erring in the things they write about God. It may be that they are, but it doesn’t automatically mean they are. It seems to me you have to look a little further before you can draw that conclusion. You have to look at the information itself. You have to look at the evidence. Men can err, but did they err in this case?</p>

<p>Another thing that this view doesn’t take into consideration is that the Bible itself claims to be God’s word. Now, of course, that doesn’t make it true, per se. We’ve got to go further than the mere claim. But it is significant that many who don’t believe in Christianity still respect the Bible. This book they respect makes this claim about itself over and over again, and if the book is worthy of respect, then certainly the claim is worthy of respect. It’s worthy of careful consideration.</p>

<p>I think the way to answer the question is to see whether the Bible has the mark of the supernatural—whether it has God’s “signature”&nbsp;on it—or not, or whether it simply seems to be a book just given by man, having all the marks of natural human beings, and the limitations thereof, and no sign of the supernatural. That’s the tact I take in my defense for the authority of the Scriptures. I give some reasons why I think the Bible is supernatural and not natural. It’s a book given by God to man, not merely a book by man about God.</p>

<p>But, inevitably, what’s going to happen is, even if you make your case, someone is going to say, “All right, even if I accepted that in the originals—the autographs—we have an accurate representation of God’s word, we don’t have those documents anymore. In fact, they’ve disappeared and now we only have copies of copies of copies of copies.”&nbsp;Or, sometimes people put it this way: “The Bible’s been translated and retranslated so many times we can’t trust what we have now.”</p>

<p>Well, that’s not the truth of the matter. Your Bible—your New American Standard, New International Version, King James, New King James, etc.—is not a translation of a translation of a translation. It’s a translation directly from the best Greek manuscripts we possess. It’s a direct translation from the Greek to the English, a one-step process. So, they miscast the problem. But they still have a legitimate concern about the issue of change.</p>

<p>I addressed this issue in a talk this morning (“Has God Spoken?”), and afterwards a friend told me about his visit to a Mormon temple in Utah, how he was taken aside and interviewed about his own religious beliefs. It was a gentle attempt at evangelizing by a Mormon representative there.</p>

<p>My friend has used Stand to Reason materials and has heard the radio show, and he was ready with some very good responses to the Mormon woman about the authority of the Scriptures. One of the things she came back with is, “Yes, we believe the Bible is inspired insofar as it’s properly translated.”</p>

<p>Now, this is a key point Mormons make, and they make it over and over again. I’m not sure why it’s so important to make that point because it’s uncontroversial. As a Christian, I would have to agree with it. I don’t believe in a Bible that’s improperly translated; I believe in the authority of the Bible if it’s properly translated.</p>

<p>But, you see, Mormons take a further step I don’t take because I know better. They immediately presume, as does the man on the street, that the Bible has been changed down through the ages and that we can’t trust what we have now.</p>

<p>I want to give you a couple of reasons why that objection is disingenuous coming from a Mormon. I want to give you some tools to respond to it.</p>

<p>The Mormons say that the Bible is God’s word insofar as it is properly translated. Certainly, I agree with that. I don’t know how anybody could disagree with it. Why do they make such a fuss over something as obvious as that? Because they’re convinced it isn’t properly translated because the texts we possess have been corrupted through transmission over the years.</p>

<p>Several years ago I was staying with a Mormon family for a couple of days and had an opportunity to check out their bookshelf. I pulled down a doctrinal book. This book wasn’t a popular Mormon treatment, but one of their own theological works written by one of their chief theologians named McConkie I believe.</p>

<p>I paged through it and got to the section on the reliability of the Bible. There I found the rule just as I’ve quoted it above, but was stunned to also find the Bible summarily dismissed in the next sentence. This Mormon theologian claimed—totally contrary to fact—that the Bible has been changed so many times in its copying and recopying down through the years that no one knows what the original was like.</p>

<p>I was actually shocked to see a sophisticated theological work by a principle Mormon theologian offer such an academically lame response to this issue.</p>

<p>This is a question in the field known as “lower criticism,”&nbsp;or “textual criticism.”&nbsp;The goal of the textual critic is to reconstruct ancient manuscripts from surviving copies.</p>

<p>The issue of biblical textual reconstruction has been discussed time and time again by secular scholars. The academic evidence shows it’s an open and shut case, not in favor of the Bible’s corruption, but rather in favor of the Bible’s textual purity.</p>

<p>This Mormon theologian did no homework. None. Zero. Zip. Because any homework in this area reveals quite a different thing—99.8 percent purity of the Scriptures—far better than any other manuscripts from antiquity, bar none.</p>

<p>This misleading approach is appealing to Mormon’s for a reason: They don’t want the Bible passing judgment on their doctrine, because their doctrine doesn’t come from the Bible. It comes from Joseph Smith. And it doesn’t fit the Bible; it contradicts it.</p>

<p>So, the easiest way to deal with this conflict is to give lip service to the authority of the Bible, saying, “Yes we believe it is inspired,”&nbsp;and then they take away with the left hand what they give with the right, “but that doesn’t matter, because we don’t have the inspired Bible anymore. We’ve just got a cut-and-paste version that’s nothing like the original. We do have the Book of Mormon, and the rest of Joseph Smith’s writings, though, and my heart tells me these are inspired by God.”</p>

<p>That’s why you won’t find Mormon doctrines in the Bible. You’ll find them in the <em>Book of Mormon</em>, the <em>Doctrine and Covenants</em>, the <em>Pearl of Great Price</em> and the writings of Joseph Smith. And you won’t hear Mormons quote the Bible very much, except when it helps their case. Then the Bible suddenly takes on authority.</p>

<p>That’s the first reason why I think Mormonism’s qualifier about the authority of the Bible is disingenuous: When they have a verse that seems to make their case—never mind if they lift it out of context, which they do frequently—then they use it. Otherwise, “It’s not properly translated.”</p>

<p>They’ll point to the book of Ezekiel (37:19), for example, where the Lord talks about combining the stick of Judah with the stick of Joseph. This, they say, is a clear prophecy that the Bible (“the stick of Judah”) is to be joined with the Book of Mormon (“the stick of Joseph”) to comprise the full revelation of God. They ignore, of course, the context itself in which God actually gives the interpretation (v. 21), which has nothing at all to do with the Book of Mormon.</p>

<p>Now, I guess they must believe that, even though the Bible in general can’t be trusted, this particular verse has survived intact and has been translated properly, or else certainly they wouldn’t be quoting from it. Odd.</p>

<p>You see, this is cheating, ladies and gentlemen. When the text speaks against the Mormon view, they dismiss it as not being translated accurately. But when it speaks for their view—at least when they can make it look like it does, on first glance—well, then the Bible’s accurate. That’s cheating.</p>

<p>It’s also cheating because they haven’t shown academically that the manuscripts of the Bible can’t be trusted because of the way they’ve been handed down. You’d think that if they were really concerned about God speaking through the Bible—that the only way to get at God’s word is to have it translated accurately—they would do the homework. After all, if they say it’s God’s word, then you think they’d do the work to find out what has come down in tact and what hasn’t survived.</p>

<p>But they don’t do that. In fact, when my friend pointed out to the Mormon that the Bible hasn’t been changed and that it is authoritative, his information was just dismissed. She moved on to something else.</p>

<p>It was just dismissed! You’d think somebody who doesn’t trust the Bible because they think it hasn’t been properly translated, when she’s shown that it can be trusted because it is properly translated, would then say (if they were genuine in their concern here), “Well, I’m glad I’ve learned that! Now I can go to the Scripture with full confidence and draw the truth from it, and I can weigh the Book of Mormon against the Bible (since the Bible came first, after all).”&nbsp;But no, it’s just ignored.</p>

<p>You know, if you’ve talked with Mormons very much about the authority of their documents, when all of their quasi-apologetics for their books have been dismembered (and it’s easy to do), they always fall back on an argument that you cannot dismember: “I believe in my heart that the Book of Mormon is really from God.”</p>

<p>We can respect such a belief. But can you see how, if that’s what one ends up falling back on, it’s disingenuous to pretend like there are evidences that really matter for your view and against the Bible’s authority? If what you end up doing is ignoring contrary evidence, and you finally fall back on a defense that cannot be refuted, even in principle—because I can’t change what you think is happening in your heart—then that shows you don’t really care about the evidence at all. What you care about is protecting your own belief system, whether it’s true or not. That is what’s disingenuous. The evidence ultimately doesn’t seem to matter.</p>

<p>By the way, there’s one other point that could be offered here. When a Mormon says, “The Bible’s inspired insofar as it has been properly translated,”&nbsp;your first question should be, “Do you mean to say that if the Bible has been changed, it shouldn’t be trusted?”&nbsp;They’re going to say, “Of course it shouldn’t be trusted if it’s been changed.”&nbsp;Then ask this question, “How many times has the <em>Book of Mormon</em> been changed?”</p>

<p>The <em>Book of Mormon</em> has been changed hundreds of times, as a point in fact. This is very well documented. We do have the original documents of the <em>Book of Mormon</em> and we have the current ones and there are hundreds of changes. So even by their own rule, the <em>Book of Mormon</em> is a fraud. But that doesn’t matter because Mormons have a burning in their hearts.</p>

<p>And that shows why it’s so dangerous to depend on feelings alone when issues of eternal truth are at stake.</p>
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title: The Trinity Is Biblical
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-trinity-is-biblical
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Greg answers a challenge that the Christian view of the Trinity is not Scriptural.</em></p>

<p>Now I’m going to take a minute to walk through some important things with you folks. It’s very important that you understand how to resolve a tricky issue that was raised about the Trinity. I’m going to walk through it very clearly so you can understand what I’m trying to do. The particular question that came up was that my view, or the Christian view, of the Trinity is inconsistent with the Scripture. That was the objection. That’s why John 20 was raised as a verse and a number of other verses were raised as contradicting the orthodox notion of the Trinity. In fact, it was questioned as whether such a thing could be an orthodox notion because Jesus Himself didn’t teach it.</p>

<p>Now it’s clear that Jesus did not teach the Trinity as I would teach the Trinity because it’s synthetic in that it’s taking a number of different things and synthesizing them into a doctrine. But the synthesis is legitimate if each of those things is actually taught in the Scripture. In fact, in the case of the hypostatic union the full humanness and the full divinity of Jesus Christ were both taught by Him.</p>

