Christian Intellectualism and Apologetics Research

The Bara Initiative

2012-01-26T08:51:00.003-05:00

I do not routinely update this blog, but I wanted to make it known that as of recently I, with a fellow Summit colleague, have begun a new social media ministry called 'The Bara Initiative.' Check it out by clicking HERE or on the image below:

I Have Moved

2010-11-10T21:20:00.005-05:00

I will no longer be publishing on this particular blog. Moving into M.A. work at Asbury and taking up a more professional position with both Ratio Christi and Summit Ministries, I thought it best to leave this particular blog behind and move on to begin a new one. I hope that you will follow me to my new site and will appreciate a more accessible layout, access to papers and videos I and others have written, and just a fresh new blog in itself. As many of you are aware, this blog has served in a lot of ways as my introduction into the field of Christian thought, apologetics, history, and theology. A lot has been developmental thought, and some of it I would no longer stand by, though I see even that in a positive light. This new site takes a more qualitative and professional approach.

http://theologyfromthexside.wordpress.com/

Or

My Youtube Blog, Theology From the X Side

Thank you for reading my stuff here, linking to me, encouraging my work, and exploring areas of Christian thought alongside me. I hope you will continue to do the same at my new site.

If you are just stumbling upon this blog I hope that you will find what's here to be useful and that you will follow me to the new home.

In Christ,

Randy

Designer Argument 2.0 - RC Featured Article of the Month

2010-09-16T10:51:00.002-05:00

New article on Teleology and Design from Dr. Curtis Hrischuk (Ratio Christi NC State) and Dr. Fuz Rana (Reasons to Believe)

http://ratiochristi.org/index.php?id=1207

The Kingdom of God

2010-05-18T19:16:00.002-05:00

As I get ready to revive this blog this summer, I want to begin with a quote.

"The prayer, 'May Thy Kingdom come,' is literaly, 'Let Thy Kingdom come'--we consent to its coming; we allow it to work in and through our surrendered lives, we put ourselves at the disposal of the Kingdom, we are committed soul and body. Let Thy Kingdom come! That Kingdom is ready to burst into our individual and collective lives with cleansing and unifying dynamic. It is at our doors. It is within us. It awaits our consent-the taking down of our barriers." - E. Stanley Jones

Brit Hume: Tiger, Turn to Christ

2010-01-04T11:42:00.002-05:00

On the Divine Images

2009-12-28T19:14:00.003-05:00

New article published:

On the Divine Images and the Catholic Church

Book Review--The Way to Heaven: The Gospel According to John Wesley by Steve Harper

2009-11-11T01:03:00.002-05:00

Randall G. Hardman. Review of Steve Harper, The Way to Heaven, The Gospel According to John Wesley (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003).

There is a coherent and foundational theology that lies behind the framework of the Holiness Churches of Methodism, Wesleyanism, and Nazareneism. It is the oft-ignored theology of John Wesley (1703-1791). I found it worthwhile to provide a review of Steve Harper’s excellent book The Way to Heaven: The Gospel According to John Wesley.

The Way to Heaven is a book for layman about a layman theologian. This is not to say that Wesley was a layman that had a hobby of theologizing. Developing critical and well-founded theology was his life and profession. Rather, as Harper emphasizes repeatedly, he was a practical theologian and a fellow pilgrim. He was not a systematic theologian or an armchair theologian—he was one for the people. This fact sets the tone for the rest of the book. Unlike many other theologians, Wesley is one that the reader feels comfortable with from the start.

Establishing this fact in chapter one, Harper continues on to deal with several of Wesley’s main topics of interest: original sin, prevenient grace, converting grace, transformation, growing in grace, perfectionism, glorification, and the Church. A correct understanding of these topics leads one to a correct understanding of who Christ is and what Christianity is all about.

For Wesley, the doctrine of original sin could not be forgotten from true evangelism. What good was it to call for repentance if there was nothing that actually separated us from God in the first place? God loves man supremely and it is because of this love that he did not leave us to the overwhelming destruction that sin has on every aspect of our reality. As Harper notes, “At its base, sin is broken relationship”(23). But, as Harper notes, Wesley “never spoke of sin’s nature or its effects without speaking of the remedy” (28). Harper title for the chapter, “Original Sin”, was a little misleading, for while Wesley spoke of original sin with conviction, the chapter highlights Wesley’s thoughts on sin in general. Continuous sin is, of course, a result of original sin, but we cannot speak of them as one in the same. They are different, for one emphasizes how we came to fall into captivity and the other emphasizes what we continue to do in captivity. But other than this slight misrepresentation of the topic in question, Harper does an excellent job illustrating where humans are and why we need the grace that is to follow in later chapters.

Prevenient Grace and Converting Grace cannot and should not be confused, for they represent the heart of the redemption process. Prevenient Grace, according to Harper, is the “starting point” (33) of salvation. It is God’s “prior and sustained action in our lives” (ibid). Thankfully Harper makes it clear that Wesleyan doctrine does not hold to “complete” freedom of will, as many understand it. Prevenient Grace is what allows us to even remotely see God, but Wesleyanism stands starkly against Calvinism in that it allows for individual free choice in salvation in response to God’s will: “Wesley taught that we can be held accountable only if we have genuine power of choice…through grace we can be truly responsible” (37).

Converting grace, by contrast, is the grace placed inside of us by God that changes and transforms us by knowledge and conviction (44-45), belief and repentance. It is this grace that actually transforms us. Transformation brings forth justification (“what God does for us”), new birth (“what God does in us”), and initial sanctification (“what God begins in us”). This breakdown is one of the highlights of Harper’s work, for it separates and explains these three processes that are often lumped in together or confused with one another. Harper states, “Justification gives us a new standing before God. New birth gives us a new power to deal with sin and live for Christ. And initial sanctification begins the authentic development of Christlike character and provides a base for the Holy Spirit to purify and empower our lives” (61).

Harper’s discussions of growth in grace and Christian perfectionism come next, filling in the linear analysis of Wesleyan theology presented in the book. Harper’s discussion of the former is probably the weakest part of the book for it becomes a little confusing in his outline. Harper’s helpful system of “First…Second…Third…” becomes tangled by several subdivisions that have their own “First…Second…Third…” This does not mean that Harper’s theological summaries of Wesley’s views are confusing in and of themselves—they are simply outlined in a confusing manner.
Whatever one comes away with from this discussion there is no doubt that Harper’s next discussion on Christian perfectionism is one of the pillars of the book. One can hardly approach Wesleyan theology without encountering the idea of Christian perfectionism. Perfectionism, as Harper correctly describes, is often tainted with straw man definitions and ideas. This is usually a misunderstanding of the word “perfect”, but it is important that we know that Wesley never held that Christians could be perfect in actions. Harper notes, “The heart of Christian perfection is in the will, not in one’s actions. Actions vary, while intentions can remain constant” (84).

Another strong point of Harper’s book is in his discussion of glorificationism. Harper does not shy away from the paradox of the kingdom in Wesleyan theology. Wesley believed in a present, but future kingdom—an “already, but not yet” kingdom of God. It is in this context that Harper discusses glorification. Glorification deals with “the way to heaven.” It is, in a word, eternity. Harper notes four things about the kingdom in Wesleyan theology: 1) It is already here; 2) The kingdom is active, not neutral; 3) Not everyone will accept the gospel, though everyone has the opportunity to do so; 4) The positive aspects of the kingdom completely outweigh the negative aspects (salvation over hell). It is in this sense that Harper truly describes consummation as Wesley saw it.

Finally, Harper examines the Christian mission of the Church and the individual. As opposed to some theologians, Wesley did not end with “speculative theology”—he was a “folk theologian” (121), emphasizing that theology is not strictly for armchair theologians but for the common man. It remains useless if the church and the individual do not run themselves as organisms in the body of Christ.
Harper’s analysis of Wesley’s theology is overall a remarkable layman guide to a layman theologian. It turns out to be quite systematic of analyzing his theology working from original sin to glorification and the response of the Church, whereas Wesley was, ironically, non-systematic. I would recommend it to any man, Wesleyan or non-Wesleyan for a quick buffer of his theology. Harper exhibits a mastered knowledge of it and succeeds, through helpful linear organization, in explaining doctrines and dogmas that are often ignored or misrepresented.

Philemon -- Paul's Objection to Slavery

2009-11-08T14:01:00.002-05:00

Philemon is one of the most fascinating letters in the New Testament for it truly exhibits not only the theological genius Paul brought to the table but his care for social justice in the context of evangelism. It is a letter written specifically to Paul’s friend and “fellow worker,” Philemon, but it is also written to Apphia, Archipus, and the rest of the congregation. The reason for this becomes clear later on.

Paul’s letter begins with the greeting “Grace and peace to you…” thus emphasizing the Christian-Jewish way of beginning a letter (rather than the common Hellenistic “Greetings”). It is obvious that Paul and Philemon have had a close friendship in the past. His language of “partnership” (v 6, 17) and brotherhood testifies to this. It is because of this closeness that Paul feels comfortable writing to Philemon about the situation: Onesimus, Philemon’s slave, had run away to Paul, had become a Christian, and was going to be sent back. The genius of Paul rings through in this letter as he uses pun and mind games with Philemon in order to assure Onesimus is free. There are four specific tactics used by Paul in this letter:

Paul obviously has some sort of status over Philemon for he says, “…I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do…” (v 8). Paul is probably exercising his apostolic authority over Philemon, not necessarily some social status. Paul had no legal authority to command Philemon to release Onesimus from his slavery. But if, as some have argued, Paul brought Philemon to Christianity, then he had some sort of spiritual status as an apostle and a pastor over him. Paul does not command Philemon to set him free—rather, he implores him through freedom of will: “I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love” (v 9); “…that I appeal to you for my son…” (v 10); “But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary” (v 14). This tactic is extremely interesting for Philemon knows Paul’s wishes and must be forced to either deny him those wishes and potentially ruin their friendship or set Onesimus free. Paul ends his appeal by stating, “Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask” (v 21) and he earlier says, “…not to mention that you owe me your very self” (v 19). In other words, Paul is basically saying, “I’m not going to tell you what to do…but I know you know what is right and I’m watching.”

Paul’s second tactic in his desire to have Onesimus released is by writing a private letter to a public audience. As stated above, Philemon was the recipient of the letter but it was addressed to the whole church. Paul ensures that this will be delivered to the congregation by 1) Having a host of other disciples with him at the time of writing (v 23) and 2) Assuring Philemon that he will be coming to stay at his house in due time (v 22). If the congregation did not receive the letter, Paul would certainly find out. To be sure, while the rest of the letter uses the word “you” in the singular, verse 3 and verse 15 use it in the plural and is therefore meant to secure its intent for the “whole church.” There was no escaping the eyes of the congregation on Philemon and his choice.

Paul’s third tactic is to emphasize that while he could command Philemon what to do, he chooses to “appeal” to him out of love and as an “old man and prisoner” (v 8-9). Paul attempts to hit a nerve in Philemon by speaking of kinship: “I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains” (v 10). In verse 12 Paul states “I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you.” According to scholars the Greek word for “heart” (splagchna) was a popular synonym for child (Meeks, 97). Paul also used, as was common, sibling language for his relationship to Philemon (v 7, 20) and therefore, because Onesimus became a Christian, sibling language for Philemon’s relationship to him (v 16). Onesimus, when he returns, will come back “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.” This puts Philemon in a rough position, for he would need to keep a spiritual brother in bondage, something Paul obviously saw as contrary to the gospel.

Paul’s forth and final tactic is to put himself in Onesimus’ situation. He states, “So if you consider me a partner [cf. v 6], welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me…I will pay it back” (v 17-19). Onesimus is forced to either set Onesimus free or basically lose the “partnership” between the two by essentially denying Onesimus’ spiritual value. By not accepting any sort of payoff by Paul, he denies Paul his importance and keeps Onesimus out of spite. In turn he also denies Paul his appeal and desire.

By the very nature of the letter, Onesimus must have been set free. The Pauline tradition we see in Colossians 4.9 probably testifies to the fact that Onesimus was set free. He may be, as tradition holds, the Bishop of Ephesus that Ignatius wrote to a few decades later, but that remains conjecture at best.

The Writings of St. Paul, ed. Wayne A. Meeks and John T. Fitzgerald, (Norton: New York, 2007), p 95-97.

Again - Flyleaf

2009-11-03T23:16:00.001-05:00

The message of this song is amazing...And the music is pretty kickin too.

A Look at Luke 19.1-10: The Story of Zacchaeus

2009-10-27T12:19:00.001-05:00

Tax collectors in Luke's narrative gospel are depicted as scum of the society. They are usually thrown into the mix with prostitutes where both became the prototype or caricature of a "sinner." John the Baptist (Lk 3.13) and Zacchaeus make it clear that tax collecting was a dirty business by insinuating that the collectors would take all or part of the dues as their own individual profits. Yet, to the dismay of the Pharisees and Sadducees, it's these people that Jesus eats with and lives among. They are the ones that make up the kingdom of heaven. This fact is emphasized in chapter 18 of Luke wherein we see the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. In this parable the tax collector was the one who humbled himself before God while the Pharisee, the individual who was "religious" by most definitions of the term, was the one who prided himself. The tax collector was "justified before God" (v14) while the Pharisee was not. Further, the story of the pious rich ruler coming to Jesus points forward to chapter 19. In this passage Jesus notes that in order to follow him, the rich must be willing to give up their treasures and possessions. The rich ruler in chapter 18 did not do this, but in chapter 19 it is the tax collector that succeeds in giving four times his cheated profits away in order to follow him.

Zacchaeus' problem was both physical and moral. On one hand he was too short to see Jesus passing through, so it became necessary for him to gain altitude in order to see him. This is the purpose of the sycamore-fig tree. Yet his problem goes deeper than that, for as he states upon meeting Jesus, he knows that sometimes he "cheated anybody out of anything" (v8). Jesus' reputation amongst the people was dangerous for the allegations that Zaccaeus was a 'sinner' was prevalent (as stated above by the very notion of tax collecting).

Augustine and Pelagius

2009-10-21T12:18:00.001-05:00

Augustine saw in Pelagius’ ideas the lack of need for God. He saw Pelagianism as the denial of divine sovereignty and a rejection of our captivity to sin. Augustine wrote, “If you give what you command, then command what you give” (TeSelle, 39) indicating that we can only follow God if God helps us to follow him. Contrary to popular opinion, Augustine did not deny the freedom of the will but the effectiveness and able function of the will when constrained and imprisoned by sin. According to Augustine, the will is simply in “bondage.” Thus, Augustine could affirm “that Adam’s progeny [will] choose evil inevitably but still on their own responsibility” (41).

Augustine was disgusted by the views of Pelagius on this matter and rejected what he said as heresy. Pelagius believed in total freedom of the will, thus affirming the idea that we are capable of making the correct decision in every instance. Pelagius believed it was possible to live a perfect life if one so chose. This idea, to Augustine, denied God’s sovereignty and the doctrine of original sin, thus making void the need for salvation. Perfection was an obligation and a commandment and no man was inherently bound by sin. Augustine saw the idea that man truly had the ability to exercise his free will without God’s help as repulsive, perhaps as a result of his former fatalist ties, and argued that for God to truly be God and for grace to be grace man needed to be set free by God.

To be sure, Pelagius was controversial without the help of Augustine. He never explicitly stated whether death was natural or the result of sin and his idea that the moral law was set in place to be obeyed and, therefore, could be obeyed is unscriptural. But I do not think that he deserved the hostile reaction delivered to him from Augustine. Pelagius took the doctrine of “free will” to what he thought was the logical conclusion: the ability to live a perfect life without being required to by sin.

In my estimation, Augustine’s ideas form a paradox that inevitably turns God into the one truly responsible for sin and evil in the world (as Ulrich Zwingli consciously admitted) for ultimately he is the one that frees the will (and leaves captive) of whomever he chooses. I do not see it so starkly as to say, “It is God’s choice alone” (Augustine) or “It is man’s choice alone” (Pelagius). Our choice to choose between good and evil (and inevitably between salvation and damnation) are a combination of God and man together.

*Eugene TeSelle, Augustine (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2006)

A Theological Analysis of The Matrix: Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism, and Existentialism

2009-10-13T23:42:00.002-05:00

Religion has been coming back into the public sphere with a vengeance as of late through the realm of cinema. Contrary to what one might expect its resurgence has not been initiated by Christian writers and directors but by the secular faces of Hollywood. Religion sells—or, more specifically, fictionalized and analogized religion sells. Aside from Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (which had its own elements of conjecture, special effects, and cinematic liberty) most religious based films in recent years have either taken the form of fantasy and analogy (i.e. Narnia) or horror (i.e. The Exorcist, Stigmata). One of the most popular films to be released in this new wave of religious interest is the 1999 Wachowski brother’s film The Matrix.

The Matrix finds religious and nonreligious analogies throughout the entire film, which I believe concentrate on four specific worldviews: Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism, and Existentialism. With the special effects and cyberpunk plot these ideas are ingrained into “story” so well that the average moviegoer can miss them, if going to see simply an action flick. But if one watches intelligently trying to pay attention to the worldview inherent in the movie the philosophies behind the film are hard to miss. Though there is not enough space to go into detail extensively, the four worldviews presented above need to be covered.

There are several plot points that are analogous to Christianity. In the first place, Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) must make the same choice as Adam and Eve in the Genesis account. He must choose between the red pill (knowledge) and the blue pill (ignorance) and do so without turning back. Neo’s choice obviously reflects the choice of experiencing true reality and the human condition over the Matrix. Neo could have, if he took the blue pill, woke up in his bed and continue living on in the Matrix. His choice reflects our social desire to experience truth, even if it hurts.

The second aspect of Christian analogy in The Matrix comes in the form of Messianism. One would be hard pressed to miss the fact that Neo’s name is an anagram that when rearranged spells “One”. The prophecy of the oracle represents the prophecy of the Old Testament Jews in claiming that the “One” will come to destroy the Matrix from the last stronghold of truth and reality, Zion. There is, as somewhat expected, a traitor (Cypher) who prefers ignorance and bliss to reality and truth. He turns in Neo for worldly gain. Perhaps the most outright Christian analogy is Neo’s death (though not a sacrifice) and “resurrection”. Agent Smith (representing Satan) was able to succeed in killing Neo, but was thwarted when Neo rose from the dead moments later (in a way, by the power of Trinity) in a fully human, but more than human sense to where the laws of the Matrix could no longer have a grip on him.

The Christian analogy is most definitely evident to the intelligent watcher, but there are non-Christian themes within the movie. In the first place, deliverance from the Matrix is not based on a deliverance from sin. It is based on knowledge that the Matrix is false and corrupt and in order to get back to the real world one must escape the Matrix and work to destroy it. This dualist view is very much Gnostic in its way of thinking.

Though most appropriate as a polemic of how far we are willing to take science, the fact that man produced the Matrix out of his own pride is akin to the Gnostic traditions of the material world created out of divine pride. [1] Thus, since the spirit is good and the material is bad, the only way to be saved is to escape it, which comes in the form of gnosis. Orthodox Christianity from its earliest stages has rejected this so it fails the test of orthodox Christian belief. Further, while “Neo” can be respelled into a messianic word (‘One’), his real name is Thomas Anderson, which echoes the most famous Gnostic document The Gospel of Thomas.[2] Whether this is coincidence or not it is nonetheless worth noting.

The Gnostic ideas naturally flow into Buddhist and Transcendentalist ideas. This world, as presented in The Matrix, is no more than an illusion of the real thing. There is an obvious reference to Plato’s The Cave represented in Neo’s release from the Matrix. His eyes were sore because according to Morpheus he had never actually “used” them. The Matrix was a shadow, a “prison” of the mind that everyone is “born into”. The senses we have of the world are “simply electrical signals interpreted by [our] brain.” One of the most popular taglines of the film is the transcendentalist idea that “there is no spoon.” As James Spiegel has noted in conjunction with my analysis, “…while perhaps no writer or artist has improved upon his cave allegory in presenting this theme, the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix might be as effective an attempt as any since Plato.”[3]

Neo, though obviously symbolizing Jesus in certain respects, seems to symbolize the Buddha in others. He obtains no inherently divine characteristics. Though he is the one prophesied by the oracle to bring down the Matrix, he “saves” no one but rather releases them so they can save themselves. It is not a belief in Neo that brings one out of the Matrix (none of the crew worships him or attributes divine characteristics to him)—it is through self-denial and rejection of the projected reality that one becomes free.

Last, but certainly not least, are the existentialist or humanist ideas represented throughout the film. There is no mention or belief in a “God”. In fact, Morpheus describes “when you go to church” as part of the illusion of the Matrix alongside of paying taxes and going to work. The absence of any God from the film implies an apocalypse brought on and solved by man, not God. Man needs no metaphysical salvation. The existentialist idea that man can save himself without divine intervention is thoroughly presented in the Matrix. What one might see as divine help in the Matrix is really the recognition of one’s placement in the Matrix and the ability to bend the rules of its “reality”.

In terms of my own personal opinion, The Matrix is an excellent movie, both visually and plot wise. But part of what makes it a great movie is paying attention to the theologically contradictory messages throughout. Some of the theological and philosophical analogies are obviously on the surface, so they are things that most anyone watching somewhat intelligently can pick out. I am thankful, however, that in watching it this time I have a basic understanding of what Gnosticism, transcendentalism, and existentialism all say, for if I didn’t I might be tempted to confuse those elements with the Christian analogies. I have wondered how much this movie has caused Christians (and non-Christians) to see Christianity pluralistically.

[1] Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner, “Wake up! Gnosticism and Buddhism in the Matrix,” Journal of Religion and Film vol 5, no. 2 (2001): access: http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/gnostic.htm

[2] Dailey and Wagner, (2001)

[3] James Spiegel, “Cinematic Illustrations in Christian Theology,” Journal of Religion and Film vol 6, no 2 (2002), access: http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/cinematic.htm

New Song--Let's Fly Away

2009-10-13T09:20:00.004-05:00

New song I wrote called "Let's Fly Away". Enjoy!

* This song is owned and copyrighted by Randy Hardman.

Glenn Beck on Van Jones

2009-08-26T09:11:00.000-05:00

Losing Context of the Resurrection

2009-08-20T12:05:00.002-05:00

Over the past several years I have had many conversations in which I have asked fellow Christians how they see the world. In what context should one view reality in all its forms and all its components. If we hold to the fact that Christianity is a worldview, and the most reasonable worldview at that, I ask in what context can we see it?

I've heard various answers from various people--sometimes no answer at all. The answer I usually get is as such: "I see the world in light of the fact that Jesus, God incarnate, died on the cross for my sins."

This answer, I believe, is not necessarily correct and I believe that it is one of the main problems in the modern church! I believe the fact that we tend to see the world in the context of Jesus' death gives us an incomplete picture of the world. Let me explain.

When we speak of Christianity as a story, a story through history in which God intervenes in the lives and events of mankind in order to bring about a single purpose, we are speaking of Christianity as a narrative--to be sure, we are speaking of Christianity as a meta-narrative (beyond space, time, and physical substance). There are four components to Christian belief: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation (or Restoration). The death of Christ covers the chapter of Redemption (Is 44), but it is the resurrection that ties all of it together. In the resurrection the Fall is reversed, we are made new (and better!) creations, redemption has been brought about by the action prior to the resurrection, and restoration occurs through the resurrection of the dead which is anticipated by the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor 15).

It is in the context of resurrection that we should see the world. I believe this wholeheartedly and I think that once we do it will become the foundation for our worldview. The dualist idea that the world is bad (or that our body's are eternally corrupted by the fall) is not biblical. In the same way that Christ will restore the cosmos and make it a "new creation" he will do the same for us! What a humbling thought!

I recently lost context for several weeks of this. I stopped seeing the world in the light that I should have and did and said things that should not have been done or said. It is unfortunate and I am having to deal with the consequences of losing this perspective. I lost it, but YHWH found me and has restored the way in which I need to see the world. I have been told I am a leader, and in this I believe that I need to and should admit my faults. To those that have supported me or have supported Ratio Christi it is to you that I come and plead with you not to lose context of the resurrection as the cornerstone for your faith!

Randy

Obama's Health Care Advisers

2009-08-08T11:32:00.002-05:00

This blog is obviously taking a little broader, more political role.

Christianity and the Abolitionist Movement Part 3

2009-07-15T18:33:00.001-05:00

There is, however, one pressing question that remains to be answered. It has been made clear that both the Northern and Southern participants were very religious individuals and used God and scripture, often, to justify their actions and in everyday talk. The question remains: was it really Christianity that led to the end of slavery or was it merely a contributing factor? In other words, without the force of Christianity would slavery have ended when it did simply by economic and political factors, however strong and forceful they might be?

First off it needs to be realized that slavery in America was by no means a unique structure in world economics. Slavery existed in the Caribbean, in Islamic Countries, in Africa countries, and in Australian rural areas. Years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation in America, England had her own abolitionist movement led by William Wilberforce. It would be ridiculous to assume that the abolitionist movement in England and the nation’s overall view towards America’s Southern economy did not at all influence the abolitionist movement in America.

Secondly, polytheistic religions of the ancient and contemporary world have no record of ever condemning slaves.[1] This is an essential point. Without a foundational absolute and a proper working deontological ethic (what “ought” to be done rather than simply a pragmatic morality) based on a singular divine will it is impossible to say that something is actually immoral and ethically improper, especially since in polytheistic religions most practitioners were henotheists. In polytheism this meant that though one god may reject the institution of slavery all one need to do is find a god that accepts it. It is only in monotheism that we ever see a condemnation of the institution of slavery based on a monotheistic theology.

