Ultimate Authority

It is an unfortunate symptom of the sickness of the church that Christians cannot defend themselves.  One of the most often cited objections to Christianity is prophesy and faith.  You have "faith" that you'll enter Heaven?  How can you be sure?  And prophesies?  Some crazy Arab wrote down that thus and such will happen, and you actually believe that primitive nutzoid?

So it comes down to this: Christians believe certain things will happen about which they do not have absolute certainty.  But humans are not supposed to have absolute certainty of anything.  That was the lie of the snake in the garden.  (Are you sure God told you you would die?)  But they believe it anyway.  Why?  Christians don't know what the future holds but they do know who holds the future.  Christians put their faith in something (ahem, someONE) who knows everything.  And so astrophysicists and evolutionists ridicule them by saying they believe something they can't or don't know.

But here's the rub: scientism does the same thing.  Science, as anyone who is as acquainted with it as they should be knows, has not explained every last phenomenon in the universe.  If it had, we would no longer have need to publish papers in quantum mechanics and magnetohydrodynamics.  But we do.  It's quite similar to math.  We begin with assumptions (or axioms) and run with them.  Science has made a lot of progress, but it's still going somewhere.  There are also specific phenomenon that not only science has yet to explain, but current scientific theories won't be able to explain.  Pendulums swing faster during eclipses; probes in space are not where they should be according to Einstein's relativity theory.  This means a new theory of celestial mechanics will eventually be needed.  The list goes on.

But whenever anyone cites this, scientists seems to have this supreme confidence.  "We will get there though, we just haven't gotten there yet.  Science will prevail eventually!"  Sounds a bit like faith.  They don't know what the future holds, but they do know that science holds the future.  Scientists somehow know certain things will happen (such as the above phenomenon being explained eventually) and you just need to believe that it will.  Russell and Whitehead wanted to ground all of mathematics in airtight logic and prove all the theorems that could be proven.  Then Godel came by and blasted the whole thing to pieces.  Godel showed there are things that mathematics can't know, even within their own systems.  Guess what that means for science?  

If scientists were to be fair, they would have to at least concede they don't know if science will ever explain everything (which it won't, anyway).  But they don't seem to know that that is what they are doing.

God Already Gave You a Road Map for Your Life

"I'll do whatever God wants me to do."

"God hasn't told me what His plan for me is yet."

"I'm waiting to see what God wants me to do."

Much of my conversation with fellow Christians is littered with verbage like this.  What should my career be?  God'll tell me.  What's my plan for next week?  Dunno, God hasn't told me yet.  What should tomorrow's breakfast be?  God hasn't said yet, we'll see.   The assumption in all this is that if God wants you to do something, He will divinely reveal to you His plan for your life.

Think about this however.  There are only 40 authors of the entire Bible.  That means that in the entire history of the world there were only approximately forty times that God revealed his Divine will to humans.  And people think God will split the sky and do it again, just for you?

Don't get me wrong.  We are to serve the Lord and keep His commands.  (Joshua 22:5)  All our decisions are to be in submission to God.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)  But the sum total of those commands have already been known for 2, 000 years.  Jesus Himself, when the Pharisees asked for just one more sign, scoffed in their faces.  (Mark 8:10-13)  They'd seen enough to be convinced; their problem is that they didn't want to be convinced.  Christians who speak the way those above do are speaking like sailors who say they want to get to a particular destination but refuse to steer the rudder in such a way as to actually get you there.  You have the instruction manual and a map; why aren't you using it?  Oh, right, "the winds" will take you there if that's where you're supposed to go.

So, what is God's plan for your life?  Well, gee, if only He had written it down somewhere, like in a book or something...

Drink Your Beer, There Are Sober Kids in Africa

Mark 14:3-7 "While He was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over His head.  But some were indignantly remarking to one another, 'Why has this perfume been wasted?  For this perfume might have been sold for over three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.'  And they were scolding her.  But Jesus said, 'Let her alone; why do you bother her? She has done a good deed to Me.  For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you do not always have Me.  She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for the burial.'"

I don't claim to be a fantastic exegete, so this may apply specifically to Jesus Himself and not have a larger application.  But it is, I think, a good response to the idea that you should always finish your dinner because there are starving children in Africa.  True enough, children need to be taught to be grateful, but not because others don't have as much (if this were true, the poor would have a right to complain against God), but because everything is a gift from God.