<p>Now, if the objection is against my view or the Christian view, and the objection is that it doesn’t fit the Scripture, you have to have two things before you resolve this. First of all, you must have a clear understanding of what my view is that you say is contradictory. The second thing you must have is you must work with the Scripture. That’s where you must start and that’s where you must end if the objection is that the view is not Scriptural. Do you follow that? That’s why you start with the Bible and you end with the Bible and not with Joseph Smith or anyone else for that matter. That’s not what the question is about. We’re not talking about Joseph Smith’s view of God. We’re talking about whether the Bible teaches a particular thing so we go to the Bible. We take this definition that we have that allegedly is not Biblical, and we attempt to see whether anything in the Bible conflicts with the definition as we hold it.</p>

<p>The definition of the Trinity is this: there is one God, one Being who is God and only God; yet that one God has three different Persons, separate <em>personas</em>, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son is referred to as the Word in John 1. That’s our view. Our view is not that the Father is the same as the Son. Our view is that the Father is not the Son. Our view is that the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. But that all are equally God. They possess everything that makes God God. They have God’s nature and can be called God, yet there is only one God.</p>

<p>Some people might say that this doesn’t make sense. It depends entirely on what you mean when you say it doesn’t make sense. It’s not that it’s irrational. There is nothing contradictory by the laws of reason in the Trinity. Absolutely not. Now it may not make sense because you have a hard time picturing this. Is this some kind of three-headed beast? I can’t picture it in my mind.</p>

<p>Why is it that you can’t accept the truthfulness of something if you can’t image it in your mind? Tell me what love looks like. Tell me what God looks like. You can’t image God in your mind. In fact, you are prohibited from trying to do so. The First Commandment, by the way. You can’t image God. You can’t image love. You can’t image justice. But we have good reason to believe they are real things and we know that. So it is not a liability because we can’t image the Trinity in our mind. What we need to find out is if it is taught. And the teaching of the Trinity is there is one God and there are three Persons. And Jesus Christ is the second Person, fully human and fully divine.</p>

<p>So then we go to the Bible and we see the verse that was cited, John 20. This seems to indicate that Jesus is a human being and that He is different from the Father because He calls God “My God.” I say, what’s the problem with that? Well, you see, Jesus is different from the Father. My response is, you’re right, He is. He’s a different Person. But is He a different Being? No, it doesn’t say that. If you flip the page to John 20, there is Thomas calling Jesus God. Since there is only one God in the Bible, Jesus must be that God that is the only God. We have His divinity right there, and we have His separateness the page before. We look in the beginning of the Gospel of John and we have Jesus being identified as the Word, being called God in the very first verse. We see in the third verse that He is identified as the Creator of all things. We see in the 14th verse that this Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. That’s the human being. This is not tricky. There is no subterfuge here. There is no slight of hand. I am simply reading the verses.</p>

<p>What is hard is when we read these things and we say, how can such things be? How can Jesus be God and talk to the Father as Someone separate at the same time because God is one Being and three Persons?</p>

<p>None of these verses are a problem for me because they all fit my definition perfectly. That’s why I say the Trinity is not a problem. It’s a solution. If you don’t believe in the Trinity, you’ve got a problem. You can stand firmly on the verses that identify the distinction between the Father and the Son and say, See there it is. I tiptoe over to John 1 and say, What is this business where it says the Word was God and the Word created all things, and then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us? Then someone says something really silly, pardon me, like, “Maybe that’s the Gospel message that is called God that created all things and that dwelt among us.”&nbsp;I don’t get it. You don’t have to say something silly. That’s the reason we believe in the Trinity because it’s right there. It’s the only explanation that brings all of the statements about the person, the character and the nature of Jesus into harmony. Any other position creates tremendous problems, like I just said. And this is what bothers me.</p>

<p>I ought to go on the offensive more often on this. I stand and I keep answering these questions. How could Jesus call God His Father? How could Jesus talk to the Father? I should say, It’s easy. It’s not a problem from my view of the Trinity. It doesn’t conflict.</p>

<p>I think people who raise those questions either don’t or refuse to take our definitions at face value. The caller said, You define things and you control the argument. Wait a minute. That misses the point. The objection is specifically to my definition anyway. That’s what this whole thing is about, so let’s stick to my definition if that’s the objection. My definition fits clearly. Instead of saying this fits, this fits, this fits, I should ask, like I did eventually, What the heck do you think it means when it says that the Word was God, that He created all things, when Thomas falls on his face and worships Jesus and Jesus applauds him for it? How do you make sense out of that?</p>

<p>Well, then you start hearing stories. Bedtime stories. Invented fairy tales meant to put your argument to rest. But the fairy tale doesn’t fit the words of the text. The fairy tale may fit with what some other alleged prophet of God happened to say about the nature of God. Fine. If you want to follow him, that’s up to you. But don’t for a minute suggest that that teaching matches what the Scripture says. It does not. The Scripture speaks clearly on this issue. Any other solution is no solution at all.</p>

<p>The Trinity is not a problem. It solves the problems.</p>
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title: The Pluralist Objection by Hick
topic: Theology
author: Melinda Penner
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-pluralist-objection-by-hick
content:
            <div> 
		<p>John Hick takes a realist approach about the world to the question of pluralism in his article “Religious Pluralism and Salvation.”<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> All religions are responses to an objective Reality, not merely human activity. Both the differences and similarities in religion motivate Hick. He understands the differences to be irresolvable, none being a superior expression of the ultimate truth of the Divine. Yet he perceives a common thread throughout all religions: the central concern being moral transformation and realignment with the Divine. Since all religions share a common feature and the differences are intractable, Hick concludes that pluralism is the most rational position to take.</p>

<p>Hick observes that all religions are concerned with salvation, and the way he defines salvation for all religions is radical moral transformation. All religions appear to share this fundamental goal and also seem to produce relatively commensurate results. Salvation is demonstrated by observable behavior when people are transformed from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness. In this way, the results of religion are empirically measurable.</p>

<p>Hick often uses Christian vocabulary to express his understanding of the common features of all religions. Salvation is equated with empirically verified behavior of individuals. Saints are the persons who successfully demonstrate transformation and reorientation. He says that at their most basic, all religions use the same criterion for the normative role of salvation and in describing saints. This is most fundamentally expressed as the Golden Rule: valuing others as we value ourselves. Though the outcome of salvation is empirically validated in principle, Hick admits to the difficulty of actual validation. Still, the fact that salvation takes place is an objective fact and is empirically verifiable in principle.</p>

<p>Since all religions share this common goal and criterion, Hick concludes that the truth value of all religions are empirically equivalent. There is no other way to sort out the differences and arrive at a judgment as to their success in actually expressing truth. As long as the goal of all religions is to produce transformed and reoriented saints, then all religions are on epistemic par with regard to the rest of their claims. The differences don’t matter, only the most fundamental common features do.</p>

<p>According to Hick, the differences in religions are ways of referring to the same objective Reality. The differences do not matter because what they refer to is identical, no matter how disparate the specific claims about the Real are. Hick adapts a Kantian approach to discuss the ultimate referent of all religions. The Real is beyond the scope of human concepts and cannot be directly referred to or experienced. None of the statements that religions make about the Real are accurate because it cannot be referred to. Yet, religious experiences are all of the same Reality. These experiences of the Real are primarily culturally based.</p>

<p>Hick considers culture to be the primary determinant in religious commitments, although religion is not a human construction. Human experience of the Real is the mode of religious expression that never achieves success in referring the transcendent truth being experienced and these experiences are shaped by the religious culture. As a result, Hick concludes that we should remain agnostic with regards to the differing metaphysical claims of religions. It is especially wrong to draw conclusions about salvation based on these irresolvable differences. Historical evidences are not useful in attempting resolution since these claims, too, are irresolvable.</p>

<p>Hick makes the strong claim that no single religious tradition can be wholly true and are on epistemic par since the salvation results of all religions produce empirical parity. Hick concludes that exclusive claims are both outdated and irrational.</p>

<h2>A Critique of Hard Pluralism by Ward</h2>

<p>Keith Ward critiques “hard pluralism”&nbsp;in his article “Truth and the Diversity of Religions.”&nbsp;Hick and other pluralists make the claim that religions state propositions that are incompatible, yet there is no methodology for adjudicating the truth value of these statements. Hick abandons the endeavor; Ward does not because Hick’s position is philosophically unacceptable to him since all truth claims are necessarily exclusive - including Hick’s. A truth claim must affirm some reality, which necessarily excludes incompatible claims about the same thing. Hick’s view denies this fundamental bit of logic, and logic is what Ward rigorously applies to the pluralist objections. He denies that all religions can be equally true because religious disagreement is, in fact, possible. They cannot all be true because they are “fundamentally opposed both morally and factually.”<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>He identifies three versions of pluralism. “Extreme pluralism”&nbsp;claims that all versions of religions are equally valid and do not make mutually exclusive claims; but this position is incoherent since the claims are obviously incompatible. “Hard pluralism”&nbsp;(HP) affirms that religions initially appear to be exclusive, but actually agree on fundamental features of religion after careful investigation.</p>

<p>Ward is critical of HP because the reduction of religion to moral transformation and reorientation to the transcendent is analytic and trivial. It is analytic because only religions that conform to this definition will be counted as religions; religions lacking this feature will be excluded to produce the façade of universal agreement. It is trivial because it merely relocates the exclusivism to an abstract and general level since HP makes its own truth claims. More religions are admitted as valid, but others that do not meet the rather arbitrary definition are excluded. The tactic of HP is rather rigged from the outset when “religious traditions���&nbsp;are investigated. This label reflects an attitude that religions are not making truth claims at all so cannot disagree.</p>

<p>HP makes three claims that Ward finds self-refuting. First, in claiming that the Real is ineffable, one actually admits to its existence. Second, in claiming that no truth-claims can be made of it, one makes a truth claims about it. Third, though the Real is unknowable, HP claims to know that all religions are equally valid ways of reorienting to it. In denying the possibility of making religious truth claims, HP actually ends up making a number of truth claims. The view is fundamentally illogical. In addition to this, HP ascribes beliefs to religions that they do not claim for themselves.</p>