Thirdly, history shows clearly that Christianity has remained continuously opposed to the institution of slavery. St. Paul’s letter to Philemon, if thoroughly analyzed, turns out to be a linguistic trick of the sleeve that would have, in the end, set Onesimus free. Further, Saint Bathilde in the seventh century set forth a campaign to stop slave-trading and give freedom to all slaves. After this, several other saints, kings, and military generals set forth to ban the enslavement of Christians (which was effectively the entire population). In the thirteenth century Saint Thomas Aquinas labeled slavery a sin.[2] The very history of the religion in conjunction with the issue of slavery is a very history of abolitionism.

Last of all, the historical basis by which the abolitionist movement came into existence cries out to say, “It was Christianity through man that sought and worked to abolish slavery, not man through Christianity.” It was the moral principle of the characters of the leaders of the abolitionist movement that caused them to act. This is not the same with any other world religion. Slavery has never escaped polytheism due to moral religious disagreement. Slavery was never banned in Islamic countries due to the will of Allah. In the vast history of this world it has only been within Christianity that slavery was every regarded sinful and immoral and successfully sought to ban it from society.[3]

It can be safely said that the moral position of Christianity was the foundational point in the abolitionist movement. Economic reasons may have stopped the spread of slavery and, perhaps in time, it would have eventually caused it to cease as a working institution. Nonetheless, in answering for time and place, without the driving force of Christian principles the North would not have had neither a case nor manpower and the South would not have given up the institution.

[1] Stark, 325-327

[2] ibid, 329

[3] Ibid, 291

Christianity and the Abolitionist Movement Part 2

2009-07-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

The American abolitionist movement began in 1754 under the leadership of John Woolman. Fifty-four years earlier Samuel Sewall had published “The Selling of Joseph” in Boston. This was technically the first abolitionist tract written in America but it received little recognition. Thus, the movement by Woolman in 1754 has been recognized throughout as the official start of the abolitionist movement. His tract, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes began with Matthew 25.40 (“The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'”). At the end of his essay he notes that while God has not yet intervened in the subject of slavery He is not blind to the sin that is occurring. He “remembers them” and He “seeth their affliction.”[1]

Woolman presented his tract at a Quaker’s convention in Philadelphia in 1754. His tract convinced a good portion of the committee to side with him and, a year later, they produced their own tract entitled An Epistle of Caution and Advice, Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves.[2] The document concluded that slavery was “neither consistent with Christianity nor common justice.”[3] It implored the Quaker committee to live according to the Word of God and not the world: “Finally Bretheren, we entreat you, in the Bowels of Gospel Love, ferioufly to weigh the Caufe of detaining them in bondage: If it be for your own private Gain, or any other Motive than their Good, it’s as much to be feared, that the Love of God, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, is not the prevailing principle in you, and that your Hearts are not fufficiently redeemed from the world…”[4] Further, the group set up a committee to monitor their members and discover whether any of them were, behind closed doors, buying or selling slaves.[5]

The Quaker movement was successful for various many reasons. First of all, Philadelphia was the largest city in the nation at the time. It would have had a major influence not only on Quaker members but citizens of the city as a whole. Secondly, many of the abolitionist members purchased the freedom of slaves. Third, in 1787 Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, two of the most influential American’s at the time, preceded over the Philadelphia Quaker meetings. Last of all, not to be outdone, several other Christian organizations and denominations adopted an anti-slavery mentality.[6] This approach led to an explosion in religious declarations issued against the institution of slavery.

In 1833 William Lloyd Garrison formed the American Anti-Slavery Society. Baylor Sociologist Rodney Stark states that the clergy was the “vital spine” of this group and its statements and declarations “rang high of scripture.” [7] Two years earlier Garrison had started The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper that had gained a lot of attention in the debate over slavery. The Liberator was unabashed in its desire to present slavery as against the scriptures. It described slavery as “a sin” and stated that if the slaveholder would earnestly search the Bible for truth he would be forced to release his slaves and take up an anti-slavery mentality.[8]

For the next twenty years the abolitionist movement would find its home in the Northern states. During the first year of the Civil War, debate raged not as much about slavery as about economy and union. As British historian Paul Johnson notes, Lincoln’s major concern at the time was saving the Union. He stated in reply to accusations made by Horace Greeley, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some slaves and leaving others alone I would do that…I shall do less whenever I believe that what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more helps the cause.”[9] Nonetheless, Lincoln knew that the war was not over economic and political struggles, per se. It was over ideas. And Lincoln knew fully well that ideas had consequences.

During the debate over slavery prior to the Civil War, religious texts were hurled between the abolitionists and the slave-advocates. The South held onto the Pauline mandate that slaves were to obey their masters, his exhortation to Philemon, and the Mosaic slave law. The North argued the slavery in biblical times was not only cultural but also significantly different. They argued that the message of Jesus lay inherently contrary to slave labor and that it was a direct sin against human kind and, thus, the person of Jesus.

Several churches split on the issue with half the church siding with abolitionist morality and half the church siding with slave labor morality. Leonidas Polk, the Bishop of Louisiana and a Confederate major-general stated, “It is for constitutional liberty, which seems to have fled to us for refuge, four our hearthstones and altars that we fight.”[10] Thomas March, the Bishop of Rode Island and vocal supporter of the Union forces stated to his men, “God is with us…the Lord of Hosts is on our side.”[11] Thornton Stringfellow, a Baptist minister in Virginia stated in his book Slavery: Scriptural and Statistical, that it is “true that Christ ordains that Christianity shall not abolish slavery…”[12] Yet John Dixon argued, “Christianity will overthrow slavery in this country, or slavery will overthrow that pure New-Testament Christianity which commands supreme love to God and universal love to man, of whatever color or condition…Those professed ministers of Christ who teach that chattel slavery or American slavery is well pleasing in the sight of Christ, or, in other words, that it is not a sin, are doing more to sap the foundations of Christianity in this land than any other class of public teachers.”[13] Frederick Douglas, in an address to President Lincoln stated, “Why is Christianity to be maintained, if Christians stand by and see men, made in the image of God, considered as things—mere pieces of property…in no sound philosophy can slavery be justified.”[14]

Lincoln was a very devout religious man and he believed that God spoke to him in ways and signs that let him know His will. There were many times within his presidential career that he relied on providential guidance before making a decision that would affect the entire country. Lincoln was a Calvinist by Baptist upbringing and held tightly to his fatalistic ideas till the end of his life.[15] Many soldiers and generals also shared this doctrine which led to a belief that since they were morally right, God’s plan would eventually lay itself out and their side would win the war. This Doctrine of Necessity placed God as the mover of chess pieces. Lincoln stated, “If it were not for my firm belief in an overriding providence it would be difficult for me, in the midst of such complications of affairs, to keep my reason in its seat. But I am confident that the Almighty has his plans and will work them out.”[16] Lincoln’s very position with the Union and advocacy of its mission showed that he believed God to be fighting with the North and against the South.

At the beginning of the war in 1861 Lincoln had approached the issue with merely a concern to save the Union. By 1862 this had changed. Lincoln believed that by freeing the slaves he would in fact save the Union. Yet saving the Union was no longer his primary goal in the war. Lincoln stated, “I am not bound to win but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have.”[17] Lincoln had gone from preserving the Union at whatever cost to making what he felt to be the right decision despite what harm the Union might suffer. How did this change occur?

William Wolfe provides us with the story: In 1861 a group of African-Americans from Baltimore had approached Lincoln and presented him with a tightly bound Bible as a gratitude gift for what he had done. As the war continued Lincoln would pick up the scriptures and read them more and more. A friend of his, Joshua Speed, found him reading it one day and said, “I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.” Lincoln replied, “Yes. I am profitably engaged.” Speed said, “Well, I see you have recovered from your skepticism [about religion and the war]. I am sorry to say that I have not.” Lincoln retorted back, “You are wrong, Speed. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and a better man.”[18]

From then on Lincoln felt as if the war was part of God’s plan to remove slavery from the South. One of his famous clichés of the war shows us his very heart on the matter: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”[19] As Johnson notes, it was “in this spirit Lincoln approached the problem of emancipating the slaves.”[20] For months the Emancipation Proclamation sat in Lincoln’s desk drawer as the he waited for a major Union victory to pull it out. The victory at Antietam and the defeat of Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops came on September 17^th, 1862. Five days later the Proclamation was issued.

The Emancipation Proclamation was the beginning of the end for slavery. It was the first legal document that required that as Southern states came back into the Union, as Lincoln believed would occur, they would be forced to free their slaves. Emancipating the slaves was not only a moral plus for Lincoln, it was also an economic plus if the Union did in fact win. The Southern states would not be allowed to return to the Union unscathed. This was their economic punishment. Eventually the South did give up the war and the Union took back the Southern states for the Federal Government. Slavery was abolished.

[1] Stark, 340

[2] ibid

[3] ibid

[4] Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, “An Epistle of Caution and Advice, Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves”, (Philadelphia: Printed and sold by James Chattin, in Church-Alley., 1754), 7.

[5] Stark, 341

[6] ibid, p 342

[7] ibid, 343

[8]D.K. Hitchcock, “The Testimony of God Against Slavery”, The Liberator, (Boston, MA) Saturday, November 12, 1836; pg. 184; Issue 46; colE, http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/414/831/19250383w16/purl=rc1_NCNP_0_GT3005838467&dyn=3!xrn_4_0_GT3005838467&hst_1?sw_aep=boon41269

[9] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 469

[10] ibid, 470

[11] ibid

[12] Thornton Stringfellow, Slavery: Scriptural and Statistical (Richmond: J. W. Randolph, 1856), 61. See, http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/string/string.html

[13] John Dixon, Pictures of Slavery in Church and State; Including Personal Reminiscences, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, etc. (Philadelphia: Published by Author, 1857) 128. See, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/long/long.html

[14] Frederick Douglas, “American Prejudice Against Color”, Examiner, 27 October 1845. Reprinted in John Blassingame et al., eds., The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One—Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 59

[15] Woodworth, 38

[16] Johnson, 471

[17] ibid

[18] William Wolf, The Almost Chosen People: A Study of the Religion of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Doubleday, 1959)

[19] Abraham Lincoln, National Museum of Ancient History, http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/small_exhibition.cfm?key=1267&exkey=696&pagekey=716

[20] Johnson, 472

Christianity and the Abolitionist Movement Part 1

2009-07-09T23:07:00.000-05:00

When contemporary historians discuss the end of slavery after the Civil War the reasons given often center around the economic fall of the South and the victory of the capitalistic system that permeated and controlled the North. This may be true and these discussions certainly should not cease to continue. There is much to be said about the superiority of the Northern economic system over the Southern slave system during the Civil War. But economic dysfunction in the South was not the reason slavery ended. Questions about why slavery was rejected in the North need to be taken into account. The Northern basis for the abolitionist movement was not economic. Those that held to purely economical reasons for espousing the superiority of the North over the South tended to simply reject the expansion of slavery. They were not abolitionists. Abolitionism, contrarily, had its roots in Christian theology

There were, as in most theologically based institutions, abolitionists that did not hold to the abolitionist movement for theological reasons. These individuals may be referred to as utilitarian abolitionists. There reasons were more focused on pragmatism than on morality. However, the abolitionist movement itself was essentially a movement to reinstate Christian morality in the South. If it were not for Christianity and, with that, Christian morality there would have been no abolitionist movement and slavery would not have ended when it did.

The Civil War turned into a war of ideas; it turned into a war over God’s moral nature. Southerners felt God was ultimately in favor of slavery and that His presence was far from removed from the battle. As Henry Tucker, chancellor for the University of Georgia at Athens stated three times before the Legislature of Georgia, “God is in the war.”[1] Northerners, conversely, felt as if they had a right to pronounce judgment on the Confederacy for their acceptance and promotion of the slavery institution. One New Hampshire pastor stated, “A battle is in progress between liberty and slavery, God's truth and the vile passions of men, that perils the existence of this republic, and touches every vital interest.”[2]

The vast majority of Northerners and Southerners fighting in the war were incredibly religious individuals. Not everyone attended church on Sunday morning or partook of the Eucharist on a regular basis, but atheism was not a tenable position for most. One only needs to read war journals, newspapers, and political statements to see how religious people were.

Both the North and the South attempted to defend their view of slavery in light of the Gospel. For abolitionists it was quite evident that slavery was wrong and was against the original intentions of God. The Bible stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” (Lk 6.31). The Old Testament narrative described Israel as being cast into slavery and bondage several times over with their enslavement in Egypt being the prime and traditional example. In all of these cases God felt their anguish, heard their cries, and delivered them. The abolitionists felt this as a direct theological rejection of slavery. Even Lincoln stated in conjunction with the Golden Rule, “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”[3]

Southerners had to, as Woodworth puts it, “deal with the implied contradiction of Christianity and the practice of doing to others what white Southerners would rather die than endure themselves.”[4] Southerners attempted to theologically justify their enslavement of black people using a couple of scriptural examples. They alluded to the Pauline epistle Philemon. In Philemon Paul deals with the issue of a particular runaway slave named Onesimus. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, thus denying Onesimus’ freedom. .[5] In a sermon delivered on January 6^th 1861 Joseph Wilson, a Presbyterian minister in Georgia stated in a regards to the Onesimus passage, “…Paul wrote, (and wrote under the inspiration of God,) a letter of beseeching tenderness to the offended owner, asking him to pardon the faithful fugitive and give him a place in his confidence, and telling him that he would now, with grace in his heart, be a far better servant than ever. Such reasoning, from the implied allowance of slavery by inspired Scripture, is, my friends, conclusive enough upon the point in question.”[6] James Pennington wrote that Northerners argued that since Paul sent back Onesimus to Philemon it was therefore evil for Northerners to keep runaway slaves.[7] Others argued that Paul endorsed slavery with his statement, “Slaves, obey your masters…” (Col 3.22; Eph 6.5). [8] Others alluded to the Mosaic system of slavery. But as Pastor Rufus Clark of New Hampshire pointed out, if the South adopted the slavery system upheld in Mosaic times the South would soon destroy itself and slavery would be abolished extremely quickly. They were not one in the same.[9]

Other Southerners were more willing to give credence to the abolitionists’ biblical argument. They argued that some slaveholders, while not giving up slavery in totality, needed to be more hospitable to their slaves. Slaves needed to be able to stay with their families, have legal marriages, and be able to read.[10] This may be a reason why the population of slaves in America expanded greatly throughout the 1800s. This, however, was ultimately unsatisfactory if the very nature of slavery was inherently immoral as abolitionists argued. Sympathy cannot be exchanged for toleration.

Since both sides claimed to have God on their side and many were devout Christians it would be unfair to claim Christianity was the reason for the end of slavery unless somehow the abolitionist movement can be tied back to Christian principles. This is, however, exactly what happened. The movement to keep slavery as the South’s mode of economy was not based on Christian principles but economic principles. Though the South claimed to have God on its side, this conviction did not lead to the enslavement of Africans. It was simply a defense of an institution that was already in place. Contrarily, the abolitionist movement began out of religious and moral conviction. For as much as the South invoked God in the war, when it came to discussions on slavery it was overall very secular in comparison with Northern discussions. There was a specific concentration on “states rights” not God’s will. Conversely, when the North held discussions on ending slavery it was usually done in the church, not secular organizations. [11]

[1] Henry Tucker, “God in the War”, Documenting the American South http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/tuckerh/tuckerh.html

[2] Rufus Clark, “The American Slave Trade,” Making of American Books, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AHL6707.0001.001;rgn=div1;view=text;cc=moa;node=AHL6707.0001.001%3A2

[3] Stephen Woodworth, While God is Marching On: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 12

[4] ibid, 16

[5] Paul Johnson notes that Paul’s “evasions” of the argument “made it possible for the issue stil to be unresolved in the nineteenth century.” Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1976), 437

[6] Wilson, Joseph R. “Mutual Relation of Masters and Slaves as Taught in the Bible,” (Augusta: Steam Press of Chronicle and Sentinel, 1861), 13-14. See, http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/wilson/wilson.html

[7] James W.C. Pennington, A Narrative of Events of the Life of J.H. Banks, an Escaped Slave, From the Cotton State, Alabama, in America (Liverpool: M. Rourke, Printer, 1861), 14. See, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/penning/penning.html

[8] See, “Slavery Not Condemned by God!” The Liberator, (Boston, MA) Friday, February 15, 1839; Issue 7; col A

[9] Woodworth, 18

[10] ibid

[11] Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 343

Kenneth Miller on Evolution, God, and Intelligent Design

2009-07-05T19:02:00.001-05:00

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Stepping Away from Fundamentalist Creationism to Fundamentalist Truth: A Confession

2009-06-18T16:50:00.004-05:00

"I am attracted to the idea that God's signature is not on the engineering marvels of the natural world, but rather on its marvelous creativity and aesthetic depth." - Karl Giberson, Saving Darwin, p 210

Any follower of my blogs over the past few years will know that my main two areas of interest have been related to the study of the New Testament or the study of philosophy of science and religion. The former is what I am planning to do professionally and I have just recently applied to Asbury Theological Seminary to pursue a Masters Degree in Biblical Studies. The latter is merely a hobby/interest of mine, but one that has captivated me so intensely that I probably read and research just as much in it as with New Testament studies.

I am looking at my library right now (a 5 shelf, 7 foot book shelf) and it's clear to me where my interest lie. Probably a good 80% of the materials on the shelf have to do with these interests of mine. Interestingly enough, I see on my two shelves devoted to religion and science literature an evolutionary trend (pun intended) from creationist literature to evolutionist literature.

I started this blog when I enrolled as a Freshman at Appalachian State University (yes, we are the 34-32 win over Michigan!). I am now a week away from receiving my B.A. degree in Philosophy and Religion. As the years have progressed so has my understanding of science and religion. I originally began at Appalachian under the impression that the earth was 6,000-10,000 years old. I highly admired researches like Kurt Wise, Henry Morris, Dean Kenyon, etc. I enrolled in a atheist/religion group on myspace wherein I sought to, as an 18 year old freshman, show the lie that evolution was and the truth that creationism offered. Repeatedly I was shut down and embarrassed. Some of it may have been due to the fact that I was still a teenager (and one who was not very well read at that), but some of it, as I came to realize, had to do with the fact that, as even Kurt Wise notes over those like Morris, creationism is incredibly scientifically inferior to evolution.

As a sophmore/junior in college I had evolved (again, pun intended) into an old earth creationist, on par with those like Hugh Ross, Norman Geisler, etc. These guys accepted the antiquity of the earth and of the universe, but still denied upon a half-literalist reading of Genesis 1, that evolution was false. I eventually came to mix this idea in with the new Intelligent Design hypothesis. The ID hypothesis seemed stronger and less biblically inspired. It could even be, as Behe, Lennox, and Denton have argued, coupled with evolutionary theory. I found this to be an extremely respectable position, and to this day I admire the work that many of these guys have done. It would be wrong to say that, as Gibberson unfortunately states in his otherwise excellent book, that these authors should be read merely for "entertainment value" (194). They have offered, despite some evolutionists prideful disagreements, substantial challenges to evolutionary theory. As Michael Ruse noted, Behe's argument presented in his book Darwin's Black Box has given cell biologists and theorists a good amount of work!

I do not say this, however, uncritically. I am a historian and a philosopher by training. I do not know the complexities of biology or physics or chemistry well enough to comment on them. But I do know the philosophical and historical underpinnings of ID and realize their philosophical and theological roots to creationism (see Numbers, "The Creationists" and "Darwinism Comes to America"; Gibberson, "Saving Darwin"; Falk, "Coming to Peace with Science"; Stewart (ed), "Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse in Dialouge"). ID, while I think it may have some promise as a philosophical polemic, should ultimately be rejected as scientific as it now stands.

I have thus moved, in the final stage, as I have studied and learned more about science and God, to a self-critical theistic evolutionary position. The quote above by Gibberson exemplifies my standing. I no longer embrace the idea that God was the immediate cause of specie creation. The evidence for common ancestry and natural selection is far too significant to throw off and the problems presented by ID and creationism are too significant to ignore.

This is by no means a transition away from God as, we all know, some scientists have done. Rather, it is a transition closer to God as I realize the beauty and majesty in the idea that all life, every organism, is connected by the creative power and will of God.

This post may come as a cup of cold coffee on a Monday morning as I am aware that many of my readers have ties to fundamentalist evangelical beliefs concerning creation. I implore you, however, to have an open mind about the evidence. What if Genesis 1 is not meant to be scientific? What if it is meant to tell us, metaphorically speaking, about the power and majesty of God and His creation.

Christianity from a non-Christian

2009-06-03T09:20:00.002-05:00

"What this world needs is Christian love." - Nietzsche

Check this out!

This is an amazing example of Christian love. We must be realists in this world, but that should not hinder our call to love. One of the most interesting points of this is the fact that the robber converted to Muslim because of the compassion and love that he was shown.

Are we showing the same sort of compassion and love in our lives?

Currently Reading

2009-05-18T19:38:00.003-05:00

From time to time I like to drop off the titles of the books I am reading to my audience.

Colbert on Credit

2009-05-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

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The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition by Birger Gerhardsson--Review

2009-04-25T19:49:00.001-05:00

Birger Gerhardsson’s Reliability of the Gospel Tradition is a short, but enthralling exposition of oral tradition and oral transmission throughout the first century of Christianity. It serves as a summary of his much longer and better-known study Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity.

Reliability stresses throughout its entire argument the need to place the gospels within their proper context, not within our twenty-first century milieu. It’s all too easy to be anachronistic in historical studies, especially when it comes to something so important to our daily lives as religion. However, Gerhardsson argues, a proper understanding of the culture in which the gospel tradition was passed down provides not only a deeper appreciation for the New Testament but also a secure history free from subjective post-modern interpretation.

Gerhardsson does not attempt to hide where his allegiance stands theologically: “I am a Christian, brought up in the Lutheran tradition.”[1] But this stark and unclouded admition does not seem to hinder his attempt at evaluating the gospel tradition in as much of an objective sense as he can muster. The entire book is a scholarly analysis of first century models of oral tradition and transmission.

Gerhardsson begins by examining the three different ways the Torah functioned in ancient Judaism. Such a study of an early Christian oral community cannot be completely foreign to the cultural setting in which it developed. Thus, since Christianity originally began as a Jewish movement, it becomes necessary to evaluate the means by which the Jews carried on tradition in the first century A.D. The first way is through Verbal Tradition. This was specifically Torah through written and oral tradition. The second way was through Practical Tradition. This was tradition that was culturally learned through inheritance and imitation. Thirdly, Torah functioned as an Institutional Tradition. This was through the rise of institutions and establishments that functioned in meta-generational ways. These three ways of Torah tradition are essential to understanding the role oral tradition had to play in the rise of Christianity and the eventual composition of the New Testament.

“Torah-centric” Judaism was essentially patriarchal and authoritative. These authorities tended to be experts in various kinds that tied back to the ancient heritage in one way or another. For example, to learn the Torah students would go to learn underneath a rabbi for years at a time. This tradition tied in with Verbal tradition (memorizing the Torah), Practical Tradition (imitating the rabbi’s sayings and actions), and Institutional Tradition (usually living with the rabbi and other disciples in a literal house[2]).

Gerhardsson notes that the Torah was handed down accurately till the end of the fourth century A.D. This is obviously contrary to what Western memorization tends to be. Scholars of the 18^th and 19^th centuries tended to dismiss the consequence of the gospel transmission by evaluating memorization reliability in the 20^th century. Yet this, according to Gerhardsson, is too anachronistic. There were several ways in which students would memorize a tradition.

First of all, memorization was not a “sophisticated academic specialty”[3] but, upon closer evaluation, was a popular means of retaining knowledge. Individuals today tend to memorize predominately for academic reasons. Our information is generally written for us in books and pamphlets; recording devices savor information for us word-for-word, ipisima vox. Newspapers and magazines update us on celebrity hookups and breakups. The world of antiquity did not have these things.

Secondly, there was a stress placed on text and commentary of text.[4] It was not merely enough to memorize a saying or a written text. Understanding the text was essential. Thus, a text would become more apt to be transmitted reliably orally if it is understood in its full significance.

Third, it was extremely important for a rabbi to speak sternly and tersely. This explains many of the short proverbial sayings throughout antiquity, especially within the New Testament. Rabbis spoke in the briefest way possible, but with the full significance of an oral paragraph.

Fourth, Rabbis tended to use didactic and poetic devices to pass on tradition. It’s significantly easier to memorize poetry and rhyme than it is prose and monologue. It is not surprising that we find a significantly high percentage of the New Testament written in poetic style.

Fifth, teachers would often repeat themselves for the sake of engraining a particular teaching or saying within the disciples’ mind.[5] This was probably the case with Jesus’ teaching. Especially if Q did not exist as many recent scholars have begun to argue, repetition would be essential for the existence and perseverance of the synoptic tradition.

Sixth, recited words were almost “half-sung”.[6] This meledological way of transmitting a teaching served memorization in the same way a chant or song does today. It is much easier for modern individuals to memorize a text that is sung over a text that is simply spoken. The same was true in the world of antiquity.

Seventh, teachers and students wrote as an aid to the preservation of the oral tradition. Sooner or later, even in the world of antiquity, a tradition passed on orally would be subject to perversion and reformation. Thus, the gospels were written, it seems, at an essential time—the destruction of Jerusalem. Such a major event in history would cause confusion in the minds of all Jews and the tradition could have perhaps been distorted by the confusion. The writing of the gospel tradition by the students of the teachers was, perhaps, an act of preservation.

