An Answer to the Moral Dihlemma of Theism

Let's say you're omnipotent, and you want to make a clock. There are two ways to do it:

The first way would be to create a dial with hands that always point in the right direction in response to the actual time. The big hand would move around the dial once every hour, always landing on the twelve at the exact moment the little hand arrives at whatever o’clock it is, simply because you commanded it to. You could either command it to follow that pattern for all eternity, or else you could dedicate one small part of your infinite mind to physically moving it according to that pattern. There would be nothing of what we call clockworks inside, just a giant cosmic miracle dial responding to your decree on its own.

The second way would be to build it with all the wheels inside meshing together, timed by the flywheel, driven by the power-source, working with utmost precision, insuring that the hands point to the right numbers on the dial at the right time of the cosmic time progression. Any addition you made later on would be powered by and in sync with the existing clockworks. It would be designed to work all on its own without any effort from you - except you could add an input device whereby you could make any corrections, such as, “increase speed by one millionth of a second”. We'll talk more about this input device later.

From reviewing all the evidence, both from science and from scripture, I'd have to conclude that a certain Omnipotent being that we know, chose the second of the two ways, the “clockworks” model when creating this universe. A lot of folk religion does seem to favour the “miracle dial” method, as well as, perhaps a few early scientific models. However, even early scientists as Aristotle and others leaned in the direction of a clockworks type of universe.

How does science point to a clockworks model? There are the four forces (that we know of), gravitational, electromagnetic, the strong and the weak; and we now know that atoms consist of dozens of types of particles, each rendering possible, various facets of our existence, including life.

Though we've always taken it for granted, actual life integrated with physical substance isn't an easy thing to come by. We know that rocks can't be living. Minerals can't hold life, nor can any other elements or simple compounds - although we now have very complex electronic circuitry with the right programming to make it act like it's alive (isn't that right, Alexa? “Yes, that's right”). But only the extremely elaborate intricate structure of the DNA molecule can actually hold life. We still don't know how it works, nor how to recreate it. All we can do is grow it from existing DNA.

When God said, “Let there be light,” the big bang occurred at just the right intensity to divide that initial microscopic speck into a humongous mass of photons, all at the right density to enable the formation of atoms of every size and type - the clockworks that would eventually enable life. Had that big bang been even the slightest bit more intense, physicists tell us, all that would have been enabled would have been hydrogen atoms. Life could never come about. Anything ever so slightly less intense and the universe as we know it would, again, not have been possible.

Even at the right intensity, the time still had to be right. The Omnipotent Being said, “let light be separated from darkness.” Ripples appeared on the outward flowing stream of light, and gravitational and magnetic forces began to go to work at pulling it together to form galaxies and stars. The nuclear reactions within each star formed the various particles into atoms, splitting them again, completely dissolving them and remaking them into atoms again, while some that had spun off beyond the outer periphery formed into planets. When at least one planet had cooled sufficiently, God said, “Let the water be separated from dry land, and let an atmosphere appear.” Only then, was life even possible. We are living in what is called, “The Goldilocks Zone” where it is, like junior Bear's porridge, “Just right!”

So, how much time passed between these events that led to it being “just right” for life of any sort to make its appearance? Some say billions of years, others say only a few days. The thing about such intense gravitational force as was present at the big bang, is that it greatly speeds up time, so the first couple of aeons could have been a couple of days. To God, it doesn't make any difference anyhow, as a day and a thousand years (or a billion, as far as that goes) are all the same. It was all a part of fixing the clockworks to accommodate life, and setting up that relatively short Goldilocks zone where humanity could live and roam, and fulfil his destiny.

There is reason to believe that the seventh day of creation was much longer than twenty four hours. According to Hebrews 4:3-11 we are still in the seventh day. God has been resting, and it remains for some of us to enter that rest.

So, God told man on the sixth day, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.” God gave His creation over to humanity for safekeeping, set His alarm clock, and rested.

Well okay, He's not exactly sleeping. Remember, there's that input device whereby He can make adjustments, and that is through interaction with humanity, to whom He gave the authority to manage things. That input device is, in fact, the life that He breathed into man that brought him to life. So, humanity is both a product of the grand universal clockworks that God had spent so much time designing and developing, and alive with the breath of God Himself. Where other creatures are simply products of the clockworks, and therefore subject to determinism, humanIty is above that and is capable of true creativity, making decisions that can't be predicted by knowing all the maths. So, humanity, created in God's own image, holding God's life in his DNA, both belongs in the physical universe that produced that DNA, and transcends it. He is a higher order of being, meant to be God's own friend. That's who God gave the authority over His creation.

But we also know that the first couple of humans blew it, creating a Mess (with a capital M) that all humans coming after would have to live with, so God has been making heavy use of the input device.

Everyone is affected by The Mess, some more than others, and in different ways, prompting many to say, ‘It just isn't fair!” There's nothing about The Mess that's fair. People are enslaved, bullied, tortured, slaughtered, bereaved, left destitute, while others reap the benefits, living high off other people's suffering; all because of how human nature has been skewed.

Early humans took on board something that they were told not to, and that gave us an acute sense of good and evil. On the surface that sounds good, but look closer. What it was, was an obsession to compare everything. The first humans looked at each other and then at themselves and said, “Your body is beautiful, but mine? Oh dear! Stop looking at me!” (To this day, we think of nudity as evil, but God made it clear that that’s only because we think it is, when He said, “Who told you you were naked?”)

Later, someone said to his brother, “You are better than me, so God loves you more than me, therefore, I hate you!” That led to the first murder.

Later still people began saying, “Sex with you is nice, but I could have a better time with someone more beautiful/handsome than you;” and, “You have a prettier woman than I have, and a stronger beast of burden, nicer tools and more land than I have; but I'm stronger than you, so I'm taking it.”

Actually, the basic desires aren't bad in themselves. A healthy sex drive is a good thing, and some desires and urges are simple survival instincts. It's when we're obsessed with comparing the quality or quantity with what others have that it gets out of proportion.

And so, because some were stronger than others, while following the same skewed logic, we've ended up with the unfair Mess that we're in.

Now, question and answer time:

First, how can a loving God allow those things to happen?