The End is Not Near

Mark 13: 5-8 "And Jesus began to say to them, 'See to it that no one misleads you.  Many will come in My name, saying, "I am He!" and will mislead many.  When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines.  These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.'"

I guess the "88 Reasons Why The End Will Come in 88" crowd, and their similar ilk, forgot to read this part of the Bible.

God's Unbelievable Faithfulness

There is some latency in a sales job.  It was about halfway through summer, or later, that I actually started getting real money from the job.  Now as any NSA student will tell you, NSA is expensive.  This year, each payment is $1870.  Now several weeks ago I made the first part of the first payment to NSA.  Unfortunately it was fairly small, due to me having to make the deposit first and paying for rent back in Moscow.  So I was only able to pay about $400.  I was however a little delinquent on the account so I knew NSA would charge me some money.

Last week I got a little information packet from NSA that included a summary of my payment.  I looked at how much I owed on the first payment and I was distressed to see it was around $1700.  I chalked it up to delinquent charges and, not having much time to give it thought, put the paper aside.  I resolved to call NSA and ask about it but didn't get around to it for some time.

The other day I was listening to a sermon by Mark Driscoll concerning money.  At one point he touched briefly upon tithing and told an inspiring story of his younger days when he was in financial straits.  He told his wife they should cut the tithe; she adamantly refused.  So they continued tithing, despite the fact it would cause them to go into debt.  However, on two different occasions, they received $100 from someone; they were simply being told, "God told me to give this to you."

This convicted me to tithe as soon as I possibly could (I'd been building a tithe up for several months and it was up past $300) even though it would mean I delay paying for NSA even longer.  So I called my dad up, asking him if I could take $300 out of my college fund to pay the tithe.  This depressed me, as one of my big goals this summer was to become essentially financially independent.  It looks like this should happen next summer, though.  But I digress.  At this point I was fully committed to paying the tithe, even though it would set me back a bit.

So tonight I realized I should go through the information packet and fill it out and send it to NSA.  I happened to look again at the amount due on the first payment.  It read $1311.

This took me aback.  But I quickly thanked God for it.  I essentially was given $400 out of nowhere.

Now I'm not saying this to advocate a karma-like approach to God.  Every time you read your Bible, candy will not suddenly appear under your pillow.  If you owe a back-tithe and you pay it God will not suddenly give you $400.  Did I get this $400 simply because I misread the amount the first time?  Of course.  This was no miracle, but it was a gift.  God is faithful, and God provides.  Praise Him. =)

A Quick Thought on Vomit

One of my goals for this blog will be develop, over the next several months and through my reading of various books, a Biblical view of beauty.  This is to answer questions like: what is beauty?, what is art?, is there an objective, Biblical standard to beauty?, what are the criteria for evaluating art?.

Obviously, we need to start with definitions.  But since I have not yet thought up my own or read a good, Biblically grounded definition of art, I'll start with what art is not.

"Art is the process by which all our emotions and feelings come bursting forth from ourselves as creative expression."  I hear this a lot, in one form or another.  It has also always seemed like a rather curious definition to me, as on the list of "Things That Come Bursting Forth From Ourselves" includes things like vomit.

Faith vs. Reason

I hate the title of this blog post.  Why?  "vs." is a word used when two entities are in conflict with one another.  But that is entirely the point of this blog post.  Faith and Reason are not in conflict.  How do you reconcile the two?  As Spurgeon once said, "I don't reconcile friends."

Discussions like this, however, get very muddled unless we first discuss definitions.  This, I think, is primarily when Christians run into trouble.  I've actually heard Christians define faith as "belief in something in spite of the evidence".  This is semantic suicide.  If you define faith as contradictory to reason, you've lost the battle before you've even begun.  If you surrender before the battle even starts, you're going to lose.

Christians need to define faith using (what else?) the Bible.  Hebrews 11:1 says "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen".  This definition is not at odds with reason at all; in fact, faith and reason are inextricably linked.  I found a good definition of faith on Davis Wilson's blog.  "Reason is the process by which one infers from acknowledged truths other propositions that are likely or necessarily true."  This covers both inductive and deductive reasoning.

Atheists (and some Christians) have a very incorrect idea of what reason does.  They seem to think that reason and logic will lead you to absolute truth, or that you can prove the existence of God through logic and reason.  This is, in fact, what Descartes tried to do.  In Discourse on the Method, he attempted to find truth by doubting everything that had any shade of uncertainty to it.  He says that he cannot doubt that that which does the doubting (his mind) does not exist, i. e. I think therefore I am.  He then proceeds to "prove" the existence of the soul and God.

