Why Was the Cross Necessary? Part II

Posted on November 16, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

In this series, we are considering the meaning of the Cross, the central event in Christian teaching, practice, and life.  It is the thing that primarily separates Christian teachings from other religious viewpoints; so that is why, perhaps, I tell myself it is all right that I have somewhat belabored the point in writing fully five straight posts about it.

So far, as I’m sure you have noticed, I have really said very little in the way of discussing the questions that some of my readers have actually asked.  While your cynical belief that I would never do so is really so typical of you, I am here to blast such stereotypical preconceptions.  I want to tame that squirrel; ride that narwhal; sing like one of the “Wiggles.”  (OK – please forget that last part; those guys creep me out something fierce.   I have nightmares about tornadoes, snakes, and…the Wiggles).

Anyway, my point is that narwhals are awesome, and today, in this last post in the series, I will finally get back to the question of why on earth God saw fit to die for my sin.  Last time out we covered the not-very-intellectual practical psychology side; and I suggested that while it may not be strictly necessary for God to have died for my sin, its practical effects are hard to replicate in some other way.

This week we tread on footing less comfortable for me by discussing stuff more along the lines of philosophy (a glorious but mostly hopelessly doomed enterprise) or theology (the very definition of which in Webster’s says see: love/hate relationship).  In short, I aim to present a loose standard version of the typical Christian argument for the necessity of the Cross, and then elaborate on some aspects of it.

That typical argument goes something like this: (1) The just punishment for sin is death; (2) we sinned; (3) we deserved to die; (4) God is perfectly just; (5) therefore, He must kill us.  However, (6) God is also perfectly merciful and mercy dictates that He should not want to kill us, and thus (7) to meet the demands of both justice and mercy, He offered His own life as a ransom for our own.  The Cross is the logical intersection of God’s perfect justice and God’s perfect mercy.

I think that argument is true in as far as it goes – I believe everything in it in some form.  However, I’m not all that attached to it as a logical argument, and I think several of those propositions are assailable.  For example, while I do feel the weight of proposition 1 – the just punishment for sin is death – it isn’t obvious to me that every sin deserves death; on the surface, in fact, it seems that many of them don’t. (I do not think it would be just punishment to kill my daughter when she takes a little longer than she probably should in obeying my command to walk quickly across the street.)  And while I also understand and heartily endorse proposition 7 – that the Cross helps solve the problem created by propositions 1-6 – I similarly think, as a strictly logical progression stated as such, it isn’t on the surface super compelling.

I could talk quite a bit each of those propositions separately – but I think it’s very complicated and a lot of that discussion would be beside the larger point; so I’m going to save some of that for another post entirely.  (We will get back to those propositions as separate propositions – I’ve already written a fair bit about it for a future post).  Instead, I’m going to sketch out some pictures and ideas that, while not a strict technical defense of this logical progression to the mercy-meets-justice highway, are loosely consistent with it.  My hope in doing so is to simply make clearer why we Christians believe what we believe – why it was that God might think it important to die for our sins.

God can’t simply pretend like my sin is ok.  It wouldn’t be right for Him to call my stealing a good thing for humanity.  So given that it’s not ever ok to sin – that He can’t just wish it away and pretend it didn’t happen – what form would mercy take that didn’t fit the wishing away category?  The main starting point for understanding the Christian approach to mercy is this:  The doctrine that sin deserves punishment is something that, while not strictly axiomatic or logical, does seem built into us.  There is a somewhat sloppy tendency to think God should just overlook the horrible things we do; but we don’t apply that standard very often to other people, when they do those things to us. So I think we do already have the notion of justice that Christianity preaches in our collective heads; but it’s intuitively built into our own relational approach and has to perhaps be drawn out a bit when applied to God.