The answer: remember the Two possible ways for an omnipotent being to build a clock? Had He chosen the Miracle Dial method, that would be a very good question. If everything worked simply because He had His hands on it making it work, then everything would run perfectly, and all the aforementioned evils wouldn't be happening. But He didn't do it that way. He went with the Clockworks model, designing the universe to run according to the laws of physics and quantum mechanics in a cause-effect continuum. Moreover, because humanity is a transcendent being, as well as an integral part of the clockworks, we had the power to screw things up on a grand scale, which we did.

Then why didn't the Omnipotent Being do something about that before things got out of hand?

Keep in mind, the nature of the universe He made, the clockworks, the careful timing, the laws of physics and the quantum mechanics, and all the preparation that went into the Goldilocks Zone; it's clear that God took no shortcuts. All of that work went into the preparation of humanity's place in the vast clockworks of the universe, as a functioning part of the clockworks.

So, let's rephrase that question: Why didn't the Omnipotent Being do something he hadn't ever done since detonating the Big Bang; and stick His finger into the clockworks, stop the universe, undo the human mistake and then start it off again where it left off?

That's not His way. He had already put humanity into the pilot seat, and had begun His day of rest. Humanity was given the freedom of choice, and with that comes living with those choices. Freewill is a dangerous thing.

Perhaps the next obvious question would be, wasn't God morally wrong in giving humanity freewill when He knew where it would lead?

There are many angles to that one. Part of the assumption is that it was like trusting the keys of the family car to a young child. Others picture it as setting a bowl of sweets on the table, and telling the two-year-old, “Don't touch!” The way the Adam and Eve story is often told, one quite easily comes away with that conclusion. However, if we examine the accounts more carefully, we might get a far different picture: The first man had already named all the animals, and, according to Rabbinical tradition, used sounds that matched the nature of each creature, like a well studied Kabbalist would. So, was Adam no more than a small child? Perhaps it was more like the father entrusting the keys to the car to a son nearing adulthood, who already knows how to drive safely and responsibly, and has already proven himself on many occasions. The son is ready, by anyone's standards, to be trusted with such a potentially dangerous machine. But he still messes up at the critical moment, causing death and destruction. Who is morally responsible for that?

That leads us to another angle:  why was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil there in the first place?

One thing we don't pretend to know is what ultimate purpose it served. There are a few theories, such as: maybe it was meant for  later after humanity had matured to a certain level; or that it was simply there to test humany's obedience; or as a chance to exercise his power to choose. Perhaps none of them completely satisfy everyone, but there is the other consideration: Adam, as we observed, had been there longer, knew what was what, and knew what he was doing. Eve was a new arrivals, so she was easily deceived.

When Adam discovered that Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, why didn't he take Eve by the hand, lead her to where God would be walking in the cool of the day, and say, “I'm afraid we've had a miss-hap. Eve has gone and eaten from that tree you told us not to, because the snake told her it was good for her. Isn't there anything that can be done for her?” He didn't do that. He simply ate of it himself, knowing full well what the consequences were (and people point to the Genesis story to show how superior men are to women. How was that superior?).

Yet another angle is, would it really have been better to be products of determinism than free will? If we were, would we be enjoying the levels of creativity that we do, pushing the limits to what's possible, or indeed, even discussing free will versus determinism? It's clear from a close examination of Scripture that God's intent in creating humanity was to enjoy companionship on that level.

It's on that level that we see that God, by making use of that “input device”, initiated a midcourse correction intended to eventually bring everything back into line with what it's supposed to be. As anyone knows, who fixes things, some fixes may take a while, and in mid-fix, look even worse than when we started out. That Fix (with a capital F) involved instituting a covenant with various ones, which gave the Omnipotent One the leeway to manifest His Omnipotence in a limited way (things like parting the Red Sea, etc) without overstepping the mandate He had given humanity. In fact, that was the whole point of having a “chosen people”, so He could “legally” maintain a presence on the earth so He could carry out the Fix. Humanity created The Mess, humanity must play a vital part in The Fix.

What about those who have been suffering in the meantime, simply because The Fix is still in the works? What of those who have never heard of The Fix?

The traditional assertion is that every man, woman, boy and girl, puppy and kitten who hasn't read aloud the Sinner's Prayer from the back of a Chick tract, will spend all of eternity burning in the intense fire of hell; it doesn't matter how miserable their life was on earth.

I believe there is a hell, and also a world to come, in which the meek will inherit the earth. I also believe that being fully initiated into God's Kingdom is through repentance and faith - being born again by the Spirit of God. We’ll talk about that in another post. However I also believe it is a mistake to assume that Theologians have distilled the sum of all truth from the little we can read of scripture. I do believe God is just, and besides being omnipotent, He is all knowing. He knows the lives of every abused child, every slave, each bullied and beaten vulnerable person, from beginning to end - and He's just. I can only trust Him with that. That’s a part of having faith in Him.

We do get some vague hints from the Bible, the following from Yeshua's parables:

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus: A rich man who had everything, but never showed mercy to poor diseased Lazarus who sat at the door grabbing what crumbs fell from the dishes as they were being carried out to be washed. Both died, the rich man went to hell, while Lazarus went to a comfortable place and was held in the bosom of Father Abraham. We're not told that Lazarus was a born again Christian, nor whether he was Torah observant; only that he was receiving compensation for a life of misery. The rich man was, apparently receiving just compensation for non Torah observance, particularly of those parts of the Torah that command us not to neglect the poor of the land, to see to the needs of the widows and orphans and the refugees - about consuming the earth's resources without giving anything back.

The parable of the sheep and the goats: At judgement day, the Judge of all the earth sits on His throne, directing some to move to His right, and others to His left. To those on His right He says, “I was sick and you helped me; I was hungry and you fed me; I was imprisoned and you visited me etc… enter into the joy of the Lord.” Those people replied, “Huh?” “When did that happen?” “I've never even been to church!” “I never saw you…” And the Judge replied, “Oh yes you did. When you befriended that homeless kid, when you went out of your way to check how that very sick looking man was doing, when you paid out more than you could afford to feed that family… you were doing it to me.” To those on His left, He had other things to say.

As I said, the above are hints as to God criteria for judgement. A major one is according to how we judge others. Yeshua said, “Don't judge and you won't be judged. By what standard you judge others is how you will be judged.”