This is the cardinal sin of much of modern Christian thinking, the idea that we start with our own reasoning and this leads us to God.  Let me emphasize this: God is the starting point of our worldview, not the conclusion.  "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." (Proverbs 1:7 NASB)  Once Christians begin realizing this they will stop bowing their knees to the false idols of rationalism and scientism and learn real apologetics.

What is proper apologetics, you ask?  Again, the answer is in Proverbs.  "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him.  Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes."  (Proverbs 26:4-5 NASB)  My problem isn't that Christians use reason or science or what have you to provide evidence that God exists, but when Christians try to prove the Bible using reason along, or science alone, we run into trouble.  When Christians argue, "We should believe in God because of the scientific evidence." I want to ask, "Who's the God here?"  We should believe God exists because science tells us so?  What if science didn't tell us us so?  Should we still believe in Him?  We being with the assumption that God exists and the Bible is true.  This then explains all the scientific evidence.  If God exists then all the scientific, logical, moral, archaeological evidence (properly examined) and what else have you would comport it.  If God, then evidence.  C. S. Lewis once said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but by it I see everything else."  Most people seem to have this backwards.

So we don't answer a fool according to his folly.  We don't bow to his god and claim it proves our God.  We are to answer the fool's folly, however, but by exposing his self-contradictory, untruthful nature.  Neo-Darwinism claims we are all results of natural laws, of mechanistic processes.  We are bags of chemicals doing what chemicals do.  As a metaphor, we are programmed, like computers.  How, then, can we know what we know is true?  If we are "programmed" to believe what we believe, fated to do what we do simply because our actions are the sum total of billions of chemical reactions, how are we to know that our perceptions are reliable?  I can program a computer to claim that black is white, that the year is 3008, or that human existence is a cosmic accident; i. e. I can "program" any falsehood into a computer I want, and there is already evidence that mankind is "hard-wired" to believe in some kind of god or supreme being.  So it would appear, according to the naturalist, that we have in fact been programmed to believe falsehoods.  How, then, can we trust any of our scientific theories?  They claim at least that the scientific theories are to be consistent, but could they not then be consistently wrong?

If we assume the truth of the Bible is true, it will answer every question put to it.  If we assume any number of worldviews that are false (naturalism, rationalism, etc.) it will be self-contradictory, and we can prove it to be so.  Why then is the Bible true?  Because every other assumption leads to nonsense.

Here's an example.  I take on "faith" (the axioms) that two points determine a line, or three determine a plane.  What reason and logic tell me are the kinds of statements about points, lines, and planes that we can infer from our initial assumptions.  Further, reason can falsify the assumptions by showing they are self-contradictory, but it cannot show our assumptions are true.  The truth of our assumptions is the very assumption we are making.  If we make bad assumptions in geometry, reason will show that out eventually, and show further some contradiction results, thus showing our assumptions need some adjustment.  Faith and reason work together.  Faith is where we start, and reason, true reason, submitted to God's authority, helps us get there.

I realize this post was a bit meandering.  I went from faith and reason to apologetics back to faith and reason again.  But hopefully my readers will find their way through. =)

Philosophers' Soccer

A very interesting sports event.

College Life

So this fall marks the beginning of my matriculation at New Saint Andrews' college in Moscow, Idaho.  The desire to attend started around summer '07 and God has been very gracious to provide me with a way to pay for it.  I landed a lucrative sales job over in Spokane and I should be able to pay most if not all of tuition by around September.  Yes, door to door sales.  It sounds boring but you'd be surprised at the kind of people you run into at a job like this.  Stories?  Oh.  I have stories.

For those of you who don't know I attended University of Idaho for two years, majoring in Mathematics and Engineering.  I attend Christ Church, however, and after rooming with some NSA students and having almost constant contact with these students I decided an education at NSA is more worth the time and money than one I'd be getting at UI.  So here I am.  Hope to see you all around (assuming anyone I know is actually reading this blog yet =p).

My New Blag

So after a few people expressed interest in having me revive my short-lived blog, or blags as I like to call them (and if anyone gets that reference you get like a bajillion brownie points from me redeemable at any time), I decided that I would. So here's BlogSpot, on which I will post my thoughts and musings on everything from events in my daily life to theology that no one cares about.  Mostly this is a chance for me to show everyone how brilliantly genius I am.

Getting this going might take a few weeks though, so bear with me.