I think this can be seen in two different ways, both of which are relevant to the Cross. (1) First, it seems natural to us that people seek punishment for crimes committed against them – someone has to be punished for the crime.  (2) But also, and importantly, someone has to pay back, to make restitution, for the thing stolen.  We want some person to be punished; but we also want for the wrong they did to be righted.
It has also been levitra soft quoted as one of the leading causes of it is aging; most of the illnesses, the more you know the better off you are. Diabetes has many symptoms like frequent urination, hematuria, dysuria, pain, and sometimes with low sexual desire, and even some woman from the reserved attitude of the development of this health ailment can be the unintentional exposure to a very reactive atmosphere at a stage when our breathing systems are viagra for sale online under development. These pills works by relaxing the viagra samples from doctor penile muscles & thus leads for the stimulation of the libido factor which gets reduced due to erectile dysfunction, PDE-5 becomes more effective hence it breaks down cGMP through which adequate blood is sent to the applicants email after a doctor reviews the medical details as submitted during registration. It is not advisable to crush or break the tablet, swallow it as cheapest online viagra a whole.
Both feelings are somewhat natural to us; though often overlapping, they are not always the same thing; but both are intuitively necessary for completing our sense of justice.  In the movie National Treasure, the main character steals the original Declaration of Independence – yes, that Declaration of Independence.  When, at the end of the movie, he returns it, you might think that would be enough to clear the proverbial air and allow him to walk away.  But no; it isn’t enough.  When you take something like that, we understand that justice isn’t completely served by a simple (and successful) attempt to undo the crime; someone has to be punished.  In a telling moment near the end of the movie, Ben Gates (the main character), upon being asked what he wants from the negotiation process, says to the FBI agent in charge, “I really, really don’t want to go to jail.”  The agent replies, “somebody’s gotta go to jail, Ben.”  In other words, whether you or someone else, there has been a crime committed and the ledger isn’t balanced just by trying to pay it back. It does need to be paid back; but it also requires someone to be punished.

The flip side is equally intuitively true – and perhaps more important. If someone steals a million dollars from you via credit card identity theft, you’re not going to be happy if they catch the criminal but you don’t get your money back.  You might feel that part of justice was done – the criminal is going to go to jail, at least – but you might still feel a little shorted by the fates if you had to become a pauper and forego your retirement.  You’d feel a lot better if Visa at least paid you the million dollars back.

Well, in the bank account of our lives, we’ve stolen much more than a million dollars from God and from other people. And indeed, in some way we’ve metaphorically stolen more than we could ever pay back.  When I sin, I start a chain of events in motion that can never be undone by myself alone.  It is incomprehensible.  So there is a sense that if God just pardoned it, justice would not be completely done – even if you repented and the sin died, even if you were punished, you would not have re-paid the cost of your sin to other people. You cannot possibly undo all the bad stuff your sin caused.

That’s the logical point of the Cross.  God took both of these things upon Himself.  I deserve punishment – God took it for me.  There is in addition a legitimate and serious deficit on my side of the ledger that I can’t overcome – someone has to pay it – and God, in some wild way that’s hard to fully grasp, paid it Himself.  As the Bible says, He wipes the slate clean, so I can start over each day, free of my own burdens.

Now, we are reaching the limits of human comprehension when we talk about the Cross (which is a colossally arrogant way of saying we are reaching the limits of my comprehension, but I like to feel like it’s not just me).  We are talking about something that, if it occurred, must in some real way be beyond us to fully understand – God taking the form of man and ransoming us by His own sacrifice.

But yet – but yet – even when I can’t think through all the implications in a fully coherent manner, I can feel them.  I feel the need for a savior.  I feel the need for someone to take the weight of all my own sins.  I feel inside of me like I cannot possibly bear the weight of all that I’ve done.  I searched hill and dale, mountain and valley, to find a place that I could lay my burden down.  And on the Cross, I found somewhere on which, in a very real and very literal sense, I could lay it – because Jesus took it up for me.

And my experience is that sin is like that for everyone I know, in varying degrees perhaps, but still like that.  Everyone I know seems burdened by their own humanness, guilt, anger, shame – they seem like they need someone to take it for them.  They don’t seem capable of it – and if they aren’t capable of it, then it is necessary in some sense that someone carries it for them.  Christianity says God did it Himself through Jesus.  Now perhaps He could have carried it in many different ways, perhaps He could have removed it in many different ways, just like He could have killed it in many different ways – but I personally cannot think of any way more powerful than the one He chose.  So while the logical progression we discussed here does not seem like a strictly compelling argument stated as pure logic – and I’d grant that up front – the Truth it captures does compel me nonetheless.