<p>Ward is interested in whether the claims of religions are equally warranted by the facts, and he concludes that they are not. Religions do make mutually exclusive truth claims. Ward opts for “soft pluralism.”&nbsp;SP recognizes that all religions are partially true, but also make some false claims. While taking seriously the truth value of religious claims and that they are incompatible, he recognizes that believers of different religions are justified in their beliefs and in their belief that those who disagree are wrong. Exclusivism is rationally justified. What follows from this is not the denial of the truth value, as Hick does, but to recognize that no view is obviously true and every view is possibly mistaken. Religious believers are within their epistemic right to be exclusivists. In fact, it is unreasonable to believe otherwise if each religious believer is justified in their beliefs. SP recognizes the justification of each religion to make provisional claims of exclusivism, while remaining open to revision. Different religions are complimentary and can cooperate in correcting each other since actual agreement and disagreement are possible.</p>

<h2>Critique</h2>

<p>Ward’s response is helpful because he takes seriously the claims of truth that religions make; Hick, instead, ignores the truth value and redefines what these statements actually mean according to his definition of religion. It seems to me that we should extend the courtesy of taking religions at their word when they make claims. Hick’s response seems rather condescending and arrogant, the kinds of vices he wishes to escape by denying exclusivism.</p>

<p>Hick’s view suffers from mistaking the epistemological problem (determining what is true) for the metaphysical one (what is objectively true). He may be right that all religions are apparently on epistemic par, but that does not justify Hick’s claim that all religions do in fact teach the same thing about the same reality. The basic laws of logic tell us that is not a reasonable conclusion from the mutually exclusive kinds of beliefs fundamental to religions. Essentially, Hick’s view is epistemically derelict in the duty to take truth claims seriously and apply rigorous rationality to justify these claims.</p>

<p>Ward’s article is refreshing in comparison in his unrelenting application of logic to the pluralist claims. It is epistemically virtuous to recognize the defeasibility of one’s view, which is Ward’s conclusion, yet maintain intellectual commitments based on the justification of one’s evidence. Sound reason does not necessarily lead to moral vices, as Ward exemplifies. It is possible for the exclusivist to hold his beliefs in proportion to the evidence on which they are based, and yet be willing to humbly and openly consider the challenges of pluralism and competing religious claims.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">John Hick, “Religious Pluralism and Salvation.”&nbsp;Philip L. Quinn and Kevin Meeker, eds. <em>The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Pluralism</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 54. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Keith Ward, “Truth and the Diversity of Religions.”&nbsp;Philip L. Quinn and Kevin Meeker, eds. <em>The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Pluralism</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 110. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2"> ↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Relativists & Sociopaths
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/27/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/relativists-sociopaths
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>How can some people commit sensationalistic crimes? Greg suggests perhaps they are just championing their moral point of view.</em></p>

<p>Yesterday morning I saw something in the paper that happened in Florida. It absolutely disgusted me and ought to have surprised me, but it didn’t. The&nbsp;<em>L.A. Times&nbsp;</em>, a small piece, says that a youth is charged in slaying a motorist who ran into a girl. Here’s basically what happened, ladies and gentlemen, a man had a collision with a pedestrian. The pedestrian was a small girl, apparently. She was banged up a little bit, but not seriously injured. He’d gotten out of his car to check her and was immediately mobbed by a number of youths who beat him up, robbed him of something like $23.00, and shot him dead, killed him. You think, well maybe they’re bugged because he hurt the girl. No. They were just a mob. They’re a bunch of youths, youngsters basically. They mobbed him, beat him up, robbed him and killed him.</p>

<p>If that isn’t bad enough, the other side to this, the other aspect of this-- and this wasn’t in the&nbsp;<em>L.A. Times&nbsp;</em>today but I heard it on the radio yesterday--is that there were a number of pedestrians, people standing around, watching it happen who were adults. Not only did they not intervene but they also wouldn’t cooperate with the police unless they were paid, apparently. In other words they wanted the T.V. crews to interview for cash before they would give any material information that would lead to the apprehension of any of the people who were involved in this brutal slaying.</p>

<p>This is another one of those things we hear that cause us to cluck our tongue, shake our head and say, What’s becoming of the world? Last week I had occasion to speak quite a number of times on the issue of moral relativism. Even though this is a disgusting event it doesn’t surprise me in many ways when many people espouse a moral viewpoint of relativism--in other words, that people are, by in large, responsible for their own values and responsible for making their own moral rules. This is, by the way, expressed in government and educational programs like values clarification in schools where kids are led through moral exercises to decide for themselves what they think is important when it comes to what’s right and wrong. It doesn’t surprise me when those who hold to an absolute morality are vilified and criticized and condemned in public for their position, not just for their moral position but for the fact that they hold a particular moral position that they think applies to everyone.</p>

<p>When we champion those kinds of things in a culture, ladies and gentlemen, why should it be surprising to us when young people in our society begin practicing what we’re teaching them. We teach them ultimately that values are an individual kind of thing and that morals are the kinds of things that are subjective and relative to every person’s view of right and wrong. When we say, Don’t force your morality on me, and, Who are you to say?, well, we’re essentially teaching our children that they need not be accountable to anyone. Why are we surprised when they’re not accountable to anyone?</p>

<p>I want to share with you two particular points that I made in this talk that I think relate to this incident that happened in Dade County, Florida this last week. The first one has to do with an overall critique of relativism as a moral point of view. I outlined eight serious flaws with moral relativism, individual ethical relativism, the idea that people make up their own moral rules and that we ought not force our morality on other people. All of the eight flaws, though they’re expressed differently, really hinge on the same basic idea. The idea is this, that in order for certain concepts that we hold dear and valuable--concepts that seem to be intuitive, that seem to be true concepts on the face of them, things like praise and blame, the existence of evil in the world, the value of justice and fairness, the reasonableness of personal accountability, the idea of moral discourse and moral improvement and reform, and the idea of tolerance--all of those things are tied up with a particular idea. The particular idea that these notions rest upon--have as their foundation--is the very idea that is repudiated by those who hold to moral relativism. That is that there is a moral standard of some sort that stands outside of a person and that is a judge on the person whether the person accepts it or not. In other words, for those concepts that I just listed to make any sense whatsoever there must be some kind of absolute standard, some morality that is not utterly subjective and not utterly personal. That’s why if you hold moral relativism--let everybody make up their own rules and decide for themselves what’s right and wrong and let’s not push our morality on any one else--then if you’re going to be consistent you have to abandon the idea that there is anything like an absolute right or wrong.</p>

<p>Therefore, your language of wrong-doing has to be excised from your vocabulary. The language of things being evil in themselves or wrong in themselves must be removed because there is no such thing. There are only things that you like and dislike so your moral assessments are merely reduced to autobiography. What feels good or bad to you, not what is morally right or wrong in itself. You have to get rid of the idea that there is blame and praise because you can’t blame or praise people unless you have a standard by which blame and praise make any sense. You can’t ask for justice or fairness because that implies that there is a moral standard that stands outside of everyone that says, for example, that we must treat people equally or we must not punish the innocent and let the guilty go free.</p>

<p>If relativism is true then there is no standard like that standing outside of us so there’s no sense to the notion of justice or fairness. There’s no accountability. Everybody does their own thing. There’s no possibility of moral improvement or moral discourse, you can’t even discuss things morally in an intelligent fashion because there’s no better or worse morality in the context of relativism. Ultimately there’s no tolerance either because the rule that one ought to be tolerant is an absolute rule that stands outside of our individual tastes. If there are no absolute rules then the absolute “Be tolerant”&nbsp;is no longer there either, and therefore relativism, the fact that everybody makes up their own rules, ultimately does not lead to tolerance either. My point being that if relativism were really true then we would be living in a world in which nothing is wrong, nothing is considered evil or good or worthy of praise or blame, a world in which justice and praise are meaningless concepts, in which there is no accountability, no possibility of moral improvement or even a moral discourse. Also, it would be a world in which there is no tolerance.</p>

<p>When I did that talk I had a note that following this belief in and practice of relativism produces this kind of world. But I left that out in some of my talks. I thought that’s too strong of a statement. Just because you believe in relativism doesn’t mean it’s going to produce this kind of world because maybe there’s something else of goodness or something inside of you that will redeem you in the long run so you don’t end up living consistent with your alleged world view. I think this is even truer as I reflect on what happened last week than I was willing to admit even to my own audiences when I talked about relativism. That belief in and practice of relativism does produce a world like this and we’re seeing the fruits of that, and we did in Dade County, Florida.</p>

<p>One of the things that I mentioned as I was talking about relativism last weekend is that you can, in a sense, assess the significance or the value or worth of a particular moral point of view by asking what kind of moral champion does this point of view produce. For example, if your moral point of view is that you should take no thought for yourself but always think of other people, and you watch people who live that out most consistently, this ethic produces someone like a Mother Theresa, for example. Or if you have someone who says that one of the highest ethics is non-violent passive resistance and lives that out in exemplary fashion, it produces a Gandhi. If the ethic is to obey the Father in all things and you live that out thoroughly, it produces a Jesus Christ. When we look at the moral champions of these different viewpoints it speaks well for the standard they espouse.</p>
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title: Who Killed Jesus?
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/who-killed-jesus-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Jewish leaders have long been deeply sensitive to any characterization of Christ’s passion that would transfer guilt collectively to the Jews, a view that historically has been used as grounds for persecution of Jews as “Christ killers.”</p>

<p>The Christian Bible does, in fact, teach as a point of history that Jewish leadership was responsible for the execution of Jesus. There are two critical points to keep in mind, though, when making this observation.</p>

<p>First, the identity of Jesus’&nbsp;executioners is largely irrelevant to Christian teaching. What is critical is that Jesus truly died and was raised, not that any particular group was responsible for His death. Indeed, from the perspective of theology, all men are responsible for the death of Christ because all sinned, and this the New Testament is very clear on. Further, Jesus also made it clear that He gave His life willingly (John 10:18). No one takes His life from Him, He said, but He lays it down on His own initiative.</p>

<p>Second, cruelty to Jews does not follow from the assertion that Jews were instrumental in the death of Jesus. Nowhere in the Scriptures do we see this. Quite the contrary, the early Christians brought their message of forgiveness and reconciliation to the Jews first, with no animosity.</p>

<p>Further, the Christians of the first couple of centuries were excessively pacifistic. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to defend themselves, much less take revenge on Jews. Revenge was not only forbidden by the New Testament, it was unnecessary. According to Christian teaching, the execution of Christ was used by God to accomplish salvation for all who would believe. The death of Jesus was a great good to Christians, not an evil that needed avenging. It wasn’t until centuries after Christ that the institutional church used such illegitimate justification for malicious actions against non-Christians.</p>