I picture one of us standing in the queue at the final judgement: The man just two ahead of you approaches the throne and says, “I was really bad, I know. I had such a bad temper, I beat my wife and my kid A couple of times, and…”

The judge interrupts him, “Yes, you confessed that to me, and by my grace, you were beginning to overcome in that area. You were on your way to becoming a truly good gentle husband and father before your brother-in-law shot you. You are forgiven. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”

The one just before you approaches, saying, “I'm not sure I'm worthy to enter. I couldn't keep my hands to myself, always flirting, my wife divorced me…”

“But you kept looking to me for forgiveness, and you were slowly being transformed by my grace. Enter into my joy.“

Then it's your turn. “I can't think of any reason I can't just enter, can you? I mean, I wasn't nearly as bad as those other two, and they…”

“Not so fast. What about when you went to church wearing a shirt that hadn't been ironed, or that time you were seen picking your nose in front of the City Hall? And then there's the time you bent over to pick up a coin, and the top of your bum was showing!”

“C'mon! Those are such small thing! Those two ahead of me were…”

“I can't judge you the same as them. You wrote your own rulebook when you judged others by how they conduct themselves in public, so I have to judge you by the same standard you judged them.”

Maybe not exactly like that, but you get the picture.

James says in his epistle that by fulfilling the commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves instead of judging and favoring some over others, we qualify ourselves to be assessed by the royal law of liberty.

This brings us to our biggest obstacle; by taking on board the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we've made ourselves experts in judging others, and that, in turn, subjects us to judgement.

By showing mercy, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving personal offences, releasing grudges, we place ourselves under God's mercy. However, we can't simply “unknow” the Knowledge of Good and Evil, can we! As much as we try to forgive and forget, it just keeps coming back. Also, some wounds are so deep that we find it impossible to forgive. That's where we especially need The Fix.

Just as The Mess was created by humanity, so also was The Fix, in the person of Messiah Yeshua. The Omnipotent One had been spending all of human history setting it up so that He, by human consent and cooperation, could send The Fix in the person of His Son, the human, Yeshua.

After spending a lifetime telling us about The Fix, Yeshua Himself became the target of every injury, abuse, slander, false accusation, and was finally subjected unjustly to the most torturous death imaginable; absorbing the shock of all human injustice, while uttering His last words, “Father, forgive them.”

As a human, Yeshua had the authority of a human, but without the setback of having gone wrong. He expended all the energy He had been given, and all the authority He had, until there was no more to expend. The intensity was such, He underwent death; thus, the perfect exercise of human authority, completely undoing the Mess, making The Fix available to all of humanity.

So, what exactly was it that this perfect exercise of human authority enabled the Omnipotent One to do? Something along the line of what He did with the first human, when He breathed into him the Breath of Life. It was so powerful that it brought Him back to life, complete with his body, but in a highly enhanced state. What's more, because it was officially enabled by human authority, it has the potential to affect all humans, solving all the world's problems, eventually bringing resurrection from the dead (in the same enhanced state). It's a force greater than we can imagine, and it's been in our hands ever since.

So what's wrong? We’re like a bunch of kids sitting on top of a machine more powerful than a nuclear reactor, but we're fighting over a game of marbles. … a bit like having a supercomputer in our pocket -or in my case, at the end of a selfie stick - and using it to look at pictures of cats, and getting into arguments with people we've never met. Isn't that just like us?

So now the Fix is in place, it's there in the clockworks, but it's still up to humanity to apply it. That's what we're on about now - some of us anyway.

John C. Wright's Gospel of the End Times

When I read Orphans of Chaos, by John C. Wright, my first impression was that the author must be some sort of Gnostic pagan, as that sort of philosophy seemed to shine through the narrative. However, when I did my research (okay -- Google) it turned out that at the time he wrote that piece of fantasy fiction, he was an atheist, and the Gnosticism was no more than a backdrop for that particular series of novels. However, since that time, he had converted to Christianity, influenced in a large part by the writings of C.S.Lewis. He's still a fan of C.S.Lewis, and also of G.K.Chesterton. In fact, John C. Wright is now a Roman Catholic (like Chesterton was).

It's rather ironic, in one sense. C.S.Lewis, a Protestant, was converted from atheism through the influence of J.R.R.Tolkien, a Catholic. John C. Wright, a Catholic, was converted from atheism through the influence of C.S.Lewis, a Protestant. I said, ironic, but it's also intensely beautiful in another.

Lest any of my Protestant friends are of the opinion that Catholics are so tradition bound as to obscure any hope of them finding saving faith within their walls, here's a blog post by John C. Wright that will dispel that illusion. He paints his scenario through the medium of Noah, preparing for the destruction of the world. His eschatology is right on, the message is cross centred, and he even acknowledges some of the mistakes made by the Mother Church during the middle ages, insinuating that the church, under persecution, has faired better. Here's a couple of quotes:

The Orthodox Church, the Nestorians, the Copts, the Syrians, and all the Indians instructed by St. Thomas have been ground under the bootheels of pagan kings and paynim sultans for over a thousand years: they have more martyrs to their glory and more saints than earned the palm in the West. When the Church was burdened with worldly power, one thing she ended up doing was corrupting herself, and shattering via Reformation and Counter-Reformation, wars, tumults, and persecutions, into fragments large and small. It was not until the Enlightenment that the keys to the liquor cabinet where the wine of worldly power is stored were locked away from our poor, drink-besotted Mother Church.

And another one:

... So, no, Christians do not need to be in the shoes of Caesar or Pontius Pilot to save the world. That salvation was done by one whose feet were pierced by nails: as far as the world could see, a crackpot agitator who died a traitor’s grisly death. This is because the world sees things backward. The cross the world sees as an instrument of torture, humiliation, and death we Christians see as exalted, and we take it as our labarum of comfort, glory, and victory.

How's that for a Catholic? Read it yourself...

It's "Love Your Local Atheist" week

On both Scott McKnight's blogsite and Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert, who doesn't believe in a creator -- ha ha, pun intended)', there have been some interesting discussions on atheism. I've put in a comment on both. I'll list them below, but first, here's an interesting one I found on Scott Adams' blog.