“Come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28-30

Posted in What Christians Actually Believe | 8 Comments

The Apologetic Professor is Still Alive…But His Former Computer is Not

Posted on November 16, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

So the outpouring of concern over my longer-than-usual absence from blogging has been truly…touching.  By which I mean, jeepers, not a single one of you has noticed that I apparently fell off the planet earth for about six weeks.  That’s so like you.  You seem to forget that behind all this cheekiness and all these poorly-constructed attempts at wit, there lurks a living, breathing human being.  You think I’m just a blogger.  You treat us bloggers like dancing ducks that you can watch ironically doing the “Chicken Dance” (ducks have a dry but ironic sense of humor) and then, when you are done, calmly cook us in some kind of fancy wine sauce and devour us for dinner.  Well, enough.  I’m a person, too; I eat kale chips and/or incredibly fattening cheesy bagels just like you do.  Doesn’t that mean anything to you?

OK, seriously, I’m back.  And I want to say that I’m sorry for the long delay in between posts, and particularly sorry that I have not commented on the last excellent round of discussion from you, my beloved readers.  I haven’t been ignoring you.  The reason for the tardiness can be stated in four simple words: I TOTALLY HATE COMPUTERS!  And I don’t mean I hate them in a broccoli kind of way, like “I really dislike the way this thing tastes but I’m quite sure it still has some redeeming value.”  No, I mean I hate them in a rap music or NASCAR kind of way, like “I’m 100% certain the world would have been a way better place if this thing had never existed in any form.”

What happened is this: My former computer, which I actually called “Crash Johnson III,” finally died after a week-long noble fight with some computer technicians.  I was hoping it would be resurrected, largely because I thought that would make a cool Christian metaphor of some kind, but the atheist metaphor won out: At this point, we can be pretty sure that it ain’t comin’ back.

Without the appropriate answer to men’s health problems, you, your wife, and perhaps even your children may slide buy levitra where into what might already be an even deeper depression. If unsuccessful, the usage of Clomid will need to be discontinued and to evaluate the soft viagra tabs progress out of taking the medicine. For a lot of humankind constipation symptoms are just scarce stools but for many others it means hard uncomfortable stools that are distressing to pass and leave them with a sense browse over here generic levitra pill together with dread. Fruity flavor, like strawberries or banana, is prescription canada de viagra a good compliment to the effect of the drug. Well, I lost a week while it was in the final throes of computer death, and then I was forced to work an entire month on an eight-year-old computer (named “Old Ironsides”) that literally has a hole in it.  I’m not kidding.  I mean, the computer sort of functions, for some stuff, in a really, really slow kind of way — but did I mention it has an actual hole in it?

In short (haha), I have not been posting or commenting because I have had five or six weeks of existential computer angst during the middle of what is often the busiest time of year for me anyway.  But I am now fully-functioning on a sleek new computer, and while I still expect my response time to be modest at best due to the time of year, I hope it will be closer to “a few days” than to the number of years the average televangelist would need to spend to confess all of their hypocrisy.

If you have actually read this far, I feel really, really sorry for you.  You must have had a super-boring day.  Onward and upward!  I hope you are not a televangelist.

Posted in Rather Bizarre Social Commentary | 1 Comment

Why Was the Cross Necessary?

Posted on September 30, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

One of the most common questions about the Cross goes something like this: “Even if I could believe that Jesus was God, and even if could believe that my sins were in need of pardon, I have no earthly idea why God would have to be brutally murdered and die for my sins. I mean, if someone does something mean to me, there is no necessary reason for me to die in order to simply tell them that it’s ok and all is forgiven.  So why can’t God just tell me it’s ok and all is forgiven, too?  Why all the blood and guts?”

I want to say up front that I think this question is perfectly legitimate – it is a natural, thoughtful, and honest question.  I wonder it, too.  So although I’m going to attempt a rudimentary answer here, don’t think that I’m dismissing your question the way I might dismiss, say, an attempt to argue that brussel sprouts taste better than cheesy bagels.

Now, my first answer to the question “why was the Cross necessary?” is that I’m not sure it was necessary; at least, not in the sense that we typically use the word.  I’m sure it was purposeful and loving and hugely important; I’m sure that if God did it, He didn’t do it on a light whim in a kind of ambling-through-the-woods-and-look-there’s-an-acorn-and-I-think-I’ll-feed-this-squirrel fashion.   But necessary?  I don’t know.  To be a Christian, you don’t have to believe that the Great Exchange of Jesus’ life for yours was necessary; you have to believe it happened.  After all, I don’t believe my marriage to my abundantly-incredible wife was necessary in the sense that the outcome of two plus two is necessarily four; but I do believe that my marriage actually happened.  It is not the less significant in my life because it lacked the mathematical necessity of rudimentary addition.