<p>It may be that some of the greatest acts of cruelty came from professing Christians who used their religion as a cloak for evil. But Christianity itself doesn’t cause such evil. Rather, it consistently condemns it.</p>
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title: Can We Trust the Bible?
topic: History
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 02/26/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-we-trust-the-bible-
content:
            <div> 
		<h2>Who’s Your Authority?</h2>

<p>I have four kids. This probably doesn’t happen with most children, but sometimes my kids disagree, and argue, and fight. Oftentimes, when a dispute arises, they look outside of themselves for another voice to settle matters. Mine.</p>

<p>Notice, they don’t appeal to our neighbor: “Mr. Jones said...”&nbsp;They don’t appeal to the president of the United States: “President Obama said...”&nbsp;They need the <em>appropriate authority</em> in family matters. Me. That’s why they utter two words that carry authority in these parts: “Dad said...”&nbsp;If I issue a decision or take a side, that’s all my kids need to feel they are in the right.</p>

<p>In the same way, disagreements arise amongst religions. A Hindu may offer his religious view as the correct picture of reality while a Muslim would disagree and commend his view as the accurate one. A Mormon proclaims one Jesus while the Christian offers a different Jesus. The world’s religions do not merely offer different views of the same God, they offer different gods altogether.</p>

<p>Furthermore, most believers appeal to religious experience as justification for and confirmation of their religious beliefs. But this, too, is a problem because such testimony is offered as support for <em>competing</em> views of gods. Thus a personal experience alone is not enough to substantiate one’s views on God.</p>

<p>So what’s a religious seeker to do? Is there any hope in sorting out the various views? Is there any basis by which to judge between contradictory beliefs about God? Yes...if there's an appropriate authority on the matter. An authoritative voice can offer an objective standard by which we assess conflicting beliefs. Of course, in all things religious, that authority would be God Himself. If God has told us about Himself, then we can appeal to His self-revelation and legitimately declare, “God said...”&nbsp;But has God spoken?</p>

<p>Classically, Christians have defended their view of God not with mere appeals to subjective experience but from what they take to be God’s voice recorded in the Bible. Do Christians have good reason to think God has spoken through the Bible? Yes. Not only do we have overwhelming evidence the Bible has been reliably passed down for almost 2,000 years, but there is good reason to think it is covered with divine fingerprints.</p>

<h2>What We Have Is What Was Written</h2>

<p>Remember the “Telephone”&nbsp;game? One child would start by whispering a message in another’s ear, she would then whisper to the next child, and so on. Finally, the last person in the telephone line would reveal a message so distorted from the original, the children would break out in laughter. Skeptics use this child’s game as a parallel to how the Bible has come down to us. Just like the final message of the telephone game, the New Testament is equally unreliable. Right? Wrong.</p>

<p>At first glance, the objection is compelling. But most people raising it simply don’t know the facts. And the facts are on the Bible’s side. Clearly, the telephone game does not accurately capture the manner in which the New Testament was passed down.</p>

<p>First, the New Testament message was not transmitted orally, a mode of communication that is easier to distort. Instead, it was handed down in writing. Second, there was not a singular line of transmission—that is, it was not the case that a single individual passed the message to another individual who passed the message to a different individual and so on. Rather, there were many lines as one letter was copied multiple times and copies were copied multiple times, eventually resulting in a host of manuscript copies. Third, historians do not rely on the last person in line but look for earlier sources much closer to the original. Finally, original letters could be consulted, even after several generations of copies.</p>

<p>A quick look at the transmission of not only the New Testament but of all ancient documents reveals the misconceptions in the telephone game analogy. A more accurate picture of the transmission of the New Testament documents is captured by the Aunt Sally’s Secret Sauce illustration where there are multiple lines of transmission, including multiple copies in each line. As ancient documents are passed along in this manner, historians ask two primary questions to determine a text’s reliability:</p>

<ol>
	<li>How many manuscript copies do we have?</li>
	<li>How close in time are the manuscript copies to the original?</li>
</ol>

<p>Answering these two questions for the New Testament demonstrates it is the most reliable ancient document, hands down. Let’s do a very brief survey of the evidence.</p>

<p>The number of manuscript copies of the New Testament is mind-boggling. In Greek alone, we have more than 5,800 copies, consisting of 2.5 million pages of text. In addition, we have more than 10,000 Latin manuscript copies. If that’s not enough, there are more than 5,000 manuscripts in other languages, such as Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, Gothic, Ethiopic, and Armenian. In total, there are more than 20,000 handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament in various languages.</p>

<p>To top it off, even if all manuscript evidence for the New Testament disappeared, we could still reconstruct almost the entire 27 New Testament books from more than one million quotations of the early church fathers. Clearly, we have all the manuscript copies we need to ensure what we have is what was written.</p>

<p>But the question of the distance of time from original to copy remains. Again, the facts are on the Bible’s side. We have a dozen manuscripts from the second century, 64 manuscripts from the third century and 48 from the fourth century. That’s 124 total manuscripts within 300 years of the composition of the New Testament. There is not a single Greek or Latin manuscript from the ancient world that comes close to the early dating of these New Testament manuscripts. Again, the wealth of early manuscripts ensures what we have is what was written. That’s why the majority of biblical scholars, both Christian and non-Christian, conclude that the original words of the New Testament can be known by us with more certainty than those of any other text from all of antiquity.</p>

<h2>What We Read Is What God Said</h2>

<p>Fingerprints are one of the best forms of evidence. If a detective finds fingerprints at a crime scene, he has a vital clue to help identify the perpetrator. When it comes to the Bible, we also have a mystery to solve: Who is the author? I’m not talking about the human authors. We want to know if there’s an Author behind those authors, if the Bible is indeed the “Word of God”&nbsp;as Christians claim. And when we look carefully, we discover <em>divine</em> fingerprints all over this unique book.</p>

<p>First, the Bible contains fulfilled prophecies. Specific events are foretold with great detail many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. There are approximately 2,500 prophecies in the Bible, about 2,000 that have been fulfilled. For example, in Micah 5:2, the prophet identifies the city of Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birthplace approximately 700 years before the event. The prophet Zechariah predicted Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13). What is the best explanation for such supernatural predictions? A supernatural “Predictor.”</p>

<p>A second divine fingerprint is the Bible’s unity despite its radically diverse origins. There were 40 diverse authors with diverse backgrounds. There were diverse writing conditions, from palaces to the wilderness. There were diverse genres of writing, from poetry to history. There were diverse topics, often controversial topics. And it’s all written over 1,500 years. However, there is profound unity, as God’s story unfolds from Genesis to Revelation. There is unbelievable factual and theological agreement throughout the Bible. Again, what best explains this? A single Divine Author, working through human authors.</p>

<p>Third, the Bible has had a supernatural impact on individual lives, as well as on the world. There have been countless individuals transformed by the Bible and that impact transcends all economic, ethnic and geographical boundaries. Furthermore, the Bible’s impact on Western culture is immeasurable. Its influence can be seen throughout the ages in the arts, in literature, in education, in law, in science, in medicine, and on and on. Only a supernatural book with a supernatural author could bring about such supernatural impact on individuals and the world.</p>

<p>Indeed, the Bible is no ordinary book. It contains the very words of God. And now that you’ve seen evidence of its divine origins, you’re confronted with another question: What are you going to do with this book?</p>
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title: A Ten-Minute Witness
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/26/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-ten-minute-witness
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>The fisherman recounts an opportunity he had to use the rod and bait God has given us, and he didn’t even have to leave his living room.</em></p>

<p>I had a conversation today that I wish you could have eavesdropped on. It was that precious. I was preparing for the show about an hour ago at my home and I heard a knock at the door. There was a gentleman who had something to sell. Fortunately, it was a bona fide product, it had genuine value to me. He wasn’t knocking on my door offering me some lousy chocolate so that he could go to Disneyland and not spray paint my wall. No, it was the real McCoy. In fact, it was a product I had used in the past and I thought it was great, so he got three sentences into his presentation and I said, “Hey, how much is it and where do I sign?”&nbsp;I had him come in and wrote him a check right then.</p>

<p>I had been lecturing two nights before at the Evangelical Free Church in Corona, talking about tactics in defending the faith. One of the questions that was asked in the Q &amp; A afterwards had to do with boldness and getting out there, getting involved and actually using the things you are learning so you can hopefully win people to your faith in Jesus Christ.</p>

<p>I know a lot of times it is easier to sit in a class and learn about evangelism and defending your faith than it is to get out there and do it. That is why I always encourage people to take every opportunity they can to get out and mix it up, even if they don’t think they are up to snuff on answering the questions and the issues. I will tell you, quite frankly, I don’t always feel up to snuff myself. There are many circumstances I go into that I just don’t feel up to, either emotionally or intellectually.</p>

<p>You might think, “How can that be? He’s been doing this for years?”&nbsp;It’s because there is a lot to know. Every time I step out, I still have to trust that God is going to use me and will work in the circumstance in just the same way that you have to do. My encouragement to the folks during the Q &amp; A that night is to just step out and mix it up. Just get into the fray.</p>

<p>Begin by asking questions. Find some way into the conversation such that spiritual issues become a topic of conversation. Maybe you get beat up, maybe not; but it is the way to learn. It’s the way to begin having an impact. You’ve got to start somewhere.</p>

<p>Today, as this gentleman came in, it just flowed very nicely. I saw a great opportunity to take ten minutes, which is all I had with this man, to tell him something about Jesus Christ. I didn’t know how I was going to get into it. I didn’t know if I was going to run into objections or obstacles. But it was wonderful the way it all turned out.</p>

<p>As I was filling out my check, he asked me something about sports and if I was watching the football game. I said no, I was studying.</p>

<p>He said, “What do you do? Are you in school?”</p>

<p>I said, “I’m in school, I teach in school, I run an educational organization, I host a radio show, and that is why I’m studying.”</p>

<p>“What school is it?”</p>

<p>“Simon Greenleaf University, a Christian school. I teach Apologetics. Do you know what that is?”</p>

<p>“No, I never heard of it.”</p>

<p>He was sitting on my easy chair in my living room. I’d already given him the check. He was looking at me.</p>