Last of all, the transmission of the gospel tradition from disciples to students, in conjunction with commentary, and the recording of the tradition into written texts was an act of preserving a text from a lifeless knowledge of memorization. There was no sense in memorizing a text without understanding what the text meant.

These methods of passing on tradition in a pedagogical sense is essential to understanding Gerhardsson’s model of gospel transmission. Unfortunately, Gerhardsson does not explain when and where these methods came about and were most popular. This is one of the criticisms Werner Kelber lays against Gerhardsson’s argument.[7]

Gerhardsson goes on to describe Torah transmission allusions in the New Testament and within Pauline Christianity.[8] His section on the continuity of the Jesus tradition through the early days of Christianity up through the formation of the gospel accounts is exceptionally challenging to the form-critics that have presupposed a contemporaneous method of memorization and transmission for the first century. Jesus, according to Gerhardsson, would have been the alpha from the beginning of the gospel tradition to the rise of orthodox Christianity (rabbi, didaskalos, epistates, kurios).[9] Since the group of disciples had gathered under Jesus as rabbi, teacher, and Lord, they would have, in line with the Jewish tradition, been a family. Thus, if anyone wanted to actually know what a particular rabbi said they would seek out the students of the disciples.[10] Such a model of acquiring information is contrary to German form-criticism which saw tradition as having no authoritative centrality.

“These perspectives have not been given due weight in the gospel research of the form-critical era. It seems as though parallels from folklore—that is, material extending over centuries and widely different geographical areas—have tempted scholars unconsciously to stretch out the chronological and geographical dimensions of the formation of the early Christian tradition in an unreasonable manner. What is needed here is a more sober approach to history. In the New Testament period the church was not nearly as widespread or as large in numbers as we usually imagine.”[11]

Gerhardsson notes that the early Christians did not see themselves as anything other than the true Jews.[12] Thus, why should we expect the early traditions of Christianity to transmit different that the Jewish traditions? Jewish identity was Torah-centric, thus, Christianity was also Torah-centric. This was not in the sense that the early Christians viewed Law (nomos) as essential to the Christian faith (though some did, as we can see from Galatians and Acts 15). Rather, Christianity would have held on to Verbal, Practical, and Institutional tradition.

Last of all, Gerhadsson argues that the synoptic tradition was essentially verbal. In the Lukan prologue we find several indications of passed on oral tradition. The material was an orderly account (diegesis). It was passed on from eyewitnesses (autoptai) and “ministers of the world” (huperetai toulogou). There were, according to Luke, many earlier attempts at writing the gospel tradition down. The word of “many” (polloi) presents problems for the form-critics since it requires full gospels to have been extant and known throughout the first several years of Christianity. Thus, the presupposition that Mark and Q were the only full gospels (and Q would not even be a full gospel by definition) is called into question. This is a point for Gerhardsson’s seventh and eighth points.

The tradition at this time held to fixed and flexible elements of tradition, but not in the Bultmannian sense. The oral limits to memory did not allow for the tradition to be constantly influenced by situation. The tradition was not fluid, but allowed for exegetical variance. There is a fine line between changing the text to fit the situation and changing the interpretation of the text to fit the situation. The latter, according to Gerhardsson, was the allowed flexibility in ancient models of oral transmission. Thus, while the synoptic gospels may speak of the same event, there purposes behind telling the event could vary. There is no evidence, however, of an interpretation as the catalyst for changing the factuality and historicity of an event.

[1] Gerhardsson, Birger. The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition (Hendrickson Publishers, 2001), 90

[2] For example, the House of Hillel or the House of Shammai

[3] Gerhardsson, 10

[4] The word “text” is not limited to written records. There existed in the ancient world a “written text” and an “oral text”.

[5] Deut 6.6-7; Josh 1.8; Ps 1.1-2

[6] Gerhardsson, 11

[7] Kelber, Werner. The Oral and the Written Gospel (Indiana University Press: Indianapolis, 1997), 14

[8] Gerhardsson, 14-50

[9] Gerhardsson, 36

[10] Gerhardsson, 39

[11] Gerhardsson, 40

[12] Gerhardsson, 98

Ehrman on Colbert--Jesus, Interrupted????

2009-04-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Bart Ehrman

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

Interview with Summit Ministries

2009-04-21T01:05:00.000-05:00

Check out the interview I did with Summit Ministries a couple months ago about Ratio Christi.

http://www.summit.org/resources/tc/2009/02/one-summit-grads-brainstorm-be.php

A Note from the Editor: The following is an interview with Randy Hardman, a 2006 Summit graduate. In the spring of 2008, Randy started a campus apologetics club at Appalachian State University in North Carolina where he is currently a senior majoring in Philosophy and Religion. The club, "Ratio Christi" (Latin, meaning "the reason of Christ"), is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization under the auspices of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC. Sister clubs have sprung up on other campuses in North Carolina and requests are coming in to start chapters on major universities across the United States. Randy can be contacted through the Ratio Christi website at www.ratiochristi.org.

When did you get the idea of starting an apologetics club on campus?

I got the idea of starting a campus apologetics club while working on summer staff with the Summit during the summer of 2007. It took about six months before I could actually get a group going on the campus of Appalachian State but with the help of a few people it became a reality. As the semester came to a close one of the members approached me about starting a similar club on the campus of UNC Charlotte. Within the next several months we had linked up with Southern Evangelical Seminary for backing support.

What led to your decision to start Ratio Christi?

Two things: First of all, I was attending a secular university and had seen how many aspects of the biblical worldview had become redefined and replaced with non-Christian ideas. Also, I noticed that several of my friends walked away from their faith due to their lack of understanding of the intellectual viability of Christianity in the classroom. I couldn't sit by hoping that the Christian next to me in class would retain his faith. I had to do something.

The second reason was because I feel Christians need to be the smartest people on the planet—in ALL areas. We should be the chairmen of university departments, the leaders in the scientific arena, the top-notch textbook writers, etc. We are to model ourselves after Christ who was, no doubt, the smartest person to ever live. In the words of Scripture, we are to love the Lord with all your mind as well as heart (Luke 10:17).

The mission of Ratio Christi is, thus, twofold: To defend a biblical worldview in a secularized educational setting and to enhance the Christian mind in academia.

What is the response of Christians you meet on campus to the goals of Ratio Christi?

There are pretty mixed feelings about this sort of club. Half of the students are extremely excited that a club like this exists; a club that seeks to deal with Christianity in a way that many of them have rarely seen. They are excited about knowing why they believe what they believe.

Other's feel like such a project is inherently intolerant. Unfortunately, I've gotten this response from many Christians. They think a club that promotes the idea that Christianity is true is being intolerant of those who believe differently. However, this is not the case. Instead, declaring that Christianity is true simply recognizes the importance of religious belief in this life and the life to come. If the truth is offensive, it is not the fault of Christianity. It simply reveals the unwillingness of the offended person to consider what is true. All worldviews make certain truth claims, so in that sense Christianity is no different from other worldviews. I'm convinced that many student ministries need to be less afraid that they're going to offend somebody and more pro-active in defending and proclaiming the reasonableness of Christianity's truth claims.
What is the response of non-Christians to your worldview and apologetic approach?

Strangely enough many non-Christians have been more open to what we are doing than some believers out there. We've had several non-believers attend meetings or express interest and curiosity in what the club stands for. This is not a club where we feel content just sitting by watching the world go by. This is one of the reasons we bring in Christian intellectuals from all over America to speak at campus-wide events. We want to initiate a pro-active outreach to atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and seekers.

Can you share about an encounter you, or another student involved with Ratio Christi, has had with non-Christians?

During a campus-wide club expo one of our student leaders was going around the hall initiating conversations with people and directing a lot of attention over to our table (like a good saleswoman of course). In a similar fashion one of the student leaders of the Baha'i club was passing around fliers, buttons, and brochures. Eventually their paths met and she invited him back to our table for a conversation. I didn't expect the conversation to last very long but thirty minutes later they were still talking about religious pluralism, the Koran and Christianity, and the definition of faith. I just sat there listening to most of the conversation and found that our member was taking the reigns of the conversation. I heard the Baha'i leader say several times, "Well, that's a valid point," and "I'll have to think about that more." Eventually we had to disperse, but he walked away having put his name on our e-mail list.

In your view, what are the greatest spiritual needs of college students?

We often hear that 40-80% of college students walk away from their Christian faith because of intellectual skepticism. This statistic does not paint the total picture. Of course, the more a student knows how Christianity is intellectually sound and objectively true the less likely he is to walk away from it. And there are many who do walk away from their faith mostly for that reason. But I think there is also a moral dimension to the problem.

Life on campus represents independence for college students who are on their own, away from their parents and church, many for the first time. In this setting there are strong temptations to behave immorally. When this happens, students do not need to be confronted with legalistic moralism. This tends to make many of them stop in their tracks and turn away from the church. Instead, they need someone who will accept them for who they are, as image bearers of God, and then precede to care enough to help mold them to reflect God's image both in their beliefs and their behavior. As Christians we have the choice to be involved in the lives of our fellow students and encourage them toward the goal of honoring Christ in all they think and do.

How important is it for Christian students to receive worldview training?

Extremely! I don't think I can say it with any more clarity. First of all, Christian students need to know how to think about what Christianity teaches in every area of life. And second, they need to understand how to think about the ideas expressed in secular humanism, transcendental religions, postmodern slogans, etc. If a Christian student learns what he believes and why it is true in contrast to the false ideas presented on campus, then he is setting himself up to walk out of college with a biblically sound worldview.

I don't want to paint the secular university as this institution of godless liberalism nor do I want any of our staff or members of Ratio Christi to disparage their universities. There is a reason that I attended a secular university, so I could be a missionary on the campus. We want Christian students to look at their universities and say, "Hey, I want to be a part of this! I want to make a positive difference for Christ."

How did attending the Summit help you in starting this ministry?

Summit has been so influential in my life and in starting this ministry. As a student and summer staff for two years, Summit has helped me see understand the importance of formulating and constantly developing a Christian mind. I do not say this next statement lightly: If it were not for Summit Ministries I would not be doing what I am doing, and Ratio Christi certainly would not exist.

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in Light of Evolution--Theodosius Dobzhansky

2009-04-19T11:33:00.002-05:00

Below I have posted an essay written by the late Theodosius Dobzhansky. Dobzhansky was one of the most prominent biologists of the last century and a devout Christian. His essay is produced below.

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution

As recently as 1966, sheik Abd el Aziz bin Baz asked the king of Saudi Arabia to suppress a heresy that was spreading in his land. Wrote the sheik:

"The Holy Koran, the Prophet's teachings, the majority of Islamic scientists, and the actual facts all prove that the sun is running in its orbit... and that the earth is fixed and stable, spread out by God for his mankind.... Anyone who professed otherwise would utter a charge of falsehood toward God, the Koran, and the Prophet."

The good sheik evidently holds the Copernican theory to be a "mere theory," not a "fact." In this he is technically correct. A theory can be verified by a mass of facts, but it becomes a proven theory, not a fact. The sheik was perhaps unaware that the Space Age had begun before he asked the king to suppress the Copernican heresy. The sphericity of the earth has been seen by astronauts, and even by many earth-bound people on their television screens. Perhaps the sheik could retort that those who venture beyond the confines of God's earth suffer hallucinations, and that the earth is really flat.

Parts of the Copernican world model, such as the contention that the earth rotates around the sun, and not vice versa, have not been verified by direct observations even to the extent the sphericity of the earth has been. Yet scientists accept the model as an accurate representation of reality. Why? Because it makes sense of a multitude of facts which are otherwise meaningless or extravagant. To non-specialists most of these facts are unfamiliar. Why then do we accept the "mere theory" that the earth is a sphere revolving around a spherical sun? Are we simply submitting to authority? Not quite: we know that those who took the time to study the evidence found it convincing.

The good sheik is probably ignorant of the evidence. Even more likely, he is so hopelessly biased that no amount of evidence would impress him. Anyway, it would be sheer waste of time to attempt to convince him. The Koran and the Bible do not contradict Copernicus, nor does Copernicus contradict them. It is ludicrous to mistake the Bible and the Koran for primers of natural science. They treat of matters even more important: the meaning of man and his relations to God. They are written in poetic symbols that were understandable to people of the age when they were written, as well as to peoples of all other ages. The king of Arabia did not comply with the sheik's demand. He knew that some people fear enlightenment, because enlightenment threatens their vested interests. Education is not to be used to promote obscurantism.

The earth is not the geometric center of the universe, although it may be its spiritual center. It is a mere speck of dust in the cosmic spaces. Contrary to Bishop Ussher's calculations, the world did not appear in approximately its present state in 4004 BC. The estimates of the age of the universe given by modern cosmologists are still only rough approximations, which are revised (usually upward) as the methods of estimation are refined. Some cosmologists take the universe to be about 10 billion years old; others suppose that it may have existed, and will continue to exist, eternally. The origin of life on earth is dated tentatively between 3 and 5 billion years ago; manlike beings appeared relatively quite recently, between 2 and 4 million years ago. The estimates of the age of the earth, of the duration of the geologic and paleontologic eras, and of the antiquity of man's ancestors are now based mainly on radiometric evidence the proportions of isotopes of certain chemical elements in rocks suitable for such studies.

Shiek bin Baz and his like refuse to accept the radiometric evidence, because it is a "mere theory." What is the alternative? One can suppose that the Creator saw fit to play deceitful tricks on geologists and biologists. He carefully arranged to have various rocks provided with isotope ratios just right to mislead us into thinking that certain rocks are 2 billion years old, others 2 million, which in fact they are only some 6,000 years old. This kind of pseudo-explanation is not very new. One of the early anti-evolutionists, P. H. Gosse, published a book entitled Omphalos ("the Navel"). The gist of this amazing book is that Adam, though he had no mother, was created with a navel, and that fossils were placed by the Creator where we find them now -- a deliberate act on His part, to give the appearance of great antiquity and geologic upheavals. It is easy to see the fatal flaw in all such notions. They are blasphemies, accusing God of absurd deceitfulness. This is as revolting as it is uncalled for.

Diversity of Living Beings

The diversity and the unity of life are equally striking and meaningful aspects of the living world. Between 1.5 and 2 million species of animals and plants have been described and studied; the number yet to be described is probably as great. The diversity of sizes, structures, and ways of life is staggering but fascinating. Here are just a few examples.

The foot-and-mouth disease virus is a sphere 8-12 mm in diameter. The blue whale reaches 30 m in length and 135 t in weight. The simplest viruses are parasites in cells of other organisms, reduced to barest essentials minute amounts of DNA or RNA, which subvert the biochemical machinery of the host cells to replicate their genetic information, rather than that of the host.

It is a matter of opinion, or of definition, whether viruses are considered living organisms or peculiar chemical substances. The fact that such differences of opinion can exist is in itself highly significant. It means that the borderline between living and inanimate matter is obliterated. At the opposite end of the simplicity complexity spectrum you have vertebrate animals, including man. The human brain has some 12 billion neurons; the synapses between the neurons are perhaps a thousand times numerous.

Some organisms live in a great variety of environments. Man is at the top of the scale in this respect. He is not only a truly cosmopolitan species but, owing to his technologic achievements, can survive for at least a limited time on the surface of the moon and in cosmic spaces. By contrast, some organisms are amazingly specialized. Perhaps the narrowest ecologic niche of all is that of a species of the fungus family Laboulbeniaceae, which grows exclusively on the rear portion of the elytra of the beetle Aphenops cronei, which is found only in some limestone caves in southern France. Larvae of the fly Psilopa petrolei develop in seepages of crude oil in California oilfields; as far as is known they occur nowhere else. This is the only insect able to live and feed in oil, and its adult can walk on the surface of the oil only as long as no body part other than the tarsi are in contact with the oil. Larvae of the fly Drosophila carciniphila develop only in the nephric grooves beneath the flaps of the third maxilliped of the land crab Geocarcinus ruricola, which is restricted to certain islands in the Caribbean.

Is there an explanation, to make intelligible to reason this colossal diversity of living beings? Whence came these extraordinary, seemingly whimsical and superfluous creatures, like the fungus Laboulbenia, the beetle Aphenops cronei, the flies Psilopa petrolei and Drosophila carciniphila, and many, many more apparent biologic curiosities? The only explanation that makes sense is that the organic diversity has evolved in response to the diversity of environment on the planet earth. No single species, however perfect and however versatile, could exploit all the opportunities for living. Every one of the millions of species has its own way of living and of getting sustenance from the environment. There are doubtless many other possible ways of living as yet unexploited by any existing species; but one thing is clear: with less organic diversity, some opportunities for living would remain unexploited. The evolutionary process tends to fill up the available ecologic niches. It does not do so consciously or deliberately; the relations between evolution and environment are more subtle and more interesting than that. The environment does not impose evolutionary changes on its inhabitants, as postulated by the now abandoned neo-Lamarckian theories. The best way to envisage the situation is as follows: the environment presents challenges to living species, to which the later may respond by adaptive genetic changes.

An unoccupied ecologic niche, an unexploited opportunity for living, is a challenge. So is an environmental change, such as the Ice Age climate giving place to a warmer climate. Natural selection may cause a living species to respond to the challenge by adaptive genetic changes. These changes may enable the species to occupy the formerly empty ecologic niche as a new opportunity for living, or to resist the environmental change if it is unfavorable. But the response may or may not be successful. This depends on many factors, the chief of which is the genetic composition of the responding species at the time the response is called for. Lack of successful response may cause the species to become extinct. The evidence of fossils shows clearly that the eventual end of most evolutionary lines is extinction. Organisms now living are successful descendants of only a minority of the species that lived in the past and of smaller and smaller minorities the farther back you look. Nevertheless, the number of living species has not dwindled; indeed, it has probably grown with time. All this is understandable in the light of evolution theory; but what a senseless operation it would have been, on God's part, to fabricate a multitude of species ex nihilo and then let most of them die out!

There is, of course, nothing conscious or intentional in the action of natural selection. A biologic species does not say to itself, "Let me try tomorrow (or a million years from now) to grow in a different soil, or use a different food, or subsist on a different body part of a different crab." Only a human being could make such conscious decisions. This is why the species Homo sapiens is the apex of evolution. Natural selection is at one and the same time a blind and creative process. Only a creative and blind process could produce, on the one hand, the tremendous biologic success that is the human species and, on the other, forms of adaptedness as narrow and as constraining as those of the overspecialized fungus, beetle, and flies mentioned above.

Anti-evolutionists fail to understand how natural selection operates. They fancy that all existing species were generated by supernatural fiat a few thousand years ago, pretty much as we find them today. But what is the sense of having as many as 2 or 3 million species living on earth? If natural selection is the main factor that brings evolution about, any number of species is understandable: natural selection does not work according to a foreordained plan, and species are produced not because they are needed for some purpose but simply because there is an environmental opportunity and genetic wherewithal to make them possible. Was the Creator in a jocular mood when he made Psilopa petrolei for California oil fields and species of Drosophila to live exclusively on some body-parts of certain land crabs on only certain islands in the Caribbean? The organic diversity becomes, however, reasonable and understandable if the Creator has created the living world not by caprice but by evolution propelled by natural selection. It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.

Unity of Life

The unity of life is no less remarkable than its diversity. Most forms of life are similar in many respects. The universal biologic similarities are particularly striking in the biochemical dimension. From viruses to man, heredity is coded in just two, chemically related substances: DNA and RNA. The genetic code is as simple as it is universal. There are only four genetic "letters" in DNA: adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. Uracil replaces thymine in RNA. The entire evolutionary development of the living world has taken place not by invention of new "letters" in the genetic "alphabet" but by elaboration of ever-new combinations of these letters.

Not only is the DNA-RNA genetic code universal, but so is the method of translation of the sequences of the "letters" in DNA-RNA into sequences of amino acids in proteins. The same 20 amino acids compose countless different proteins in all, or at least in most, organisms. Different amino acids are coded by one to six nucleotide triplets in DNA and RNA. And the biochemical universals extend beyond the genetic code and its translation into proteins: striking uniformities prevail in the cellular metabolism of the most diverse living beings. Adenosine triphosphate, biotin, riboflavin, hemes, pyridoxin, vitamins K and B12, and folic acid implement metabolic processes everywhere.

What do these biochemical or biologic universals mean? They suggest that life arose from inanimate matter only once and that all organisms, no matter now diverse, in other respects, conserve the basic features of the primordial life. (It is also possible that there were several, or even many, origins of life; if so, the progeny of only one of them has survived and inherited the earth.) But what if there was no evolution and every one of the millions of species were created by separate fiat? However offensive the notion may be to religious feeling and to reason, the anti-evolutionists must again accuse the Creator of cheating. They must insist that He deliberately arranged things exactly as if his method of creation was evolution, intentionally to mislead sincere seekers of truth.

The remarkable advances of molecular biology in recent years have made it possible to understand how it is that diverse organisms are constructed from such monotonously similar materials: proteins composed of only 20 kinds of amino acids and coded only by DNA and RNA, each with only four kinds of nucleotides. The method is astonishingly simple. All English words, sentences, chapters, and books are made up of sequences of 26 letters of the alphabet. (They can be represented also by only three signs of the Morse code: dot, dash, and gap.) The meaning of a word or a sentence is defined not so much by what letters it contains as by the sequences of these letters. It is the same with heredity: it is coded by the sequences of the genetic "letters" the nucleotides in the DNA. They are translated into the sequences of amino acids in the proteins.

Molecular studies have made possible an approach to exact measurements of degrees of biochemical similarities and differences among organisms. Some kinds of enzymes and other proteins are quasi-universal, or at any rate widespread, in the living world. They are functionally similar in different living beings, in that they catalyze similar chemical reactions. But when such proteins are isolated and their structures determined chemically, they are often found to contain more or less different sequences of amino acids in different organisms. For example, the so-called alpha chains of hemoglobin have identical sequences of amino acids in man and the chimpanzee, but they differ in a single amino acid (out of 141) in the gorilla. Alpha chains of human hemoglobin differ from cattle hemoglobin in 17 amino acid substitutions, 18 from horse, 20 from donkey, 25 from rabbit, and 71 from fish (carp).

Cytochrome C is an enzyme that plays an important role in the metabolism of aerobic cells. It is found in the most diverse organisms, from man to molds. E. Margoliash, W. M. Fitch, and others have compared the amino acid sequences in cytochrome C in different branches of the living world. Most significant similarities as well as differences have been brought to light. The cytochrome C of different orders of mammals and birds differ in 2 to 17 amino acids, classes of vertebrates in 7 to 38, and vertebrates and insects in 23 to 41; and animals differ from yeasts and molds in 56 to 72 amino acids. Fitch and Margoliash prefer to express their findings in what are called "minimal mutational distances." It has been mentioned above that different amino acids are coded by different triplets of nucleotides in DNA of the genes; this code is now known. Most mutations involve substitutions of single nucleotides somewhere in the DNA chain coding for a given protein. Therefore, one can calculate the minimum numbers of single mutations needed to change the cytochrome C of one organism into that of another. Minimal mutational distances between human cytochrome C and the cytochrome C of other living beings are as follows:

Monkey - 1

Chicken - 18

Dog - 13

Penguin - 18

Horse - 17

Turtle - 19

Donkey - 16

Rattlesnake - 20

Pig - 13

Fish (tuna) - 31

Rabbit - 12

Fly- 33

Kangaroo - 12

Moth - 36

Duck- 17

Mold - 63

Pigeon - 16

Yeast - 56

It is important to note that amino acid sequences in a given kind of protein vary within a species as well as from species to species. It is evident that the differences among proteins at the level of species, genus, family, order, class, and phylum are compounded of elements that vary also among individuals within a species. Individual and group differences are only quantitatively, not qualitatively, different. Evidence supporting the above propositions is ample and is growing rapidly. Much work has been done in recent years on individual variations in amino acid sequences of hemoglobin of human blood. More that 100 variants have been detected. Most of them involve substitutions of single amino acids - substitutions that have arisen by genetic mutations in the persons in whom they are discovered or in their ancestors. As expected, some of these mutations are deleterious to their carriers, but others apparently are neutral or even favorable in certain environments. Some mutant hemoglobins have been found only in one person or in one family; others are discovered repeatedly among inhabitants of different parts of the world. I submit that all these remarkable findings make sense in the light of evolution: they are nonsense otherwise.

Comparative Anatomy and Embryology

The biochemical universals are the most impressive and the most recently discovered, but certainly they are not the only vestiges of creation by means of evolution. Comparative anatomy and embryology proclaim the evolutionary origins of the present inhabitants of the world. In 1555 Pierre Belon established the presence of homologous bones in the superficially very different skeletons of man and bird. Later anatomists traced the homologies in the skeletons, as well as in other organs, of all vertebrates. Homologies are also traceable in the external skeletons of arthropods as seemingly unlike as a lobster, a fly, and a butterfly. Examples of homologies can be multiplied indefinitely.

Embryos of apparently quite diverse animals often exhibit striking similarities. A century ago these similarities led some biologists (notably the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel) to be carried by their enthusiasm as far as to interpret the embryonic similarities as meaning that the embryo repeats in its development the evolutionary history of its species: it was said to pass through stages in which it resembles its remote ancestors. In other words, early-day biologists supposed that by studying embryonic development one can, as it were, read off the stages through which the evolutionary development had passed. This so-called biogenetic law is no longer credited in its original form. And yet embryonic similarities are undeniable impressive and significant.