Wow - painful posts. I'll try to be brief.

It isn't irrational to look at evidence and make a decision based on what you can observe and trying to think clearly about that.

You have to understand that an orthodox Christian point of view believes that this is too small a way to look at the world as a whole.

Logic, math, philosophy, scientific method, etc... are all things made up by some guy (or a groups of guys over time). That shouldn't diminish them in any way, they are smart and useful and good.

But if you really take the assumption of religious faith seriously for just a second, of course God is bigger than those things - how could a small man-made thing ever adequately define or explain Him?

That would be like taking a square inch of a Van Gogh and saying that there wasn't any evidence for good painting.

With a narrowly defined course of inquiry, of course you'll reach that conclusion. And it would be a rational one.

The bigger question is - is rationality the only measure? Is rationality the best measure?

I mean, if no religious person believes that the scientific method is the way to find God - then why are you confused that they don't buy your logical and scientifically correct arguments? You've lost before you've started. And vice versa.

You have to have an atheist that isn't threatened by considering things outside of the provable, and a believer who isn't threatened by someone who will tend to demand proof :)

It is such a non-starter to not accept the premise of the opposing camp and then start beating on each other.

It seems to me that the only way to have a conversation that isn't the nauseous restating of your already owned notion... is to agree on a premise that you can both live with. Then go from there.

Posted by: E | January 29, 2007 at 07:55 AM

Now, here are the comments I made, first the one I posted on Scott McKnight's blog, which was a disscussion of Dawkin's recent book. The question being posed was this: So - is Dawkins right, is Christianity hopelessly irrational? If not what is the correct approach to development of a rational, unified, and Christian worldview?:

If faith is what we believe simply because we’ve been taught it, then there is a point to Dawkin’s thesis.

For me, there’s more, but I don’t expect someone like Dawkin’s to readily accept it. I would point to Hebrews 11:1, using the litteral Greek terminology of “evidence” as being a legal term, and “substance” as being a scientific term. It’s something that is tangible, and those whose hearts have been been enlightened can see it, and it produces results when the the various factors are right (i.e. “with signs following” Mark 16…), but it’s found in a realm of reality that as yet seems to be out of reach of present day science.

I don’t doubt that if scientific research could be done using instruments that don’t just expand the five senses, but also the sixth sense, or else if quantum theory were expanded to something beyond a theory by enabling us to actually see sub-atomic activity etc. with absolute clarity, then faith would be fully contained within the realm of science. Humanity may never develope that level of skill. What we’re left with is something like a very subjective sixth sense, with a few pointers to be found in places such as scripture — a bit like “seeing through a glass darkly”.

An explanation like that is not enough to convince someone like Dawkins, but it’s enough to assure the likes of myself that what I’m following isn’t something hopelessly irrational.

...and here's the one I posted on the Scott Adams discussion:

I am of the opinion that the reason many theists won't allow atheists the benifit of the doubt that they are honestly atheists, is that some of us theists are still squirming and trying to convince ourselves that our theistic possition is the right one. The more evidence that the atheist's possition is untenable, the more secure we feel. Maybe we have too much to lose if we're proven wrong.

Real faith isn't just going along with something we've been taught all our lives, but, according to Hebrews 11:1, it's the "substance of things hoped for, and the evedince of the unseen." Once I decided I didn't have anything to lose anyway (and probably everything to gain if anyone did convince me of the "truth" of atheism), and rested on that, things became a lot easier.

What I've experienced is enough to convince me, but it may too subjective for someone like you. We might be looking with a different set of lenses, but we're also dealing with person. Proving the existance of a person (as opposed to a substance or a force) can be pretty tricky, especially when that person has a tendency to make himself scarse at times, responding only to those wearing the right set of lenses.

I believe that the way to engage an atheist in a discussion, as with anyone, be it a Moslem, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Nazi, etc., is with respect. That means, don't go in with the assumption that you know more what's going on in the atheist's mind then he/she does. Give him/her the benifit of a doubt that he/she actually is a genuine atheist. If you read just a few of the comments on Scott Adam's blog, you'll see that there are many types of atheists. For some, there's a fine line between atheism and agnosticism. Each has their own reason for calling him/herself an atheist. Also, don't go in claiming that atheism is a belief system that requires faith. Also, understand that the debate is probably not going to win anyone. Your love and respect will win more souls than your knowledge of science, etc.

For the same reason, I also believe one must never argue with a Moslem by referring to the Quran (unless you, yourself were once a Moslem), nor with a rabbi by using the Talmud or the Kaballa (unless you, yourself are Jewish). It's just not nice to try to show off the notion that you know more about the other's area of expertise than they do. It won't win them, rather drive them away.

On the other hand, if an atheist, a rabbi or a Moslem, or any other non-Christian comes at you using the Christian Bible, be gracious and answer him/her as best you can. It's a double standard, I know, but it's their soul we're interested in, not the fairness of the argument.

