They Seem To Be Used Interchangeably

Hermeneutics: the art of analyzing and interpreting the meaning of text. This is a key element to discovering what it true according to the Bible and vitally important to developing Christian doctrine.

The title of this article, They Seem To Be Used Interchangeably, is often offered as an argument for accepting some types of doctrinal conclusions. That is to say that where a couple of different words are used in similar contexts, whether the two words mean precisely the same thing bears some relevance on determining the meaning of the passage.

There are two common examples from scripture. One is when “love” translated from two Greek words, “agape” and “phileo”, in the common American reference to them. Another example are the Greek words, “psyche” and “pneuma”, translated as “soul” and “spirit” in similar contexts respectively. In the “love” argument, the difference in doctrinal conclusions is whether or not to make a distinction between God’s love and the love of the world. In the “soul and spirit” argument, the difference in doctrine has to do with whether man is made up of three parts: “body, soul, and spirit”, or only two parts: “body and soul/spirit”.

One of the problems I have with making such sharp distinctions is that such argumentation ignores the subtle nuances of interpretation when words overlap in meaning but are not precisely the same. I’ll offer here a couple of neutral examples of what I mean.

I have used in the past a stark example of how words can appear interchangeable but mean completely different things. I drive a red Ford Focus. It’s a common car and gets good fuel mileage. That means that it’s relatively cheaper to purchase, maintain, and operate than many other cars. What if I say of my car, “My car is red.” What if I say again later that, “My car is a Ford Focus.” If you knew what the word “red” meant, but had no idea what “a Ford Focus” was then perhaps you might be inclined to conclude that “a Ford Focus” was the color “red”. Perhaps you thought to yourself and realized that the two statements might be referring to two different categories. You would be correct, but you could still get into trouble if you though to yourself that all Ford Focuses were red. Using such a stark example, I hope you can see how both are obviously silly conclusions.

I have a more subtle example that brings this observation to bear on the hermeneutical argument. In my town of Statesville, NC, West Front Street is an industrial development serviced by a train that runs between the industrial properties. I can say one of two things that mean the same thing. I can either say, “There is a train that runs along West Front Street,” or I can say, “There is a railway that runs along West Front Street.” Both statements refer to the exact same thing. All I have done is replaced “train” with “railway”, and both terms refer to the system of rails, cars, and engines that transport goods to and from industries along West Front Street.

But let me use those very same terms in another statement. I can either say, “We need to do maintenance on the railway, “ or “We need to do maintenance on the train.” These two statements mean somewhat different things. The first statement indicates that we need to go out and repair or renew some segment of the tracks on which the train runs. The second statement indicates that we need to repair or renew some aspect of the cars or engines that run along the rails. While these terms can be used interchangeably in one context, they refer to somewhat different things in another. I say “somewhat different” because the terms are still related.

It is for this reason that I hold this argument suspect in biblical hermeneutics. If I observe similar usage of different terms, I will observe how they are used. If there is sufficient reason to conclude in one place that they are referring to the same thing, then so be it. However, I won’t presume that two terms always meant the same thing in every context. For the examples I have given, I believe it is a logical error to conclude that different terms used as referents to the same thing in one case will always refer to the same thing in other cases, especially if a doctrinal conclusion hinges on it.

Is God In Time?

If you want a good radio program to listen to each week, you should listen to Greg Koukl’s program

produced by Stand to Reason. He addresses some of the current events from the standpoint of a Christian apologist and he is always thought-provoking.

It’s trite say that I don’t always agree with him on everything. However, it’s of a matter that I disagree with him that I want to address. This episode can be accessed here.

  

Click on the link at the bottom of the short article listing what topics he discussed to download and listen to the program. In the list, caller #3 brought up a topic about whether or not God is in time. Greg’s response is that he is in time. To support this assertion, he asked a question: “Does God count?” If you answer no, then you must affirm that there is something that God cannot do. This appears to contradict the omnipotent nature of God. If you answer yes, then counting requires time for that kind of sequential reasoning. The caller was stumped by the question at least for the duration of the call and Greg used the lack of response from the caller to elaborate on his point somewhat.

I know a little bit about time. I majored in physics and particularly excelled in special relativity. I also studied philosophy later on. From that perspective, I can say that philosophical considerations of time are burdened by the generalization of the flow of time as experienced macroscopically. That is to say that all of us as human beings living on the surface of planet Earth experience the flow of time in a generally uniform way. We make exceptions for time zones and the perception of time due to situational circumstances, but when an hour passes for me, it can be said that an hour passes for everyone else. When we think of a long time, we might think of a span of years out our lifetime, or even centuries or eons of history. As long as time has always passed the same as it has now, our imaginations can do a pretty good job of providing an accurate assessment of what happened. When we think of time, that’s what we think of.

So is God in time? Answering that question requires that we have an accurate concept of time. While the concept of time that I mentioned above is not entirely inaccurate and typically helpful in carrying out our everyday lives, it’s not helpful in addressing whether God is in time or not.

So we need to answer another question first: Is there a more refined understanding of time that we can know? The short answer is yes. The long answer involves discussing what that understanding is and how it pertains to the question of whether God is in time or not.

First of all, this understanding has not always been known. The implication is that this understanding is not important for having faith in God or understanding what is important about him. Previous generations didn’t need this understanding. The scriptures don’t go into detail about this although there is enough information to hint at the refined information while using normal experience to convey God’s relationship to a fallen creation as Creator, Provider, Redeemer, etc. We can know THAT God is involved with the world without understanding HOW God is involved with the world.

What we know about time is brought to us by testable and observable science. Now science cannot give us knowledge with absolute certainty. It can only give us knowledge that has a likelihood of being true based on a set of predetermined criteria. That which is testable and observable, like devising carefully planned laboratory experiments to test hypotheses, yields the highest likelihoods. That which is observable but not testable, like the social habits of gorillas in the wild, yields a high level of likelihood if conclusions are restricted only to what is observed. Many scientists make speculations based on non-testable observations or employ non-observable assumptions in the initial conditions of their experiments and call it observational science. Things like global warming or the age of the universe fall into this category. The likelihood of these speculative conclusions cannot be determined. Therefore we assign terminology such as “educated guess” or “professional assessment” to these kinds of speculations. The conclusion of someone trained in a field is reasonably more likely to be right about something than someone not trained in that field. However, I will reiterate, we have no way of measuring such rightness. In other words, we have no way of knowing for sure.

There is one other area of knowledge that we can use. This is theoretical science. Theoretical science uses the conclusions of testable science to develop either untestable conclusions or testable hypotheses. When a theoretical scientist adds a single element of speculation, (s)he crosses the line into speculative science. As long as theoretical calculations remain based solely on testable conclusions, the likelihood of the theory being true is fairly high. The knowledge of time that I will explore here relies exclusively on testable and theoretical science.

Parenthetically, as materialism is not provable, I am not given to it. It is assumed that the material world will behave in predictable ways. Otherwise, testable science is irrational. However, the material world can still behave in predictable ways while there is yet more to reality than the material world. During anomalous events where something other than the material world affects the material world, even testable science is unreliable. This is not germane to this discussion and I won’t discuss the ramifications here, but it bears mentioning in any discussion of testable knowledge.