<p>“Apologetics is a field in which we defend the Christian faith. People ask questions, challenge Christianity, they think Christianity is mindless. My point of view is that if you are really mindful, if you use your mind and your reason, you will become rationally obliged to become a Christian. The evidence is that good.”</p>

<p>It wasn’t anything fancy, in fact that is about all that I had to say.</p>

<p>He said, “Let me ask you a question. What mystifies me is that there are so many different religions in the world, there are hundreds of them, and everybody has a different idea about God. How could it be the case then that there is only one way to God?”</p>

<p>This is a classic question that’s asked of Christians often. It seemed to him that the fact that many people believe different things was evidence that no one thing could be true.</p>

<p>He followed up with the comment, “When I die I believe I will meet the God I believe in.”</p>

<p>I asked him a simple question, “If there is a God and there is one God, then when we die we will meet somebody, right?”</p>

<p>“Yeah, that’s right.”</p>

<p>“How is it that believing that God is Allah, for example, makes God into Allah when I die and meet him? Or if I believe he is Jesus, how does that make God into Jesus when I die? In other words, my belief before death doesn’t cause what God is going to be after it. He is going to be what He is. The real question is whether my view of God is accurate or not.”</p>

<p>He nodded and said, “I guess that is the question.”</p>

<p>I said, “And if you understand that to be the issue, I guess that answers your question. How could there be so many religions? Easily, because people have different opinions. But it certainly doesn’t follow from that, that all those opinions lead to God. In fact, either God is personal like the Christians describe, or He is a floating cosmic battery cell, some impersonal power or force in the universe. But I’ll tell you one thing, He can’t be both. If He can’t be both, that means there are a whole lot of people that are simply mistaken in their belief. Now, the question you have to ask yourself is, is your belief about God correct?”</p>

<p>He nodded in understanding. That’s when I made the switch, because I didn’t want to leave it, especially in a short encounter like this, just talking about philosophy and apologetics, or just talking about answering his questions. There was something more critical he needed to know about. This is not just an intellectual argument. I wanted him to understand about Jesus.</p>

<p>I will tell you a secret. I’m not always excited about getting to the Jesus part. Sometimes it is a lot easier for me to talk about ideas. Why? You can talk about ideas and get different opinions and, even though there are differing views, it seems somewhat safe. But when you start talking about Jesus, that gets personal. It is awkward even for me. I admit it. But I needed to get to Jesus. Why? This man wasn’t going to be saved by my ideas. He could only be changed and influenced and forgiven through Jesus, so I had to get to Him.</p>

<p>I think Jesus had some things going for Him. Jesus said that He was God and that He understood spiritual matters. He said the choice you make about Him will determine where you spend eternity. It’s one thing for a person to claim such a thing, it’s another thing for someone to back it up. Look at Jesus. He gave the greatest moral teaching the world has ever seen. He worked miracles. He healed people. He raised people from the dead. When people practice His principles, they transform society for good. In fact, Jesus even predicted His own death, and in fact, died and self-consciously raised Himself from the dead. There’s a guy who has some credibility.</p>

<p>What about Buddha? He’s still in the grave. What about Mohammed? He didn’t work any miracles. What about Krishna? It is not even clear that he even existed. But Jesus did and He changed the world. It seems to me if you are going to put your bets on some spiritual option, it is best to go with Somebody and listen to Somebody who has credibility. That is Jesus Christ.</p>

<p>He looked around my library and said, “Gee, you’ve got a lot of books here. Guess you’ve got a lot of learning to do.”</p>

<p>I said, “Yeah, there are a lot of things to learn. It is a life-long process. But the simple gospel is very simple. I’ll tell you what that is. The simple gospel is that you have sinned before God. You are a sinner. You know it.”</p>

<p>You might think, “Boy, that’s kind of bold.”&nbsp;But we were having a friendly conversation and I was telling him the truth and I wasn’t being nasty about it. I wasn’t condemning him. I was telling him something true about himself that he already knew. By the way, this is called the “back of the book”&nbsp;tactic. Everyone has a sense of guilt. I know that because I’ve read the book that talks about everyone.</p>

<p>I said, “You know it,”&nbsp;and he nodded his head. “Jesus has come to make it possible for you to be forgiven. God is responding to your guilt with an offer of forgiveness. Now, you can receive the forgiveness that He offers through Jesus, you can bend your knee, you can ask Christ to forgive you, and then follow Jesus with your life. Or you can ignore Him, shine Him on and turn your back on Him, and then you stand before God when you die, guilty for your crimes and you will have to pay for them.”</p>

<p>He paused for a moment. I said, “There is a lot to know but that is the beginning point. Everything else after that is learning. You learn how to apply this. How does this affect my life? How does this affect my marriage? How do I apply this in raising children? How do I apply this in my business? How do I understand these verses? How do I live before God? How do I know God? All of that comes and that is the lifelong process. But the basics, the fundamentals are very simple.”</p>

<p>That was my opportunity to tell him very clearly, very directly and very personally what this is about. Having removed his smoke screen, I answered a question he had about people and God and the person of Jesus. That’s the same for me and you and everyone else. That is the real question that makes all the difference in the world. That is the only ultimate question that matters.</p>

<p>He said, “Why is it that people reject that?”</p>

<p>I said, “Well, I think it really comes down to one thing. It is not cultural. I’ve been in 23 different countries and it seems the same everywhere. The questions may be different, influenced by the culture, but the issue is still the same. The issue is man’s heart. Men don’t want to bend the knee. They want to be captain of their own ship. They want to be master of their own fate. They don’t know who they are or where they are going, but they think they can run things pretty much themselves. They don’t want God sticking His nose into their business. They don’t want God sticking His nose into their bedroom. They don’t want God in their checkbook. They don’t want God in their business life. They don’t want God in their dating life. They don’t want God anywhere. In fact, the only time they want anything to do with God is when they want something from God, or they want to complain to God for something bad that has happened to them. That’s it. Other than that, get rid of God.”</p>

<p>That is the appeal of a lot of eastern religions. Low on responsibility, high on individual freedom. You don’t have to bend the knee.</p>

<p>I ended with this, “Why do people reject that? That’s a question you can answer yourself. I don’t know you. I don’t know what your background is. Only you can answer whether Jesus Christ is the most important thing in your life, whether you are seeking to love Him and obey Him with your life. I suspect not. If that’s the case, then my question to you is your question to me. Why do you reject Him?”</p>

<p>He chuckled and said, “I was asking myself the same question.”</p>

<p>Well, that’s the question and that’s the question that I left him with. I gave him a copy of Clear Thinking, gave him a business card, and I hope he’s listening.</p>

<p>If you are, I really enjoyed our talk together and I hope that it stays with you, and I hope you spend some time pondering the only question that really matters. Why don’t you bend your knee to Jesus Christ and follow Him? You can walk away from Him. You certainly are capable of doing that because God gives you that right. But there will be a day of reckoning and He will hold you responsible for your decision. I hope you make the right one.</p>
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title: Respect and Tolerance
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/27/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/respect-and-tolerance
content:
            <div> 
		<p><strong>When someone raises an objection to Christians evangelizing others using the respect issue, the phrase “respecting others” is a term of art in the relativistic system of things. Read how Greg responds when confronted with this issue.</strong></p>

<p>I recently had a conversation with a young lady who was distressed about something that I said after a talk I gave about being a good ambassador.</p>

<p>In that talk, I have a section where I relate a conversation that I had with a hippy back in 1974.</p>

<p>I use the word “hippy” nostalgically because, as I said, everybody during that time here in Southern California was a hippy. Some hippies had religion, and those hippies with religion were called “Jesus Freaks.” And that was me. We all had long hair, even me, which is hard to imagine now.</p>

<p>But I had talked about how I had really been unkind in the way that I communicated my convictions to this hippy back in 1974, and I have since reformed my ways, more or less. That was the point of the illustration. But I was clearly saying that the hippy’s rejection of Jesus was a mistake, and that his contrary view to mine was wrong, which was why I was evangelizing him.</p>

<p>The young lady who came up to me introduced herself as Shannon. I noticed a pendant hanging from her neck. It was a triangle, like a pyramid, and it had some scrollwork in it. Afterward, I found the same symbol on the Internet, and learned that it relates to Gaia and occultic issues. She introduced herself as a hippy, who shared similar ideas as this person in my illustration She wasn’t nasty or mean, but she began to explain rather matter-of-factly that she believed in respecting other people, and this was the concern that she had with Christians.</p>

<p>I immediately said, “I believe in respecting other people, too,” because I wanted her to know that that was part of my value system, too. But<i>you</i>need to know, and I certainly was aware of it in the conversation, that when someone raises an objection to Christians evangelizing others using the respect issue, the phrase “respecting others” is a term of art in the relativistic system of things. What they mean by “respect” is not simply that you accord the person with whom you disagree a significant manner of grace in the process of your disagreement, but that your act of disagreement itself is a violation of respect. For you to say that you are right and they are wrong is itself a violation of relativistic evenhandedness, and is intolerant.</p>

<p>I knew in about 15 seconds exactly what the complaint she was going to raise would be. I was not disappointed. She is willing to respect the views that Christians have about Jesus, God, forgiveness, and being born again. but why won’t<i>we</i>allow her to have her view?</p>

<p>We think her view is mistaken, and we want to persuade her otherwise. But in one sense, we do allow her to have it. That’s not enough for her because she wants us to adopt her own pluralistic, relativistic view towards religion. Her view is, you can have your own convictions, but with regards to other people’s convictions, you should be neutral, and this neutrality is the essence of tolerance.</p>

<p>I think it’s a virtue to be kind to people as a good ambassador, so I chose my words very carefully. I used her first name frequently. I tried to be gentle with my tone of voice. I didn’t interrupt her. I listened carefully. And then I used the Columbo tactic with the Suicide tactic, because there was a problem with her point of view. A practical Suicide was in play. But I wanted to be careful not to sound like “I gotcha,” because that would just have made her angry, and I didn’t want to do that.</p>

<p>So I said, “Okay, I think I understand your point, Shannon. Let me ask you a question. Are you suggesting to me that I should change my approach?”</p>

<p>The correct answer is yes, she<i>was</i>suggesting. In fact, she was more than suggesting. She was demanding. “It’s just part of fair play. I’m willing to let you have your view. Why aren’t you willing to let me have mine?” She wanted me to change my approach.</p>