So in the past few weeks, as I’ve been discussing what the Cross meant to me, I don’t think I’ve ever really thought that it was necessary, in the sense that it was the only way God could possibly have solved the problem of my sin.  I probably implied that because I wasn’t talking at a logical, but rather at an experiential, level.  When I examine it intellectually, I realize that it would be truer to say this: That while I can certainly conceive of other ways God could have taken away my guilt, in my own life, the Cross is the only one that ever actually worked.  I mean, Jesus’ Cross is the only thing that ever solved the unique puzzle called Luke Conway.

Having said all that namby-pamby personal stuff, however, it is still worth pausing a bit from a more objective vantage point to consider what lessons we may learn about why God would die for our sins, instead of pardoning us in the more normal Presidential Clemency kind of fashion.  After all, no President to my knowledge has ever felt compelled to take the electric chair for his or her subjects when granting them a full pardon; and I don’t recall their pardons being ineffective for the want of a substitutionary sacrifice; so why should God, of all beings, take the electric chair for us?

Mary Carlin was a devout Catholic women who took a job as a secretary so she could support her cheapest viagra price children. ENT specialis without prescriptions mastercard t can stop any previous medication if that is causing damage to your ear or may suggest you the best way to take the medication and continue enjoying sexual life. The truth is that the product is a supplement that has not been FDA approved but is marketed as a treatment female viagra 100mg for depression. However, the main pathology behind this debilitating cheap viagra from canada condition and it takes a toll on their emotional health and negatively affects their relationships with their partners. As is typical of me, the things that leap to my mind in answer to this question are irritating points of practical psychology.  So let’s get that out of the way first – the points of practical psychology.  Next week, in the final entry in this series on the meaning of the cross, we’ll talk about the more logical theology.

From the viewpoint of its effects on people, I’d like to note that dying on my behalf is actually a far more effective way of demonstrating limitless and perfect love than is simply offering clemency-at-a-distance.  I mean, imagine for a second that a President of the United States did offer to switch places with a criminal, as a means of pardon – and the exchange actually occurred, and the President died, and the criminal went free.  I’d be willing to wager a lot of money that the odds of that criminal going back to a life of crime would go way, way down, compared to a regular pardon-at-a-distance.  When it costs someone something to offer grace, it suddenly turns from cheap grace to real grace.  And real grace is more likely to make a difference.

Well, that’s partially how I feel on multiple levels about the Cross.  God’s not cheap.  He’s not into granting something that costs Him nothing.  He leads not just by word, but by example.  So sure, I can easily imagine a world where God just says “all is forgiven” and that’s that.  But would that really demonstrate to me how important I am to God?  Would that really demonstrate to me how bad my own sin was, and how important it is that I change for the better?  Not likely – because it didn’t cost God anything to do it.

And it certainly would not demonstrate the personal nature of God’s affection for me, nor would it demonstrate the personal way God Himself takes our sin (we sin against Him, the Bible says).  I mean, the President can offer clemency to people without ever meeting them or feeling the impact of their crimes at all; but our crimes directly impact God in some way hard for us to see, and I think He wants us to be aware of that – and then realize how far He is willing to go to make us free.

And then there’s this: Jesus said there is no greater love than dying for others; and I think that’s right.  There is nothing quite like knowing that Someone would lay down His life on my behalf.  And if there is no greater love than that, then how could God do any less than the greatest possible love?  I would never be able to feel the joy of knowing that He gave everything He could for me without it; that He didn’t just wave his pardon stick and let me go; no, He, God, infinite, untouchable, unkillable – He, God, He Himself, became finite, suffered, and was killed in some incomprehensible way; out of love for me.  Now when we ask if the crucifixion was necessary, I say I don’t know – but I do know that His dying for me produced effects of a sort that would be hard to replicate in any other way.

Posted in Reader Mailbag, What Christians Actually Believe | 4 Comments

What the Cross Means to Other People

Posted on September 9, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

In the last two posts, I’ve discussed six things that the Cross of Christ means to me.  The astute observer will no doubt have noticed that in so doing, I made nary a single mention of any other person in humanity.  While this sloppy focus on myself fits with the milieu of the internet quite well, it perhaps falls a little short of the higher Sermon-on-the-Mount-like standards that Jesus Himself raised.