From testable science, we know that time is affected by relative motion. The faster something goes relative to something else the greater the differential between their respective temporal frames of reference. That is if you saw a clock speed up to close to the speed of light, you would observe that the time on the clock slows down relative to the watch on your own wrist. There’s a paradox that will bake your noodle, to quote a popular movie: that is that if someone else were traveling with the clock, they would observe your watch moving more slowly than the clock they were with. Now, in one respect, this is merely an observational effect. That is to say that you both are actually experiencing the same passage of time, but the light from each of you takes longer to get to the other because of the change in distance.

However, there is an actual differential in the passage of time. In a famous experiment, synchronized atomic clocks were sent on flights in different directions. When they were brought back together, the time between them was different. Another observation was made in the engineering of the cathode ray tube. This tube was the display device that made the first television technology possible and has been used until the recent advent of LED, plasma, etc screens. An in the tube and electron gun is used to fire electrons onto a screen where pixels would be illuminated by the electrons. In order to aim the electrons at different pixels on the screen they would be fired through a magnetic field that would change their direction. The field had to be calibrated precisely. The engineers at first calibrated the field according to a uniform passage of time. However, it wouldn’t work. The electrons weren’t going where they were supposed to. They discovered Einstein’s theory of relativity and applied a transformation formula to account for a difference in temporal frame of reference between the moving electron and the stationary tube apparatus. It worked and has worked since. Therefore, some differential in time must be in play.

And it makes sense. It has been tested and observed that the speed of light is the same regardless of the difference in movement between the source of light and the measuring apparatus. This has become a governing principle of special relativity. That is to say that if you were in a car with the headlights on and you approached the speed of light driving forward, light would not build up in front of the car as you continually caught up with the light emitted from the headlights. As far as you could observe, light would continually move away from you at the speed of light. For an observer standing on the side of the road in the distance, light would reach them from the car at the speed of light, not at the speed of light plus the speed of the car. The only way to account for the constant speed of light is to adjust the passage of time for car and stationary observer. Time would pass more slowly for the car than the observer.

Now, this is difficult to think on in macroscopic terms because we simply don’t experience such dramatic speeds. But on a subatomic level, these speeds are normal. The movement of a subatomic particle is the energy that it has. If it absorbs energy and increases to a level of motion that approaches the speed of light it will appear to the particles surrounding it as though it slows down, or looses energy. Given the laws of thermodynamics, the energy cannot be lost in a system, which includes a single temporal frame of reference. So what happens to the energy? This question, in particular, pertains to electrons that whiz around the atomic nucleus with alarming speed. When energy of some sort is absorbed the by electron, it increases in speed such that it appears to lose energy relative to the rest of the atom. With the loss in energy, it drops to a lower orbital shell and emits a photon of light perpendicular to the plane of centripetal movement. The photon travels for a time according to the distance between the atom of origin and the particle the photon hits. The energy of the atom is absorbed by the receiving particle.

To theorize from the perspective of the frame of reference of the electron, the distance between the electron and the particle that its lost energy is transferred to is nullified. There is no photon to the electron. There is only the receiving particle. The photon is like an accountant that equalizes the difference between extremely diverse temporal frames of reference. In fact, the same formula that describes the difference between temporal frames of reference can also be used to describe the difference in distance between temporal frames of reference. At this point, time and distance become interchangeable.

This effect is extremely common. The light hitting your eyes as you read this is following this same course. The radio signals that you use in your wifi, your cell phone, and countless other devices in this world, are using photons of electromagnetic radiation that follow this same pattern of temporal accounting. There are so many particles of electromagnetic radiation crisscrossing your body at any given moment, that your experience of time is a tapestry of temporal extremes homogenized into a single macroscopic temporal experience. This is such an astonishing thing to consider that scientists have speculated that there is only one electron in the universe and shares its existence throughout all things by virtue of its extreme temporal experience.

In fact, on the most foundational level of matter, the difference between matter and energy becomes interchangeable. Energy, therefore, is a material thing. This is how we were able to develop atomic energy by converting matter directly to energy. At this point, matter doesn’t consist of a tangible substance as we would understand it, but it consists of form itself. For my non-materialist brothers and sisters, it consists of the very thought of God.

And so time and distance are part and parcel of the matter and energy contained within them. You cannot have time and distance without matter and energy. You cannot have matter and energy without time and distance.

I have written all that to arrive at this final conclusion. If God is immaterial, he cannot be in time. At the very least, he cannot be in time as we know it.

So what do we make of Greg Koukl’s argument in the form of the question, “Does God count?” There is a theological statement in the Bible that bears considering: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” While many theologians don’t consider God as Creator to be an attribute of God, I do. While creation adds nothing to him, I believe the very fact of creation to be absolute. As such, God as Creator is an absolute attribute. He creates because he is creative. And creation bears his attributes in many different ways so as to glorify him. He magnifies himself in creation. Creation doesn’t materially exist on its own, but every particle of matter and energy with the smallest iteration of time and distance is upheld by the mind of God. God doesn’t count in order to know. God counts in order to create, and what he creates is temporal. If this is true, Greg’s question refutes his implications. God’s counting is the source of temporal creation, not the result of it.

I hope you were able to follow along this far to the end of a longer article than I like to read, much less write. But I hope it has been well worth it for you.

Faith is Epistemic

“Faith is epistemic.”

So I said at a recent introductory meeting for a men’s theological reading group at my church. As simple a statement as it is, to fully expound on it would take more time than our brief hour warranted with much more ground to cover than just the idea that we require faith to understand theology (and that theology likewise informs our faith).

Even secularists can understand the role of faith in epistemology 1. (Although the author is a Christian, his article is published by Princeton.) That is, a faith in the continuity of the universe and our perceptions that is experiential at best is necessary for apprehending empirical data. Read the article for details.

Paul Manata explored a similar model 2 with regard to the Christian Faith a few years earlier.

My previous article likewise discussed the nature of faith as being informed, rather than by the notion proliferating in the popular philosophy of these days: “blind faith”.

The model of epistemological faith that these articles discuss is the need for an apologetic of one’s epistemology that necessarily requires a modicum of faith. But the need for faith is also required to understand information that has already been apprehended.

I discussed many of the principles I have discovered in a couple of series of articles within the past few months that can be found in the following articles:

Understanding the Bible

Glorifying God: Leveling the Theological Battlefield
Examples of this principle:

• Glorifying God: Leveling the Free Will / Election Battlefield 
• Glorifying God: Leveling the Cessationist / Continuationist Battlefield

I won’t rehash the discussions here, but if you are interested in how faith is necessary to know God and understand him better, the articles referenced here may serve a good primer.

In the future I plan to discuss more in depth the formation of faith by knowledge obtained by faith. however, that discussion will be part of a much larger series investigating an apologetic for Biblical hermeneutics.




For now, I will only offer an example as to how faith is both informed by and informs our knowledge of God.