Probably everybody knows the sedentary barnacles which seem to have no similarity to free-swimming crustaceans, such as the copepods. How remarkable that barnacles pass through a free-swimming larval stage, the nauplius! At that stage of its development a barnacle and a Cyclops look unmistakably similar. They are evidently relatives. The presence of gill slits in human embryos and in embryos of other terrestrial vertebrates is another famous example. Of course, at no stage of its development is a human embryo a fish, nor does it ever have functioning gills. But why should it have unmistakable gill slits unless its remote ancestors did respire with the aid of gills? It is the Creator again playing practical jokes?

Adaptive radiation: Hawaii's Flies

There are about 2,000 species of drosophilid flies in the world as a whole. About a quarter of them occur in Hawaii, although the total area of the archipelago is only about that of the state of New Jersey. All but 17 of the species in Hawaii are endemic (found nowhere else). Furthermore, a great majority of the Hawaiian endemics do not occur throughout the archipelago: they are restricted to single islands or even to a part of an island. What is the explanation of this extraordinary proliferation of drosophilid species in so small a territory? Recent work of H. L. Carson, H. T. Spieth, D. E. Hardy, and others makes the situation understandable.

The Hawaiian Islands are of volcanic origin; they were never parts of any continent. Their ages are between 5.6 and 0.7 million years. Before man came there inhabitants were descendants of immigrants that had been transported across the ocean by air currents and other accidental means. A single drosophilid species, which arrived in Hawaii first, before there were numerous competitors, faced the challenge of an abundance of many unoccupied ecologic niches. Its descendants responded to this challenge by evolutionary adaptive radiation, the products of which are the remarkable Hawaiian drosophilids of today. To forestall a possible misunderstanding, let it be made clear that the Hawaiian endemics are by no means so similar to each other that they could be mistaken for variants of the same species; if anything, they are more diversified than are drosophilids elsewhere. The largest and the smallest drosophilid species are both Hawaiian. They exhibit an astonishing variety of behavior patterns. Some of them have become adapted to ways of life quite extraordinary for a drosophilid fly, such as being parasites in egg cocoons of spiders.

Oceanic islands other than Hawaii, scattered over the wide Pacific Ocean, are not conspicuously rich in endemic species of drosophilids. The most probable explanation of this fact is that these other islands were colonized by drosophilid after most ecologic niches had already been filled by earlier arrivals. This surely is a hypothesis, but it is a reasonable one. Anti-evolutionists might perhaps suggest an alternative hypothesis: in a fit of absentmindedness, the Creator went on manufacturing more and more drosophilid species for Hawaii, until there was an extravagant surfeit of them in this archipelago. I leave it up to you to decide which hypothesis makes sense.

Strength and Acceptance of the Theory

Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.

This is not to imply that we know everything that can and should be known about biology and about evolution. Any competent biologist is aware of a multitude of problems yet unresolved and of questions yet unanswered. After all, biologic research shows no sign of approaching completion; quite the opposite is true. Disagreements and clashes of opinion are rife among biologists, as they should be in a living and growing science. Anti-evolutionists mistake, or pretend to mistake, these disagreements as indications of dubiousness of the entire doctrine of evolution. Their favorite sport is stringing together quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of context, to show that nothing is really established or agreed upon among evolutionists. Some of my colleagues and myself have been amused and amazed to read ourselves quoted in a way showing that we are really anti-evolutionists under the skin.

Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.

It is remarkable that more than a century ago Darwin was able to discern so much about evolution without having available to him the key facts discovered since. The development of genetics after 1900 especially of molecular genetics, in the last two decades has provided information essential to the understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. But much is in doubt and much remains to be learned. This is heartening and inspiring for any scientist worth his salt. Imagine that everything is completely known and that science has nothing more to discover: what a nightmare!

Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.

One of the great thinkers of our age, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wrote the following: "Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems much henceforward bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of though must follow this is what evolution is. Of course, some scientists, as well as some philosophers and theologians, disagree with some parts of Teilhard's teachings; the acceptance of his worldview falls short of universal. But there is no doubt at all that Teilhard was a truly and deeply religious man and that Christianity was the cornerstone of his worldview. Moreover, in his worldview science and faith were not segregated in watertight compartments, as they are with so many people. They were harmoniously fitting parts of his worldview. Teilhard was a creationist, but one who understood that the Creation is realized in this world by means of evolution.

- Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The American Biology Teacher, March 1973

The Vatican Endorses Darwin

2009-02-13T23:32:00.000-05:00

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/11/vatican_on_darwin/

Irena Sendler vs. Al Gore

2009-02-04T18:46:00.002-05:00

This video was posted by a friend of mine and I found it extremely moving and wanted to share it. In our day of political frenzy I have wondered sometimes if we have forgotten our morals and our duty to serve.

Merry CHRISTmas!

2008-12-25T09:03:00.002-05:00

Merry CHRISTmas everyone. Let's remember this holiday the reason for the holiday. It's not just "that time of year". This is the time when we celebrate the incarnation of salvation two thousand years ago.

Hope everyone has a good one.

- Randy

Wisdom was removed by my dentist

2008-12-19T09:18:00.002-05:00

I guess I can now say that I have successfully made my right of passage into manhood. I am layed up right now in a bed with a swollen jaw and aching neck. Yes, my wisdom teeth were removed yesterday (luckily my tops came in just fine, so they can stay).

Needless to say, I have a lot of down time on my hands right now. It's given me a chance to relax somewhat after finishing up my final exams this week and do some much needed reading and writing. I just finished a book that I've been slowly flipping through the past couple months: Hugh Hewitt's In, But Not Of. Hewitt's book is basically a guide to Christian life, ambition, and success. Though I disagree with Hewitt on a few points, I think the book overall is fantastic and full of useful advice.

One of the pieces of advice that stuck out to me the most was in his chapter "Know What You Don't Know". This piece of advice is no revelation but it is something that is often overlooked in Christian apologetics. Because our passion for truth is so strong, sometimes we overlook the limits of what we know and act as if we know everything. We need to be careful not to turn knowledge into a god--something I see Christian thinkers do all the time (including myself). We know things because God allows us to know things. Knowledge is a gift from God and when we confront nonbelievers we need to be humble about it and recognize how little we actually do know. Be confident in what you know but don't be arrogant in what you don't.

National Apologetics Conference

2008-11-10T21:06:00.005-05:00

Wanted to quickly thank everyone that came out and saw us at the National Apologetics Conference in Charlotte this past weekend. Meeting so many of you was a blessing. Thank you for your time and interest in Ratio Christi.

We managed to raise about $300 in donations and sold roughly $600 in books as well as raise vocal support for the ministry. We also received several inquiries into starting Ratio Christi chapters at different universities all across the nation. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Continue to pray for all of us at Ratio Christi.

In Christ,

Randy

Picket Signs and Judgement

2008-10-01T17:05:00.003-05:00

Sorry folks for not being able to write too much since I've been back from Summit. Getting into this year and getting it going has been crazy (but good). Things are starting to look now like they're settling down, so I'll be able to write more.

I think one of the driving forces for the secularization of the university is Christian presentation. What do I mean?

This week we had a "Christian" stroll through campus for a couple days and set up in the local hangout part of campus. For two days he attracted large crowds for hours and hours on end as he proclaimed judgement, hell, wrath, sin, fire and brimstone, etc. He held a fifteen foot picket sign which on the front read "Cry to God" while on the back...well, you can see the pictures below.

Here's the thing. It would be unfair to fundamentalists to call this individual one. He literally yelled at the students to repent, referred to himself as sinless since coming to Christ, and pronounced judgement and wrath all day long. Like this is going to bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ! YHWH is wrathful and YHWH is just. But YHWH is also merciful. When this preacher called women that wear pants "lesbians" and said that all those who drank beer were condemned to hell, he is hurt the gospel. Frankly, with such a presentation of Christianity I don't fault the university for becoming more secularized.

This isn't the way people did it two thousand years ago and this isn't the way people should do it today. What happened to reasonable discourse? What happened to open, honest discussion?

In fact, I wonder if this preacher has ever read Acts 17. The setting is similar. Paul goes into the Aereopagus (the university of the day) and engages in dialogue and debate with them. But does Paul start getting angry? Did Paul start pronouncing judgement upon judgement? Not at all. Paul engaged in reasonable discussion with the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers. He confronted their worldview and subverted it not by preaching condemnation but by preaching grace and resurrection. Some listened. Some called him crazy. But after Paul had made his case, he left (v. 33). Those that had further questions followed him. Those that rejected the gospel were left behind. We were instructed by Christ to do the same (Matt 10:14).

Why do we put up with people like these in our churches? Why do we insist that we share the same gospel? Could it actually be that this preacher was preaching a "different gospel" (Gal 1:6)? I say, let us either confront these ultra-fundies or let us dismiss ourselves from them.

N.T. Wright on the Rapture

2008-09-09T14:40:00.001-05:00

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_BR_Farewell_Rapture.htm

Though not a very in depth article, I highly recommend reading it from one of the best New Testament scholars working in the market. At the very least, it should give you a non-American view of the Left Behind eschatology.

-Randy

An Informal, Controlled Oral Tradition

2008-08-31T21:32:00.002-05:00

I'm currently writing a paper entitled "Q in the Jesus Tradition and the Misconceptions of the Jesus Seminar"

One of the major presuppositions of the Jesus Seminar is that the NT oral tradition (the sayings and deeds of Jesus before they were written down in the gospels) is fluid and has heavily been distorted. This is a major reason why the Seminar felt confidant in the idea that only 18% of the gospel sayings attributed to Jesus probably go back to him.

I have come across a very interesting article by a NT scholar and anthropologist who spent the past thirty years in the Middle East studying the issue. I have provided the link below:

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_tradition_bailey.html

Ratio Christi Promo. Video Now UP!!!!

2008-08-20T17:02:00.000-05:00

Check it. www.ratiochristi.org

A Message from John Cleese

2008-08-18T10:17:00.003-05:00

(I saw this on Ben Witherington III's blog and wanted to repost it here).
-------------
Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A. ----A Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:

"In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately."

"Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas ,which she does not fancy)."

"Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed."

"To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. "You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary, then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. "The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. "Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, 'God Save The Queen'.

4. "July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday."

5. "You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. "Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. "All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. "All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

9. "The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

10. "You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

11. "The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.

12. "Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

13. "You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will,in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

14. "Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

15. "You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

16. "An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

17. "Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season."

"God save the Queen."

"Ratio Christi" Website Up!!!!

2008-07-08T12:32:00.006-05:00

Just wanted to let everybody know that our website is now up! Please check it out. If you're willing, please be willing to donate to the organization. If we want to grow and place the clubs at universities across the country, we need funding. Also, tell others about us. Thanks everybody! Summit is going great.

www.ratiochristi.org

Update from Summit

2008-06-24T09:45:00.002-05:00

Wow! These past three weeks at Summit have been crazy. I haven't gotten more than 6 1/2 hours of sleep a night. But it is totally worth it. To be with the students day after day as they go through a two week apologetics seminar is one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done. At Summit I am currently head of the 'Classroom' (where the lectures occur). Currently I am listening to David Noebel, President of Summit Ministries, give a lecture on worldviews. It's amazing to see how much the students pull out of these lectures and how much fun the students actually have in the classroom.

On another note, I've been working with a couple other individuals to set up the Ratio Christi organization (formally Reasonable Faith Apologetics Club). We should hopefully have the website up soon and as soon as it is, please check it out and, if at all possible, please donate. Ratio Christi is an organization connected with Southern Evangelical Seminary (Charlotte, NC). We have two chapters of the clubs: one at Appalachian State and one at UNC Charlotte. Since setting this up, and depending on the donations we get, we hope to put several other clubs at secular and liberal campuses over the next several years. Eventually, we hope to have chapters at all major university campuses.

Summit

2008-06-03T23:13:00.002-05:00

Pray for me as I head off to Summit Ministries today and go through the next couple months counseling students and providing lecture material. I will try and update the blog quite regularily and maybe have a couple recordings up sooner or later of the lectures I give. Nonetheless, please be in prayer for me and those that I may come into contact with over the next two months.

-Randis

William Lane Craig on 'Who Created God?'

2008-05-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

What sources did Matthew and Luke use in constructing their gospels?

2008-05-19T23:32:00.002-05:00

(What follows is a preview of an essay I am currently writing on the historical reliability of the gospels. I hope to expand it in due time beyond the limits of the essay. Also, the following paragraphs represent a small section of a first draft so, if you know me, they may look nothing like this in the end.) ;)

What sources did Luke and Matthew use and what is their literary relationship with Mark? According to the twentieth-century British scholar B.H. Streeter, there are evident signs in the gospels that suggest a use of sources. Streeter went beyond the “two source hypothesis” argued first by Christian Weisse and Heinrich Holtzmann and postulated what is called the “four source hypothesis.”[1] According the four source hypothesis, Luke and Matthew used Mark’s gospel for certain information contained in all three gospels, ‘Q’ (meaning “source”) for information not included in Mark, and from where Matthew and Luke differ used different sources, respectively ‘M’ and ‘L’. It should be noted that Streeter never intended to imply that the gospels were historically inaccurate. Rather, Streeter and many of the other proponents of his theory simply intended to show the literary relationship between the Synoptics. It has only been recently that scholars have implied that this method goes against the reliability of the Gospels. This modern view is surely unwarranted. It is well known that historians of the Greco-Roman world quite often used sources—many sources—in constructing their histories. Why should the Gospels be any different? In dealing with the Synoptics then, we must construct an accurate picture of what ‘Q’, ‘M’, and ‘L’ really are. The definitions of these supposed documents are often quite ambiguous and discussions of them can often be misleading.

‘Q’ is a hypothetical document that originated 40-50 A.D. that seeks to answer why, in so many places, Matthew and Luke are so similar (roughly 200 verses) in what they report while Mark and John both fail to record the saying. There are several problems with hypothetical Q, not least of which is that there is no evidence whatsoever ever in textual fragments or church reference that suggests Q ever existed. Furthermore, one could always suggest, in line with the ‘Farrer hypothesis’, that Mark was written first, with Luke using Matthew as his source (or vice-versa).[2] Nonetheless, even though the Q hypothesis has undergone severe criticism recently and is beginning to decline in popularity among scholars, it is still the prevailing view of the time and I see no reason to abandon it in its entirety as of yet.[3]

What I do feel needs to be abandoned (and is in the process of being abandoned) is the common definition of Q held by many liberal scholars. Q is often argued to be quite like the Gospel of Thomas in that it is not really a gospel at all but merely a record of Jesus sayings. It is here that Q proponents believe Matthew and Luke derived most of their shared sayings while taking many of the events from Mark. Proponents of this type of Q hold that Luke preserves more of the original Q sayings and parables than does Matthew. The idea is that Jesus was no more than a cynic philosopher and reformer comparative to Socrates, Plato, and the like. After his sayings were preserved in Q, Matthew, in line with his exegesis, came through and Judaized them. Unfortunately for them, this line of reasoning has come under severe scrutiny from scholars across the field, most notably beginning with Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer’s criticisms were put to rest for some time but have been resurrected recently with the work of E.P. Sanders and N.T. Wright in recent years[4]. As these scholars point out, this view of Jesus completely strips away his Jewishness and turns him into somebody he most certainly wasn’t. There is no reason to accept this idea other than the already preconceived presumption that the Jesus of the New Testament (in all his Jewishness) couldn’t have been the Jesus of history. It seems much more plausible reversed: instead of Jesus’ Stoicism being stripped and replaced with a Jewish portrait that his Jewish portrait would be stripped and replaced with a Stoic portrait. And this is certainly what we find with Gnostic documents compared to the canonical documents. Even with Luke’s gentile exegesis Jesus is still remarkably Jewish.
Further, I think because of the lack of both textual and referential support for the existence of Q we cannot sufficiently label it a single document. As Luke mentions, several other eyewitness accounts were circulating at this time and oral tradition was permeating. Q, as far as I think can be allowed, should be defined as a collection of multiple pre-canonical documents and oral sayings. While some believe there is no reason to speculate the existence of Q whatsoever, I see no reason to believe that Q was a single document. The evidence doesn’t seem to support it. Wherein Matthew and Luke quote word for word exactly what Jesus said it’s reasonable to think they were writing off the same source. Why should they change the wording? In other places, while reporting the same saying, the wording differentiates. It seems to me that this is a prime example of oral tradition. Matthew and Luke obviously had the same tradition available to them but from different sources.

It seems to me that the definition of Q, as commonly promoted by its proponents (specifically Burton Mack) is almost entirely wrong. There is no reason to differentiate it so much from the gospels. As Wright notes, “those who first hypothesized Q, after all, saw it simply and solely as consisting of those passages in Matthew and Luke which do not overlap with Mark.” He continues, “Q belongs, if anywhere, within the early missionary community of Jesus’ followers…”[5]

What then of ‘M’ and ‘L’? How should these, in line with the four-source hypothesis, be interpreted? There certainly are passages unique to Matthew and Luke not found in Mark and the four-source theory seems to have the most explanatory power. The idea is that Matthew had a source, unknown (or at least unused) by Luke and vice-versa. It needs to be stated though, that even if Q is eventually dismissed by scholars, B.H. Streeter’s theory will not take too much of a hit. For if the Gospel of Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew as church tradition holds, then it seems reasonable that much of his unique material comes from personal experiences and reminiscences.[6] Since Luke refers to careful investigating the facts in his gospel and, in Acts we find “we” passages in which he often claims to have stayed with the apostles and other believers it is quite reasonable to think that he may have interviewed the eyewitnesses prior to his writing of Luke-Acts. Ben Witherington III, respected professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary and author of more than thirty books on Jesus believes that Luke 1-2, because of its seemingly different characteristics (including its seemingly Semitic structure) is a prime example of what ‘L’ is. Witherington notes, “I have suggested elsewhere that Luke was privy to this material because he spent two years in the Holy Land in the late 50s while Paul was under house arrest in Caesarea Maritima, during which time Luke surely must have gone to Jerusalem and interviewed many persons, which may well have included Mary.”[7] Given Luke’s immediate preface (Luke 1:1-4, wherein he takes the position of a Hellenistic historian), this seems to me to be more of a plausible hypothesis given the “we” passages and the claims by Luke to have been in the company of the eyewitnesses than Crossan’s belief that these were merely theological stories meant to emphasize Christ’s divinity.[8]

[1] Blomberg, Craig, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey (Broadman & Holman Publishers: Nashville, 1997), p 92
[2] See, http://www.ntgateway.com/Q/farrer.htm
[3] For other competing hypothesizes see Blomberg, 1997.
[4] See Wright, 1992 and Sanders, E.P., The Historical Figure of Jesus, (Penguin Press: Allen Lane:1993)
[5] Wright, 1992, p 441-442
[6] It should be noted though, that an extremely large portion of Ignatius’ quotes of Matthew material is unparalleled. This may suggest that ‘M’ was still in circulation during the journey of Ignatius. See Blomberg 1997; cf. Early Christian Writings, (Penguin Classics: New York, 1987) tr. Maxwell Staniforth and Andrew Louth.
[7] Witherington III, Ben, What Have They Done With Jesus: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History—Why We Can Trust the Bible, (Harper One: New York, 2006) p 98.
[8] For the both Crossan’s views and archeological evidence Witherington finds in support of both Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives see CBS 48 Hours: The Mystery of Christmas, December 20th, 2005; cf. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/19/48hours/main1135330.shtml, last accessed 5/20/08

Question: What is your only comfort in life and death?

2008-05-19T00:41:00.002-05:00

Answer: That I am not my own,[1] but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death,[2] to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.[3] He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil.[5] He also preserves me in such a way[6] that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head;[7] indeed, all things must work together for my salvation.[8] Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life[9] and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.[10]
[1] I Cor. 6:19, 20 [2] Rom. 14:7-9. [3] I Cor. 3:23; Tit. 2:14. [4] I Pet. 1:18, 19; I John 1:7; 2:2. [5] John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14, 15; I John 3:8. [6] John 6:39, 40; 10:27-30; II Thess. 3:3; I Pet. 1:5. [7] Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18. [8] Rom. 8:28. [9] Rom. 8:15, 16; II Cor. 1:21, 22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13, 14. [10] Rom. 8:14.

Question 1 from the Heidelburg Catechism
(My new, once a week blog segment will be posting the questions of the Heidelburg Catechism. I think, as a body of believers in Christ, we often look past creeds. Yet, in the early church creeds were an important component of worship. These tie back to the apostles (and even to the pre-Christian Jews with the Shema). Scholars have spotted roughly 18 oral church creeds preserved in the New Testament.

A New Age Has Begun

2008-05-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at minight this past Thursday. I must say, absolutely amazing! The acting is spectaculor, the imagery is captivating, and the plot will keep you awake. I will try not to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it.

As in the book, a year passes between the two stories (in the films it is more like two and a half years, so the kids look remarkeably older). As they head back to Narnia as 'Kings and Queens of Old' they encounter a completely different Narnia. Aslan is gone, the Narnians are in hidng, and the evil Telmarines have taken over. It becomes a three hour struggle for the Pevensie children and Prince Caspian (a runaway Telmarine that wants to put the empire straight) to successfully defeat their foes.

There are some major plot differences between the book and the movie. Disney obviously took more liberties in this film than they did in the first. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe succeeded in being a well designed children/adult movie. This isn't the case with Prince Caspian. I'm not sure how Disney managed to get away with a PG rating with Prince Caspian. There are more battle scenes, more bloodshed (even the slitting of throats and the chopping off of heads), and overall more violence. If you know me, this doesn't bother me. I would actually prefer a movie like this than not. But Prince Caspian looked more on par with Lord of the Rings then it did The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Disney also manages to throw in a romance, something I think was extremely cheezy.

I thought the movie was amazing. But given the plot changes, exagerrated violence, and the romance story I think C.S. Lewis would probably beg to differ.

On Partial-Preterist Eschatology

2008-05-17T22:02:00.003-05:00

After giving a speech a couple months ago I got involved in a discussion with a certain woman at my church on apologetics. It was a very pleasant discussion and I look forward again and again to talking with this lady. She was a big fan of Hank Hanegraff's program "The Bible Answer Man" which is now located out of Charlotte, NC. I am also a fan of the program, though I seldom get to listen to it anymore. Usually I just get the Christian Research Journal. She expressed how thankful she was for the ministry the Christian Research Institute provided. I was pleased to here her gratitude. However, towards the end of our discussion she mentioned that Hanegraff had "gone of his rocker" within the past couple years with his search in eschatology and referred to it as "craziness", "heresy", and "lies".

If you are unfamiliar with Hanegraff's eschatology (the study of the end times), Hanegraff published it in a book called "The Apocalypse Code". In the book, Hanegraff lays out a case against belief in the rapture, against a late date of Revelation, against a future tribulation, and against a literal reading of Revelation. His opinions stand in stark constrast with those of other modern pre-millenial dispensationalists like Tim LaHaye, Tom Ice, and even the renowned Norman Geisler.

I want to say this with the most respect possible, to those that believe in the rapture, a future tribulation of the church, and a literal tribulation. But can you justify it scripturally? Where in scripture is there any suggestion that there will be a rapture of the church prior to a second coming and how can you date this view previous to Jonathan Darby? Why are we to interpret certain things in Revelation as literal and others not? Have you studied it in conjunction with the apocalyptic language in Daniel? Have you studied Revelation and Jesus' other apocalyptic statements in conjunction with the Jewish War of A.D. 63-70?

I don't mean to sound patronizing. As someone who believed for years and years in the rapture and a future tribulation, wrote papers on it, gave speeches concerning it, and even as a child wrote a book about the end of the world, I think it is one of the biggest traps the church has ever fallen into. For the vast majority of Christianity there has been no doctrine of a rapture. It originated with John Darby in the early 19th century and became popular soon after. As far as general dispensationalism and a view of a future tribulation goes, I think this is a major misconception based off of bad readings of scripture and a lack of understanding concerning Second-Temple Judaism and early Christianity. If you find my statements as overly forceful, I apologize but it is something I think the church needs to fix. Eschatology is a major component of our worldview (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration) and we need to understand that it is not and should not be a grey issue.

Lee Strobel on the Story of Ignatius

2008-05-14T00:57:00.000-05:00

The story of Ignatius is one of my favorite stories of the early church. To read his seven letters that he wrote while he was on his way to be executed is extremely powerful. Lee Strobel does a fantastic job demonstrating the certainty through which Ignatius believed in Christianity. Take a listen.

Debate on James the Just

2008-05-13T11:04:00.002-05:00

Want to bring everybody's attention to a debate that I'm currently in with a certain atheist named Steven Carr. I commented on a post of his earlier this week and it's still going on. The New Testament tells us that James the brother of Jesus didn't believe his claims. It was only after the resurrection and the appearence of Jesus to him (1 Cor 15) that he became a believer. And, as we know, James became the leader of the Jerusalem Church and later died as a matryr (Josephus, Hegessipus). Carr's claim is that given the virgin birth, James the brother of Jesus would not have been a skeptic of Jesus' claims. Click Here to go to the debate. Don't forget that it's going on in the 'comment' section of the post.

What Happened to Chivalry?

2008-05-12T19:54:00.003-05:00

What ever happened to rational discussion? The more I blog and the more I debate the more I see people, Christians and non-Christians get verbally violent, angry, and close minded. One of the first things I tell the members of the RFAC is that as apologists we do not argue simply for the sake of arguing. Apologetics is a ministry, a witnessing tool, and a sort of evangelism.

Now, don't get me wrong. If you've kept up with some of the debates/discussions I've had with atheists you know that I don't hold back (especially if there's an audience reading the posts or listening to the discussion). I speak my mind. And I don't hold back. If I see a weak argument I knock it down and I knock it down hard. But we have to realize that debating to the best of our ability does not mean that we can hurl insults, be arrogant and close minded, and overall mean. We should engage in debates with "meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).