<p>Now, at first, she said, “No, I’m not asking for you to change your approach. I’m just...” and then repeated her point, which was to change my approach.</p>

<p>So I asked her the question again..</p>

<p>“Okay, what you want me to do is to change my point of view about communicating my own convictions to other people, and adopt your point of view. How is what you’re doing right now with me any different than what I was doing regarding your point of view and the hippy’s point of view that you are objecting to now?”</p>

<p>She said, “No, no. You don’t understand. I’m not trying to change your point of view. I’m just simply saying that you shouldn’t be telling us what to do. You shouldn’t be acting like we have to believe that we’re wrong and adopt your view, and that you’re the right one. I’m here with my friends. I don’t believe in this stuff. I come because they’re my friends. They’re Christian girls and I’m glad for them. I rejoice for them. Why don’t you rejoice in my view, for me?”</p>

<p>She just covered the same ground again. And I asked the same question again, because the same question applied: “Are you trying to change my point of view here?”</p>

<p>“No, I’m not trying to change your religion.”</p>

<p>I said, “My religion is an evangelistic religion. Jesus left us with The Great Commission. Part of our religious view is that we tell other people, because we think other people need to hear what we have to say. They’re in danger. We’re concerned about them.. So are you telling me not to do what my religion tells me to do?” Once again, the correct answer to that question is yes, she was telling that to me, but she didn’t get it.</p>

<p>And so we started round three. I asked the exact same question, maybe using a few different words, because I wanted her to see that she was trying to change my mind. She was trying to tell me my religious view, taken as a whole, is false, and that I should adopt at least one aspect of her religious view--that is, her take of tolerance and her take of respect, and rejoice with her alternate view, just as she is willing to rejoice with aspects of my alternate view.</p>

<p>This time when I posed the question,, she rolled her eyes, gave a huff, turned on her heel, and walked through the group to grab her friends.. About 20 yards away, she turned around, and glared at me with angry, tearful eyes.</p>

<p>I just want you to notice a couple of things about this encounter. I have said in the past many times, that it is not my goal to make people angry. If I get mad, I lose. If they get mad, I lose. I don’t want to get people defending turf. I’m trying to put a stone in their shoe. But sometimes you cannot avoid it. Sometimes people get mad not at your method, but at your message. And I was not willing to back down from the truth that Jesus Himself spoke and taught His disciples to say after Him. And she never saw that she was doing the very thing that she was telling me not to do. She just didn’t get it.</p>

<p>Notice how she started her conversation. She started her conversation on the subject of respect, yet her response to me when she couldn’t get through to me was completely devoid of respect. As she stomped away, I said to the retreating Shannon, “It was nice talking to you.” And I said it genuinely, not in a sarcastic way. But she didn’t have any such parting amenities for me. She was just angry. Who in the conversation was acting with respect, and who was not?</p>

<p>This happens all the time. The so-called “tolerant” people act in the most intolerant way, even when the Christian who is the “intolerant” one is comporting himself with grace and kindness. When it became clear I was not going to agree with her, she treated me with scorn, hostility, and contempt.</p>

<p>Don’t be surprised when you run into the same thing. This is the face of relativism. Be ready for it.</p>
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title: What Is Christianity?
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-is-christianity-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>How do you make sense of the different denominations with everybody saying their way is right? Some distinctions to help you avoid quarreling about non-essentials.</em></p>

<p>There are two different issues. First, if Christianity happens to be true in the broader sense, how do you make sense of the different denominations with everybody saying their way is right? Second, what are the basics of Christianity?</p>

<p>With regards to the first question, some people like to overplay this issue. “Five thousand different denominations and everybody claims their way is right.”&nbsp;It is true that those who belong to a particular denomination do so because they think the details of the teachings in that denomination are accurate. Who would want to belong to a denomination they thought was teaching falsehood? But this question over-emphasizes the differences.</p>

<p>I found a very helpful metaphor for the person who likes to complain about all the denominations. There are many different baseball teams and each team has a coach. Each coach coaches according to a certain set of principles. Those principles are the ones he thinks are the best for producing the best team. He differs with many coaches with regards to that. He could say that his way is right, but the others think their way is right. The fact is, they are all still playing baseball and they are playing with the same set of fundamental rules. Within the context of those rules, there are a number of variations in emphases and strategies that can be expressed in the way the game is played, but the fundamental game is still the same. Christianity is much like that. There is a fundamental core of beliefs and teachings that identify any particular denomination as being Christian. That is why we call them Christian denominations. It may be that these denominations differ in regards to the finer points - points that may be moot or debatable.</p>

<p>For instance, how do you baptize a person? Do you dip them, do you sprinkle them, or do you fully immerse them? There are different points of view. People have an idea about what is right and they follow that in their particular denomination. Few would say that it really makes a critical difference whether you are dipped, sprinkled or immersed. Most would say that Christianity teaches baptism and that is something we all agree on. Even if you are baptized in a slightly different way, it doesn’t mean the baptism doesn’t count.</p>

<p>Most of the differences in denominations are similar to this kind of thing. Do you worship on Saturday or on Sunday? In the morning or the evening? Do you use instruments or no instruments? Should you have a choir? Should you teach topically or verse by verse? How do you baptize? What are your particular views about the way salvation is mediated by God? How about the Holy Spirit? Do you speak in tongues or not? These are more peripheral issues to the fundamental superstructure of what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity.”</p>

<p>When it gets to mere Christianity, the basics and fundamentals are rather few. All Christians agree on the basics and fundamentals. If they don’t, they are not called Christians.</p>

<p>By the way, this is what separates Mormons from Christians. Mormons disagree on those fundamental issues and that is why they have to be called something other than Christian.</p>

<p>My point simply is that the variations that people point to are somewhat smaller and incidental and are debatable issues. They aren’t the kinds of things that undermine the basic truth claims of Christianity as a whole. The fundamental truth claims of Christianity as a whole are rather basic. Christianity stands or falls on those things, and not on the parochial particulars.</p>

<p>What are the fundamental truth claims of Christianity?</p>

<p>The particulars of mere Christianity entail four basic things:</p>

<ol>
	<li>Your view of <a href="#God">God</a>,</li>
	<li>your view of <a href="#Creation">creation</a>,</li>
	<li>your view of <a href="#Man">man</a>, and</li>
	<li>your view of <a href="#Salvation">salvation</a>.</li>
</ol>

<h2><a name="God"></a>God</h2>

<p>Christianity teaches that God is a person. He is both personal and transcendent. In other words, He is personal in that He has a will. He has emotions, after a fashion. He can communicate. He can create. He can do personal activities. He is an individual. But He is distinct from His creation, as opposed to being the same thing as His creation. Therefore, He is transcendent. Yet, He is somehow personally involved in His creation so that He is not isolated or closed out from the universe. He doesn’t wind a clock and let it spin out. He is involved. So with regards to God, the fundamental Christian view is that God is a personal being who created the universe as something other than Himself, but who is involved with the universe, too.</p>

<p>The Bible teaches that God is triune. God is three distinct Persons sharing one divine substance. There is only one God existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.</p>

<p>You will probably notice by reflecting on this a little bit that we are already making some rather dramatic distinctions between Christianity and other religious viewpoints. For example, the notion that God is personal is in contra-distinction with many eastern world views that say that God is impersonal. To distinguish God from His creation is to distinguish theism from pantheism.</p>

<h2><a name="Creation"></a>Creation</h2>

<p>Pantheism says that God and creation are one. God is just all that is. God is the creation. God is the tree, the book, the river, the stone, and He is you and me and everyone else. Christianity would say that’s not an accurate view of the world. The truth of the matter is that God is distinct from creation and He existed before anything else did. He created everything else that does exist. That distinguishes Christianity from eastern religions.</p>

<p>Christianity is also distinguished from the philosophies of naturalism and deism. Deism would hold that God created everything but He just wound it all up and is letting it run by itself. He is not intervening in the affairs of men. Naturalism would say that the universe is a closed system of cause and effect. Whether God exists or not is irrelevant because we are stuck with the laws of nature. That is all we can really know and they are the only things that cause anything in the universe right now.</p>

<p>In that regard, Christianity would take exception with eastern religions, naturalism and deism because Christianity says that God is different from his creation but is involved with it. It also would take exception with the view of naturalism saying the only thing that accounts for anything in the universe is natural law.</p>

<h2><a name="Man"></a>Man</h2>

<p>Christianity goes further, though, in what it believes about man. What does the Bible teach about the nature of man? First, it says that man is different than all the rest of the creatures in the world. This would be over and against naturalism and evolution, of course, which teach that man is simply a highly- developed and well-evolved animal.</p>

<p>Man is made in the image of God and that has ramifications. He has a rational soul that has the capability of making moral choices, not just personal choices but moral choices, as well. He can be creative. He can do some of the things that God can do. Because man is made in the image of God, he has a different value than everything else in creation. Therefore, man is separate from the rest of creation in terms of his value. This is why justice is important to men. Man ought not be treated unjustly because he can reason morally, which allows him to make sense of something like justice.</p>

<p>These are things that follow from a Christian world view and don’t seem to make a lot of sense in an atheistic world view, or an evolutionary world view, or even an eastern world view. They seem to make sense in a Christian world view. That is why the notion of justice in our country is founded on Judeo-Christianity. That’s no accident. Justice relates to the idea that man is a moral creature, made in the image of God and ought to be treated justly.</p>

<h2><a name="Salvation"></a>Salvation</h2>

<p>There is more, though, that the Christian world view says about the issue of man. It isn’t only that man is made in the image of God so that he has a nobility about him, a beauty about him, and he can produce noble works. Something is also broken and twisted in man. He is not only noble, he is desperately fallen. He is broken in some way which is why he can do desperately evil things. Because he does evil, he is guilty before God’s tribunal and he is worthy of punishment. God has provided a way for man to escape the punishment and that method of escape comes through God’s mercy, expressed in forgiveness, made possible by Jesus.</p>

<p>Who is Jesus? Jesus is a man, but not an ordinary man. He is the incarnation of God Himself. He is a man who is fully God and fully human. As God, He accomplished something that no man could have accomplished - the salvation of mankind. That is why it is necessary for us to put our trust, faith and belief in the God/man Jesus Christ in order for us to be forgiven of our sins and be reconciled with the God who created everything.</p>