No Questions Allowed

Why is it that in the church scene, if you ask certain questions, people look at you as though you just walked in without your trousers on? I mean, some questions aren't even allowed in discussion groups! I'll list a few examples -- but let me quickly say, lest you feel inclined to look at ME in that way, I am not raising these questions myself. They are the questions asked by people who presently feel alienated from today's church scene, partly because they aren't allowed to ask them, or if they do ask, they're expected to settle for a briefly worded explanation, such as, "The Bible says, blah blah blah. End of discussion." I'm talking about questions like:
-- Did Jesus REALLY die on the cross and rise the third day? (the inquirer cites either Islamic belief, or something about some deep dark secret location somewhere in France, closely kept under cover by the Catholic Church, or the Knights Templar, which is in fact the final resting place of Jesus, son of Joseph)
-- How do we know that the books of the Bible are all inspired by G-d, or if other books shouldn't have been included that weren't, or if some of the books that were, shouldn't have been?
-- How can we be so sure we don't reincarnate? What about people who remember there previous lives?
-- Why can't Christians be gay? (the inquirer either cites Bible references like John leaning on Jesus' bosom, or points out the existence of gay churches)
-- Is hell really eternal? Is it really the destination of every single person on earth who didn't choose the Christian religion?
-- Did the holocaust really happen? (inquirer cites data from Neo-Nazi sources that support their assertion that the systematic extermination of Jews during World War II didn't really happen)
...I'm sure you can think of many more.
My point is, by maintaining an environment in which such things are never to be questioned, even by the serious doubter, we're losing a whole generation, both by barring them from the front door, and by members slipping out the back.
According to an article in the WASHINGTON TIMES, October 18, 2002 FLOCK STRAYS FROM U.S. CHURCHES about a growing number of people who have lost their faith, and have decided that "their earlier choice [to follow Jesus] was no longer right", "... those who leave have often put in years, even decades, of dedicated service ... Others who 'drift away' from their earlier faith often cite logical contradictions between belief and everyday experiences ... Many are felled by a crisis of faith that sends people into agnosticism or antagonism. Others say their faith is irrelevant to their daily lives..." (I found the link to this article on the www.e-church.com blogsite)
Could it be that we've forced people to keep up the mature, confident "know-it-all" front until they've finally buckled under all the pressure? The rest of us who haven't buckled under yet, are we trying so hard to hold on to what we believe, that we refuse to entertain questions? Are we, by our heroic holding of our forts, the ones thus maintaining this stoic "club house" atmosphere?
If so, we're both locking out the current generation that badly needs to see an example of TRUE FAITH, and we're burning ourselves out in the process. If the church were a place where doubts could be freely expressed instead of buried, just maybe, that could relieve some of the pressure, before some of us reached a breaking point in our walk with G-d. That would also make us better prepared to be honest and open and "ready to give a defence to everyone who asks ... a reason for the hope that is in [us], with MEEKNESS and FEAR" (I Peter 3:15). Meekness is something we certainly lack when asked uncomfortable questions, though we seem to be in pleanty of fear -- although I think FEAR OF G-D is what Peter had in mind, not the other.
But the key word I want to dwell on is "true faith". Mental assent to Christian precepts, however hard we cling on to them to maintain our corporate identity, is not true faith. Many of us began with true faith, but ended up in mental assent.
Faith is the opposite of fear. Real faith won't fear what questions people will ask. Mental assent does.
"Without faith, it's impossible to please G-d, because those who approach Him, must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who diligent seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6)
Real faith leads us into relationship. It's a seeking for Him, and having found Him getting to know Him. Knowing Him is a so much more secure place to be. That, of course, leads to opening up to one another. Mental assent only maintains status quo, and does nothing to break down barriers to relationship.
Faith is simple, but for many of us, keeping ourselves in faith, as opposed to mental assent can be an uphill battle at times. The secret is to keep at it. That's what the "good fight of faith" is (I Tim 6:12). The trouble with many of us is we've lost sight of that battle long ago, and have reverted to fighting to maintain our mental assent.
Faith is dependable. You can lean on it. We're afraid to lean on mental assent, out of fear of finding out that what we've held on to all this time wasn't real after all. To find out that G-d doesn't come through when we need him, or that Jesus really didn't rise from the dead 2000 years ago, would simply shatter our self identity. Should anyone actually venture to lean on their faith for any reason, mental assenters always gasp, "Presumption!" (what presumption really is, is thinking you have faith when all you have is mental assent).
Faith keeps us in the real world -- which is filled with people asking the kinds of questions I've listed above. Mental assent isn't strong enough to face the real world, so it keeps us sheltered in a fantasy world where those kinds of questions can't enter -- where those honestly asking those kinds of questions wouldn't want to enter anyway.
Because it's founded in the real world, Faith is based on the actual fact of what Jesus did for us in the real world. Mental assent is afraid, deep down inside, that if one were given the opportunity to travel backwards in time 2000 years minus 33, one just might not find the resurrected Yeshua of Nazareth showing Himself alive to His disciples. Rather, one might find either a Jesus who's still dead, or a Jesus who mysteriously avoided death, only to die naturally many years later, or someone who is the antithesis of who we believe in today. Therefore mental assent goes out of its way to avoid any argument that would possibly lead to that conclusion.
Mental assent is fearful that maybe what we believe in isn't true after all, but must still cling to it for dear life, because ones identity is wrapped up in it. We've been in it too long. We've gained a measure of status in the Christian community, and to keep it requires us to cling on to the tenants of the faith.
So, if we suspect that what we've been living on is mental assent, not faith, what do we do?
If we suspect that we're quickly losing our grip on this whole thing, and about to go the way of many others, what is the urgent first step?
Yeshua said, "Seek and you shall find...", "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness..."
If we seek Him, we'll find Him. But Hebrews 11:6, referred to above, says we must believe that He's there to be found.
But how do we believe when all we have is mental assent?
Often, we have just a teeny weeny bit of faith, but it's buried under a giant pile of mental assent. "G-d has dealt to each one a measure of faith" (Romans 12:3). The secret is to dig it out.
Some hints how to look for it:
Romans 10:17, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by a word regarding Messiah." That can come from the Bible, or from a spoken word inspired by G-d.
Another place to look for it: In the New Testament, we often find faith listed after "repentance": i.e. -- Mark 1:15 "REPENT and BELIEVE the good news"; Hebrews 6:2 "...REPENTANCE from dead works, FAITH towards G-d...", a few places in Acts and others as well.
Repentance can involve a lot of different things depending on who you are. For the rich young ruler, it meant selling everything he owned, giving it to the poor, and following Yeshua. Yeshua required him to give up all his comfort and all his status in the world he lived in, and follow His idea of reality.
What about our status and comfort of the church world we live in? What about all the benefits we're clinging on to by holding our mental assent? ...our "good old boy" image? ...our title of "reverend"?
Maybe for some of us, this means throwing everything we thought we believed up in the air, being honest with G-d, and saying, "If you're real, which just a tiny bit of me genuinely believes you are, take all this and piece it all together again as faith. In the process, I'm willing to give up my standing in this pretend world I've been living in, and lose myself in the real world."
You won't really be lost, because the real world is where G-d lives.

Letter to a Moslem

The following is an answer to an anonymous Moslem who wrote in to the discussion board of Next-Wave. His message was too long to reproduce here, was evangelistic (on behalf of Islam), and was signed, "Your Brother in Humanity". The following with a few edited changes, was a response. I decided to also post this here as an open letter to all Moslems. Footnotes are at the bottom.