My wife is leaving next week for a trip to Uganda and Kenya to help with a Christian mission as well as visit some friends from our church who are currently serving in Kenya. She approached me last month with the sense that she should go against all other considerations. I'm wary about such subjective "leading of the Holy Spirit", but I'm also quickly supportive of any desire to go and serve given spiritual fitness and giftedness to do so. Without any support up front, we took savings money and purchased tickets. My wife sent out a support letter expressing her need for expense monies. Enough came in that the money we took out of our savings account was reimbursed and all trip expenses are virtually covered. Such it is that we glorify God in faith exalting him for his provision to do his work.


When we were first married, I planned to continue in school such as to finish a degree. Degrees have a way of opening doors and my intention to go into some sort of ministry was the driving factor. However, no jobs were available where the school was and I was subsequently resigned to find a job in our hometown where I work to this day. God didn't provide what we needed for us to live in such a way that I could continue my direction. Should I say that God is not faithful? No. Rather, my faith informs me that God provided for me not to continue my formal education. Although I continue to study on my own, I realize that God has no apparent use for me in this way. My faith, therefore, is not in God fulfilling my desire, but in my seeking to fulfill God's desire. I can understand that Paul's admonishment to "earnestly seek the higher gifts" is not a promise that we will recieve those gifts.


And so in either case, God is glorified. We are not. God is revealed. We are not. God's purposes come to fruition. Our purposes must be changed to agree with his. This is the foundation of Christian epistemology. This is how we know God.


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1. Park, Joung. "The Role of Faith in Epistemology." Revisions. Princeton, 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
2. Manata, Paul. "The Epistemology of Faith." The Epistemology of Faith. Triablogue, 30 Aug. 2007. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.

If Postmodernism is True...

If postmodernism is true, then I can't know what they believe.

If postmodernism is true, then they can't know what to deconstruct.

If postmodernism is true, then why do they even write books?

If postmodernism is true, then how do they know that I don't understand them?

Since I know what postmodernists believe, they seem to be clear on what they are deconstructing, they write books propagating their absurdity, and they think they know that I don't understand them, then we know a few things:

• Postmodernism is false.
• Postmodernists are justifying untruths that they want to be true or denying truths they don't want to be true. (Since postmodern deconstruction seems aimed at ethical considerations, squirming out of moral obligations is almost certainly the purpose of postmodernism.)
• The opposite of naturalistic, evidential science (which is rationalistic) isn't supernaturalism (which is also rationalistic), it's postmodernism (which intends to deconstruct rationalism).

Watch this panel discussion to see Christian philosophers Sarah Geis, Larry Burtoft, Doug Groothuis, and David Mathewson deconstruct postmodernism.

Glorifying God: Leveling the Cessationist / Continuationist Battlefield

This is an article that was introduced by this article and provides one of two examples for it.

I also want to mention that I won’t address every single issue relating to the larger theological debate, but to demonstrate how glorifying God opens the door for understanding his purpose in the theological tension.

There has been debate among Southern Baptists recently regarding the activity of the Holy Spirit among the people of God. In some ways this is a simpler debate than what I addressed in the previous article, but the tension is still there.

The core of the debate stems from a difference in the way we understand how God speaks to us. Continuationists point out that the Bible never directly says that the charismata (miraculous gifts) were supposed to cease. This is a fair observation. It’s also a similar argument non-Trinitarians make that the Bible never mentions the Trinity. However, since we see that the Bible still teaches the Trinity one aspect at a time, it is viable that the Bible could teach that the charismata have stopped. Nevertheless, it’s a somewhat more tenuous position than the Trinity. It’s only a degree of rationale removed from that used by Harold Camping, for example, to promote his unique (and now rather obviously incorrect) eschatology.

Nevertheless, Cessationists make this case. But their issue has an additional rationale that is related to how we know what is to be included in the canon of scripture. In other words, if God is causing people to speak in tongues that they don’t know or prophesy the future in such a way as to direct people what they are supposed to do, that means that we should have some material today that should be added to scripture. So there’s a presuppositional argument for making the connections in scripture that they do.

There is far more to the debate than this. To be fair, Continuationists don’t think that prophesy today should be included in scripture and Cessationists don’t think that all charismata have utterly ceased.

One big argument that Cessationists make is that Continuationists enable false claims. My first observation here is that it doesn’t falsify the Continuationists to point out their abuses. However, there should be no claim to charismata without serious discernment to ward of false claims.

That is where glorifying God comes in. False claims are exclusively a result of seeking to glorify the bearer of the alleged charismata (and, in the case of some professional charlatans, to line their pockets) rather than glorifying God.

How does this work out?

For Cessationists, legitimate charismata happen. Given that the goal of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ by revealing him to us, that is precisely what such charismata will do. Outside of this result, the charismata should be suspect. For Contiuationists, since the charismata will only result in glorifying Christ through leading us to his known revelation to us, much of what passes as charismata are not legitimate.

If our focus is turned upon the glory of our Lord, Jesus Christ, in his work on the cross and his divine sovereignty over us according to the revelation that we have by virtue of the same Holy Spirit who inspired it, then there is no debate. The false bearers of charismata should be duly rebuked by both Continuationists and Cessationists alike while legitimate charismata should be received with gratitude by both for pointing people to the true Christ of the Bible.

Glorifying God: Leveling the Free Will / Election Battlefield

This is an article that was introduced by this article and provides one of two examples for it.

I also want to mention that I won’t address every single issue relating to the larger theological debate, but to demonstrate how glorifying God opens the door for understanding his purpose in the theological tension.

Many people are familiar with this old debate. The debate is an attempt to answer a very specific point of theological tension. That is, there are two truths taught in the Bible that appear to logically contradict one another. One truth is that God sovereignly elects his followers. That is to say that God chooses those who will follow him and acts to enable their faith. The other truth that is taught in scripture is that people are morally culpable for their sins. The contradiction is that if God is the one who chooses who will spend eternity with him, how can he hold the rest responsible for their sin since he didn’t give them the same opportunity? It seems to be a contradiction of fairness. It’s not fair that some people get paradise for all eternity and others have to suffer for all eternity if they have no say in where they are going.

There are a few approaches to answering this apparent contradiction:

Mitigate the doctrine of the sovereignty of God by saying that the Bible really doesn’t mean what it seems to mean when it indicates that God does the electing.
Try to explain the apparent contradiction philosophically. There are some philosophical principles implied in the Bible and some that we import unwittingly from the culture. Inasmuch as the philosophical principles align with the Bible, this isn’t a bad approach. When we import philosophy from outside the Bible, we usually end up with some error.
Acknowledge that each are true, but write off understanding them as an impossible task and miss the direction God intends for us to take.
Acknowledge that each are true and struggle to understand why God has revealed them to us. This is the option I pursue.

Fortunately, the Bible addresses this issue directly, although many in the first option camp earnestly interpret this passage differently. Paul, in his letter to the Romans (9:19ff), asks this very question. His answer, in the same way that God answered Job, is to appeal to the sovereignty of God. In other words, give God his glory.

So how does this work to level the battlefield?