I've seen this lately in several discussions I've had with certain atheists. The atheist will respond with something halfway composed of ad hominem fallacies. One such individual stated this to me: "Christianity - the story only stupid, gullible people would believe..."

I'm thinking to myself, 'Are you serious?'

Why can we no longer enjoy rational, respectable debate?

What do you think?

Happy Mothers Day

2008-05-11T11:47:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to say Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there! You are greatly appreciated.

The Truth Project

2008-05-08T01:06:00.000-05:00

Check it--(especially if you're involved in church ministry)

http://www.thetruthproject.org/

How the the Bible Answer the Problem of Evil and Suffering

2008-05-06T13:15:00.003-05:00

In lay of my essay on the philosophical Free Will Defense on the problem of evil and suffering I thought I would post a recent discussion on the problem by two fantastic scholars: Bart Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus, Lost Christianities, God's Problem) and N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Evil and the Justic of God). Bart Ehrman is the James. A. Gray Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. N.T. Wright is currently Bishop of Durham and has taught at Oxford and Cambridge. He is, according to Marcus Borg, the top British New Testament scholar of his generation. I want to say thanks to Ben Witherington III for posting it on his site and bringing it to my attention.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/blogalogue/is_our_pain_gods_problem/

The Problem of Evil and Suffering (Pt. 4)

2008-05-05T00:32:00.000-05:00

The Probabilistic Version:

There is, however, another objection that might be hailed against theist. With the dismissal of the logical version by most philosophers there arose a new branch of atheologians. There argument was essentially, even if God’s existence is logically compatible with the existence of evil, it is still improbable. In other words, given the evil that is in the world, and it being at least conceivable of a world with less evil, it is improbable that God should exist. This argument is quite a bit more modest and thus is more influential than the logical version. But Craig points out three responses that accomplish in defeating the probabilistic version.[1]

1) Relative to the full scope of the evidence God’s existence is probable. As philosophers and logicians have long recognized, background information is necessary for one to deem something probable or improbable. It may be that the evil in the world makes God’s existence improbable on its own accord. However, when coupled with the cosmological arguments (Kalam, Leibniz, and Thomist), the teleological argument, the ontological argument, the axiological argument, existential religious experience, and, as Craig believes, evidence from Christ and the historicity of the resurrection, the improbability of God’s existence diminishes. It may, in fact, be that with the problem of evil it is actually probable that God exists. Craig notes, “…relative to the background information of human reproductive biology, one’s own personal existence is astronomically improbable. Yet there is nothing irrational about believing both the facts of human reproductive biology and that one exists. Similarly, if one is warranted in believing God exists, then there is no problem occasioned by the fact that this belief is improbable relative to the evil in the world.”[2]

2) We are not in a good position to assess with confidence the probability that God has no morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evils that occur. Because we are not omniscient beings, we are not in a good epistemological position conclude that God does not have sufficient reasons for allowing pain and evil to exist. It may be that many of the evils that we see in the world affect a larger framework for the ultimate good. This is what philosophers call “the butterfly effect”. The morally sufficient reasons for God allowing a specific evil to happen may in fact transcend hundreds or thousands of years. This is, afterall, what I was referring to above when talking about utilitarian ethics. We cannot fully know the ultimate scope and/or outcome of events and how they affect the world around us.

3) Christian theism entails doctrines that increase the probability of the coexistence of God and evil. Craig believes that answering the problem of evil from the Christian perspective becomes quite a bit easier than answering it simply from a theistic standpoint. If the problem is presented as an internal issue for the Christian, there is no objection to him using doctrines consistent with his own worldview to demonstrate the likelihood that both God and evil exist in probable amounts. He suggests we can do this using the following formula in conjuction with Christian doctrines: Pr (Evil/God & Hypotheses)>Pr (Evil/God). These doctrines might include things such as: For the Christian, the goal of life is not happiness and pleasure (which might actually lead to Hedonism), but a relationship with God, the human species since the fall has been in a continual state of rebellion against God, God’s plan isn’t solely restricted to the physical life but continues on into eternity, and that knowing God makes the evil in the world minutely small in comparison.[3]

The Emotional Problem of Evil:

I said at the beginning of this essay that I would not comment too much on the emotional problem of evil. I, instead, will cough that up to Plantinga who, I think, deserves the last word seeing as how he is an extremely respected philosopher and that the greatest strides in solving the problem of evil has come from his work. Alvin Plantinga is a devoted Christian philosopher so his handle on the emotional aspect of it will represent, no doubt, his worldview. Whether you agree with him or not on his worldview, you have to agree that his response of ‘God suffering with us’ is without a doubt an effective emotional response in many circles:

“As the Christian sees things, God does not stand idly by, coolly observing the suffering of his creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful cross. Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his son’s humiliation and death. He was prepared to accept this suffering in order to overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on us a life more glorious than we can imagine. So we don’t know why God permits evil; we do know, however, that he was prepared to suffer on our behalf, to accept suffering of which we can form no conception.”[4]

[1] The italicized portions are Craig’s words and may be found in Craig and Moreland, p 542-547
[2] Craig and Moreland, p 542.
[3] 2 Cor 4:16-18
[4] Alvin Plantinga, “Self Profile,” in Alvin Plantinga, ed. James Tomberlin and Peter Inwage. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985, p 36

The Problem of Evil and Suffering (Pt. 3)

2008-05-04T17:13:00.000-05:00

Let us look first at (4). Hume would contend along with Mackie that if God is omnipotent, then he can create any world he desires. But Plantinga suggests that if it is even possible that mankind exhibits free will in the libertarian sense, then this shows that premise (4) is not necessarily true. Few theologians hold the position that God’s omnipotence supercedes logic.[1] Most theologians, and Christians alike[2], hold to a more proper definition of omnipotence (some would argue that this is a redefining of omnipotence. If it is, then fine but I am not so sure we have always defined omnipotence as having included the power of doing the illogical. The definition has always been somewhat ambiguous). There is no reason to suspect that God can make square circles, married bachelors, or make himself exist and not exist. There is no reason to suggest that God’s omnipotence allows him to do the illogical. Simply because we can think of the terms to define such an action does not make the action in any way possible, even for God. The same goes for libertarian freedom. Some have objected and suggested that God can make man freely choose good. C.S. Lewis said it best when he said, “If you choose to say ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it’, you have not succeeded in saying anything about God; meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix them to the two other words ‘God can’.”[3] By ‘meaningless’ Lewis means nonsense, self-contradictory, and inconceivable. We can string words together all we want, but the human himself can’t even imagine a square circle.

The skeptic then usually responds that God can actualize any possible world in which he exists and still a world in which everyone freely chooses good. But this is again faulty. First of all, it is not certain that because we can conceive of something does not mean it is a possible world. It is conceivable that in another world William F. Buckley will never sleep. Yet while it is conceivable that he will never sleep, it is not part of a possible world. If it is true that 1) All men sleep sometime, 2) William F. Buckley is a man, then it follows that 3) William F. Buckley will sleep sometime. Premise (1) is taken from what we know about human anatomy and physiology and is undoubtedly true. If it would be different, our definition of “men” would need to change. The structure of the human organism says that the physiology of all men requires rest. Premise (2) is also evidently true and coincides with the definition of “men” in premise (1). But while it is conceivable that he will never sleep, it is not possible in any world. The two premises and the conclusion, within their limits of definition, require it to be true in all worlds unless the definition of “men” is changed. In the same way, it may not be within God’s power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil. If we have libertarian freedom it becomes nonsense to talk of God in this way. God can only make the circumstances through which one may choose between good and evil—he cannot guarantee our choices.[4] A world of only good moral choices is not feasible for God since it would require his infringement on human free will.[5] Furthermore, every feasible world might be one in which man chooses to rebel against God. If this is the case, we may be (even with the amount of evil in this world) in the best of all possible worlds as Leibniz argued. It seems then, that God’s omnipotence does not allow him to create simply any possible world. Plantinga states, “The heart of the Free Will Defense is the claim that it is possible that God could not have created a universe containing moral good (or as much moral good as this world contains) without creating one that also contained moral evil. And if so, then it is possible that God has a good reason for creating a world containing evil.”[6]

Concerning natural evils (i.e. hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc.) we can suggest that these are the result of something like demonic activity. Most people would object and call this ridiculous but being that this is the logical form and not the probable form of the problem of evil, it most certainly is possible that natural evil is the result of demonic activity (which also retain free will).

What about (5)—that God prefers a world without evil to one with evil? This also is not necessarily true. For example, sometimes parents allow bad things into a child’s life in order to teach them a lesson and bring about a greater end, or to discipline them in order that they might grow. The same could very well be true for God—in fact, this is the picture we get from reading the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran. It seems as if the major world religions in which God has supposedly revealed himself all agree that God prefers a world without evil over one that does have evil in it.

It is, of course, difficult to assess how Hume would respond. Perhaps like Antony Flew[7] and J.L. Mackie[8] he would be convinced by the Free Will Defense. But for now, the atheist has ultimately failed to render God’s existence with the existence of evil and suffering logically incompatible. All the theist needs to do is posit, with the free will defense, an explanation of evil in the actual world and its compatibility with God’s existence. Craig puts it this way: “God could not have created a world that had so much good as the actual world but had less evil, both in terms of quantity and quality; and, moreover, God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil that exists.”[9] In essence, this might be the best of all possible worlds or God might have sufficient reasons for allowing the amount of evil in the world.

The theist may also respond that this is the best of all possible ways. In other words, God allows the evil that he does in order to bring about the best of all possible worlds. Perhaps he must allow the evil that he does in order to eventually bring about the best of possible worlds. If, as the Christian tradition holds for example, that salvation is God’s main focus then perhaps less evil or more evil would bring less to salvation. If this is true, Mao Zedong is the greatest evangelist in the history of the world. Because of his cultural revolution there was an estimated 30 to 70 million Chinese that converted to Christianity. The ‘Best of All Possible Ways’ is formulated as such:
1) If God is all good, He wants the best world achievable
2) If God is all-powerful, He can achieve what he wants.
3) This is not the best world achievable
4) Therefore, the best world achievable is yet to come.[10]

[1] The rare cases may be such as Descartes and Luther. Yet, the proponent of this type of omnipotence then sees no problem at all with the issue of pain and suffering. There is no possible contradiction for them.
[2] Isaiah 1:18, “‘Come now, let us reason together’, says the Lord.” (NIV)
[3] C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain, p 18. HarperSanFrancisco, 2001
[4] For a more in depth explanation of this see Craig, The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999
[5] I am of course taking it for granted the idea that God wants us to choose him. For the deist there is no real problem with God’s existence and the existence of evil and suffering. Yet, the non-deist holds that God is involved personally in the world personally. If this is the case, there is good reason to suggest that he has revealed himself through religion. For the main theistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam God’s main concern is for us to choose him. In these religions, God wants us to freely choose him. We cannot truly love something nor can we actually have a choice in choosing God if he makes us do something.
[6] Alvin Plantinga. God, Freedom, and Evil, p 31. Harper Torchbooks. 1974.
[7] Antony Flew. There is a God: How the Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. HarperOne. 2007.
[8] "Since this defense is formally [that is, logically] possible, and its principle involves no real abandonment of our ordinary view of the opposition between good and evil, we can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another." Mackie, The Miracle of Theism, 1982, p. 154
[9] See Craig and Moreland, p 541
[10] Norman Geisler. Systematic Theology V. II, p 221-222. Bethany House. Minneapolis, MN. 2003

The Problem of Evil and Suffering (pt. 2)

2008-05-03T10:01:00.000-05:00

Hume contended that if God is omnipotent he could create such a world and that if God was all good that he preferred a world in which there was no pain and suffering: “Why is there any misery at all in the world? Not by chance, surely. From some cause, then. It is from the intention of the deity? But he is perfectly benevolent. Is it contrary to his intention? But he is almighty. Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning, so short, so clear, so decisive…”[1]

I think both of these ideas are flawed. But it should be stated that if even one of these hidden premises are false without detracting from the omnipotence of God or the goodness of God then the atheist’s argument breaks down.

As I noted previously, Alvin Plantinga can be credited with pushing the discussion forward. Many Christian theologians have attempted to provide what is called a free will theodicy. A theodicy attempts to give the reason why God allows evil. Aquinas did this quite well when he argued that God prefers a world in which humans freely choose between good and evil (even if they do sin) over one in which humans are always good because God created a determined world. Plantinga prefers to take another road. It is his approach to provide what he calls the free will defense that has successfully defeated the argument. The difference between the free will theodicy and the free will defense is that the latter simply attempts to show a possible explanation as to why God might allow evil (whether it is true or not). It is no more than an attempt to undercut the atheist’s argument and to show that so long as we have a possible answer, then there is no logical inconsistency. As long as it remains possible, that God might have a reason why he allows evil to continue, then there exists no logical inconsistency between premises (1), (2), and (3). Since the publication of his book God, Freedom, and Evil in 1974, the philosophical consensus on the problem of evil and suffering has drastically changed. He notes, “Now until twenty or twenty-five years ago, the favored sort of atheological argument from evil was for the conclusion that there is a logical inconsistency in what Christians believe…At present, however, it is widely conceded that there is nothing like straight forward contradiction or necessary falsehood in the joint affirmation of God and evil; the existence of evil is not logically incompatible (even in the broadly logical sense) with the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God.”[2]

The first issue, I think, which needs to be brought to the forefront is our definition of evil. Many contemporary philosophers have argued that to speak of evil in the atheistic worldview is to talk nonsense. These philosophers have long argued that to speak of objective, inherent morals without God is like talking about water without oxygen. Morality is a fascinating feature in that all human beings regard some sense of morality as existent and beyond the physical world. This was, after all, C.S. Lewis’ main argument in his Mere Christianity. If there are certain things that are wrong in and of themselves, then this shows that morality is a non-physical structure. And in a completely physical and natural world (an atheistic world) could a non-physical reality that all humans are subject to really exist? No. It is nonsense. This is what has led many atheistic philosophers of ethics to say the objectivity of morality is no more than an evolutionary illusion[3]. Some hold to a Utilitarian view of morality yet I think this is also nonsense. On one hand, we face that same problem that nothing is really wrong—it is merely inconvenient. On the other hand, this would never allow us to really say anything is right or wrong until we are long past the situation and can see the entire meta-narrative of human existence. I mean to say, in a Utilitarian sense of morality, that while we view the Nazi Holocaust as completely and utterly immoral now, perhaps somewhere down the line it will succeed in bring a greater happiness to the world as a whole. The Utilitarian must then admit that, given the greatest happiness principle espoused by Mill, that the Holocaust was morally good. In any case, who is to say how we judge the “greater happiness” of a situation? Rather, virtue ethics as defined by the theist holds that despite whatever outcome the Holocaust may have had on society—whether it succeeds in regret or happiness—it was wrong and will always be wrong. In the same sense, rape—no matter the outcome—is always wrong. Torturing babies for fun is always wrong.

Some philosophers would try to argue that objective moral values do exists and need not presuppose God for their legitimacy. With that in mind, I would ask how objective moral values might exist in a completely physical world dominated by the human species? At what point do we say these objective moral values apply to the evolutionary animal? What is the basis for this inherent morality? Needless to say, in an atheistic worldview, I don’t think one cannot consistently hold to any real idea of objective, inherent morality. Things are simply inconvenient. There is no real difference between right and wrong just as there is no real difference between driving on the left or right side of the road. In an atheistic worldview, morality is a social convention. As Michael Ruse states, “The position of the modern evolutionist...is that humans have an awareness of morality...because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than are hands and feet and teeth.... Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…. Nevertheless…such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction and…any deeper meaning is illusory….”[4]

With that out of the way, the problem of evil and suffering as an argument against the existence of God really needs to be reformatted. It becomes the problem of inconvenience and suffering. However, for the remaining part of this essay I will give the benefit of the doubt to the atheist and graciously admit the existence of evil—even in a completely natural world.

[1] See Hume, p. 66
[2] Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000
[3] See Michael Ruse or Walter Sinnot-Armstrong for example.
[4] Michael Ruse, "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262, 268–69.

The Problem of Evil (Pt.1 )

2008-05-02T13:13:00.003-05:00

Over the next four days I will be posting an essay that I wrote on the Problem of Evil and Suffering taken from Hume and Mackie's positions. After these four days I will post a discussion between N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God, Simply Christian, Evil and the Justice of God) and Bart Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus, Lost Christianities, God's Problem) on the issue of pain and suffering in the scriptures. Those of us that are Christians need to be prepared to answer the problem of pain and suffering from a philosophical standpoint and from a scriptural standpoint. I do want to reiterate, as I have done several times, that this is only my attempt of answering the issue as an undergrad P&R major so I apologize for any inconsistencies, fallacies, or misrepresentations in this essay (After several months I always come back and look at some of my essays with embarrasement). One would be much better off reading the works of professionals...then again, most professionals do not keep blogs ;) . Enjoy!

Hume's Problem of Evil Defeated (Pt. 1)

Perhaps the most popular argument among philosophers of the modern and post-modern period for denying the existence of God has been that which pertains to evil and suffering. This issue also tends to be the largest obstacle in believing in God from a purely intellectual standpoint. Theologians and philosophers throughout the centuries, mostly from Catholic and Protestant circles, have tried to answer this question and have undoubtedly failed at doing so. My purpose in this essay is to attempt to outline the argument, to evaluate and discuss modern attempts at relieving the issue, and finally to suggest that recent philosophical advances have dismissed the argument as it has been written about in the modern era.

Before we begin though, I wish to point out that there are two aspects to the problem of evil, namely the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil. The difference lies in the fact that even if the intellectual problem of evil was solved once and for all there would still be some that would reject the compatibility of evil and God’s existence simply through the emotional aspect. There are many people who would disbelieve in God almost entirely due to the fact that they have experienced or have known someone who experienced a great deal of suffering and pain. On the other side, there are those that even if they have never experienced suffering to any noticeable degree, would reject God’s existence because they see it as logically incompatible with the existence of evil and suffering. Philosophers William Craig and J.P. Moreland state, “The intellectual problem lies in the province of the philosopher; the emotional problem lies in the province of the counselor.”[1] It is not my intent here to develop a detailed emotional response to the problem of pain although I will include Plantinga’s comment on it at the end.[2] It is also not my intent to provide an exhaustive discussion on the problem of evil. To do that this essay would exceed its length requirements. There are however many books which the reader can acquire—most of these can be found in the footnotes.

I would also like to state that while this essay will focus on critiquing the modern view of evil and suffering, most of the advanced work done on answering this question has arisen in the last quarter century or so. Thus, I will be relying on works and essays by two prominent philosophers to a fair degree: Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig.[3] As we shall see, Plantinga can be accredited with developing many of these advances and William Craig has been a popular voice at promoting and making these issues understandable to the general layman and rising philosopher. Thus, I shall cite these two philosophers as I feel due.

David Hume rightly summed up the issue when he said, in the mouth of his fictional character Philo, “Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”[4]

There are two different areas of the intellectual problem that I wish to focus on: The logical version and the probabilistic version. The two terms are rather clear in what they intend to address. The logical version attempts to show that it is logically incompatible that God and evil should both exist. The proponent holds that the two are self-contradictory. The probabilistic version attempts to show that while the two premises may not be logically incompatible, it is still improbable that God should exist in light of the amount of evil in the world.

It is my conviction that these two arguments have been defeated and thus, hold no weight. Alternatively, it is also my position that through recent studies in this particular paradox, it has become evidently clear that it is more probable that God does exist given the evil that is in this world. Let us first deal with the logical version.

The Intellectual Problem of Evil:

The Logical Version:

The Logical version of the problem of evil can be drawn from writers as old as Epicurius. It was later popularized in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and later resurrected by 20th century atheist philosopher J.L. Mackie. It can be formulated in this way:

1. God exists and he is omnipotent—all powerful
2. God exists and he is omnibenevolent—all good
3. Evil exists.

The proponent of the logical version holds that these three statements are logically incompatible. Indeed, Hume (again through the character of Philo) called them an “inconsistent triad.” J.L. Mackie notes, “In its simplest form the problem of evil is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three.”[5] For two of these premises to be true, a third would have to be denied.

But the philosopher must first ask himself, “Is there really a contradiction between the three statements?” I think not. At face value there is no explicit contradiction between the three statements. No model of logic suggests either an explicit contradiction or any broad logical contradiction in the premises. Rather, the contradiction only exists in light of two hidden premises that the proponent will only bring up when pressed:

4. If God is omnipotent, then he can create any world that he so desires.
5. If God is omnibenevolent, then he most certainly desires a world without evil over a world with evil.

[1] Moreland, J.P and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2003.
[2] For an emotional response on the problem of evil and suffering see, C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed. HarperSanFrancisco, 2001
[3] Alvin Plantinga is the John A. O’Brian professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. William L. Craig is research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology.
[4] David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd Edition Ed. Richard H. Popkin. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998.
[5] Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence.” Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Eds. John Perry and Michael Bratman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

A Call to Cease Christian Apathy

2008-05-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

"In thinking about why we need a Christian worldview, I suggest that it is nothing less than obedience to the Great Commission. As Christians we are called to be missionaries to our world, and that means learning the language and thought-forms of the people we want to reach. In America we don't have to master a new language, but we do have to learn the thought-forms of our culture. We need to speak to philosophers in the language of philosophy, to politicians in the language of public policy, and to scientists in the language of science." - Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p 149.

Has Antony Flew been Manipulated?

2008-04-30T01:00:00.000-05:00

After the release of prominent atheist Antony Flew's new book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorius Atheist Changed His Mind was released recently, atheists began yelling "False!". They claimed that the book fails to represent Flew's real intellectual take on God, almost trying to hold onto the Flewian atheism of the past century. The most outstanding of these came from a New York Time's article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html

Richard Varghese, of course, wrote the book but the allegations that in doing so he completely manipulated Flew's story is quite arrogant and unfounded. Let's take Flew's reponse to these allegations (from a press release issued by the publisher 11/7/2007):

"My name is on the book and it represents exactly my opinions. I would not have a book issued in my name that I do not 100 percent agree with. I needed someone to do the actual writing because I'm 84 and that was Roy Varghese's role. The idea that someone manipulated me because I'm old is exactly wrong. I may be old but it is hard to manipulate me. This is my book and it represents my thinking."

Harper One deputy publisher Mark Tauber adds, "We stand behind this book. Roy Varghese took Tony's thoughts and put them in publishable form. This is not an unusual practice." Tauber adds, "Unfortunately, the NYT Magazine writer generalized from Flew's aphasia to senility--which is far from accurate. Additionally, the NYT writer completely skipped the philosophical content of the book, dismissing Tony's arguments for God's existence in one word, calling it 'pseudoscience' and so insulting both Tony and anyone persuaded that these arguments might be true."

Six Questions We Should Always Ask

2008-04-29T00:53:00.000-05:00

I suggest that everybody, muchless the student of apologetics, needs to memorize these questions and use them whenever discussion comes up. Often when we discuss issues with others we look past some of the most fundamental assumptions made in an argument. We look at the top of the pyramid but forget about the base. If the base of the pyramid is faulty and weak, and we can show it, it will always tumble down. These questions ultimately bring down the discussion to the most basic terms.

1) What do you mean by that?

2) How do you know that is true?

3) Where do you get that information?

4) How did you come to that conclusion?

5) What happens if you are wrong?

6) Have you ever considered this? (or, Would you like to hear another opinion?)

Results of the Demonic Possession poll:

2008-04-27T00:51:00.002-05:00

Poll Results:
Is demonic possession a legitimate phenomena:

80% - Yes

10% - No

10% - Maybe

On Reading

2008-04-26T20:36:00.006-05:00

Never underestimate the power of reading. "If you want to be a leader, become a reader," was one of the best pieces of advice I've heard and one of the best pieces of advice I give the RFAC and those I'm tutoring in apologetics. You pick up so much more when reading! Everyone can find a good book and I have of course mentioned previously some of the books I've found to be the most helpful in my studies. But beware: There are good books and there are bad books out there! I'm not talking about a book you disagree with as a bad book. There are plenty of good books written by non-believers. Conversely, there are plenty of bad books written by believers.

Good Book: Jesus Under Fire (Christian)
Bad Book: The Collapse of Evolution (Christian)
Good Book: Acts of Faith (non-Christian)
Bad Book: The God Delusion (non-Christian)

Discipline yourself to read more and read longer. I don't know what it is with our past two generations but books have become almost no more than expensive coasters. Why can't we read and why can't we read more? How much would our nation change if everybody read one book a month, much less two books a month? If you want to become a leader, become a reader.

Currently Reading:

New Testament and the People of God - N.T. Wright

The Last Disciple - Hank Hannegraff

Recent Reads:

Creation of the Sacred - Walter Burker

Candide - Voltaire

God, Freedom, and Evil - Alvin Plantinga

Top 5 Reasons We Know the Gospels Were Written Before A.D. 70

2008-04-26T19:40:00.003-05:00

5) There is not even the slightest hint of an outbreak of the Jewish War. There isn't any indication that the Jews and the Romans were struggling as they would during the war.

4) There is no allusion to the death of James.

3) Jesus never says anything about some of the most important issues the church was dealing with during the latter half of the 1st century, namely, issues with woman and speaking in tounges.