MY DEAR BROTHER IN HUMANITY...

I think the only appropriate way for me to begin this is with an apology:
I don't know your background, whether you are from the Middle East, from the Far East, from Central Asia, North Africa or a European who has embraced Islam. You no doubt feel, as I would acknowledge, that your identification with the faith of Islam makes you a son of Ishmail, just as my embracing of faith in Isa* [there are footnotes below], the Word of Allah**, makes me spiritually a son of Isaac.
For myself, I am only a spiritual son, not a natural offspring of Isaac (having come by faith in Isa, not a convert to Judaism). I therefore feel a debt of honour to the physical sons of Isaac and Ishmail. The book of Geneses records blessings for both Ishmail and Isaac. For the gentile nations, to which I belong, no blessing is given at all -- only an opportunity to receive a blessing through the sons of Abraham, as it says, "In you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed", and "I will bless those who bless you, and and curse those who curse you."
I'm afraid that we gentile believers in Isa deserve a curse both for our past and for our present sins against you, the children of Abraham. The Crusades are definitely a blotch on our history. In those dark times, we destroyed whole communities and slaughtered, without mercy, many more Moslems than can even be measured by the recent terrorist attacks. I realise that most Moslems are equally appalled by what happened to the WTC and other attacks, and do not consider terrorism as a good thing, but if that were to be used as a measuring stick, we Christians have still done far more wrong to the Muslim community than the Muslim have, to us.
That is only one example of our past atrocities against the children of Abraham. As for the present: We loudly sing "G-d Save the Queen" at our football matches, and then proceed to bash up anyone supporting the opposite team. We put "In G-d we Trust" on our currency, and with it we finance pornographic and blasphemous films and literature with which we corrupt the rest of the world, including much of the Muslim world.
Although these examples only cover the tip of the iceberg, and my knowledge of history fails me for more, please accept my humble apologies on behalf of the Christian community for our sins. I'm sure other members of this discussion board will also affirm this confession and apology.
Having said that, I must now allude to a point on which your religion doesn't agree -- in which Islam states that no mediator is necessary in order to gain access to Allah. Because of our sins against the rest of humanity, and against the Muslim world in particular, I find I have no choice but to acknowledge our absolute dependence on the intermediary role of Isa, the Word of Allah, in obtaining forgiveness for our sins. In light of what we have done, how we've miss-used the grace of Allah in the past, the only way I feel I can proceed is to humbly acknowledge that it is only because of His mercy that I deserve to be alive, let alone be talking to you. With that in mind please allow me to speak my heart:
HOW WE GOT THIS WAY:
Looking at us now, it's hard to believe that we were, once-upon-a-time, a simple down-to-earth Middle Eastern religion, similar to Islam. In fact, we were not a religion at all, in our own right, but only one of many sects within Judaism. Messiah Isa had revealed Allah to us in a more profound way than we had known Him before, and then, had opened up the way for us to come yet closer to Him -- closer than was possible through simple Torah observance (though we believe that Isa fulfilled the Torah in that regard, so that the final veil between Allah and man was lifted in a way stimulated by the Torah. Thus true Torah observance is the acknowledging of Messiah).
So, we began with a knowledge of Allah as revealed through Isa, Allah's Word.
I think we can be open and honest here. In describing Isa as Allah's Word, of course, I'm simply using a "Islamically Correct" phrase in place of the usual Christian usage, "Son of G-d". Islam states that Allah has no offspring, and no one can be referred to as a son of Allah. Whatever the assumption was, we don't necessarily think of Isa's "Sonship" as being the result of his birth to a human mother. Rather, we see it in the same sense as His being the "Word", spoken by Allah, emanated from Allah in much the same way that the rays of the sun are emanated from the sun itself. If it's only a matter of terminology, I have no trouble on my part in dropping the phrase "Son of G-d", for the sake of this discussion.
In using the analogy of the sun, I think we are on somewhat common ground. The sun, the closest star to earth, is so hot and so full of energy that a human could never even hope to approach it directly. Yet, the rays of the sun are the primary source of sustenance to all life on earth. You have no doubt noticed, in the West, our obsession with turning our skin dark so as to look more like Middle Easterners and North Africans :-) Driven by that, we flock to the beach on our days off, where we can enjoy pure sunlight, so we can come home with darker looking skin. Even though that's as close as we can get to it, we call it being "in the sun".
As the Word of Allah, Isa revealed Him to us in much the same way. In Jewish terminology, He would be the "Shechinah" of Allah, or the "dwelling" of Allah among us. The rabbis speak of the Shechinah of G-d being present among His congregation, or among the two who gather to study Torah, or three who sit to judge, etc. We believe Allah spoke His Word, which emanated to earth in same way as the rays of the sun, and became Shechinah, in the form of a person, Isa.
In those early days, we weren't so intent on defining things, but were content to simply bask in the Shechinah of Allah, in the same way as many today like to bask in the sun. We had come to know Allah as revealed in Isa, and that seemed enough for us, as it should be. As time went on, from being a simple Middle Eastern religion, we began to try to go "up market" by explaining it all to Greek and Roman minds. Oriental religion is of the heart, but Western religion emphasises the mind. We began to search for answers using our heads instead of our hearts, thereby becoming "Westernised". In trying to have it all figured out with our rational minds, and to protect ourselves from a barrage of rational ideas from just about every source imaginable, we came up with creeds. With it, we defined the "Trinity".
To be honest, I do not find any fault with the doctrine of the Trinity*** in and of itself. But I should clarify, the "Trinity" is not about three separate individuals who came together and decided to be "G-d". To me, the word "One" goes much further than the word "Three" in describing Him. It's just that, by offering a scientific sounding definition, people began to depend on what their minds could fathom instead of what their hearts told them. They began to apply it rationally, and began approaching G-d as though there were three gods, or a family of gods. It was very simple matter, then, to add Mary as a fourth member of the "family". That just about describes the state of things when the Prophet Muhammed began his career, so to me it's quite understandable that someone of his calibre would decide to throw out the whole thing and seek to find his revelation directly from Allah Himself. If the word "Son" were to be understood as being a part of a family of gods, then I fully understand the Prophet in his rejection of the idea of Allah having a son.
"One" is an apt description of G-d. If Isa is a part of the G-dhead, then he is inseparable from that oneness. Just as the rays of the sun can't suddenly decide to move to a different part of the universe, and have no more to do with the actual sun -- they would then cease to be rays, or anything for that matter -- so the Word of Allah could never be thought of in isolation of Allah Himself. At the same time, the sun, by its nature, must have rays, or it would become a black hole. Therefore, the sun and its rays are one. The Holy Spirit is the breath of Allah, and the Word is His Shechinah, or radiance. As for His being a person, I would say that Allah can be what He wants. The rabbis say that G-d creates angels, complete with personalities, simply by giving a command, and the angel formed by that command exists for as long as it takes to fulfil that command, and then returns and merges again with the substance of G-d****. Being One G-d isn't about His person-hood, whether one or many, but being One G-d.
The Torah says man is created in G-d's image. I think we could safely say man is a very simplified and abbreviated image of G-d. Man is at his healthiest when he is "one" with himself. Some people are diagnosed with multiple personalities, but such people cannot be described as being "one". Being abbreviated and simplified, that's all man was designed for. Man is limited, but G-d is infinite. Just as the sun is composed of pure energy and too hot and radiant for man to approach any closer than the circle of earth's orbit, so are G-d's ways far above our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts -- so much so that His thoughts could be animated with personalities if He chose. As many of such thoughts G-d would choose to have, they would all agree, as G-d is infinitely "one", far exceeding man's attempts at being "one".
I know you won't agree with most of what I'm saying, but at least I think it's a way of presenting our beliefs in a way that would be of least offence to your sensibilities, and show that Christianity honours Allah as a true expression of monotheism.
As far as I see it, that leaves only one other fundamental area of disagreement: the death of Isa on the cross, and His ressurection*****.
Unlike the issues I've discussed above, this is one that I cannot play down, skirt around, explain away or even apologise for. The "offence of the cross", according to Rabbi Sha'ul, is the offence that defines us. Before the Prophet arrived on the scene, it was already offensive. To the thinking Greeks it was offensive, to the organic Jewish mind it was offensive. Unfortunately, it also offends some of us!
The offence of the cross is the only offence we are allowed (indeed, required) to maintain, but our problem is, we've offended in just about every way BUT that. We've offended you in many ways, so that we now have no choice, before Allah, but to come to you in deep sorrow and repentance. But it is through the cross, our only legitimate offence, that we can, by humbly repenting, receive forgiveness and cleansing from all our other offences that are filthy blotches on our history.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS
I know that nothing I can say right now can make up for the evil that has been done in the name of Messiah. I can only speak for myself, but others of us continue to offend, with militant, nationalistic, racist attitudes towards the Moslem community, while continuing to flaunt sexual and moral permissiveness in a way that would make most in the Moslem world blush.
Yet, there is so much we could learn from you: your morality, your simple faith, your furverancy, your close family unions, honouring of one another (why, in Afghanistan, which we in the West consider the most "backward" of countries, the traditional family unit is still a remarkably solid foundation for society at large, and an example we should be studying for our own benefit). This is not to mention praying three times a day and fasting one month out of the year. Most of us Christians, if we pray once a day, or fast the whole weekend, we think we've achieved sainthood.
But my personal belief is, we are slowly learning that or own ways have got us nowhere. Our only strength is in the offence of the Cross of Isa, the Messiah. Once we learn to not be offended by that ourselves, but to fully rely on that for our strength, and our way forward -- as we thus learn the humility of Isa -- you will see a profound change in us.
In Isa, the Messiah,
baruch