The personal observation that we have is that we make decisions on our own. Whether this is entirely accurate remains to be seen. To keep this consideration simple, however, let’s make our decisions black and white: we have before us to choose to do good or to choose to do bad. If we choose to do good, by definition we choose to do God’s will. If we choose to do bad, then we choose to do our own will. If this is the case, then we have two different types of decisions we make: God’s will or our will.

Even the choosing must be categorized. If we choose to do God’s will, then our choice is according to the will of God. If we choose to do our will instead of God’s will, then the choosing is according to our will.

So if we do any good thing, we must give God the glory by not taking credit for it. If we do any bad thing, we must confess that we are sinners and assume the responsibility for our sin. Yet the confession is according to the will of God, for we are commanded to do this. And so by our confession, instead of bearing the responsibility for the sin, it is imputed to Christ who bore it on the cross.

What happens when we start with the glory of God and analyze the theological tension accordingly is that instead of a tension we find the purpose for the tension. The tension was only there in the first place because our audacious tendency to focus on ourselves. The issue isn’t whether we make one decision or another, but whether God is ultimately glorified. When we understand that this is the purpose for the tension in the first place and focus at last on the glory of God, the tension disappears and we receive the understanding of our Creator.

Glorifying God: Leveling the Theological Battlefield

I haven’t written much lately because I’m planning an extensive series on Christian epistemology. The term “epistemology” refers to how we answer the question “How do we know…?” I don’t intend merely to give a defense of the Bible. Rather, I intend to investigate how we know that the Bible is true, how we know our understanding of the Bible is true, and discover the presuppositions that undergird that investigation. This is an extensive study that links the nature of God and creation with his revelation to us. I also hope to make it accessible to the average reader. The hard part is to linearlize it so that I can make an index that organizes it so the relationships between different areas of thought and study can be understandable.

In many ways, this short series is related to that series. There is a link between the purpose of revelation and our ability to know what it means.

Let me ‘splain:

Theology matters. If you get God wrong, you end up worshipping the wrong God. There are two, even three, categories for analyzing the importance of theological doctrines. Dr. Al Mohler calls this Theological Triage. The difference between the first category and the other two is a matter of salvation. Doctrines that one must hold to be true in order to know one is saved are in the first category. All other doctrines are in the second and third categories.

There are many who would dispute finer points of what should be included in the first category and what should be included in the second and third categories. For example, orthodox Christians hold that the diety of Christ should be in the first category, but there are denominations that claim that Jesus is not God who would dispute that the deity of Christ belongs in the first category. Very liberal theologians might argue that the only thing in the first category is a claim to be a Christian. They would claim that one could even deny that there is a God at all (much less that he sent a Christ for any reason) and still be a Christian. As ridiculous as that all seems, it only goes to show that it’s important to make a case that theology matters.

There are those that tend toward liberal theology for the reason that we all just need to get along. They would say that glorifying God by getting along is better than actually knowing what god we are trying to glorify. Therefore, they intentionally ignore the fundamental differences between the One True God and the plethora of false imitations.

So thoughtful Christians debate the finer points of who God is by virtue of his special revelation to us in the Bible, through a particular denomination’s traditional interpretation, the general revelation of the created order, and our intellectual ability to sort it all out. Most people miss the fact that they have cultural blinders on when they theologize. With all this to muddy the waters, it’s no wonder that we wind up with theological differences as we try to reconcile apparent theological tension.

Some people even dismiss theological tension either by chalking it up as a divine mystery or claiming that there is no way that we can know. They say that we just have to accept it “by faith”. While it’s true that there are things about God that are unfathomable to us now, special revelation was given to us precisely so that we could know and understand what has been revealed.

I’ve largely been dissatisfied with the historic debates, even when I agree wholeheartedly with one side over another. First, they tend to focus on differences rather than similarities. Second, opposing categories of doctrinal thought are in opposition precisely because they hold different fundamentals in primacy over the rest.

It’s that second reason that I'm addressing in this article. So I’ll have two areas of theological debate to use as examples. And I will replace both with the fundamental that all things: revelation, the process of sanctification, the ordinances/sacraments of the Church, the fellowship of the Church, etc: all things exist to glorify God.

As this article is getting long so I’ll break the couple of examples into separate posts.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Acting on the Bible

If you read the Bible as though it were true, you must act on what the Bible says.

Let’s say you purchase a new hair dryer. On the label is a warning not to use the hair dryer in water. I can’t imagine how anyone would use the hair dryer while they were taking a bath, for example. However, something happened to someone to warrant putting a warning label on hair dryers. So you read the label warning you not to use the hair dryer in water. You say, “Aha! It’s dangerous to use the hair dryer in water.” It doesn’t seem reasonable that you would then get in a bathtub full of water and try to dry your hair.

However, we too often do that with the Bible. We read what the Bible says, agree with its admonitions, and then promptly go out and do something other than what the Bible says. When that happens, we make it difficult to understand the Bible better because it would be detrimental. Isaiah, when faced with a vision of the living God in Isaiah 6:5 said, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips…” If too much were to be revealed to us at once, we would be undone. Isaiah came close.

As we act on the admonitions of scripture, we are strengthened to receive greater understanding by virtue of the Holy Spirit who indwells all believers. When we fail to act on the scriptures, our minds are cloaked by God, even those who are unbelievers, so that we don’t understand. Paul wrote this to the Romans in the first chapter of his letter to them:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things...

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done."

Therefore, although you have knowledge of all the God has revealed, disobedience will result in a failure to understand what you know.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Reading with a Changed Heart and Mind

This will take some explanation. As I stated in the previous article, none of us approaches the Bible as a blank slate. One way we do this is that each of us understands things by using systems of categorization. These systems also include rules for assigning things to each of these categorizations. Our systems of categorizations are learned from the things that are normal to us: our families, our friends, the media we give our attention to, the teachers we have, etc. Whenever I talk about “sensibilities”, this is typically what I mean.

Let me give you a simple example of what I mean by categorizations. Let’s say we have a bag of M&Ms. Can you think of some categories by which we can separate these M&Ms? The most obvious is by color. So we can separate them into piles of red, blue, green, orange, brown, etc.

But there may be another way of separating them. Now if the bag we have is just opened from the store, it probably only contains one kind of M&Ms, but if not, then there may be different kids mixed in. What I’m talking about is the difference between plain, the ones with nuts in them, or the ones with pretzels in them. Those are different categories than colors.

Are there any other kind of categories? Imagine the factory where M&Ms are made. They make M&Ms by some kind of lot number, I presume. That’s a category that few people think about. Or I would assume that there are some kind of quality control standards. Hopefully all M&Ms are in the category of those M&Ms that will pass inspection. But realistically, there are probably a few that do not pass inspection. Each quality standard is a different category against which each M&M must be tested. Each will either be in the category “pass” or the category “fail”.

But we don’t usually think about those categories. Nevertheless, it is a very important category for M&Ms. If you want the quality of M&Ms that you are used to, you should hope that each bag that you purchase has only M&Ms that are in the “pass” category of each quality standard.

But it’s the same way with the Bible. We approach the Bible at first with the most obvious sets of categories. As we read the Bible, we might pick up on the fact that there are sets of categories for examining our lives and thinking about God that we have never thought of before.