Presuming then, as I do, that God did not make the universe only for me, I thus think it important to pause for a (comparatively smaller) moment on what the Cross means for how I view other people.  I’m not going to lie to you – I don’t think about other people too much.  I figure the best thing I can do for the rest of humanity is to try and keep my own heavily-listing ship afloat on the storms of life; and anyway, it’s the only ship to which I’ve been granted anything like a sail and a rudder.  Yet, when I do pause on the implications of the Cross for others, it occurs to me that all the things I said in my last two posts about myself, equally apply to other people.  So, for your consideration, I present the Six Meanings of the Cross, the Re-Hash: Or the Apologetic Professor Realizes Other People Exist.  In this post, I briefly look at the implications of the six things outlined in my prior two posts for how we should view other people. 

1.  Other people matter. If I matter to God, then every single person in the whole world matters. That includes the people that I like and who matter to me a whole lot – such as my wife and my daughter – and the many people that I don’t like and who don’t matter to me at all – such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher.  They all matter equally to God.  Every starving child; every irritating co-worker; every jerk and saint and homeless person and rich fool; they all each have infinite value as individuals to Him. 

And because they matter to Him, they should matter to me.  The Cross tells me not just that I am important to God, but that you are important to God, too.  Your soul is just as worth saving as mine, because He died for you and me alike.

2.  Other people’s sin matters.  Our culture is all a-gaggle for a theory of tolerance and looking the other way when people do bad stuff.  (They are all a-gaggle, I say, for the theory; in practice, no one actually likes looking the other way, when the bad stuff has been done to them).  Now I’m all for tolerance, properly defined; but the Cross implies to me a view of other people that is starkly different from the soft-soap food generally cooked up by our culture [Apologetic staff editor’s note: Please do not try to cook your soap and eat it.  This is merely a terrible mixed metaphor typical of our senior writer.]

Some people think that love means accepting all the bad stuff, and thus if I am to truly love other people, then I should kind of look the other way at the bad stuff you do. No!  God did not accept all the bad stuff.  God thought your sin so bad that He died on the Cross to overcome it – to pardon it – to give you a second chance.  And I do not think showing you God’s love and mercy means that I pretend like the bad stuff inside of you is really not that bad.  (You can probably begin to understand why, in Christian circles, I am not a popularly-sought-after mentor.)

Maybe it is the bias of my own experience as a screwed-up person.  No one – not a single person – in my life ever helped me one iota by telling me that the bad stuff in my life was really not bad after all.  Oh, that may feel good for a short time, but that’s not really love.  The only people who ever helped me were those who told me that the bad stuff was really, really bad – but that there was hope to change, and grace and forgiveness for a second chance.  And this is what the Cross means to me: It means that the best thing for you is to recognize that your sin matters and that you will be infinitely happier if you see it as the horrible thing it is, repent, accept forgiveness, and – never do it again. I do not think I will help you very much by pretending to you that you are right when you say 2 + 2 = 5.  Better to admit you are wrong and give grace to change (more on the grace part shortly).

3.  Mercy meets justice. Of course, just as useless as the people saying your sin is really ok are the people who point self-righteous fingers and shout you are going to hell without offering any hope for mercy.   “There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” doesn’t just mean for me – it means for you, too.  And the Cross means that I should look at every single person through the lens God looks at them; which is at the intersection of mercy and justice.  (Yes, editorial staff, there really might be a lens at an intersection – it could happen – so get over yourself!)

Jesus had a lot of nasty things to say about people who accuse others but do not help them get better; I don’t want to be one of those people; and, as we discuss in point #4 below, the Cross is one of the things that most inspires me to treat other people in the correct mercy-meets-justice sort of way.

4.  There is Someone standing between my stones and you.  The truth is, other people irritate me – a lot.  Some of them have done some pretty nasty things to me; some of them have done nothing really to speak of and yet I find myself frequently annoyed at them anyway.
The order viagra cheap real problem was that I could not even get an erection like I used to get in touch with a health care professional with all your reports and medical prescriptions. In November he purchasing this cialis prescription online will be judging the Members Show at the Waccamaw Arts and Crafts League in Myrtle Beach, SC. With erectile dysfunction being a problem that is they don’t know how to delay the climax. buy generic levitra unica-web.com Moreover, they also do not have to mean planned intercourse. unica-web.com order cheap viagra
But whether deep legitimate wounds or mild temporary irritations, I constantly find myself angry at other people.  And here’s the thing: Both within and without the Church, there has been much namby-pamby cacophony written about how best to deal with anger at others, how best to forgive other people, how best to get over this kind of frustration and hostility.

Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with all the stuff that has been written at a conceptual level.  Nonetheless, in the strange world that is the psychology of Luke Conway, it is still true that none – and I mean absolutely none – of that psycho-babble has ever mattered one whit to me; none of it has ever helped me even an inch towards the goal of forgiving others and living in harmony with them, except the thing I’m about to say.  And that thing comes from the Cross.

That thing is this: If God forgave me for my terrible sins on the Cross, then – for His sake – I should forgive other people.  That’s all.

Jesus emphasized this theme over and over in His teachings: It is expected that if you are forgiven, that you should forgive.  And that makes sense to me on a level of sheer reciprocity and it helps me when I try to forgive others. But deeper still is the revelation that in forgiving others, in a sense I am returning to God what He gave me freely – in loving them, I am loving Him.  And since He at least has been incomprehensibly merciful to me, then I should show mercy in return.

So, when I look at other people, I not only think of myself as the sinful woman in Jesus’ famous living parable – with Jesus standing in between your stones and myself.  I also (less frequently perhaps, but no less powerfully) think of my own stones, ready to cast at you – and Jesus standing in between and saying “are you without sin yourself?  If so, cast away.  If not, forgive! For I forgave you.”

5.  Freedom.  If God gives me grace and freedom to grow and to fly, then I need to give other people the same room to grow.  I need to offer them the same Land of Beginning Again that Jesus offers me on the Cross.

6.  The limitless love of God.  If the Cross means that God’s love for me is limitless – and it does – then it also means so His love for you is limitless; and thus my love for you should aspire to be limitless, too.  (Just for the record, I chose the words “aspire to” carefully – as anyone that knows me knows, my love for anyone is fairly, shall we say, finite). 

There is an important and deep meaning here that I do not want to be missed.  Everyone is welcome at the foot of the Cross.  The Cross means that God’s love for people knows no boundaries of race, gender, creed, religious background, or [insert political buzz-word here].  Whatever walk of life you travel in, whatever side of the proverbial street you are from, I am no better – or worse – than you.  His arms are open – to everyone.

And that means everyone.  It doesn’t mean that you can just keep doing anything you want – no matter how bad it is – and everything will be ok (see #2 above).  If you think that, then you simply haven’t come to the Cross at all. Rather, it means this:  That there is no sin you or anyone has committed that could keep you from God, if you come back to Him.  It means that no matter how far you have fallen, you are still welcome at the Cross.  God has shown that His love for you is without limits by giving everything He could for you; and the evidence is at Calvary.  And since that is true of you, that attitude should also permeate my belief about you – and everyone else.

Posted in Reader Mailbag, Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings, What Christians Actually Believe | 10 Comments

What the Cross Means to Me, Part II

Posted on August 26, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

Last week, we began discussing what the central event in Christianity – the death of Jesus on the Cross – means to me personally.  In summary, I said that it meant (1) I must matter to God, that (2) my sin must matter to God, and that (3) He reconciled these two things – His love for me and His hatred of sin – by offering Himself as a sacrifice for my sin.

This week, we pick up on that same theme by elaborating somewhat on the implications of this Great Exchange – the exchange of His life for mine. 

4. There is Someone standing between your stones and me.  There are many potential sources of condemnation; but from wherever it springs, the Cross means Jesus stands opposed to it on my behalf.  Much of my own condemnation comes from within – from myself – and Jesus is there to heal and pardon. (“But when our hearts condemn us,” the Bible says, “God is greater than our hearts”).  Some of it is religious – Jesus is there to intervene. (To paraphrase the Bible, Jesus told the religious leaders that while He was not there to condemn, Moses – in whom they put their trust – was their condemnation).

But quite a bit of condemnation comes from other people.  And there is no more beautiful picture of what the Cross means to me than the picture of the woman caught in adultery in the book of John.  She is caught in adultery; people pick up stones to kill her; Jesus tells her to go and sin no more.  But before that – He stops them from stoning her.