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FOOTNOTES:
* "Isa" is simply Arabic for "Yeshua", which is Hebrew for "Jesus". Jesus is believed by Moslems as a prophet, and as Messiah, and the Word of Allah.
** "Allah" is simply Arabic for G-d. Even Christian Bibles in Arabic and in Bahasa-Malayu and other Moslem languages use "Allah" as the generic term for the creator of the universe. The only fundamental difference in Moslem belief is their insistence that Allah cannot have children. I personally believe it is a mistake to insist that the Moslems worship a different god than the Christians.
*** Lest any of this is taken as questioning the doctrine of the Trinity, let me just clarify. What I'm saying is simply this: at that point in history, when we sat down and begin rationalising everything and laying down creeds, we lost our innocence.
At the time, it seemed like a necessary move, both to be able to explain it all to Greek and Roman minds, and to protect ourselves from a host of rationalists who tried to steer everything in a totally different direction (ie. Marcion, Arius of Alexandria, Nestorius and others). What SHOULD we have done? I don't know. I'm not even sure that had I lived then, I would have done any better. Never the less, we lost our innocence
Once we've lost our innocence, it's hard to gain it back again. That's why it would be a mistake, at this point in history, to try to backtrack and UN-docterinalise the trinity.
Instead of trying to UN-do 1800 or so years of ecclesiastical evolution, I'd suggest that the challenge for us now, is to try to see where our original innocence (that we lost) would have taken us, and try to steer a course towards that. That is, simply, a clearer revelation of G-d as revealed in Yeshua/Isa/Jesus.
**** That's not to say Isa is no more than one of many angels created by a command of G-d. As the Word of Allah, He is permanent in the same way as the rays that eternally emanate from the sun are permanently part of the sun.
***** Islam states that though the Jews attempted to crucify Isa, they didn't succeed, as Allah rescued Isa at the last minute, so He didn't die on the cross nor rise from the dead.