Too many theological debates are a result of different theologians using different sets of categories for understanding the Bible. All theological debates will be cleared up when God brings each of us to understand the set of categories we should have been using all along. When investigating different views, it is a sign of theological maturity that we are able to identify the sets of categories theologians use. When this happens, we can easily understand why theologians often debate so.

Identifying a theologian’s system of categories is also important for discerning the truth of a matter. Too many theologians are disingenuous. Such discernment allows us to see a theologian’s internal deception.

But also, as we develop Biblical systems of categories, our understanding of the Bible will deepen. So as you read, look for ways of thinking about things according to how they are presented in the Bible in ways that you haven’t previously considered.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Reading As Though It Were True

None of us approaches the Bible as a blank slate. On one end of the spectrum, some of us have a set of beliefs that we are intent on holding as true no matter what evidence is given to us to the contrary. On the other end of the spectrum are those who are willing to ditch their beliefs for any new thought that comes their way.

There is a balance between these that we can term “cautiously open” to changing our thinking. The question is on what basis we are cautiously open:

We might be cautiously open because we want to believe anything that will make us the most comfortable. Some atheistic naturalists like to accuse theists of merely fulfilling some evolutionary need to believe in a higher power. The fact is that we all have some need to feel good about ourselves and our lives.

We might be cautiously open because we want to justify some lack of moral culpability. We just want to sin and we don’t like anything or anyone telling us that our particular sin is immoral. If anything tells us we can commit that sin, we are willing to believe it. If anything tells us that we cannot commit a particular sin we are willing to deny it.

We might be cautiously open because we want power over other people. Like or not, these kinds of people exist in this world. They are willing to propagate beliefs among others that will enslave them ideologically and are willing to stifle beliefs that will free them ideologically. Most people are not very good at this. Some people are exceptionally good at this.

Parenthetically, we proclaim a gospel that sets people free from sin without denying that things clearly are sinful. It’s no wonder that some oppose this message with both the contention that something is not a sin and the good news that we can be free from it.

But the way we are to be cautiously open to changing our beliefs is if we desire truth and are willing to accept that we might not currently know the truth as fully as we can. This begs the question that the Bible is an accurate source of truth. The key to knowing is if we are honest about our sinful motives. If we are, then even a cursory reading of the Bible is sufficient for demonstrating that it is more honest about our own motives than we are. Peter testifies as much when he answers Jesus in John 6:68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” The Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well testified in John 4:29, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” This is the same reaction that we find in ourselves when we read the Bible and are honest about our own sinful motives.

Therefore, we cannot understand the Bible accurately if we do not read it as though it were true.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Investigation

As I pointed out in the last article, the Bible wasn’t written in our cultural context. It was written by and to a people long ago with a different culture. They had different practices and routines, different political situations, and different popular philosophies. No doubt as we read the Bible we will encounter many references to things that are unfamiliar to us.

Also, as I pointed out in the previous article, reading the Bible over and over will result in noticing things we didn’t notice before. In early readings of the Bible, we will have a tendency to skip over things that we don’t recognize when they appear in the midst of things we do recognize. As we read through the Bible, it is likely that new things will strike us as something we need to investigate in order to understand the passage better.

Fortunately, we are blessed in these days to have rich resources for investigating these kinds of things. There are Bible handbooks, Bible dictionaries, commentaries, etc. I recommend checking more than one. Different aspects of information might be available in the work of different scholars.

Don’t be alarmed if you find that they don’t agree. You will be able to get a fuller view of uncertainty in scholarship that way. If the observation is related to a theological point of view, you will be able to see why something either supports or undermines your own point of view and you will be able to refine your thinking.

So you grow more deeply in your understanding as you gain more information on what you are reading. You also grow more deeply in your understanding as your own previous beliefs are challenged.

Hiding Place: Deliverance from Sin or a Prison

Linda

Years ago I was friends with an elderly lady who sang baritone with me in the choir at one of the base chapels at Camp Lejune, NC. Her name was Linda. She died over a decade ago.

Linda’s parents were German musicians who were killed in a train accident just before WWII. Linda spent the next few years in a Catholic school in Berlin during the war. She would take bread to the French prisoners of war.

She invited me to a thanksgiving dinner one year where she had some Austrian friends from the old country coming to visit. The dinner was lovely and I enjoyed the cultural experience. After her friends left, Linda sat down with me and told me of the old days. She told me how she saw the propaganda of the Third Reich and how deeply it influenced her thinking. She also told me how wrong it all was, but how hard she struggled against her indoctrination. She told me how she knew it was wrong to hate Jews, but that she wrestled with her training as a young child to hate them.

She told me other things as well about how brutal some of the Allies were, particularly the Russians. She told me how she came to America and took speech lessons to remove the German accent, How she married and remarried. How evil her second husband was and how he was spending time in Leavenworth prison. Even colonels with spotless records can commit crimes. She told me of her hidden son who lived, yet as little more than a spectre, after a serious automobile accident cause by his use of drugs.

In all of this, she left the Roman Catholic Church and found solace in the gospel of grace. A military wife, she stayed close to the base and the transient families she knew there.

Her story is an echo of many. I’ve been fascinated with how such deceit as what was propagated by the Nazis can affect entire populations of people. Last night I watched a documentary following the children and grandchildren of Hitler’s top men as they fought against the dark legacy of their infamous fathers. It reminds me of the warnings in Exodus where the iniquity of the fathers will be visited on their children and grandchildren. Although their descendents did not commit the crimes of their fathers, they bear the weight of guilt among those who survived their father’s sins.

I’ve also watched Lore recently. It’s a German movie about children of Nazi parents who fled across country to their grandmother’s house when their parents were taken prisoner in the Allies’ invasion of Germany. Many of the reviewers noted that the kids acted like brats. Frankly, they aren’t any worse than the kids Hollywood portrays. It’s odd that we are quick to judge Nazi kids while giving the kids on, say, Home Alone, a pass.

(Note: Being a foreign film, Lore isn’t rated. It should be rated R. There are adult themes and images. Beware if you plan to watch this.)

But I compare this also to the 2009 portrayal of the Diary of Anne Frank. My favorite portrayal was the 1980 version. After watching this one, I see how filtered the 1980 version was. The 2009 version showed a bit more the bratty side of Anne Frank. Are victims less sinful than their murderers?

On the one hand, we would note that a murderer committed a crime. It is no crime to be victimized. However, the nature that rises up to fuel a murderer is shared by all people. We are all products of a fallen world and subject to the dubious information that colors it darkly. It is perhaps more apparent to those with murderous parents, such as the offspring of Himmler, Goering and Goeth. They are more able to recognize the evil in their own hearts because of the astonishing sins of their fathers because of the difficulty in coming to terms with sins they did not commit. For that matter, think of the Jews born in captivity during the exile in Babylon and Persia. They didn’t commit the sins that sent their parents into exile, yet they must bear the burden of those sins.