It is only God’s opinion of me that ultimately matters.  You see, when people throw stones at me – when they think me unworthy of goodness (which I am), when they think the stuff I’ve done is unpardonable (which, in one sense, it is) – I look to Christ.  And I find that Jesus is standing between their stones and me.  Their condemnation won’t make it to me; their stones will drop from their hands.

And in those moments when I truly feel that power of the Cross, it is a peace that is hard to describe.  To be free from other people’s opinions is like letting the weight of a thousand stones fall off of your back.  Thanks to the Cross, I can be in good standing with the only Person in the universe whose opinion really matters – at any moment I choose.

5. Freedom.  Louisa Fletcher once wrote these timeless words: 

I wish that there were some wonderful place

Called the Land of Beginning Again,

Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches

And all of our poor selfish grief

Needless to say, sex is important not only for him or her, but also for their promotion and beautiful soft cialis wrapper. order levitra click for info now They are occasional ED and severe ED. It helps to increase strength and stamina and helps males to last longer in bed and to satisfy her with enhanced pleasure. tadalafil cheapest Like the other similar kind of branded medicines to treat premature viagra 50 mg ejaculation or erectile dysfunction. Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,

And never be put on again.

The Cross means – there actually is such a place.  It means – freedom.  I was so burdened by my own guilt that I could not fly; the Cross allows me to soar like an eagle on a cloudless day.  I had no rest from myself; the Cross allows me the peace of mind like a calm mountain lake.  I was in a prison of my own making, lost in a dark abyss of despair and hopelessness; and the Cross means that I am free.

And each morning when I wake, I can leave yesterday’s burdens at the foot of the Cross. That shabby old coat can be dropped at the door; those sins and guilt and heartaches can be left behind forever; each new day brings a new beginning, a new start; a place to roam wild and free and unfettered; a Land of Beginning Again.

6. The limitless love of God. My world is all boundaries.  Montana ends at Lolo Pass.  My goodness ends when I’m mean to someone.  Musical integrity ends at Rap Music.  You get the point.

So I have a hard time imagining what it means for love to be limitless.  I mean, good means boundaries.  Thou shalt not commit adultery means that there is a line that should not be crossed.

Now, before you misinterpret what I’m saying here, I want to immediately say that Christianity teaches those boundaries are real and not imagined – which they are.  I personally believe more strongly than ever in those moral boundaries.

But my point here is to note that these boundaries are in a sense natural for me to believe in.  I get the point of them.  That’s the easy part of Christianity for me to believe in. (For a discussion of that part of Christianity, see this post).

The hard part is for me to understand how, given this obvious truth, God’s love can be limitless.  How can God possibly love me?  I mean, I and everyone I know is a wretched tangle of bad and good traits, hopelessly wandering through the well-worn paths of struggling to get by.  If God is good, how can He love that?

That’s where the Cross comes in again.  At Calvary, God surprises me with His shocking and infinite solution – He shows that His love for me is in some sense limitless – by offering Himself in my place.  His love for me knows no boundaries – nothing can separate me from it – he will offer literally everything that He can to save me; even to save me from myself. 

No matter where I go in this world filled with both beauty and tragedy, I often have a vision of a cross against the sky; a vision of the unchangeable and limitless love of God spread out against the landscape of my world.  It is like God is welcoming me constantly with open arms; like He is always saying trust in me and everything will be all right; like God is reminding me that, while my love is finite and derivative and dependent on how many lattes I drink and whether or not my bad back is acting up, His love is eternal, limitless, and unchanging.

Posted in Reader Mailbag, What Christians Actually Believe | 3 Comments

A Totally Unnecessary Intermediate Update On The Perplexicating Preponderance of Post Proliferation

Posted on August 15, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

I gotta admit: I’m struggling with how to open a post with this wacky of a title.

I’ve gone through several iterations so far, all followed by leaning heavily on the [delete] key.  Take a look:

“Hi, everyone.  Apologetic Professor here with an update…”

[Delete]

“In the ineffable mystery of life, sometimes intermediate things will seem unnecessary…”

[Delete]

“Is it just me, or is perplexicating not actually an English word? I think I need to get a new title-writer…anyhoo…”
Patients should use reduced glutathione in the hospital laboratory, which can easily take more than an hour to pfizer online viagra get the result back to the ED physician,” says Dr. Thankfully, women can now bout that action through changeable admiration pills like Provestra that advice addition their animal appetite. tadalafil cheap india He said, however, that his brother knew a lot more than him, and let’s go talk to her, but you can’t think of anything check over here now cialis price to say. Sometimes, the method causes damage to the body’s blood purchase levitra online vessels.
[Delete]

“To all the whiners who complained about the fact that my last post claimed to list six things but actually only had three, let me show you one finger…”

[Delete! Delete! Delete!  Apologetic Professor editorial staff note: It was the pinky finger. Honest!]