<p>That is basic, mere Christianity. A personal God, creating a world other than Himself. He placed man in the world - man who has transcendent value because he was made in the image of God. Man who also, because of his free moral choices, has become desperately evil and is guilty before God. Therefore, God made a way of man’s rescue by becoming a man Himself, taking the punishment upon Himself and making it possible for men to be forgiven.</p>

<p>If you take any of those elements out, you don’t have Christianity. You have some other religion. It may be a very nice religion, but it is not Christianity.</p>

<p>I will go further. I think the description of the world I just gave you is true. In other words, I think it truly fits the world as it actually is, therefore these other religions - whatever they may be and however nice they may be - are false at the point they depart from the particular world view I just described. Since these items are very fundamental ones, not the parochial particulars that we discussed earlier, any religion that deviates from any one of these critical foundational elements not only is mistaken on that issue, but must offer another alternative world view. A world view that, because they miss the fundamental, must doom the entire world view to error itself.</p>

<p>Some things are more important to be right about than others. I might be wrong about my view of baptism but it isn’t going to change my view of the world. But if I am wrong about my view of God, then everything else that is built upon that collapses. I think that is the case with other religions.</p>
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title: Relativism Self-Destructs
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/27/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/relativism-self-destructs
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Greg finds a prime example of confused morality on a popular TV talk show.</em></p>

<p>I’ve been following these two cases in the news recently about homosexuality and parenting. There was a young lady in Virginia whose young son was taken away and given to the grandmother because the court had ruled she was an unfit mother, partially because she is a lesbian. The other case involves Katherine Thomas whose child was given over to the custody of Kevin Thomas (no relation) who is a homosexual. She took the child and ran away. Both of these cases were discussed on&nbsp;Larry King Live&nbsp;this week, which I had an opportunity to watch. There was a lesbian who was arguing for the rights of homosexuals to be parents. I had an uncomfortable time with the show partly because there was another guest who I think was a Christian. I didn’t watch enough to find out which group she represented, although she was trying to make a case against this other woman based on something akin to natural law.</p>

<p>At this point, Larry King was really taking her to task for her notion of natural law because he pointed out his understanding that this woman did not choose her homosexual orientation just as the Christian woman he was interviewing did not choose her heterosexual orientation. Therefore, how could she possibly object to this other woman’s fitness as a mother? This poor Christian woman got herself a bit outmaneuvered by Mr. King as he offered this constitutional homosexuality argument, and he was a bit of a steamroller too. That’s when I turned the TV&nbsp;off because my gut started to churn and I wanted to jump in on the discussion and I couldn’t. So, I turned it off so I wouldn’t get all bent out of shape.</p>

<p>There was something that was really important going on in this discussion that was underlying this specific issue of homosexuality. What was really at the root of the discussion was the legitimacy of universal moral rules because the Christian woman was arguing for some type of universal moral rules that would exclude lesbians as unfit mothers because of the patent immorality of their lifestyles. She was having a rough go of it with Larry King, but that was her argument. The reason that those arguments have such a difficult time right now is because relativism is the reigning moral ethic of the day. Relativism is simply that every person should be allowed to make up their own morality and live by their own set of standards of what they think is right and wrong. Larry King was championing the homosexual agenda in some form or another, and this notion of relativism is underlying his entire argument. Who is anyone, least of all the Christians, to judge someone else and to force their views on someone else? That’s the discussion here in basic terms and it’s something you hear in many topics of discussion. We’ve talked about this before, but I want to focus on a few aspects of this relativism issue that were underlying what Larry King was saying and also show how the notion itself is actually destructive to Larry King’s own position and it commits suicide.</p>

<p>I was having breakfast this morning at the hotel where I stayed last night after giving an address at a crisis pregnancy center fund raiser. I got into a conversation with a young lady who was sitting next to me; both of us were dining alone. Her boyfriend was in a conference there at the hotel. Her name was Jenny and we began talking about relativism. I reflected to her, You know, if relativism is allegedly a good ethic--that people ought to allow others the liberty to judge for themselves what is morally good--then it seems to me that those who exemplify it to the greatest degree are the best kind of people. In this case if relativism is a good ethic, then those who manifest it most consistently and persistently, the person who is the most thorough-going relativist, is the person who is the most moral. That, I think, is a reasonable way of assessing ethics, by the way. This points out the utter bankruptcy of relativism as a moral ethic. If we apply that kind of rule to relativism we end up saying something rather absurd. We have a word in the English language for someone who is a thorough-going relativist, in other words, someone who is the most utterly committed to the notion that his ethic ought to be the thing that guides his life and others ought not make rules for him or her. What do we call a person who makes up all of his rules for himself? We call that kind of person a sociopath. If we encourage people to live out relativism consistently, what we produce is a sociopathic individual, a person who does whatever he likes, whenever he likes, without regard to other people’s concerns and well-being. This demonstrates how bankrupt relativism really is.</p>

<p>Now King doesn’t advocate moral anarchy. But my question to Larry King and anyone else who holds to this point of view is: On what basis can he hope to escape the notion of moral anarchy? And on what basis can he escape the conclusion that the best kind of person--if relativism is a good ethic--is the one who lives relativism out to its logical conclusion? The best kind of person is a sociopath? How can you escape it? Larry King’s views of morality are actually hostile and inimical to his own views of justice and morality that he is promoting on his program. Here’s why.</p>

<p>Relativism as a way of thinking actually ends up nullifying the concept of justice and fairness. Larry seems to be arguing for justice and fairness on behalf of a woman who has a child who is taken away, in part, because she’s a lesbian. That’s not fair. That’s not just. But think for just a moment what one has to aver if he holds to a notion of justice and fairness. Justice and fairness are concepts that dictate that comparable treatment be given to different people based on--now watch this--the common standard of what’s right. Justice and fairness dictate how people should&nbsp;act. How they are&nbsp;obliged&nbsp;to act. How they&nbsp;ought&nbsp;to act. Why am I emphasizing all of these oughts and shoulds and obligeds? Because all of those are words that have no meaning in the context of relativism because relativism says that there are no standards that are absolute for all people such that they ought to and they should and they are obliged to act in a particular way. Our notion of justice and fairness is founded on the idea that there are concepts that apply to everyone.</p>

<p>My point is that if we are relativists and if we believe that everyone ought to make up their own morality and live by that, then we cannot in the next moment take that back and argue that people ought to be just and fair in the way they treat other people because justice and fairness are notions that are the content of someone else’s particular morality. And relativism says that you cannot take that content and make it incumbent on some other person. If you do you violate relativism. So in arguing for relativism Larry King actually shoots himself in the foot when he says we ought to be just and fair and allow this young lady to live however she wants to live and not take her child away from her. This is another reason why relativism doesn’t work.</p>

<p>By the way, relativism is among the most bankrupt of all ethical systems and it makes it impossible for us to even have a meaningful discussion about morality. The reason why it makes it hard to even discuss morality and why all the discussions that have a moral flavor to them on programs like this are ultimately incoherent is because you can only have a reasonable moral discussion if you are comparing one morality to another morality, and you are arguing that one is superior to another. You can say that my moral point of view is superior for these reasons, therefore rationally one ought to adopt my point of view. The point is, when we have moral discussions we are arguing based on the notion that there is something that’s better than the other and here are my reasons and this is why you ought to change your mind about a moral system. If the fundamental truth of the matter is that all moral systems are equally good, that each person ought to be allowed to do what they want according to their own point of view, you have lost the foundation for having any meaningful discussion about morality.</p>

<p>If morals are entirely relative, there are no grounds for determining if any moral standard is deficient or unreasonable or unsound or if it’s better or if it’s barbaric or unacceptable. Those things are gone. In a relativistic world view, others’&nbsp;views--no matter how offensive to our intuitive sense of right or wrong-- can’t be critiqued, they can’t be challenged, they can’t be praised, and they can’t be faulted. And this is true of the opposing view that moral truth is absolute. If relativism is true then moral education becomes impossible and moral discussions become incoherent. Therefore, Larry King has no grounds on which to label as unjust anyone who “forces”&nbsp;their morality on him.</p>

<p>That’s something for you to chew on when you deal with relativism. I hope that these are things that you’re picking up when you watch shows like this.</p>
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title: Can God Kill the Innocent?
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/27/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-god-kill-the-innocent-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><strong><em>Why is it moral for God to kill innocent human beings when it is immoral for us?</em></strong></p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>I want to tell you about a conversation I had a few days ago with someone I chatted with on the phone about a question that came up in light of my earlier teaching and discussion on the issue of morality. My arguments last weekend as I taught, and I've spoken of many times on this show, and a little bit even yesterday about morality is that there are absolutes that relate to every human being and the absolutes come forth from the character of God. It doesn't matter what time you are in, or what culture you are in, or what circumstance you are in, these absolutes still apply to everyone who is in a morally or a relevantly similar circumstance. So there is a universalizable aspect to moral absolutes. They are applied universally.</p>

<p>The question was, "If morality was absolute, such that it doesn't change with time, circumstances or belief, and part of the absolute morality is that we ought not take the life of innocent human beings--especially innocent children--then how do I justify God taking the lives of innocent children at the original Passover when the angel of death came through and killed the first born in every family?" I have had a way of responding to that in the past, but as I was talking a new angle to this occurred to me, and it really helped me to understand the issue better so I want to pass it on to you.</p>

<p>This question, by the way, is not just an isolated, highly focused question about the Passover. It's really a much broader question stated in a different fashion. The broader question is asked much more frequently, "How is it that God could allow the annihilation of thousands and thousands of people, whether that annihilation was through war or natural disaster? In fact, how is it that God could even command such a thing in the Old Testament if it is immoral to take the life of an innocent human being? How does it suddenly become moral because God Himself commands such a thing?"</p>

<p>In answering this question, we have to be careful of what is called Euthyphro's Dilemma and the dilemma is: Is morality something that is above God, that God must conform to, or is morality something that is merely the whim of God, such that God can choose to do anything He wants and it's still called moral? In the first case, it would mean that there is a law above God that He is subordinate to, which mean He would be less than God. In the second case, if morality is merely that which God says is right and wrong, then it seems that moral things are merely arbitrary and God could change His moral viewpoint at His whim, and this would then reduce His morality to His power. God has the power to enforce whatever He wants, therefore whatever He wants happens to be the moral thing at that time. Killing innocent children is immoral now, but tomorrow He might change His mind. And because He is God, after all, He can make that a moral thing, at least for Him. So there is the dilemma because it seems like you lose both ways.</p>