For others, who have lived in relative peace by parents who are relatively decent people, sin seems to be more of an abstract thing. In this case, fairness becomes the arbiter of sin. It is easy to believe that which is fair is good and that which is unfair is evil. It is easy to arrive at the conclusion that being fair makes one a sinless person.

So it is hard for such people to understand that God is not fair. Jesus, the only truly innocent man, paid the price for the sins of evil people. That’s not fair. It can only be fully understood by people who truly see the depths of their own sin, whether that sin has resulted in action or harbored only in the mist of dark thoughts and desires.

Linda knew the sin she was capable of and fought against it while all around her swarmed the stench and decay of death in the sins of others. Let us not treat slavery to righteousness as a prison when we are hidden from our destruction as Anne Frank and her family was for a time. Let us regard our hideaway in Christ soberly and not despise it. Let us not be brats in the Body of Christ.

5. I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6. Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.

7. You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah (Psalm 32:5-7, ESV)

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Additive Reading

One key area where education practitioners test students to indicate development in verbal skills is reading comprehension and retention. If everyone were the same, they wouldn’t need to test students to see what their current abilities are. The fact is that none of us have perfect comprehension and retention. When we read something for the first time, we don’t fully apprehend its meaning. I have email replies from people asking questions that I answered in my original email. I know for a fact that they didn’t get it.

The Bible is no small tome. Its material is typically referentially anachronistic from our point of view. That is to say that it wasn’t written by or to people with our cultural sensibilities. It can be difficult reading and it can be easily misunderstood if care is not taken to understand what is written in the various contexts.

It is common for pastors who have been well trained and have already read the Bible through many times to read a passage over and over before they develop a sermon on it. If pastors have a need to do this, how much more do the rest of us need to read passages multiple times in order to understand the full import of the meaning?

The reason is because there is a principle where reading some over again allows us to notice things that we missed or don’t remember the first time. Unless we re-read the Bible many times we cannot claim to have much of an understanding of it. Some people may require fewer readings to understand it deeply. Others may need to read the Bible more in order to understand it more deeply. Regardless whether your comprehension and retention is better or worse than others, we all need to read the Bible over and over again to understand it more deeply.

“Not Everyone Agrees” – A Bad Argument

There’s an argument that I hear or read more often than not. It’s used typically by people who have a theological view that differs from the predominant view. A discussion will arise about some point regarding the predominant view and someone will step in with a view that disagrees with the predominant view. After a couple of arguments or explanations are bandied back and forth, if the person lobbying the opposing view senses that the argument is going badly for them, then they make this argument to give some sense of legitimacy to their position.

Now they don’t typically state the argument as a dry proposition.  Usually it will be worded something like this:

“All I’m trying to say is that there are people who disagree that this biblical passage means what you say that it means.”

Or:

“My point is that not everyone agrees on this theological issue.”

The argument that is insinuated is that the case for the legitimacy of a position is made by trading on the fact that people don’t agree. This argument assumes that the disagreement doesn’t include heresy. It also fails to make the observation that only one mutually exclusive truth is possible. Therefore, only one view can actually be true.

Now there are areas of theological disagreement that are legitimately subject to uncertainty based on different hermeneutical presuppositional structures. That’s a mouthful for most of you so I’ll break it down. Hermeneutics is the area of theological discovery that applies principles for understanding written text. This is where you investigate the writer and the audience, the sentence structures, the cultural context, figures of speech and idiomatic expressions, etc. When using these kinds of principles you often find a variety of possible meanings depending on how you apply the principles. Some passages are simply clearer than others. In order to understand more difficult passages, it helps to use facts learned in clearer passages to shed light on which meaning is most possible. As the Bible is studied and various facts understood, it helps to arrange these facts in logical associations to see the larger truth. Some facts depend on other facts and ultimately a small set of related facts will form that foundational truth for how you understand the rest of the Bible. This is your presuppositional structure.

Ideally, a presuppositional structure is formed by hermeneutical principles consistently applied to the scriptures. Unfortunately, most people will have a set of ideas already in place as their initial presuppositional structure and they will apply hermeneutical principles in such a way as to reinforce it rather than to change their presuppositional structure as consistently applied hermeneutical principles contradict their presuppositional structure. So where one presuppositional structure is suggested by the Bible, many people end up with different presuppositional structures.

Let me pick one of the less-controversial conflicts to use as an example. The Bible doesn’t say that the pets we have here in this world will be resurrected in the next. In fact, as far as the Bible is concerned only humans will be resurrected. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be animals of some sort in the hereafter. The Bible simply doesn’t focus on this. It’s not important. This is a consistent way of approaching the Bible. I’m looking at what the Bible views as important. I have pets that I enjoy as companions but I don’t expect to have them with me for all time and it’s not important to me because it’s not important in the Bible.

However, it is important to some people. They are particularly attached to their pets. Instead of letting the Bible guide their thinking on this, they import ideas that are foundational to understanding the Bible so that the Bible ends up meaning what the Bible never teaches. These ideas are things like, “God just wants me to be happy,” “Fluffy and Fido make me happy,” and “God gave me Fluffy and Fido to make me happy.” Therefore, they conclude, “God will give me Fluffy and Fido in heaven to make me happy.” So they read the Bible with this logic in mind as to how they should apply hermeneutical principles to understand the Bible. Since they don’t see a passage that specifically says that pets won’t be in heaven, they dismiss the passages that when taken together logically won’t allow that conclusion.

So let’s say there’s a discussion about animals in heaven. These passages are brought up. But the person who holds the pet-friendly hermeneutic is upset because people are saying that pets we have today like Fluffy and Fido won’t join us in the resurrection and be our companions for all time. They jump in with a contention against this. When the consistent hermeneutic is explained, they retreat to the argument I spelled out in the beginning of this article.

Believing that Fluffy and Fido will be resurrected isn’t specifically a heretical idea. It’s a bad one and an erroneous one, but we know that we have some church members who insist on these kinds of errors for their own reasons.

But there are people who espouse heresy who resort to that same argument. That’s why it’s important to point out that it’s a bad argument. Just because people disagree within the realm of orthodox Christianity doesn’t mean that both are true. Only one is true. The other is in error although not in a bad way. Dr. Al Mohler has developed his theological triage and wrote about it 8 years ago. It’s an extremely helpful tool for analyzing theological error.

Just because people can disagree on one level that carries some legitimate uncertainty doesn’t mean that people can disagree on another level with the same legitimate uncertainty. If the Bible is clear about a matter, it’s not open for debate within orthodox circles. It’s clear heresy. Today orthodox Christians have the sensibility that no one is going to be killed for being a heretic. That unfortunate historical approach in itself should be considered heretical. However, it is academically and pastorally necessary to point out mistaken beliefs among people who profess to be Christians. That includes pointing out the error in this kind of an argument.

Consider Your Witness

There is a good discussion on Presuppositional versus Evidential Apologetics on a recent Unbelievable podcast. You can listen to it here. (HT: AOMin)

Kurt Jaros speaks on the evidential position and Scott Oliphant speaks on the presuppositional position. They discuss alternate terms for the positions and sometimes use them. The alternate term for Evidential Apologetics is “Natural Theology”. The Alternate term for Presuppositonal Apologetics is “Covenant Apologetics”. I mention that so you won’t be thrown off if you dive into the middle of it without listening to the whole thing.