2) Neither the Gospels nor Acts documents the crucial siege of Jerusalem or the destruction of the Temple. They, of course, reference a prophecy to it, but suggesting that the prophecy is really history is a committment to a philosophically anti-miracles bias a priori. We should expect to find a past reference to the destruction of the temple in the gospels. Dr. John Robinson notes, “One of the oddest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period - the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and with it the collapse of institutional Judaism based on the temple - is never once mentioned as a past fact. It is, of course, predicted; and these predictions are, in some cases at least, assumed to be written (or written up) after the event. But the silence is nevertheless as significant as the silence for Sherlock Holmes of the dog that did not bark.” He goes on further, “Explanations for this silence have of course been attempted. Yet the simplest explanation of all, that perhaps ... there is extremely little in the New Testament later than AD 70 [Moule, op. cit., 121.] and that its events are not mentioned because they had not yet occurred, seems to me to demand more attention than it has received in critical circles.” [Robinson, Redating the New Testament Chapter 2, The Westminster Press, 1976. ]

1) Paul is still alive in Acts 28 and is still under house arrest. The fact that Luke didn't record the death of his protagonist Paul is striking and suggests that at the time of the writing of Acts, Paul was still alive.

If all of this suggests that Acts should be pushed back to ~A.D. 62, then it stands to reason that the other gospels (mind perhaps John) should be pushed back even earlier.

For more see my previous posts,

http://randiss.blogspot.com/2007/11/dating-synoptics-part-1-revised.html
http://randiss.blogspot.com/2007/11/dating-synoptics-part-2-revised.html

My Empire of Dirt

2008-04-20T23:49:00.002-05:00

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge." Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. - King Solomon

Solomon's testimony to the absurdity of riches, fame, and wealth is echoed in Johnny Cash's last recorded video before his death in 2003. What is Cash trying to say? What is he saying about his "empire" that he built? And as you see the images of Christ's crucifixion, what does it all mean without Christ?

The FLDS Situation

2008-04-15T19:18:00.003-05:00

It's sad to see these people's children taken away from the community but it needs to be done. I understand the seperation of church and state but when it starts getting abusive, mentally and sexually, for these people this is where they state needs to come in, as it has done, and abolish the system. Please pray for members of the FLDS community. They know nothing else outside of their cult which obviously only exists because some men are perverted enough that they want to make polygamy a religious demand. I feel sorry for these women and I think the denomination needs to be abolished. It is abusive in almost all aspects and barely represents truth.

Please pray for this community, the situation, and especially the women trapped inside of it.

Hey Guys!

2008-04-09T23:37:00.002-05:00

I know it's been awhile since I've posted. I know I said I would have the first premise of Leibniz's cosmological argument up this week, but it's been a crazy one. This blog is obviously something that is worked on in my free time--and I have had virtually none of that. Let's just say I've managed about 12 or 13 hours of sleep in the last three nights. Guess I didn't take into account the fact that the semester's winding down so all the professors feel a need to go crash-course on us.

Needless to say, after arguing for Leibniz's cosmological argument this blog will probably take a slight turn in aim. Beginning pretty much now, the majority of my work will be done inside New Testament studies. I'll be doing an internship here this summer where I'll be working on several lectures on the New Testament and from there, when I come back to finish my senior year at ASU, I will continue that approach. My field of interest is, in fact, New Testament studies and it is what I am best at. I am a novice in other fields but I think I have already made some rather decent contributions (though unpublished) to the field of New Testament studies and I hope to continue this.

Other news: The past week I have a lecture on the Kalam Cosmological argument. Next week I'll be finishing up the talk, but this time focusing on objections to the argument. I will probably record the lecture and post it on here after I give it. My internship this Summer is with Summit Ministries. As many of you know, I serve as president of The Reasonable Faith Apologetics Club here on the ASU campus. To my knowledge, nothing like this has been done before. The group is doing fantastic. I will be working with several reps from Summit in order to branch out to other universities to open chapters. Eventually I would like to see this turn into a national organization. Pray for that.

As far as my personal life goes, I've gone through a few struggles here lately. Seems like when things get better and the sky clears, the clouds come in again. But things are getting better. It can't rain everyday.

Going in Blind - P.O.D. on suffering and pain

2008-03-29T17:49:00.004-05:00

There are two aspects to the issue of pain and suffering. As somebody who studies the logical form of it I cannot say that I am too well equiped to deal with the emotional state. No doubt we all suffer--some more than others. The past six months have been some of the toughest I have ever faced. Events which lead me into deep depression, low ambition, hatred and anger, and even shock a couple times. I often wondered, "Where is God in all this?" and "Why does he not answer me?"

The storm has finally cleared though and not only do I see God's answer but I see that it was there all along. I was blind.

Popular rock band P.O.D. is known for it's vocal embracement of Christianity. A couple years ago when they released their album "Testify" I thought it quite funny how the host of MTV's TRL was sort-of taken aback when they answered what the title meant. The name was a testimony to the God of the universe who created all and offered redemption through Jesus Christ.

A few months after "Testify" was released, P.O.D signed on with Atlantic Records to make a Greatest Hits album. They recorded two new songs for the album, one of which is called "Going in Blind". If the music does not chill your bones the images certainly should. People go through immense pain, things which we usually do not understand. Sonny (the vocalist) basically asks the question, "Does this suffering mean anything? What is the point of it? Will it lead me back to you?" The song is called "Going in Blind" to point out that we never see the whole picture when we're in the midst of the storm. But, when he asks "Will this lead back to you?", Sonny continues "One day, Some day".

I have seen this in my own life recently and when I came across this video again today, I needed to share it.

Why Does Anything at All Exist?

2008-03-29T14:32:00.004-05:00

I had the privilege to attend Dr. William Lane Craig's lecture at Wake Forest University last night with several friends. The WFU department of philosophy chose Dr. Craig to present the 2007 Honorary Carswell Lecture. In my opinion, they couldn't have chosen anyone more suited. If you haven't heard Dr. Craig speak or read any of his books I highly recommend that you do so. Dr. Craig has written, co-written, or edited more than 30 books. For the layman, "Reasonable Faith" is an exemplary book detailing why Christianity is in fact reasonable and explanatory of reality. For the student of religion and philosophy, "Philosophical Foundations of a Christian Worldview" is, as I have said before, a jewel.

Craig began his talk by bringing us back to his childhood, his teenage years where he first asked the question while looking into the stars, "Where did all this come from?" He went onto say, "It seemed to me, almost instinctively, that there had to be an explanation of why all this exists. As long as I have remembered that, I have always believed in a creator of the universe." Craig then made the connection that while most of us probably ask this question to ourselves at least once in our lives, the question itself goes back to the writings of German philosopher G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz wrote, "The first question that should rightly be asked is why is there something rather than nothing?*" He answered this with the following logical argument.

1) Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence
2) If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God
3) The universe exists
4) Therefore, the universe has an explanation for its existence
5) The explanation for the universe's existence is God.

To avoid an extremely lengthy singule post, I will be presenting this argument over the next five weeks with more indepthness into each premise.

*.W. Leibniz, "The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason,"

Is It Possible to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution? --Dr. Denis Alexander

2008-03-26T22:41:00.003-05:00

I have for quite awhile wanted to write a piece on how the Christian should view evolutionary theory. What hostilities and disagreements are called for? What should we be willing to accept? How can we sustain our belief in the fall of man and yet endorse evolution? I have a couple articles on the ice but nothing that I am yet pleased with. So when I came across Dr. Alexander's treatment of the question, I found it very pleasing, concise, and understandable.

http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=178&TopicID=2&CategoryID=1

Is it possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution?

It all depends what you mean by the term ‘evolution’. Charles Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859 as a theory to explain the origins of biological diversity. And at that time, that’s all it was – a biological theory, a theory in fact that Christians were quick to baptise into a Biblical doctrine of creation. Asa Gray, Professor of Natural History at Harvard and a committed Christian, had long been Darwin’s confidante and organised the publication of the Origin of Species in N. America. Christians such as Gray maintained that God had providentially arranged the biological processes of evolution to bring about God’s purposes in creation. The Princeton theologian and prominent defender of the inspiration of Scripture, B.B. Warfield, spoke of himself as a ‘Darwinian of the purest water’. The British historian James Moore writes that ‘with but few exceptions the leading Christian thinkers in Great Britain and America came to terms quite readily with Darwinism and evolution’, and the American sociologist George Marsden reports that ‘...with the exception of Harvard’s Louis Agassiz, virtually every American Protestant zoologist and botanist accepted some form of evolution by the early 1870s’.

So given this initially warm reception, why did hostility towards evolution by Christians gain such prominence in the USA a century later, even giving rise to ‘text-book battles’ in which legal attempts have been made in some states to ban the teaching of evolution in schools? Unfortunately, as often happens with the ‘big theories’ of science, evolution has become encrusted with all kinds of ideological baggage down the years, ‘barnacles’ which are not part of the theory itself. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a great populariser of evolution in N. America in the latter part of the 19th century (selling 370,000 books), but unfortunately tried to make evolution into a ‘theory-of-everything’ in which the entire universe was ascending towards ultimate perfection. It was Spencer (not Darwin) who coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’, a notion that was to be misapplied with such terrible consequences by the Kaiser during the first world war and then by Hitler in the Third Reich.

Today when Richard Dawkins recounts how Darwinian evolution enables him to be an ‘intellectually fulfilled atheist’, this only reinforces the idea that there must be something deeply anti-Christian about evolution. But the fact that evolutionary theory over the years has been called upon to justify as wide a range of ideologies as communism, capitalism, racism and militarism, some of them mutually exclusive, should alert us to the dangers of extrapolating scientific theories into arenas in which they actually have little or nothing to say.

So is it possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution? Certainly, as long as ‘evolution’ refers not to some secular philosophy, but to the biological theory describing how God has created all living things. This explains why the vast majority of Christians who are active in biological research today have no problem with incorporating evolutionary theory within their belief in God as creator. Our task as scientists is to describe the actions of God in the created order as accurately as we can. We are called by God to be truth-tellers. If an evolutionary process provides the best explanation for the origins of biological diversity, then that’s fine – it is not our job to second-guess God as to how he should have made things, but to describe what he has actually done.

Evolution combines together two mechanisms: first, variation is introduced into genes (stretches of DNA) by various mechanisms, second, the consequences of these mutations are ‘tested out’ by the criterion of ‘reproductive success’, the extent to which mutations impact on the ability of individual organisms to generate offspring. Taken overall, this is a tightly regulated process, as far from the idea of ‘random chance’ as can be imagined. As the Cambridge evolutionary biologist, Simon Conway Morris, points out in his recent book Life’s Solution – Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe (CUP 2003), if you re-play the tape of life again, then what you’ll get is something remarkably similar to what we have now. If you imagine the world as a matrix of millions of little boxes representing ‘design space’, then some of those boxes will get filled up, but not others. Eyes have evolved independently many times during evolution. Such findings are entirely consistent with the actions of a creator God who has intentions and purposes for his creation.

But of course evolutionary processes are not there to teach us morality – Christians are called to behave like children of God, according to God’s moral law, as revealed in the Bible. Conversely Christians should not abuse the Bible by trying to treat it as a scientific text-book, when scientific writing as we understand it now did not even get going until thousands of years after the writing of the early chapters of Genesis. It is anachronistic to treat Biblical texts as if they were articles out of a contemporary scientific journal. And anyway, if they were, they would soon be out of date! The Biblical creation accounts tell us timeless truths about God’s purposes for his creation in general, and for humankind in particular. It is up to scientists to find out how exactly God carries out his creative handiwork.

Some Christians think belief in evolution undermines the uniqueness of humankind and the reality of evil and the Fall. Not so. The Genesis account portrays Adam and Eve as Neolithic farmers. It is perfectly feasible that God bestowed his image on representative Homo sapiens already living in the Near East to generate what John Stott has called Homo divinus, those who first enjoyed personal fellowship with God, but who then fell most terribly from their close walk with God (Gen. 3:8). All those who disobey God and trust in their own wisdom in place of God’s law reiterate the historical Fall in their own being (Ezek. 28: 11-19).

Those many Christians today who are active in the biological sciences are amazed as we uncover more and more of God’s creative actions in our daily research. We do not look for God in the ‘gaps’ in our scientific knowledge, but instead worship God for the whole of his created order, including those remarkable evolutionary processes that God has used for his creative purposes.

© Dr Denis Alexander 2005
Source: Denis Alexander

Have a Happy Easter!!

2008-03-23T08:15:00.004-05:00

Just wishing everyone a happy Easter. Remember, it was not some mutant egg-laying rabbit that is the center of this holiday (although those Cadbury Eggs are almost good enough to demand a holiday in and of themselves). It is the resurrection of God incarnate. Forgiveness is offered to all but you must desire it. If you haven't accepted Christ, then please open up and be willing this holiday. He has literally changed my life and I know He can do the same for you.

-Randy

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" - St. Peter

God's Problem

2008-03-22T13:21:00.004-05:00

Bart Ehrman, best selling author of Misquoting Jesus and Lost Christianities, has hit the spotlight again. His new book God's Problem, is quite different from his previous books. It is not a book about textual criticism. It is not a book about getting back to the original Jesus or the original Christianity. Rather, it is about the problem of pain and suffering--the issue which originally took Ehrman away from the faith.

Dr. James Howell presented an excellent review of the book here in the Charlotte Observer.

http://www.charlotte.com/440/story/537338.html

A Contrast and Comparison of Freudian and Marxist Theories on the Origins of Religion: Part 1

2008-03-20T18:32:00.002-05:00

This was originally a paper I presented for a Method's class. As a compare and contrast paper, the critique of their positions was minimal. Nonetheless, I wanted to post it here for I have recognized that many are not familiar with what these two men taught about religious origins. Also, according to instruction's my primary source of the essay was Daniel Pal's "Eight Theories of Religion", (2nd Edition) Oxford University Press, 2006--a great read!

The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is often remembered as one of the greatest scientists of the mind to ever exist. Freud is, for all intensive purposes, the father of modern psychology. Yet few truly know of his contributions to studies in religion and how they coincided with his studies in psychology. No doubt, his contributions to religious studies are minimal compared to his non-religious work yet they are significant and thus, deserve to be discussed and evaluated. Freud was certainly a functional atheist and his position on religion is that it is an infantile phenomena. Freud viewed man as no more than the highest animal in the kingdom and retained that our drive for sexual desire was superior and more influential than all other drives.

Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) approach towards religion is also often overlooked due to his influence of communism on society. Yet Marx had plenty to say about religion, even referring to it as “the opium of the people.” Contrary to those religious individuals who claim to hold to communism, Karl Marx made quite clear that Marxism is only consistent with an atheistic worldview: “The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest being for man…”[1] And Marx, as we shall see, viewed Communism as a means of criticizing and dismissing religion.

So how would these two individuals relate to each other? What criticisms would they lay against one another? And at what points would they agree? It is evident, as commentators have noted, that Freud had little interest in sociology and Marx had little interest in psychology. Indeed, many theorists of religion still view the psychological and sociological explanations of religion as opposing paradigms.

It is somewhat hard to focus on Freud’s theory of religion without giving a little background to the rest of his theories on the mind. For Freud, mind-body dualism was not an option. He was a physicalist of the first rank and thus his research was based on the rejection of substance dualism[2]. Though the debate rages on between dualism and physicalism in philosophy[3], Freud’s position is now taken for granted as general truth in the majority of psychological studies just as anthropology takes for granted the view that we are a determined species.

In Freud’s psychoanalytical writings, he developed what he called the “theory of repression”. The theory of repression teaches that the mind has the ability to block out uncomfortable and painful circumstances. Yet the subconscious of the individual does not forget these painful circumstances but instead manages to manifest them through various other physical features. Freud’s theory can be diagramed as such with x representing the painful circumstance and y the later re-manifestation of it in the individual’s life:

Conscious X Y

Unconscious X

Freud developed three levels of awareness that, I think, hold true despite his physicalist take on the mind. The first was consciousness. This is the realization of normal day activities. I am conscious, for example, that I am currently writing a compare and contrast essay on Freud and Marx. The second level of awareness that Freud developed is the pre-conscious. The pre-conscious is the memories which are not currently in our mental faculties but which we certainly can recall later on. In two months I will not be dwelling on this compare and contrast essay but if I was asked about it I surely could recall it (assuming I don’t fail the paper—this might cause me to subject the memory to repression). The third level of awareness Freud developed was the unconscious. Daniel Pals notes on the unconscious, “Up above, the conscious mind is unaware of these things, but they do exist, and they exercise a powerful indirect influence on all that we think and do.”[4] The unconscious is the basis for his theory of repression. Furthermore, the unconscious is where our animal instincts exist. Our desire for sex, regarded as an aspect of his “pleasure principle”, is at the very top of the list of these instincts.

Regarding religion specifically, Freud noticed that the intellectualistic paradigm for the past one hundred years or so of why religion exists was based on the idea that religion is simply irrational explanations for the unexplainable. Freud noticed though that as science progressed and biological Darwinism fueled the scientific community with answers, religion was not going away. In many places it was growing. He contended that there must be another answer, though I am not necessarily sure Freud backed away from this old paradigm in the end.

Freud considered our desire for religion to be no more than a byproduct of our evolutionary biology and tribal instincts. Yet Freud’s theories were not so much aimed as a treatment of religion as they were specifically monotheism. In his book Totem and Taboo, Freud lays out what he thinks explains ritualistic religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity. Now, Freud is no biblical scholar and I think the vast majority of biblical scholars and historians would emphatically declare his treatment of Moses and monotheism quite absurd. Nonetheless, his points on Totemism still stand to be evaluated in light of Christianity and tribal communities. The Totem, Freud says, is the animal or the plant that can be regarded as holy and sacred. Taboo means something that is culturally forbidden and prohibited. These two things were recognized long before Freud in anthropological studies of various cultures. But Freud exceeded theorists in his suggestion that taboos are only created in light of desire to do something that has negative consequences. So, to compensate this desire, most taboos allowed in certain rituals that one break “the law”—many times killing the totem. But obviously, as Freud rightly pointed out, no rational individual would engage in a breaking of a taboo if the really didn’t want to break it (think Children of the Corn). The reason these things become taboo was because people wanted to act on them. They wanted to kill the totem.

Freud suggested, based on recent anthropological studies, that there were two general ideas that permeated totemic societies. The first was the idea that the totem (i.e. “father”) was not to be killed. They loved and feared the father. The second was the idea that men wanted to engage in incest. This was forbidden, as marriage was always to be “exogamous”. Freud thought that since our sexual desire reigns supreme over our other desires the tribes would generally kill the father and engage in what is taboo—incest. After the murder of the father the tribe would first feel exceedingly joyful and pleased but later feel extremely guilty. The tribe then would create a totemic animal or plant to symbolize the father. The law then became, “You shall not kill the totem except only under certain rituals.” But as Oxford theologian Allister McGrath has pointed out, it is safe to say that this hypothetical scenario has proved to be most unconvincing, as studies in religion have continued.[5]
Nonetheless, Freud explained that Christianity is a totemic religion. The Christian tradition holds that Christ was God incarnate. His followers (many of the Jews) loved and respected him during most of his ministry but near the end of it they had him crucified. Not only did our ancestors physically crucify God but also mankind also spiritually caused his death by transgressing the law. From the very beginnings of Christianity, Christians have engaged in a communion ritual in which they eat a wafer of bread that symbolizes “his body, crucified for us” and drink wine that symbolizes “his blood, shed on our behalf.” Freud contended that Christians engage in this sacrament because they feel both joyful for their salvation yet guilty because they killed God. Marx (if around today) would likely argue that the anthropological data suggesting the connection between the sacrament and the totemic rituals is extremely scarce.

Last of all, Freud argued that belief in God is an illusion that arises out of our Oedipus complex. Accordingly, Freud recognized his limits and distinguished between illusion and delusion when it came to his public writings. Freud stated, “To assess the truth-value of religious doctrines does not lie within the scope of the present enquiry. It is enough for us that we have recognized them as being in their psychological nature, illusions.”[6] Yet as Pals points out, personally Freud saw very little difference between these two. Since religion cannot be applied to the scientific method, it should not be granted the respect of being acknowledged even if it is true. Paraphrasing Freud, Pals notes, “they are teachings we have no right to believe because they cannot past the test of the scientific method, which is the only way we have of reliably telling us what is true and what is not.” Believing in God is “infantile” according to Freud and like the child who wishes for a father to protect him from the world, mankind wishes for a God to protect him from the dangers on nature. Freud believed that as humanity “grows up” belief in God will diminish and eventually disappear. “Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neuroses of children, it arose out of the Oedipus Complex, out of the relation to the father. If this view is right, it is to be supposed that a turning away from religion is bound to occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth, and that we find ourselves at this very juncture in the middle of that phase of development.”[7]

Essentially, Freud argued that religion stems from our unconscious state of awareness and can be traced back to totemic rituals. Christianity is in his opinion a totemic religion in its demand of the Eucharist and arises as an “infantile” need for a father figure. Freud contended that this has no bearing on truth-value of the religion but Freud also argued that there is no reason to believe in religion since it cannot be applied to the scientific method.

(See Part 2: Below)

[1] Quoted from David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews 2nd Edition, p. 66. Summit Press, Manitou Springs, CO.
[2] The idea that the body and the mind have separate but coinciding properties. Freud believed the mind was no more than a projection of the brain.
[3] See Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul, Rev. ed. Oxford:Clarendon, 1997
[4] Pals, Daniel. Eight Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, p 57
[5] McGrath, Allister, God as Wish-Fulfillment? http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=187 , accessed March 14th, 2008.
[6] Quoted in Pals, p. 70
[7]Quoted, Ibid, p. 71

A Simple Contrast and Comparison of Freudian and Marxist Theories of Religion: Part 2

2008-03-20T18:20:00.002-05:00

Marx was also a physicalist, noting several times in his writings that man is a determined creature. Marx became an atheist while studying the philosophies of Hegel, Strauss, and Feuerbach at the University of Berlin. Published in 1848, The Communist Manifesto was a declaration of political atheism written by Karl Marx and friend Frederick Engels. Both theorists stood firm in their conviction that religion is inconsistent with communism. “Religion,” said Marx, “is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”[1] Engels agreed, “We have once and for all declared war on religion and religious ideas and care little whether we are called atheists or anything else.”[2]
It’s hard to speculate how Freud would have influenced Marx if their timelines had been swapped. But while Freud’s focus was on how religion influences the psyche (or vice-versa), Marx was more concerned with how religion influences the society and economics. Arguably, Marx’s influence on religious theory far surpassed Freudian theory in the 19th and 20th centuries especially as positivism failed to reduce religious belief in American and European culture.

Marx is known for reversing Hegel’s idealistic philosophy that the physical is a projection of the mind. Rather, Marx and Engels argued that the physical is all that exist and thus developed what later was called dialectical materialism. Many see this as the core philosophy of Marxism. In it, Marx argued that man is simply a physical creature with certain materialistic drives. Here Marx and Freud would disagree in that Marx believed our first drives as evolutionary creatures are for food, shelter, and clothing. Our secondary drives, are those that relate to sex. It is thus very probable that Marx would reject Freud’s totem and taboo theory. Rather, the tribe would kill the father for food before they killed him to engage in incest with the women.

For Marx, human history has always revolved around class struggle. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Marx saw capitalism as an economic system of deception. There exists no free market with the intent of equal exchange. Rather, the goal of exchange is to always surpass one another financially. It is to come out on top. Whether one agrees with Marxism or not, I think one would be hard pressed to deny that the free market is a selfish market.

Thus, Marx felt that the government that supported capitalism actually supported the elite. Marx believed, as Pals notes, that the ruling ideas of a specific culture are the ruling ideas of those in power: the upper class. And, as Marx correctly believed, all ideas have consequences. This view of the economic struggle between classes significantly influenced his ideas of religion. Religion reflects the economy. Marx believed that religion tends to justify those in power. I think a necessary distinction should be drawn though. It is not that religion in and of itself justifies the powerful. Rather, it is the powerful that use religion to justify their actions. Many Marxists have failed to recognize that distinction.

His attacks on religion were not only aimed at Christianity but Hegel as well. Marx, influenced by Feuerbach’s writings, believed that religion emerged because man “stripped” certain admirable qualities of humanity and in turn applied them to God. Thus, God is generally understood to be all good, all knowing, all powerful, all loving, etc. much in the same way that humans exhibit goodness, knowledge, power, and love. Hegel, like the theist, took these abstract ideas and applied them to a transcendent spirit. Marx noted, “Man, who looked for a superman in the fantastic reality of heaven…found nothing there but the reflection of himself…the basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man.”[3] In other words, God did not create man in His image. Man created God in his image. Furthermore, Marx believed that by endorsing religion man eased his own pain, hence: “Religion is the opium of the people.” Marx viewed religion as a method of escapism. For the poor, the hungry, the needy, religion offered an escape: a false reality in which one could break into and avoid the reality of being poor, hungry, and needy.

Lastly, Marx’s hatred towards religion was no more expressed than in his statements concerning Christianity. Pals notes, “…what Marx actually presents is not an account of religion in general but an analysis of Christianity…”[4] He considered Christianity a cowardly religion that taught the oppressed to simply submit. Marx claimed that the social principles in Christianity justified the immoral actions of those in power during times of antiquity and the Middle Ages. As stated above, many would contend against Marx that it is not the social principles of Christianity that justifies those in power but more so the abuse of these principles by those in power to justify their actions. In any case, Marx saw Communism as the solution to religion and the eventual solution to happiness and peace. He stated, “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.”[5] I think Freud would point out that Marx would be hard pressed to deny the atrocities that have been done in the name of Marxism and atheism. Some would object and claim that the atrocities were not done in the name of atheism but in the name of politics. Yet, for Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and more Communism was inseparable from atheism.