If It Were'nt for God, I'd be an Atheist

Christmas has come and gone. We had a good time, we put up a tree, bought presents, made sure we got cards to the right people, had friends over and had a time of it.
What was it all for?
Celebration of Christ's birth.
And why do we celebrate Christ's birth on December 25th every year?
Did Jesus ask us to?
That's one of the questions I stick in the same catagory as, why such a big hoopla on January 1st 2000? What's so significant about the anniversary of Jesus turning 3 years old (as the true historical date of His birth is around 4 BC)? And if it was important that we celebrate His birthday, why were we never given an exact date -- other than somebody's arbitrarily picking the date of Winter Solstice (a Roman pagan holiday) for the occasion, and then miss-guessing the year...?
Many believers in Messiah don't celebrate Christmas, and they give excellent reasons for their stand. A couple of them are linked to this web site.
So why, you ask, did we celebrate Christmas?
In my case, as I'm surrounded on every side by wonderful believers in Messiah of the more traditional sort, and as I haven't received a direct personal word from the Lord regarding Christmas, I think that the waves that would result from my refusal to celebrate would be more destructive than creative. Romans 14:5ff is applicable here.
So, we celebrated Christmas simply because everyone else was celebrating, and we didn't want to miss the fun.
Apart from that, it's hard for me to take Christmas very seriously, especially when we're not commanded in the Bible to celebrate it, nor even given enough information on how and when to celebrate it.
Especially when there are a number of feasts that are described in the Bible in great detail with instructions about how and when to celebrate them, that we totally ignore.
Why do we pay so much attention to so-called Christian holidays that the Bible doesn't even mention, and so little attention to the Jewish feasts that are mentioned?
Are we afraid of being 'under the law'?
Then why are we virtually under the law regarding Christmas, Easter and other holidays?
The answer to that is, because of a religious system which, it seems, could go on propagating itself whether God existed or not.
Whether God shows any signs of life or not, hymns are sung and sermons are preached every Sunday, Christmas happens at the end of the year, people get upset when you spell it 'Xmas' because you're 'taking Christ out of Christmas', and the coloured eggs and Easter bonnets come out around April or so.
More Christians are sure of the necessity of celebrating Easter, than are absolutely sure that Jesus did, in fact, die on the cross around 2000 years ago, and rise again three days later.
Is God pleased with a system that can go on without any action on His own part, run by people who aren't 100% sure of the resurrection, and even less sure of the Sinai experience?
Personally, I believe He's more pleased with a self proclaimed Atheist. That's what I understand from Revelation 3:15 anyway. If you can't be hot, it's better to be cold.
Why celebrate the resurrection if one doesn't believe in it? If anything is essential to the Christian message, it's the resurrection of Jesus.
I've told my friends, if you want to stop me being a Christian, all you have to do is prove conclusively that 2000 years ago, Jesus didn't actually and physically die, and then rise again from the dead three days later. In order for us to gain power over sin through the born again experience and be thus enabled to live the Christian life, it was necessary for the death and resurrection to actually happen physically to Messiah. An inspiring story of human goodness triumphing over evil just won't do.
Some of my friends have talked about discoveries that are supposedly suppressed by the Catholic church, such as the actual nature of 'the Holy Grail', or something about a grave somewhere in France closely guarded by the Knights Templar, containing the body of Jesus who actually grew to an old age, or something like that.
My answer is, why suppress it?
If there is proof to the effect that Jesus didn't actually die and rise again from the dead, I want to be the first to know. I could then stop wasting my time with this 'Christianity' thing.
If Jesus is still a corps, then so is all this stuff about 'church' and Christian religion. Moreover, it stinks to high heaven - literally. Religion without a living Lord being the central driving force is a stench in God's nostrils. The only thing that should keep the honest conscientious person around the church scene is the presence of Jesus.
So what would I do if they disproved the resurrection?
Probably convert to Judaism and study to become a rabbi. At least they have a living God. I'd probably go Lubbavitch Chavad. They seem to have the most personal experience of any non-Messianic Jewish group I know of (also linked on this site).
...Unless someone also proved that God didn't actually give the Torah to Moses at Mt. Sinai 1500 years before that -- another vitally important event.
The reason why the death and resurrection of Jesus fits into the scheme of things, is the Exodus and the Sinai experience. That (and perhaps you could add, the call of Abraham) is what set the foundation for the other to happen. The two are what I would call the most important events in history.
What I find remarkable is how both events are recorded.
Even if Moses didn't write the whole Torah, as some claim, someone had the audacity to say, 'All of our forefathers witnessed the Exodus, and heard God's voice thunder from Mt. Sinai, and saw His glory in a cloud over the congregation' (I heard this reasoning from an Orthodox rabbi, by the way).
Why did that take such audacity?
Because anyone who heard or read such a statement could simply go to any corner of Palestine, and asked any elderly gentleman of the Hebrew race, 'Did this really happen to your forefathers?' The answers one would get from the various tribes and villages of Israel would say whether there was substance to what was said or if it was simply a made up story.
If it didn't really happen, it would certainly conflict with their oral tradition.
To try to fabricate a story like the Exodus would be like telling all non-native Americans that their forefathers really arrived in North America on alien spacecraft. Even without school textbooks, most families know how their grandparents or their great grandparents arrived in North America. Some date it all the way back to the Mayflower. Some to the slave ships. Most of them also know which country they originated from, so how could anyone put a story over like that and have it uniformly believed throughout the whole nation?
Apparently someone managed to pull it off in ancient Israel -- either that or God really did appear to them in Sinai.
Regarding the resurrection of Jesus, Paul had the same audacity. He stated in I Corinthians 15 that Jesus, after his resurrection, was seen by 300 people, most of them still alive. All the reader had to do was go and find several of them and ask. Some of the Corinthians, whom he was addressing were beginning to doubt the resurrection, and where there's doubt, someone's bound to check out the source.
So, Paul either knew something, or he was stupid.
So, back to the issue of Christmas, and the other so-called Christian holidays. At least, the Jewish holidays, largely ignored by the Christian community, celebrate the vital role of the Exodus and the Sinai experience, and the actual presence of God in the midst of the congregation of Israel.
What about Easter?
I think we were originally meant to be celebrating Passover, which is the Jewish feast during which Jesus was crucified and resurrected (actually He was resurrected on the feast of First Fruits, a few days after the Passover meal).
But isn't Easter the Christian version of Passover?
No. One of the popes decided that he didn't like the idea of Christians following the Jewish lunar calendar (it was too 'Jewish') and replaced it with that of an nearby date on the solar calendar of what used to be a Roman pagan holiday of - you guessed it - 'Easter'. The thing is, we Christians hated the Jews so much that we'd rather be pagan than Jewish, so that's why we, today, don't celebrate the Lord's resurrection on Passover, but on a pagan holiday, complete with rabbit eggs.
Maybe that's why we ended up with such an empty religion...?