One thing I wanted to point out: At just past the 1 hour mark, 1:03:00 Jaros asks, “How do we know?” He’s asking the epistemological question about how we convey with certainty the assertions regarding our Christian theology over and against other beliefs. The argument Jaros is making is that presuppositonal apologists still need to provide evidence to back up their assertions.

Oliphant’s response is that God can use all kinds of things, but that doesn’t make those things true or epistemologically revealing. Evidential apologetics are still constrained to probability. Jaros understood the response well enough, but I wanted to unpack this briefly.

Neither Evidential nor Presuppositional apologetics are convincing unless the Holy Spirit opens someone to the truth of the gospel. Now, my non-Reformed friends will disagree with this. That’s what makes evidential apologetics more appealing to the non-Reformed.

But in either case, the most convincing presentation isn’t evidential in the classical sense, it’s testimonial in the legal sense. That’s why our witness is of the utmost importance. Those of us who have the Holy Spirit can testify as to his work in our lives. We can testify as to the living work of Christ through the Holy Spirit today.

It’s not like a science experiment where we can say that this is most likely to be true, but like a court case where we take the stand as eyewitness testimony to the living God. Yet we do not make our case to the jury as it were. We call out fellow witnesses to recognize their own testimony of the work of God in their lives. That is the truth that Presuppositional Apologetics upholds. Consider, therefore, your witness.

From Star Trek "Into Darkness" to God's Revelation: Into Light

I’m watching a special on the History Channel that’s investigating physics from observations of the latest Star Trek movie. One statement was made that I think relates to understanding God. One of the contributing physicists made the comment that we don’t know why time dilation exists. This isn’t entirely true. He didn’t qualify this comment, but let me investigate it briefly and then turn to what this means for understanding God.

The speed of light is the speed limit of the universe despite theoretical speculations of warp fields and wormholes. The reason why is related to the production of electromagnetic radiation, aka “light”. Light doesn’t have mass. We can say that light transfers energy. More accurately, it is a pattern of energy manifest in multiple spacetime frames of reference. I’ll keep it as simple as possible:

Energy is transferred from particle of matter to particle of matter when those particles come close enough for their respective systems of forces to influence each other significantly. When a photon of light is produced, the particle that produced it approaches the speed f light and suddenly loses energy. That energy is transferred to the object the photon eventually strikes. As the particle that produced the photon approaches the speed of light in the process, the distance between it and the object that will eventually absorb the photon that is produced is diminished infinitely within the frame of reference of the originating particle. This is called distance contraction and is part and parcel of time dilation. So as far as the source particle is concerned, it hits the receiving particle and thus loses energy.

To the outside observer, no distance ever closed in. What happened is that time dilated for the originating particle and distance contracted. Once the energy transfer happened, the distance snapped back to “normal” and its temporal frame of reference became relatively aligned once again with its surrounding objects. But the distance contraction is represented to the outside observer as a photon and the observation of the originating particle hitting the receiving particle is represented as a difference of time related to the distance. This is the speed of light.

The reason we have time dilation is more easily thought about with a simple thought experiment. If Bonnie and Clyde drive by in their automobile and fire a gun down the road, the velocity of the bullet relative to Bonnie and Clyde is roughly the same as if the vehicle were not in motion. To someone standing by the side of the road, the bullet whizzes by at the velocity of the bullet if the vehicle were not in motion plus the velocity of the vehicle.

But light is different. If it were night time and Bonnie and Clyde had their headlights on, the velocity of the photons being emitted from the front of the vehicle would be precisely the speed of light. To the observer on the side of the road, the velocity of the photons would also be precisely the speed of light. So what happened to the speed of the vehicle? That’s where time dilation comes into play. There is a time differential between the vehicle and the observer on the side of the road that accounts for the difference due to the velocity of the car. That’s time dilation.

Now add to this that a vast spectrum of electromagnetic radiation is passing around us constantly in all directions. We perceive a relatively uniform temporal frame of reference. However, it is anything but uniform. On the subatomic level, time is extremely volatile and changing. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to perceive anything around us. The chemical processes that make our bodies work couldn’t happen. We wouldn’t be able to see the world around us. There would be no life.

Where to go from here? I could talk about creation and how this applies to developing cosmologies. I could talk about how this isn’t often applied very well when people consider the various speculations regarding the beginnings of the universe. But I want to make another observation regarding God’s revelation of himself.

What I’ve written above in very simple and short order is understood by very few people, including some physicists who are interviewed by TV shows. The reason is that most people find it acceptable to relate to and survive in the world with the mere macroscopic perceptions available to us. Most people couldn’t tell you how a simple radio works, but they know how to use one.

God revealed himself to us in a very practical way. In this way, even many intellectually challenged people can grasp the basics about God. However, the depth of information included is enough to make the brightest among us wrestle with some of the issues he revealed to us. Most people are able to function quite well with the information God has provided although some concepts are difficult and present apparently conflicting concepts.

The fact is, God knows the range of intelligence of the creatures that bear his image and planned on giving us all enough to warrant a knowing faith as well as keep us learning about him for a lifetime. The Great Commission is more than simply leading someone into the Kingdom. The Great Commission is more than simply teaching a new believer the basics. We are all to be disciples until we pass from this world.

When Being Wrong is Okay (For the Time Being)

One thing that is often pointed out by non-Christians is how Christians have so many different interpretations of the Bible. First of all, such observations usually lack the recognition that we agree on so much. Second of all, such observations fail to take into account that Christians typically recognize that understanding comes over a period of time for Christians.

The law of noncontradiction is true. That is, something is not what it is not. Regarding beliefs, some people forget this simple law of logic and want to claim that truth values are relative to individuals. The reason is because they want to believe what they want to believe without being scrutinized for it based on some larger discoverable objective truth. But the law of noncontradiction indicates that where we have more than one person who believes mutually exclusive things, only one of them can be right (and possibly none of them are).

The only conclusion is that most of us wrong about something, and are certainly ignorant about many things. The Bible takes this into consideration. There are certain core things we need to get right and we have the testimony of God’s revelation as well as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to guide us. Because of the guilt of our sin, we cannot bear to understand the truth fully. Knowing this, the Holy Spirit of God guides us gently, revealing things as we are able to handle them.

This is why Paul tells us not to violate the conscience of people who believe that we should not eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols (1 Cor 8). Who is right? Should people be allowed to eat meat sacrificed to idols or should they abstain? Read the passage. I won’t go into it here. But I will make these observations:

1. People abstained from eating meat sacrificed to idols because they worshipped those idols before they understood the truth of Christ and partaking of that meat was a burden to their consciences. However, not everyone had that problem. So, we are allowed to be wrong in ways that benefit us.
2. However, we are still wrong. God doesn’t want to leave us there. He wants us to grow in our understanding. That means putting of childish things as Paul also tells the Corinthians in chapter 13. So this cannot be used as an excuse to believe whatsoever anyone wants.
3. Therefore, we need to be humble to the fact that we need to improve our understanding. We cannot have pride in the belief that we have it all figured out or to deny that there is any understanding that is greater than what we currently understand. If a donkey can inform Balaam, then God can use anyone to enlighten us.