As I stated earlier, it is difficult to assess how Marx and Freud would have related to each other had they more of an opportunity. Both theorist’s disciplines, in the 19th century, were completely separate enterprises. The psychologist cared little for the sociologist and vice versa. Freud argued that religion was an illusion yet both men emphatically believed it was a delusion. The natural is all that exists. For Freud, religion was no more than our unconscious seeking a father figure (Oedipus Complex) to protect us from nature. For Marx, religion originated from mankind because he saw certain traits in humanity that he found admirable and thus, applied them to the numinous and because he wanted to escape from pain. Freud believed that religion would disappear as man became a more reasonable being. Marx believed religion would disappear once Communism became the universal political philosophy. Evidently, neither of these philosophies have hence been sufficient in explanatory power.

To end, I hope that I have provided a reasonable and substantial summary and comparison of the two theorists. No doubt these influential men deserve to be studied and respected whether one disagrees with them or endorses them. My speculations as to how they might relate to one another are just that: speculations. Perhaps one would be better off listening to a Marxist and Freudian in dialogue.

[1] Quoted from David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews 2nd Edition, p. 67. Summit Press, Manitou Springs, CO.
[2] Ibid
[3] Quoted from Pals, p. 133-134.
[4] Ibid, p 140
[5] Ibid, p 135

The Tomb of Jesus Hoax

2008-03-14T17:29:00.002-05:00

Click here to watch the trailer for the new film: The Tomb of Jesus--Hoax

If you sign up for e-mail updates, you will receive a free online pre-screening of the film.

Archeologists May Have Found Biblical Wall

2008-02-28T13:07:00.001-05:00

Foxnews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314361,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/archaeology

JERUSALEM — A wall mentioned in the Bible's Book of Nehemiah and long sought by archaeologists apparently has been found, an Israeli archaeologist says.

A team of archaeologists discovered the wall in Jerusalem's ancient City of David during a rescue attempt on a tower that was in danger of collapse, said Eilat Mazar, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institute, and leader of the dig.

Artifacts including pottery shards and arrowheads found under the tower suggested that both the tower and the nearby wall are from the 5th century B.C., the time of Nehemiah, Mazar said this week.

Scholars previously thought the wall dated to the Hasmonean period from about 142 B.C. to 37 B.C.

The findings suggest that the structure was actually part of the same city wall the Bible says Nehemiah rebuilt, Mazar said.

The Book of Nehemiah gives a detailed description of construction of the walls, destroyed earlier by the Babylonians.

"We were amazed," she said, noting that the discovery was made at a time when many scholars argued that the wall did not exist.

"This was a great surprise. It was something we didn't plan," Mazar said.

The first phase of the dig, completed in 2005, uncovered what Mazar believes to be the remains of King David's palace, built by King Hiram of Tyre, and also mentioned in the Bible.

Ephraim Stern, professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University and chairman of the state of Israel archaeological council, offered support for Mazar's claim.

"The material she showed me is from the Persian period," the period of Nehemiah, he said. "I can sign on the date of the material she found."

However, another scholar disputed the significance of the discovery.

Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, called the discovery "an interesting find," but said the pottery and other artifacts do not indicate that the wall was built in the time of Nehemiah.

Because the debris was not connected to a floor or other structural part of the wall, the wall could have been built later, Finkelstein said.

"The wall could have been built, theoretically, in the Ottoman period," he said. "It's not later than the pottery — that's all we know."

Friday, November 30, 2007
Associated Press

Apologetics Clubs on Campus

2008-02-28T11:10:00.002-05:00

There is a need around secular (and even non-secular) college campuses for worldview and apologetics clubs. As Barna has pointed out, more than 75% of Christian professing freshmans that come into the university walk out of the university a non-Christian. This is, in fact, a problem. I understand that some of this is due to the university atmosphere. Many Christians feel that by engaging in the "college life" they operate contrary to Biblical morality. Dealing with the guilt of getting inebriated, sleeping around, etc. is too much to bear if you still profess to believe in the scriptures. Thus, many kids stick Christianity on the back burner for time being. There is however another reason that students walk away from their faith and I think this reason is the biggest: Intellectual skepticism.

The univeristy should be a market place of free ideas. But often these ideas are not free--they are indoctrinated into students. I have yet in my college career, seen a conservative biblical scholar like N.T. Wright, Craig Clomberg, Craig Evans, etc. cited or credited. Those that are credited are the skeptics and non-believers: Bart Ehrman, Rudolf Bulltman, John D. Crossan, Robert Funk, Elaine Pagels, etc. This is not because these skeptics have a stronger case--trust me, this is one thing I know. It is because the university's agenda rises out of secular humanism and naturalism: The natural is all that exists. All religions, therefore, must be false.

When confronted with this worldview Christians often get very confused. I have seen several friends of mine walk away from the faith because of the skepticism in the classroom. Who do they trust, their pastor or their professor?

Here at ASU, we have started an apologetics club. Last night was our first meeting and despite 2 feet of snow on the ground, about 10 people showed up. Several others had to work or couldn't make it due to the weather. The fact that we did have people who showed up who wanted to be able to defend their faith in the classroom and in the world was encouraging. On a semester basis, there are between 4 and 5 New Testament classes taught. Hypothetically speaking, if 5 of these people get involved in each one on the NT classes, this club could potentially change the univeristy setting. All one needs to due is raise the hand and say: "Excuse me, but would you like to hear another perspective?"

Christians Wrong About Heaven says Bishop

2008-02-23T20:25:00.003-05:00

I found this a very interesting article and I think all Christians should read it. This has been my view for the past couple years and it is good to see a sound, conservative scholar like N.T. Wright willing to address the general layman about his/her idea of heaven.

Christians Wrong About Heaven says Bishop

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

"That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say 'We have never lived anywhere except Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly."

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Chapter 9

The Atheist Delusion

2008-02-03T18:20:00.000-05:00

How well does this video do at euphemizing the Christian religion into sounding like something absolutely ridiculous? It amazes me that the "new atheists" have to stoop this low in order to make their case.

On our Natural Inclination Towards Religion

2008-01-30T02:03:00.001-05:00

I'm currently taking a class in religious study methods and theory. The class is an intensive reading course so we're working our way through six seperate books this semester in the course. At the moment we're reading a book that details eight distinctive theories on how religion came into being. These theories branch from different sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, etc. among whom the most popular names are Frued, Marx, and Durkheim.

Needless to say, I want to point out a trap that university students and fellow Christians often fall into when taking a course on this subject. Whenever dealing with the subject of how religion itself originated--even in the most basic form--the subject is almost always taught as a completely human invention with no real bearing on reality and/or truth. There is no discussion on if or if not religion has a pertinent and eternal impact on the human race. Rather, it is taught of as a natural evolutionary phenomena which just happened to show up in our desire to explain the world.

Now, I do not deny the fact that religion may have originated from our desire to explain the world. In fact, I think that if God was an entirely deistic being religion in some form or another would still have come into existence. I think this becomes evident when we look at the religious traditions of ancient cultures which were not in contact with Yahweh. They still formulated their own religion.

The problem that I see many students (and the problem is nowhere near exclusive on this account) fall into is the belief that if religion in general can be shown to be derived from human desire, then religion is false. I'm afraid that this is an ensuing trap which holds very little weight. Simply because we desire something to be true does not mean that it is false. Since when have our desires illegitimated truth claims. Even if religion can be shown to be entirely a bi-product of the evolutionary process, it does not make it wrong. Allister McGrath responds to this position: "...wanting something is no demonstration that it does not exist. Human thirst points to the need for water."* In fact, I would argue that all worldviews, including atheism are in response to human desire (the desire to be independent).

I think our desires for religion come from the very fact that we do infact exist rather than not exist. Furthermore, the world is a beautiful place and teleologically it calls out for explanation of that beauty and design. Could this have all happened by mere chance? No culture that I have come across of has ever espoused such a position? To the best of my knowledge, all cultures have initially adapted some form of theism (be they god or gods, personal or non-personal). What does this mean? It means that the world inclines us to believe in religion. If religion is true, it then becomes a self-evident truth.

Striking how Paul dealt with this issue 2,000 years ago and yet Frued and Durkheim cannot seem to get their heads around that desire does not invalidate a proposition.

Romans 1:

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

*McGrath, Allister and Joanna. The Dawkins Delusion, p 54. IVP 2007.

Important!!

2008-01-20T13:58:00.000-05:00

Just want to say....Go Packers!

Update: Happenings

2008-01-18T18:57:00.001-05:00

Hello to all,

Just wanted to put something up here this week and just kind of update anybody that consistently reads this blog.

A LOT has been happening in my life and I thank God for that. I've gone through a rather long and difficult storm the past few months--tracing back to October. I wish not to get into any details but for anybody that does know what's been going on, thank you for your prayers. To say the least, my trust in God and myself was shaken for quite some time. I know what it means when people say "God's silence is deafening". Things are better now and my faith in God has been reinstilled. I still experience some rather strong winds now and then--the circumstance is not going away--but I am holding up. For those that have prayed for me, please continue to do so.

I began my junior year at Appalachian earlier this week. It almost seems like Christmas vacation never happened. ;) . Nonetheless, I am enjoying my classes.

I am already working on a 20 page paper on the Problem of Evil and Suffering for a modern philosophy class. This is due in large response to a friend of mine who wrote a paper last year on the same issue, although taking the opposite position that God's existence is unexplainable and incompatible with the existence of evil and suffering.

I will be starting up an Apologetics club at ASU in about a month that should be very interesting.

I will also be bringing in Dr. Frank Turek of Crossexamined.org and co-author of "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist" into campus. We were able to bring him in last semester to talk on truth/morality and the scientific evidence for God's existence. He will be returning to talk about Miracles and the New Testament. Pray for this. Last semester we had nearly 300 students attend the event.

Those are just some highlights. I am also working on some other essays and such strictly for the blog but that is obviously not my main priority.

God bless,

Randy

The Birth of Jesus: Annalyzing the Historical Surroundings

2007-12-25T00:16:00.000-05:00

As some of you are sitting by the fire (assuming you’re not in 50 degree Charlotte) drinking hot chocolate, cuddling with that special someone on the couch, and counting the minutes until you can feel safe that the 2x2 package underneath the tree is not a package of socks, I want to take a quick moment and remind everybody of the historical story of Christmas. This is not an attempt at pushing away the real meaning of Christmas, since this is a time in which we really want to focus on fellowship and thankfulness for our Lord’s birth, but an attempt at simply pushing forward the historical evidence for the birth of Christ. It would be wrong to say that it is only the resurrection and/or claims of Jesus as the Son of God that are under fire. Christmas itself has often fallen under attack and, of the little I have studied of the first Christmas, I think the historical reality in which it began confirms my faith and further enhances my wonder of God’s infinite goodness.

Christ was not born in 0 A.D. as most individuals generally believe. Christ was born probably sometime between 6-4 B.C. This is reinforced by what Luke tells us about the interactions with Herod and the wise men. If Herod died in 4 B.C. (Josephus), and Jesus was born while he was still alive (Matthew 2:19), then we obviously place Jesus’ birth only slightly before Herod’s death.

Mary and Joseph’s journey to Jerusalem and back was a hectic and somewhat trying task. Some have accused the gospels of contradicting themselves as to where exactly Jesus was born but I fail to see their accusations actually follow coherently. There are no contradictions. Essentially the journey can be outlined as such:

1) Angel appears to Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25)
2) Angel appears to Mary (Luke 1:26-38)
3) Mary visits Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45)
4) Decree went out from Augustus (Luke 2:1-2)
5) Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-6)
6) Circumcision and presentation of Jesus (Luke 2:21-24)
7) Wise men seek Jesus (Matthew 2:1-10)
8) Wise men come to Jesus (Matthew 2:11-12)[i]
9) Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15)
10) Herod killed all children 2 years old and younger in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18)
11) Herod dies (Matthew 2:19)
12) Joseph takes Mary and Jesus to Nazareth again (Matthew 2:23; Luke 2:39-40)

This seems to me to be the best chronological history we have for the journey to give birth to Jesus. Allegations that the texts actually contradict each other are unwarranted and are misleading. The texts simply do not back each other on every point of the nativity. To argue that silence is equivalent with contradiction is poor logic. In fact, I think a proper reading of the two texts show that we would not expect them to corroborate each other on all points.

I think it is important to realize the exegeses of Matthew and Luke in evaluating how they told the birth of Jesus and what points they chose to emphasize. Matthew’s focus was entirely Jewish. He wanted to portray Jesus as the messiah, the savior foretold in the Old Testament. Therefore, it becomes very obvious why he would tell of Herod’s political interactions with the birth of Jesus (local) and not mention the Roman census. Matthew apparently saw a prophetic connection in the flight to Egypt as fulfillment of Hosea 11:1—a focus on Judaism—and placed a higher focus on how the family dealt with the Herod situation. In fact, it might be said that Matthew’s entire nativity story was built around Herod’s reaction to Jesus’ birth. Furthermore, Jesus is portrayed in Matthew as “the new Moses”. It is not surprising that he would focus on The Massacre of the Innocents, as it appears to be an atypical allusion to the Exodus massacre.

In the same way Luke’s exegesis was much more Gentile, broader in historical detail, and dealing more in higher political situations. It is not surprising to see him focus on the Roman census and not Herod’s actions and to skip over the Mosaic allusions (the fleeing the Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents, etc.) and focus on how Jesus’ birth related to the Gentile world.

There are at least three accusations against the nativity that I think are unwarranted. These are: 1) The Star of Bethlehem, 2) The Historicity of the Massacre of the Innocents, 3) The Historicity of the Roman census

There are two explanations for the star of Bethlehem that I generally use to show that, at the very least, we cannot say that there was no star. First off, I feel compelled to say that the term “star” should not be necessarily be interpreted as a literal star—an astronomical body of plasma. In ancient times, the term “star” was often used simply to describe an extra-terrestrial body of light. Now, Christian commentators have espoused two apologetics for the star’s existence: 1) There was an astronomical event in 6-4 B.C. that accounts for the star and 2) The star was a supernatural event—an opening in the dimensions of heaven.

I personally take the former as a stronger argument. I try not to take anything as supernatural unless I must and in my opinion, I think God generally prefers not to act in supernatural ways to perform the awe-inspiring. Besides, as Ockhams Razor shows, we need not multiply causes beyond necessity.

In 1614 Johannes Kepler discovered that in 7-6 B.C. there was a planetary conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn that, while not overly impressive, could most certainly be seen from earth.[ii] The longer standing hypothesis though, even from the early church, has been that the star was really a comet or a meteor. Based on astronomical almanacs from Chinese and Korean stargazers, there was either a comet or a supernova that appeared in the sky in 5 B.C. The entity was deemed to have virtually “stood still” for a period of over seventy days and described as “hanging over” certain cities and towns. Third century apologist Origen remarked about the star, it seemed “to have been a new star, unlike any of the other well-known planetary bodies, either those in the firmament above or those among the lower orbs, but partaking of the nature of those celestial bodies which appear at times, such as comets, or…meteors.”[iii] This possibility seems more likely than either the planetary alignment and/or the supernatural miracle.

The latter explanation, the one I choose not to invoke but some apologists do, is one that cannot be denied unless one simply denies the possibility of miracles—which is another discussion in itself. Put bluntly, it is the view that the star was a split in the dimensions between heaven and earth. The light is considered similar to the light on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3). While this is possible, I repeat that unless I find reason to deny it being a natural star, I don’t wish to multiply the causes beyond necessity (i.e. invoking a supernatural explanation).

The second objection in relation to the nativity is the rejection of the Massacre of the Innocents. The Massacre of the Innocents is the slaughter described in Matthew 2 referred to above. Some scholars reject this as an actual historical event but for reasons I think are far from persuasive. The rejection of this massacre is due simply to the fact that there is no explicit extra-biblical reference to the massacre. In fact, Josephus is our primary source for learning about Herod and since he fails to mention the massacre many scholars disavow it as authentically historical. As we saw above, Matthew’s connection with the Massacre of the Innocents is a theological one—he views Jesus as the new Moses. But what liberal scholars often look over about typology (fulfillment of prophecy) is that Matthew was not looking to invent stories to make Jesus fulfill them but rather saw an event happen and made a connection that there must be a broader theological scope. So instead of Matthew inventing a story to match the prophecy (which was often ambiguous), Matthew had historical information that Jesus went to Egypt as a child and assumed that the event must have fulfilled in all entirety Hosea 11:1. With this in mind, there would have been no reason to invent the story of the massacre. [iv]

According to recent calculations, the massacre would have only killed between 30 and 40 children. This was not such an outrageous statistic as to be expectedly recorded by Josephus. Josephus, of course, recorded many horrific acts committed by Herod but he makes clear that he did not record all of them. In fact, he makes no indication that he knew of all of them. From what we know about Herod and how he reacted to those he perceived as a threat to his power (even his own sons), the murder of all children under 2 years of age is very probable. To be sure, the Massacre of the Innocents was among the very least, unnoticeable atrocities of Herod. As Mass says, “Cruel as the slaughter may appear to us, it disappears among the cruelties of Herod. It cannot, then, surprise us that history does not speak of it.”[v]

There are two other references though that I believe mention it. The first, and the earliest, is the Assumption of Moses which is a Jewish apocryphal document dated to the first century. It is believed to have a reference to the massacre:

Assumption of Moses 6:2-6 –“An insollent king will succeed [the Hasmonean priests]…he will slay all the young.”

The last reference is by a 4th century philosopher: Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius. He states, ‘When Augustus heard that Herod king of the Jews had ordered all the boys in Syria under the age of two years to be put to death and that the king's son was among those killed, he said, "I'd rather be Herod's sow than Herod’s son.”’[vi]

The interesting thing about this passage is that Macrobius attempts to quote Augustus. It is possible that he is referring to an oral tradition passed down by Christians but seeing as how there would have been no reason for the Christian community to pass down the tradition it is more likely that he knew of an earlier Roman document that provided the quote.

The last objection in relation to the nativity is the census by Quirinius. There is known to have been a census by Quirinius in 6 A.D. but since Christ was born nearly 10 years prior to that we have a problem since we have no record of one in 6-4 B.C. under Quirinius. This problem however, is simply a matter of translation. There is solid evidence to support the fact that there was a census in 6-4 B.C.

It must be stated that in most translations, the wording in probably inaccurate. Greek is a very inflective language and often times meaning can go both ways. N.T. Wright, and I agree with him, proposes that the translation be read as: Luke 2:2—“This was the first registration, before the one when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” This is not an ad hoc translation attempting to avoid the issue. Nigel Turner, a leading Greek scholar agrees with N.T. Wright and offers his own translation: “This census was before the census taken when Quirinius was governor.”[vii]

Several factors indicate Luke to be accurate in his census.

First of all, it should be noted that simply because a religious book records a historical event does not automatically bring it into question. If, for example, Josephus were the only one to record the census no historian or scholar would question it. There exists a sort of supernatural bias against history preserved in religious material that is completely unreasonable. And for the level of reliability Luke provides in his writings about historical events and political action in first century Palestine and Rome (especially in Acts), there is little reason to doubt him. Sir William Ramsey has placed Luke at the top of historians—considering him to be among the most eminent.

Secondly, the fact is Luke was not mixing these censuses up. He was aware of both of them and even indicated which ones he was talking about. For in Luke 2:2 he calls it the “first registration, before the one when Quirinius was governor” and in Acts 5:37 Luke mentions the census of A.D. 6.

Third, if the translation above is correct as it most likely is, this allots for the idea that Herod held his own census as a Roman governor. Dr. Brook Pearson notes, “We cannot think that in the process of Romanizing his kingdom, he would incorporate Roman architectural, military, religious, and recreational techniques, models, and practices, but would reject their incredibly efficient administrative systems--or that he would be allowed to do so by his overlords.”[viii]

As I hope I have shown, in a rather short and swift rebuttal of the nativity controversies concerning the star of Bethlehem, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Quirinius census, there is no reason to doubt that the gospel writers—specifically Matthew and Luke—got anything wrong about the historical situations surrounding the nativity.

Jesus was born and he sent himself to die. Have a Merry Christmas!

-Randy

[i] I want to add that I am open to the idea that Matthew may not have known that Joseph and Mary previously lived in Nazareth. If you’re a consistent reader of mine you know that my opinion on textual inerrancy only goes so far as to the theological meanings of the text. I believe the text of the Bible to be for the vast majority historically accurate but not in all totality. It is possible, without taking away the historical fact of the nativity and birth of Jesus as told in the gospels, that Matthew may not have had information regarding where Joseph and Mary lived prior to going to Nazareth. The differences in the nativity seem to suggest that Matthew and Luke relied on different, though compatible, historical sources for the nativity. If Matthew’s source did not say where Joseph and Mary were traveling from he would naturally assume they already lived in Bethlehem.

[ii] To see a motion representation of what the planetary alignment would have looked like see, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Sky_Jerusalem_South-7BC-11-12.gif

[iii]As quoted in Christian Research Journal. Volume 30, Number 6. “The Star of Bethlehem: Light from Heaven?”: Origen, Origen Against Celsus (Peabody, MA Hendrickson, 1994), 4:422.
[iv] For a full discussion on typoligical fulfillment see Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels.
[v] Maas, "Life of Christ" (1897), 38
[vi] Macrobius, The Saturnalia, trans. Percival Davies (New York 1969), 171.

[vii] Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament, pages 23-24
[viii] Brook W. R. Pearson, "The Lucan censuses, revisited", The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Apr 1999.

Update: Thank you

2007-12-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

I personally would like to thank everybody that was able to come out to Sunday night's dinner at the Longview Country Club to help support Crossexamined. It was truly a blessing for me to be able to speak for a few minutes and I hope to be in contact with many of you in the future.

For everybody else that follows my work I also want to say thank you. I am receiving several hits a day on the blog and I appreciate you following me on this journey as I attempt to get more and more involved in apologetics. I will have a few shorter articles up over the coming month and sometime in January I am hoping to be done with the second part of my essay on the historical reliability of the gospels.

In Christ,

Randy Hardman

William Lane Craig on Objective Moral Values

2007-11-28T21:57:00.000-05:00

Dating The Synoptics, Part 1: Revised

2007-11-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

Dating the Synoptic Gospels
Randall Hardman (Religion Major, Philosophy Minor)

Over the past two centuries the study of the Bible’s historical reliability has been of major importance to biblical scholars and historians. This particular analysis of the New Testament gospels and their claims of history will consist of two parts. The first is a revised edition of a paper I submitted for a New Testament class a year or so ago on how we should decipher the dates of the gospels composition. The next part will address the historical claims of the New Testament head on. This latter part will address many of the popular claims made by liberal scholars (specifically that of the Jesus Seminar) and attempt to show that by using proper historical method, it can be effectively shown that the gospels are in fact reliable and historical biographies of Jesus.

1 Peter 3:15 tells us that we should be ready to give an intellectual defense (apologia) for what we believe. This is essentially what I am doing. Besides, I am an evidentialist. I go where I feel the evidence leads me. I do not subscribe to Christianity a priori but instead hold to it because I think the evidence supports it over any other worldview—including agnosticism. Thus, to defend my stance (God needs no defense) and hopefully bring others to salvation in Christ, I have endeavored to journey on a quest to determine how reliable the New Testament gospels really are. Let us begin.

Concerning the actual dates of composition, one might ask the question, “Why is it important?”

The question of their dates becomes of much importance when trying to establish the historical Jesus from the fictional Jesus. This is not to say that the gospels, if written late into the first century, would not be reliable. I very much think they would be. In fact, the eminent New Testament scholar Craig L. Blomberg has written a very in depth historical assessment of the gospels in his book The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Though Blomberg himself holds to an early date for the gospels, he never once mentions an early date. In the end, he still showed that they would be reliable even if the below dates are correct[1]. Nonetheless, there are at least two reasons why it’s important to recognize the significance of early dates. For one thing, it gives us even more reason to trust the gospels reliability. Secondly, it gives us a better understanding of non-biblical events that occurred in first century Palestine when we realize how Christianity might have influenced them.

Now, the commonly accepted dates for the Gospels are as follows:
1) Mark—A.D. 65-70
2) Matthew—A.D. 80-85
3) Luke—A.D. 85
4) John—A.D. 90-95

Some scholars like Bart Ehrman, Robert Funk, John Crossan and Andrew Bernhard have no problem dating the four canonical Gospels to these dates. The problem which is suggested by this view is that the narratives are much too far removed from the actual historical Jesus to be found entirely trustworthy of objective representation. On the other hand, a number of scholars including T.C. Lawson, D.A. Carson, Craig Blomberg, Kevin Bywater, Craig Evans, and William Bragstad attempt to date the Gospels prior to A.D. 70. If this view is correct, as I will argue, we ultimately have good reason to perhaps accept the canonical portrayal of Jesus. Unfortunately, as I in my own right can testify, this latter view is rarely discussed or even presented alongside a late date theory for the origins. What follows in this essay proposes that the evidence suggesting a late date for the Synoptic Gospels is not based on proper historical investigation but is based on incorrect a priori philosophical commitments and in turn I will argue that earlier dates for the placement of gospel writing is much more compelling.

It wasn’t until the late eighteenth century that biblical scholars and historians truly began to examine the internal and external evidences for the gospels historicity. Prior to the eighteenth century, the majority of individuals generally accepted the traditional authorship of scripture by its accredited authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. By accepting this, scholars didn’t really contemplate on the actual “dating” of the gospels. In essence, being that most Christians believed scripture to be a representation of divine truth, the dates of the composition were of little significance. However, as stated above, this mindset began to be challenged in the late 18th century. This happened immediately following the release of the popular Wolfenbuttel Fragments.[2] In light of the fragments, a German philosopher known as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing postulated a theory that suggested the synoptic gospels were not eyewitness accounts but were instead reliant on an older Semitic manuscript.