<p>I think my answer to the woman who called me avoids the dilemma, and I think it's a fair response, but you have to think about it for a moment because it may seem like I'm trying to slip out of the problem. My answer is simply this: How is it that God can allow the taking of life of innocent people? The answer is that God, being the Author of life, has the absolute right to take life away whenever He wants to. Simply put, He gives life, He takes it away. Life is His to do with what He wants. He can give it, as the Author, and as the Author, He can take it away again.</p>

<p>For example, if you have a vacation day you can spend it at the beach, or you can spend it playing sports, or you can spend it just staring at the wall. If you choose to stare at the wall on you vacation day, you have no need to justify the action to someone else who thinks that staring at the wall is a foolish waste of time. They say, "Well, why are you staring at the wall? You shouldn't do that. You should do otherwise." Your response to them is, "Listen, it's my vacation, it's my time and it's my wall." That's it. You don't need to justify your actions when the execution of those actions are entirely and properly your prerogative, as it would be in how you use your vacation time.</p>

<p>In the same way, life is God's possession so God may do with life as He pleases. Now it may sound like I'm simply reducing God's morality to His power. He can do what He wants because He is God. That's not what I am saying because I don't think taking innocent life is patently, on the face of it, immoral. It is immoral when it is done by certain people, and not immoral when it is done by others--or Another.</p>

<p>I am merely stating that there are certain things which are clearly God's prerogative. Can God create something and then destroy what He's created? Yes, He can do as He wishes, though His wishes are constrained by His character so He can't wish something that is immoral or inconsistent with His character. And there is nothing patently immoral about the Creator of life taking away life. It's immoral for us because when we take life, usually we are exercising a prerogative reserved for God alone.</p>

<p>There are a few circumstances where He delegates that power to us, specifically in my view, capital punishment. We know this intuitively, folks, because when men seek to make life and death decisions for others, what do we tell them? We say, "It's not right for you to 'play God.'" Well, of course it's not right for man to play God, but it implies that&nbsp;<em>it is right for God to play God&nbsp;</em>, and that's my point.</p>

<p>My point is simply this: we intuitively know that man and God have different prerogatives. It is inappropriate for men to take innocent life simply because we are robbing other human beings of a God-given gift and we are not to play God in that regard. But clearly God can play God. It is His role and He is not robbing when He takes away what He has given in the first place. It is something that is under His appropriate control. He can take a life anytime He wants. Taking innocent human life is wrong for us, because taking life is God's prerogative, not ours, which means it is appropriate for Him to do it, not us, and He can dispense and retract life whenever He pleases.</p>

<p>Part of the problem here is that we want to hold God to the same standard of morality He holds us to, as if the standard is above us both and man and God are on equal terms when it comes to behavior. Whatever we can't do, God shouldn't be allowed to do either. But every parent knows that such an arrangement is just plain false. Parents aren't constrained by the same standards that their children are constrained by, and in the same way God has a different set of prerogatives as well. Life and death is one of His, not one of ours, and that's why it is appropriate for Him to make His sovereign decisions with regards to the disposition of life and death. We are not to do so, and that's the long and short of it.</p>

<p><strong>Sunday, July 24, 1994</strong></p>

<p>I want to add to a piece I did last week called "Can God Kill the Innocent?" The piece was in response to the question, "How can we morally justify God killing innocent children, or that He arranges for it, for example in the Passover, if God is a moral God?" My response was actually quite simple, but I want to add another illustration to make it clearer.</p>

<p>The point of my response was that God, who is the Author of life, also has the prerogative to take life any time He wants; and it's immoral for us to take life because we don't have that prerogative, but it's okay for God to do so because that's His job, so to speak. I mentioned that we have a common sense awareness of this because when someone begins to act frivolously or attempt to do so with regards to the taking of human life, or even in genetic engineering--trying to build life or make life happen--we say that one ought not do that because it's not right for man to play God. Well, if we say that it's not right for man to play God in taking human life or manipulating life, it seems to acknowledge that it's okay for God to do so because that's His job. It's God's job to do those things about life and death.</p>

<p>I want to add an illustration I think sharpens the point a little bit because it seems to suggest that there are some things that are immoral for us yet are moral for God and it's hard to make sense of that. My illustration simply is that we know this intuitively if we are parents. If we are not parents and we reflect for a moment, we realize that there are some moral rules that apply equally to all human beings and the moral rule does not discriminate between different human beings. That's the kind of moral rule it is. We ought not murder, and that doesn't change whether we are adults or children. Children ought not murder other human beings, nor should adults murder other human beings.</p>

<p>However, it is also true that there are things that are immoral for children that are not immoral for adults. Children ought to obey adults. Adults ought not obey children. It just doesn't work that way. So it seems clear from this illustration that there are some prerogatives that individuals have in life that changes the moral requirements of that individual.</p>

<p>By the same token, there are some things that are true for us as being moral because they are true for God. It is wrong to lie, because God is a truthful God and He doesn't lie because there is no deceit in His nature. And that moral quality then becomes incumbent upon us. So in a sense, the moral rule applies to both God and man although I want to be careful, you understand, when I say it applies to man that man has to answer to the rule. When I say it applies to God, I'm not saying that God has to answer to the rule. It only applies to Him in that He is a moral being who lives without deceit and so He exemplifies the rule, He is not beholden to the rule. The rule is for us. But in one sense, both God and man have the rule in their sphere.</p>

<p>However, what about the rule thou shalt not kill? That's a different kind of rule. That is a rule that applies to human beings because the taking and giving of life is not our prerogative so it is immoral for us to do that. But the taking and giving of life is God's prerogative, so it is not immoral for Him to exercise the same thing. He can give and take life at His whim, if that's what it amounts to, because He is God. Human beings can't do it because we are not exercising our prerogatives. That is solely God's prerogative. In the same way that parents have certain prerogatives that children do not have, God has prerogatives that humans don't have.</p>

<p>I think that is the key to unlocking this very tricky issue, at least it may seem so initially. How do we justify the taking of what seems to be innocent life in the Old Testament by God directly or indirectly through floods and earthquakes and things like that, or through the mediation of a go-between in the time of the Old Testament like the nation of Israel going into a country and killing all men, women and children? I think this speaks well to that issue.</p>

<p>God is the author of life, therefore He has the prerogative to take life whenever He wants. That is His prerogative. It is only immoral when human beings exercise prerogatives that are not theirs, that are God's alone.</p>
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title: Three Passions
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/three-passions
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Crucifixion is a cruel form of execution, generally reserved for slaves and rebels. Death is agonizing and slow, the result of shock, exposure and, eventually, asphyxiation. Hanging from a cross constricts the diaphragm, inhibiting breathing. The only way to get air is to release pressure on the arms by pushing up against the nails that pierce the feet, requiring continual effort that could go on for days. Exhaustion eventually overtakes the victim and he suffocates.</p>

<p>For Jesus, though, the pain of the cross pales in the face of a greater anguish. There is a deeper torment that cannot be seen, one no camera can capture and no words can express, more excruciating than nails pinning Jesus’&nbsp;body to the timbers, more dreadful than lashes ripping flesh from His frame. It is a dark, terrible, incalculable agony, an infinite misery, as God the Father unleashes his fury upon His sinless Son as if guilty of an immeasurable evil.</p>

<p>Why punish the innocent One? Nailed to the top of the cross is an official notice, a certificate of debt to Caesar, a public display of Jesus’&nbsp;crime: “The King of the Jews.”&nbsp;The cross is payment for this crime. When punishment is complete, Caesar’s court will cancel the debt with a single Greek word stamped upon the parchment’s face: tetelestai. Finished. Paid in full.</p>

<p>Being king of the Jews is not the crime Jesus pays for, however. Hidden to all but the Father is another certificate nailed to that cross. In the darkness that shrouds Calvary from the sixth to the ninth hour, a divine transaction is taking place; Jesus makes a trade with the Father. The crimes of all of humanity—every murder, every theft, every lustful glance; every hidden act of vice, every modest moment of pride, and every monstrous deed of evil; every crime of every man who ever lived—these Jesus takes upon Himself as if guilty of all.</p>

<p>At the last, it is not the cross that takes Jesus’&nbsp;life. He does not die of exposure, or loss of blood, or asphyxiation. When the full payment is made, when the last of the debt melts away and the justice of God is fully satisfied, Jesus simply dismisses His spirit with a single Greek word that falls from His lips: “Tetelestai.”&nbsp;It is finished. The divine transaction is complete.</p>

<p>You see, the Passion actually consists of three passions. The passionate intensity of God’s anger at us for our sins collides with the passionate intensity of God’s love for us, causing the passionate intensity of the agony of the cross to be shouldered by God Himself in human form: Jesus.</p>
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title: The Columbo Tactic
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/28/2013
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-columbo-tactic
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Using simple, leading questions is an almost effortless way to introduce spiritual topics to a conversation without seeming abrupt. At STR we call this the “Columbo”&nbsp;tactic, named after the bumbling and seemingly inept TV detective whose remarkable success was based on an innocent query: “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”</p>

<p>“Columbo”&nbsp;is most powerful if you have a game plan for the conversation. Generally when I ask a question I have a goal in mind. I’m alerted to some weakness, flaw, or contradiction in another’s view that I want to expose in a disarming way.</p>

<p>Other times the question is an open-ended “What do you mean by that?”&nbsp;delivered in a mild, genuinely inquisitive fashion. The general topic can be anything broadly related to spiritual things. Then begin to probe with questions, gently guiding the conversation in a more spiritually productive direction.</p>

<p>The follow-up question, “How did you come to that conclusion?”,&nbsp;graciously assumes the non-Christian has reasons for her view and is not just emoting. It gives her a chance to express her rationale (if she has one), giving you more material to work with.</p>

<p>Occasionally someone will quip, “I don’t have any reasons; I just believe it,”&nbsp;to which I ask, “Why would you believe something when you have no reason to think it’s true?”&nbsp;This is a genuine—and very appropriate—question. And it’s simple.</p>

<p>You may not always have an answer, but you can always ask a question especially a well-placed one.</p>

<p>That’s the value of the Columbo tactic.</p>
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