The Problem With Knowing There Is No God

Steve Hays posted a link on Triablogue to a book reviewon the Denver Seminary site for James Spiegel’s The Making of an Atheist.

After reading the review, I had an observation and realized that there was an epistemological problem with atheistic naturalism:

I've always said that I don't believe in atheists. I don't think they exist, despite anyone's profession to be one.
In a world where too many Christians are too afraid to point out what the Bible clearly says about disbelief, I appreciate Spiegel's Biblical observation that unbelief is rooted in a desire to self-justify personal sin.
Aside from this, I've just checked around because I've never thought of this before, but it occurred to me that atheism has no positive arguments. A quick web search of "positive arguments for atheism" led to some sites that claim to have positive arguments, but they were anything but positive. All the arguments I see have to with disproving God. That would seem obvious given the label "a-theist" except that if it were possible for this universe to exist without God, there must be an epistemology that someone could verbalize for it that doesn't include a reference to something that doesn't exist.
The best argument I found so far is that naturalism predicts the universe... except that it doesn't. The argument doesn't prove a lack of God. It merely assumes that the universe functions in a predictable way and further assumes that it follows that if the universe is predictable that God could not exist (which is also begging the question of a negative argument and therefore employs two healthy fallacies).
But this only demonstrates that if there is no God we wouldn't be able to know it since our ability to know anything is bound up in what is naturally predictable. If there is a God, then the only way we could know it is if he reveals himself to us in a way that is naturally unpredictable (miraculous) - which he has.

A Response From an Embarrassingly Ignorant Young Earth Creationist

I was listening to Dr. William Lane Craig’s recent podcast where he was commenting on a discussion between theistic evolutionist, Francis Collins, and atheist Richard Dawkins. You can listen to it here.

At 7:51 Craig said, “…over 50% of evangelical pastors think that the world is less than 10,000 years old. Now when you think about that… that is just hugely embarrassing… This is just scientifically nonsense and yet this is the view that the majority of our pastors hold. It’s really quite shocking when you think about it.”

Well, I’m not a pastor, so perhaps I’m not quite as embarrassing. But what I find embarrassing is Dr. Craig’s apparent ignorance regarding the epistemic problems with scientific conclusions. He says two things that demonstrate some incoherence in his understanding of revelatory epistemology:

At 3:54, “I would agree… that you ought to exhaust the naturalistic hypotheses first before opting for a supernatural hypothesis.”

At 13:24, “With regard to Christian faith and practice I would say you need first and foremost to do your biblical hermeneutics responsibly and objectively. You need to not interpret the Bible in light of modern science, but to interpret it according to what its original author and original audience would have understood. That’s the first and foremost task is to interpret the Bible objectively and correctly. Then the second task will be trying to integrate what we learn from the Bible with the worldview of modern science so as to have a sort of synoptic worldview that takes into account all that we’ve learned, not only from divine revelation, but from God’s revelation in nature – in the book of nature. And then we will build a synoptic sort of worldview that makes the best sense of the data.”

It’s this incoherence that makes Dr. Craig a prime example of something Dr. K. Scott Oliphint, professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, said in a recent interview. It’s worth listening to, which you can do here.

Continuing with Dr. Craig’s podcast, he goes on to say at 9:35,

“What would hurt the Bible would be if the Bible intends for us to believe that the world is only 10,000 years old and therefore comes into conflict with the best evidence of modern science. That’s what would hurt the Bible. What would not hurt the Bible would be if it could be shown that the Bible doesn’t take a position on how long the universe has been around. Then it wouldn’t be damaged by scientific evidence, or the geological age of the earth, or the age of the universe.”

Then Craig knocks Francis Collins for believing in theistic evolution. What difference does Craig see in the science that he feels supports an old earth and the science that is used to support evolution? From a scientific standpoint, they are equally unscientific if for no other reason than they have not been observed and cannot be tested. Those aren’t the only things wrong with the science, and I’ve already pointed to problems with the science behind the age of the earth in previous articles.

He continues in his incoherence by agreeing with Bill Nye (the Science Guy) that we should not teach our children about a young earth, but he believes that we should teach our children about the controversy surrounding evolution:

At 15:45, “I would not disagree with [Bill Nye] that we ought not to teach our children that the world is only 10,000 years old. I think that that’s not something that the Bible imposes on us, and it’s not supported by modern science, so I would agree that… we shouldn’t teach that to our children. But we should certainly teach them that there is a Creator of the universe who is God and who brought the universe into being and designed it in such a way as to support the existence of human life. And with regard to how human life and biological complexity came to be on this planet, I think we need to teach the children the controversy; teach them the various views that are held today so that they are conversant with the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution and can discuss it even more intelligently than their peers with regard to its pros and cons. And then teach them a range of alternatives that are available for the objective Bible-believing Christian today.”

But I want to go back and explain a little further how his comments about biblical hermeneutics are incoherent. If you take the first chapter of Genesis at face value without considering any modern scientific thought, you must conclude that days it refers to are solar days. If we look at the scientific investigation used to date the earth as very old, every last conclusion regarding the age begins with the assumption that the earth is very old. The scientific discovery is employed to determine how old. You can’t do radiometric testing on rocks without assuming the ionic percentages that made up the rocks at the time they were formed, which you assume was millions of years ago. You can’t construct a geologic column unless you assume that the layers were deposited over millions of years. Therefore, in order to use the conclusions of scientific endeavors such as these to controvert a plain reading of the biblical text and substitute a figurative reading of it, you have to assume that plain reading is inaccurate a priori.

Scientists are just as adamant that macro-evolution is just as certain as an old earth. The only reason Craig can say that the science behind old earth is beyond reproach where macro-evolution is not is because the text of the Bible can more easily be subverted to agree with an old earth than it can with macro-evolution. Perhaps another reason he gives is found is this comment:

At 8:37, “…the young people in their congregations [of pastors who hold the view that the Bible teaches a young earth] are convinced that the pastor is right that the Bible teaches this, but they are convinced by their geology teacher or the earth science teacher that the world is older than that, that means ‘give up the Bible and walk away from the Christian faith’.”

So does Dr. Craig mean that we need to be old earthers so that our young people won’t leave the church? It’s not clear that he means this, but I see no good reason for saying it otherwise.

Finally, it seems that Craig misses the fact that the modern scientific industry is founded on an assumption that the Bible isn’t true.

At 3:08, “But here he takes the rather cheeky position that the reason that they opt for the multiverse is to avoid a Creator which is, in fact, what Stephen Hawking has actually said in his book, The Grand Design.”

You can’t harmonize a Biblical worldview with conclusions that are founded on an assumption that the Bible isn’t true. There is a way to do science that recognizes the veracity of the Bible. This is where science was historically rooted. But the modern scientific academy rejects any but science that makes naturalistic assumptions. Craig acknowledges this on one level, but then tries to mix it with how to understand the Bible on the other. This is the most egregious error in his thinking.