Over the next two centuries, with the rise of skepticism, Lessing’s theory would undergo multiple modifications. From scholars like Griesbach who postulated that Matthew was the first gospel to be written and Mark was the last to Weisse who hypothesized the commonly accepted Two Source Theory, the late date conjecture has been only fairly popularized within the past century.[3] Today, the majority of the academic community accepts the late dates for the origins of the gospels for merely a few philosophically ignorant positions. The biggest[4] reasons for accepting the late dates are as follows:

1) The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. As Andrew Bernhard states, “Matthew and Luke must have been written after Titus’ siege of Jerusalem because they allude to it (Matt 22:7; Luke 19:43-44, 21:20-24)”. The Gospel of Mark however remains to be rather unclear if or if not the author actually wrote after the destruction although some scholars believe Mark 13:1-2 alludes to a past destruction of the temple.

2) The martyrdom of Saint Peter. Saint Peter died circa C.E. 64 probably at the same time as Great Fire of Rome. Klaus Beger and Christine Norg attempt to date John 21 to after Peter’s death. John 21:18-19 appears to allude to Peter dying through a passion much like that of Christ.

So it appears that the conclusions on the dates of the Gospel’s are completely derived from a skeptical viewpoint that any declarations made concerning futuristic events must have been written very much after the fact. In other words, those that date the gospels post-70 A.D. are committed to a philosophical commitment that miracles (i.e. prophecy) does not occur. According to a late date theory, in order for Matthew and Luke to allude to the destruction of Temple and for John to reference the martyrdom death of Peter their writings must have been compiled long before the written gospels.[5]

There are multiple problems with this method of textual criticism. For one, it presents itself in a completely subjective manner. Prematurely, it denies the fact that Jesus Christ could have foretold these events. It’s not only that these scholars believe miracles don’t occur but they start with the presumption that miracles can’t occur. It teaches that the only way that the gospels could have recorded these events is if they had already happened. Conversely, the gospels portray the fall of Jerusalem and death of Peter as prophetic future events foretold by the Son of God himself. For if the gospels present an accurate portrayal of who Jesus was, or even merely that God exists, then it follows that he could have very well predicted the future events foretold in the gospels. In other words, if Jesus was divine and if he did in fact accurately predict these events then it follows that the gospels could have been written before the events occurred. Of course it also follows then that if he was not divine and did not predict the future events, then the gospels would have been written after the fact. But scholars, especially when dealing with religious texts, should never start with the presumption that it is false. The difference rests in the definitions of agnostic assumptions (miracles are possible whether or not I believe in them) and atheistic assumptions (miracles don’t happen). It is this latter view that is unjustifiably taken by scholars when they disregard the possibility that the gospels are early texts.

The second reason will be the focus of this essay. In essence, a late date theory fails to properly adhere to hermeneutical and historical criticism, especially when in connection with the book of Acts. For further clarification, I want to stress that even if miracles cannot occur, the bulk of the evidence still sides with an early date for authorship.
Instead of accepting the theory of late dates as an undisputed and undeniable fact in biblical scholarship, it’s important to go back to the hermeneutics, the Greco-Roman culture, and the historical events located in the text.

Luke, Acts, and the Temple

The best document for dating the Gospels is not the Gospel of Mark as is so commonly believed but instead the Acts of the Apostles. Acts is generally viewed by scholars as being volume number two of Luke’s original gospel. The reasons for this are far too immense to cover here so I will take it as a given that anybody reading this essay is familiar with the reasons. Acts’ focus is not on any one-person protagonist—as is the gospel—but on the ministry of the apostles and the formation of the early church. Unfortunately, when studying the Acts, liberal scholars tend to disregard the majority of history recorded. There are two problems with this. The first is a self-evident problem that leaks its way into any discussion of early Christian history whether we are discussing Acts or Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History. The view is that it has only been within the past two centuries that we have discovered what history really is while writers and historians of the ancient past were much too ignorant to record reliable history and were much too regularly apt in “freely making things up, weaving fantasy and legend together and calling it history” as British New Testament scholar Bishop N.T. Wright terms it. He goes on to label this the “cultural imperialism of the Enlightenment.”[6] The second problem with how scholars view Acts is that they fail to recognize the privileged position of Luke.[7] What is known about Luke is that he was, as the late former skeptic Sir William Ramsey put it, “a historian of the first rank”. He goes on to say, “this author should be placed among with the greatest historians.”[8] This from a man who attempted to show that The Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles were historically unreliable documents.

Theologian and philosopher of religion Dr. Norman Geisler points out that Luke, merely within the last half of Acts, gives us eighty-four historically proven facts that point to a contemporary of the day. Some of these include “the natural stopping-point on the way to Caesarea (23:31)”, “the flight of steps used by the guards (21:31, 35)”, “the permanent stationing of a Roman cohort at Antonia to suppress any disturbance at festival times”, and even “the fourteenth night in a remarkable calculation, based inevitably on a compounding of estimates and probabilities, confirmed in the judgment of experienced Mediterranean navigators (27:27)”.[9] When studying what Luke’s history we find reinforcement when he said he “carefully investigated everything from the very first”. Luke was interested with recording the accurate history of Jesus, the apostles, and the church.

The traditional date for the composition of Acts is A.D. 62. Now if this date turned out to be correct it would certainly date the Gospel of Luke to an earlier time, perhaps by a couple years. Furthermore, since this would push Mark back to a pre-Lukan date, ‘L’ back to an earlier date, and mostly likely ‘Q’ to an earlier date, this would authenticate the parallelisms in the other gospels and in essence give us a contemporary look at the real historical Jesus and the real historical apostles.

Classical Roman historian Colin Hemer lists out seventeen reasons for accepting an A.D. 60-62 date of Acts composition.[10] The first and foremost reason for accepting an early date of Acts comes from the fact that Acts contains no reference to the crucial siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple.[11] The significance of this fact can not be understated. The temple was without doubt the centerpiece for the Jewish community. Almost every aspect of life revolved around the temple for both the Christian and the Jew. As Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Frank Turek point out in their ever popular book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, it’s like a former World Trade Center employee writing about events surrounding the World Trade Centers only a few years before 9/11 and failing to even mention the attacks that followed. In essence, the destruction of Jerusalem would have been big enough for Luke to have at least noted its destruction as a past event even if he was talking about it as present. As liberal scholar Dr. John A.T. Robinson notes, “One of the oddest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period - the fall of Jerusalem in ad 70, and with it the collapse of institutional Judaism based on the temple - is never once mentioned as a past fact. It is, of course, predicted; and these predictions are, in some cases at least, assumed to be written (or written up) after the event. But the silence is nevertheless as significant as the silence for Sherlock Holmes of the dog that did not bark.” He goes on further, “Explanations for this silence have of course been attempted. Yet the simplest explanation of all, that perhaps ... there is extremely little in the New Testament later than ad 70 [Moule, op. cit., 121.] and that its events are not mentioned because they had not yet occurred, seems to me to demand more attention than it has received in critical circles.”[12]

The second point Hemer makes similarly is that there is not even the slightest hint of the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 or any relational divergence between the Jews and the Romans. The same point can be made in terms of Christian and Jewish relationship. In the second century, Christians often had a very anti-Semitic view of the Jews. In the early church’s eyes, the Jews had committed judicial and spiritual murder of the one true messiah. This anti-Semitism is absent in the gospel records.

Thirdly, there is no hint of any relational divergence between Christian movement and Roman politics during the Neronic persecution of the late 60s. Luke’s gospel ends in A.D. 62, even before the Great Fire of Rome. Why would Luke not mention such a cataclysmic event?

The fourth point is that there is no allusion of the death of James by the Sanhedrin in c. 62-63 as recorded by Josephus (Antiquities 20.9.1.200) and extensively recorded by the second century Jewish Christian Hegesippus[13]. There is also no mention of Peter’s death. Peter’s death is recorded by Dionysus, Bishop of Corinth in the second century as having occurred during the Neronic persecution alongside Paul. Both Peter’s and Paul’s tombs are located where Gaius the third century historian claimed them to be.[14]

Fifth, if the gospels were written so late and the words of Jesus simply passed down from incorrect oral traditions or invented sayings dealing with the early church, why do we not see Jesus talking about things like speaking in tongues and women’s roles in the church? These and many more like them were hot topics in the early church and we should expect Christ to have ‘talked’ about them if the gospels were written so late.

Sixth, allegations are often brought against the gospels concerning the second parousia. As scholar Hank Hanegraff has recently re-informed the all too common dispensationalist public, Christ taught that the second coming would occur within the generation of the disciples. I do not wish to get into any debate here about the teachings of a third parousia, something I think eschatological scholars do well enough, but the importance of this fact is extremely important in distinguishing the correct dates for the gospels. If the gospels were written so late and the eschatological discourses were written in A.D. 70-95, then the apostles—mind perhaps John, although I even think this is a stretch—would have already been dead. Christianity would have been deemed false immediately when Jews realized that the apostles were already dead and they hadn’t seen a second coming. Also, if the gospels were written so late by individuals post-dating the lives of the apostles, surely the early church would discredit their reliability when they realized that Christ never came during the apostle’s lifespan to set up an earthly kingdom. So instead of writing “I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation” (Matthew 23:36) or “"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened,” (Luke 21:32), if the authors didn’t have a problem changing what Jesus said (like groups like the Jesus Seminar claim), they would have most certainly written something like “I tell you the truth, the generation after you will not pass away until these things have happened.” The authors of the gospels were very interested in preserving the actual words of Jesus about his second coming.

The truth is, the majority of the early church believed Christ’s second coming had occurred. But the early church understood that this return was not a physical return, but a symbolic, spiritual return that internationally affirmed and vindicated his claim to deity. The early church was not pre-millenialist, post-millenialist, or full preterist. When we objectively examine what Jesus said about the second coming and how the early church responded to it—mind perhaps Irenaeus[15]—the view presented is obviously partial preterist eschatology. The evidence both externally (see Josephus The Wars of the Jews, VI-V-3 and Tacitus Histories, Book 5 v. 3 cf. both with Luke 21:11) and internally supports the partial preterist view.[16]

Lastly, and probably second in importance to the fact that the temple was still standing at the end of acts is this: Paul is still alive in Acts 28. Paul died in A.D. 65 under the hand of Nero and yet the author of Acts fails to mention his death. As can be seen, Luke has a habit of mentioning the martyrdoms and persecutions of the apostles and followers of Christ. Furthermore, the writer of Luke and Acts claimed to have been a companion of Paul for much of his ministry. The best explanation for the absence of Paul’s death is that Luke wrote Acts before he died.

We can conclude from these facts then that Acts was written at latest A.D. 63. The Gospel of Luke then would have been dated to probably A.D. 59-61 with sources dating back to almost the time of the crucifixion. According to Luke, he used multiple written testimonies from eyewitnesses before writing his narrative. Q is most likely a written source dating from the time of Christ and ‘L’ very possibly is not simply a singular document but a compilation of sources uncommon to Matthew. This would include oral tradition and interviews with the apostles (for Luke tells us he had visited the apostles) and other eyewitnesses as he “carefully investigated everything from the beginning”. So what we appear to have in Luke is a narrative dating from A.D. 59-60 that contains carefully investigated eyewitness testimony and an eyewitness record to the acts of the early church.

[1] Although he does make a mention of it in a footnote on p. 226
[2] The Wolfenbuttel Fragments, released in 1778, were composed of the theories of Herbert Samuel Reimarsus which questioned the divinity and sanity of Jesus as well as the incentive of the apostles. http://www.maryvale.ac.uk/badmadorgod/excerpt2.htm

[3] Warren J. Moulton, The Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Journal of Biblical Literature p 1-19, 1918 (ATLA).
[4] I stress the word because of the fact that when discussing the dates of the gospels, these two reasons precede all others and I would suggest that most of the time encompasses the other objections to an early date.
[5] Some have argued that the fact that since our earliest copies of the New Testament documents only appear A.D. 115 (John Ryland’s fragment) we must assume that they were written so late. That is a faulty and somewhat ignorant argument. Frankly, scholars are astonished at not only how many but how early our copies of the New Testament documents are. Even from an early date, the gospels are only about 60 or 70 years removed. From a late date they are 50 to 20. The next document with the closest date between our earliest extant manuscript and the writing of the original is The Iliad with over a 500-year time span.
[6] Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God, p 84. Fortress Press, 1992
[7] At this moment, I am simply referring to whoever wrote the gospel as ‘Luke’.
[8] Sir William M. Ramsey, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, Hodder & Stoughton, 1915.
[9] Dr. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology: Volume 1, 2002.
[10] Colin Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, 1989)
[11] This applies to the Gospels as well seeing as how the only references they contain to the destruction are prophetic.
[12] Robinson, Redating the New Testament Chapter 2, The Westminster Press, 1976. Robinson also notes that out of all the epistles, we should most certainly expect Hebrews to contain a reference to the temples destruction. The Epistle to the Hebrews is extremely focused on preaching the obsoleteness of the temple.Yet for some reason it does not mention the destruction of it. Liberal scholars date it to A.D. 90-95.
[13] This is an example of scholars dismissing “Christian texts” as unreliable. Hegessipus’ account of James’s death is far from recognized as authentic by liberal scholars. I have already provided a quote of N.T. Wright that criticizes the position that a biased text must be an unreliable text. Truth is, Hegessipus says nothing to contradict Josephus here. The two records are completely compatible. So why not take his extensive record as potentially truthful? Hegessipus and Josephus obviously relied on early records of this event.
[14] For Paul’s bone box see, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6219656.st
For Peter’s bone box see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Basilica

[15] Irenaeus’ dispensational roots may have very much been informed by his belief that Revelation was written in A.D. 95 instead of earlier.
[16] For a more in depth and compelling account of this, see Hank Hanegraff, The Apocalypse Code or R.C. Sproul The Last Days According to Jesus. The online http://www.preteristarchive.com/ also has a very impressing index of online resources for learning about the subject.

Dating the Synoptics, Part 2: Revised

2007-11-02T16:12:00.000-05:00

Paul’s Epistles and the Date of the Synoptics

The last argument posed to dating the Synoptic gospels to an early date concerns that of Paul’s epistles. As William Bragstad notes, “Paul’s letters presuppose a thorough knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus now found in the gospels.”[1] Bragstad observes multiple similarities between several of Paul’s letters and many of the passages located within the Gospels. For example, 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 informs us that Paul “received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you: that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it and said, “Take, east; this is My body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of Me.” After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped saying, “This cup is the new testament in My blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.” What Bragstad notes here is that he may have received it from an earlier written document that closely paralleled the version told in Luke 22:17-20.

1 Timothy 5:18[2] gives us almost an indisputable reason for dating the Gospels early. Paul writes, “The scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain’ and ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’” What’s interesting here is that Paul here, in A.D. 62, cites Luke 10:7, the gospel written by his supposed companion. If in fact it was Doctor Luke who wrote the gospel and Acts, Paul would have certainly have had first precedence to read his gospel. He wouldn’t have needed to wait for copies and translations to reach him on his journeys.

7Q and the External Evidence for the Early Dates

In 1972, Spanish Paleographer Jose O’Callahan made worldwide news when he discovered some very early gospel fragments of what could potentially be the Gospel of Mark in the seventh Qumran cave. The significance of this discovery was that the majority of the fragments dated back to the early 50s of the first century. The New York Times reported the implications rightly: If Father O’Callahan’s theory is accepted it would prove that at least one of the gospels—that of St. Mark—was written only a few years after the death of Jesus. The idea that these fragments are in fact Marcan are supported by many lines of evidence[3]:

1) They were dated by various scholars, scholars separated from O’Callahan prior to his conclusion of them being New Testament fragments. We cannot accuse the date as being a manufactured one.

2) The dates of these fragments have yet to be sufficiently called into question.

3) They fit the dating of other manuscripts in the Qumran caves.

4) The style of writing is without doubt mid-first century technique.

5) The odds that the letter sequences in the fragments represents some other ancient text is virtually impossible. Two scholars calculated the impossibility at 1 in 2.25 times 10 to the 65th.

Text Fragment Approx. date
Mark 4:28 7Q6 AD 50
Mark 6:48 7Q15 AD ?
Mark 6:52, 53 7Q5 AD 50
Mark 12:17 7Q7 AD 50
Acts 27:38 7Q6 AD 60+
Rom. 55:11, 12 7Q9 AD 70+
1 Timothy 3:16, 4:1-3 7Q4 AD 70+
2 Peter 1:15 7Q10 AD 70+
James 1:23, 24 7Q8 AD 70+

Fragment 7Q5 is most definitely the best fragment in support of the Marcan fragments argument. 7Q5, as the table shows, could possibly be a fragment of Mark 6:52-53. Further investigation is needed and the debate continues to roar, but it is perhaps ignorant to say that because the New Testament was written later in the first century, these fragments couldn’t possibly be fragments of genuine New Testament documents. That argument is already begging the question that the New Testament documents were written late. Sadly, that is the most common response I have heard to this argument.

It is however unlikely in lue of the amount of research done on 7Q5 that any sufficient explanation of it being of another document will surface. Not only has the majority of Greek scholarship supported the Marcan hypothesis but after O’ Callahan made the identification scholars used the Ibykus computer program. The results turned up astounding. The identification of the fragment could be nothing other in extant Greek manuscript than Mark 6:52-53.[4] As one writer put it, “It is thus highly likely that 7Q5 = Mark 6,52-53 will have to be added to the official list of New Testament papyri sooner or later.”[5]

Any additional and technical details of fragment would exceed space here so I think it would suffice to say that 7Q is a hotly debated issue in scholarship. To dismiss it as a whimsy attempt by apologists to support their case would be completely ignorant of the facts surrounding the debate. It would be safe to say though that at this moment, there is very little respectable scholarship in competition with, say specifically, 7Q5.[6]

52) …for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.
53) When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there.

Conclusion

So in essence, there is reason to conclude that perhaps the New Testament Gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Perhaps they were written by the accredited authors and perhaps there is reason to conclude that the Gospels in the end present a fairly accurate depiction of who the historical Jesus was. We have seen that,

1) It has only been within this last century that the dating of the gospels have come to such dates as commonly accepted.

2) Neither the Gospels nor Acts present any past allusion to the destruction of the Temple or Peter’s crucifixion. The presupposition that the only way for the Gospel writers to “prophecy” these events would be to have written them after the fact suggests intended deception and poor philosophical criticism when analyzing religious texts. One should at least leave a prophetic miracle to be written in the text if one is to honestly and objectively analyze the text.
3) The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles gives us our primary source for concluding that both were written before A.D. 70. Luke never once gives any past allusion or reference to The Siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, the Jewish war, or the deterioration of the relationship between Christians and Roman politics during the Neronic persecution in the late 60s.
4) Acts never gives us any indication of Paul’s death which occurred circa A.D. 64.
5) Paul’s epistles at the very least present us with evidence of earlier eyewitness narratives of Jesus and perhaps even give us a direct quote from that of his companion’s narrative.
6) The discoveries at Qumran could very well date the Gospel of Mark to the 50s. This then means that it had to be copied and distributed throughout the area and to the Essenes it would have needed to be written several years prior.

Of course there had to be an oral stage present in Christianity from the beginning. However, it seems that once the gospel writers realized the extent of their mission to spread Christ’s message to the entire world that writing something down would be almost necessary once they would supersede Jerusalem and Judea. In conclusion I feel we can safely postulate that the dates of the Synoptic Gospels can be dated as below:

Mark : 40-50
Luke : 58-60
Matthew : 50-70
Acts : 60-62

Craig Blomberg sums up, “All of this adds up to a strong case that all three Gospels were composed within about thirty years of the Christ’s death (probably A.D. 30) and well within the period of time when people could check up on the accuracy of the facts they contain.”[7] That last statement will be the focus of part two of this study.

Post-Script: On Excessive Late Dating

I did not feel it compelled to include this section in the main body of the essay for reasons that shall be apparent in a moments time. There has been a very small minority of scholars over the past two centuries which have attempted to not only avoid the early dates for the gospels but to also avoid the generally accepted dates of the gospels I mentioned at the beginning of the essay. Instead, these scholars feel that we should place the gospels, especially the Luke-Acts narrative, into the mid-second century. One day I plan to write on this with more detail but for time being I will simply gloss over the reasons why such an idea hinders on overly biased pseudo-scholarship. I will turn my concentration to Luke and Acts, as these are the gospels that are usually under fire from the second century proponents. The argument essentially goes that since Luke and Josephus (writing in the 90s A.D.) have a lot in common, then Luke may have used Josephus’ works. Richard Carrier and Richard Pervo are the main spotlight proponents of this view. However, it is such a minority position that the vast majority of scholars working in the field view it as ridiculous—not even the Jesus Seminar would accept such late dates and thus, it is rarely dealt with on a scholarly level. Few scholars would spend their time dealing with such an argument. However, I choose to deal with it because I have seen multiple atheists attempt to use this argument in an effort to show the gospels are not eyewitness history. I will not elaborate on so many of these points but simply lay them out as to why this is such a non-respected point of view:

1) Luke tells us that he used eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:1-4) and lets us know that he met with the apostles and eyewitnesses face-to-face (Acts 21:17). One must assume that Luke is lying here. Some would argue that Luke could have still used eyewitness testimony if he wrote in the second century but we know from early church fathers that the earlier eyewitness documents of Jesus had ceased to exist by the mid-second century. Luke would have had no access to them. It’s reasonable to think then that a lot of Luke’s information came from speaking and interviewing the eyewitnesses. I mean, he did say that he carefully investigated everything from the beginning, and as I have shown, there seems to be no reason to doubt it.

2) Acts was getting to be very well known in the early second century. This implies that it was written at least somewhat before the beginning of the second century.

3) Luke’s exegesis was completely different than Josephus’.

4) Luke wrote extensively on many topics which were not major issues in the second century

5) Marcion compiled his heretical cult of Christianity based off of Lukan and Pauline materials. Since Marcion was very concerned with the preservation of things tied undoubtedly with Paul (he even denied the Pastoral epistles), it seems that he felt he had good reason to believe an associate of Paul wrote Luke. This is also not to mention the fact that Marcion began his sect around A.D. 130—thus predating the mid-second century for composition of Luke-Acts.

6) Many scholars that deny Pauline authorship of the pastoral epistles believe that they were written with Acts in full knowledge (2 Tim 3:11)

7) Early first century church fathers make use of passages in Luke and Acts.

John A.T. Robinson, who we have seen before, summarizes the point in passing: "When we come to the issue of dating proper, we may note in passing that one argument, namely, the supposed dependence of Acts on Josephus' Antiquities (stressed for instance, by F. C. Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmission (Edinburg, 1906), p. 109f.) which would require a date after 93, seems to have been almost totally abandoned (Cf. F. J. Foakes Jackson, Acts (Moffatt NTC), 1931, xivf.; Kummel, Introduction to the NT, 186; Lampe, Peake's Commentary, p. 883; Manson, Studies in the Gospels and Epistles, 64f. Writing in 1910, Harnack regarded this point as having been 'settled thirty-four years ago by Schurer.' Quoting the latter's summary, 'Either St. Luke had not read Josephus, or if he had read him, he had forgotten what he had read'; Harnack said 'Schurer here exactly hits the mark (Date of Acts, 114f.)... silence on the very existence of the epistles [of Paul] is, as Kummel says (ibid, 186; cf. Zahn, INT III, 125f.). a formidable objection amongst many others, to a second century date. It is unbelievable that a later writer should not have made use of them for his reconstruction, or at least alluded to them" (John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (1976), pp. 86-87).

[1] William Bragstad, The Origins of the Gospels, Concordia Theological Quarterly, 283-295, 1994.
13 It’s often argued that the Pastoral Epistles are nothing more than forgeries under the name of Paul. However, this is not at all undisputed as Greek scholars such as B.B. Edwards note. The change in Pauline tone can be accounted for by several lines of information. In fact, one of the reasons the Pastoral Epistles are concluded to be forgeries is because he quotes Luke’s gospel. Since Luke’s gospel is generally viewed as being a post-Pauline document, the argument obviously relies on unwarranted assumptions. See The Genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles, The Biblio Sacra, 1993 (ATLA) for more information.
[3] Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology Volume 1, p 475. Bethany House 2002.
[4] Cf. C.P. THIEDE, The Earliest Gospel Manuscript? The Qumran Papyrus 7Q5 And Its Significance for New Testament Studies (Exeter-Carlisle 1992) 40-41, n.31.
[5] http://members.aol.com/egweimi/7q5.htm
[6] Carsten Thiede, co-author of Eyewitness to Jesus, has done an excellent exposition of the evidences for and against 7Q5’s identification of Mark 6:52-53. For his article either follow the above link or for more information (including Thiede’s article) go to http://www.preteristarchive.com/JewishSources/dead_sea_scrolls/7Q5_mark.html

[7] “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?” Craig Blomberg, Jesus Under Fire, Ed. Wilkins and Moreland, Zondervan 1995.

Redating the New Testament Gospels Revised--Soon!

2007-10-28T20:14:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have not been aware, I have rewritten my essay on redating the Synoptic gospels. This is one of two projects (the second being the reliability of the gospels). My second draft of the paper is being reviewed by a professor of mine and by some atheists on a message board (I feel it is always good to check it out with layman atheists too).

I hope to have the third draft done here in a couple weeks.

Randy