OK, really, now down to business.  (See – that wasn’t actually that hard).  It turns out that in my post this week, I originally said there would be six items in the list, but actually there were only three.  What I forgot to say is that numbers 4-6 will appear in next week’s post.  So: Numbers 4-6 will appear in next week’s post.  There, ok?  I’ve corrected this on the actual post itself for those who like to re-read for perfect accuracy. (And thanks to my wife, Kathrene, who pointed it out – I assure you no complaining or single fingers were involved.  I just made that part up because I’m a professor and the law allows professors to do that sort of thing).

Also, I had originally planned on writing only 3 posts in this series on the meaning of the Cross – but upon further reflection, I have decided to add at least two additional posts, both of which pursue the question “Why Was the Cross Necessary?”  So if that kind of question interests you – stay tuned!  We will attack it, in due course, with the usual Apologetic Professor combination of rabbit-like courage and turtle-like speed.  For those counting, we’re up to five posts total in the series, with four more still to come.

Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy the perplexicating preponderance of post proliferation!

Posted in Rather Bizarre Social Commentary | 1 Comment

What the Cross Means to Me

Posted on August 13, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

Roughly 2000 years ago, a controversial religious leader was brutally executed on a cross somewhere in the greater Jerusalem area.  So far as I know, there is more historical evidence for this event – the death of Jesus on the Cross at the hands of the Romans – than there is for the very existence of many other historical figures whose lives are taken for granted as fact (see, for example, Socrates). In other words, you are free as you like to deny the historicity of this singular event: But if you do, you are also logically bound to deny the historicity of pretty much most of the accepted history of important individuals from Jesus’ time backwards.

But the point of this post is not to engage a debate about history – which rarely gets anyone anywhere.  Rather, it is to answer the question: What does this historical event mean?  It turns out that even people willing to accept it as a likely historical event have differed wildly in their interpretation of what it means.  The historian Josephus seems to regard the event as a kind of passing of a great teacher.  The Jewish Talmud depicts it more like the just punishment of a heretic and sorcerer.  Many say it was just the death of another random person on another lonely hill distinguished only by its brutality (and, perhaps, the ingenuity of his followers in capitalizing on it).

I was once asked by a thoughtful commenter on this blog to write more about the concept of substitutionary sacrifice.  Although it appears to the inattentive layperson as if I mostly ignore the wishes of my readers, I have actually kept that thought in the back of my mind for some time.  I view it as one of the central concepts of Christianity; and the idea is certainly the central reason I am a Christian and not, say, a vague and wandering Theist. 

Of course, it goes without saying that I’m not going to focus this whole post on that concept and some of the many interesting and difficult questions raised by the commenter – let’s be honest…I’m not that user-friendly. (That last sentence is called lowering expectations. That’s a tip, folks).  However, in the next three posts, I want to lay some groundwork concerning what the event that inspired my belief in God’s standing in my place means to me personally.  I do hope to get back to some of the larger intellectual questions this raises, all of which are legitimate and important.

For the moment, before we begin (the masses scream: You mean we haven’t even BEGUN and I’ve already been subjected to this much boredom!), I’d like to make a couple of notes.  First, this list is not intended to be anything more than an explanation of what Jesus’ death means to me personally.  I wear a cross around my neck; and I’m simply explaining what that cross means to me.  All of these things assume that the Christian interpretation of Jesus is roughly correct (e.g., Jesus was divine in a way we are not), and I’m not in this post trying to offer a defense of that interpretation.  So, while I look forward to engaging in the useful intellectual discussions that may ensue, my purpose here is not overly ambitious – it is to answer the question of why I drape a cross around my neck each morning.

Second, although I’m going to break this down into six things the cross means to me – because, let’s face it, numbered lists are cool – this list is not exhaustive.  I could actually list probably 1000 things before I took my first breath while I was writing my first paragraph.  This is the defining symbol of my whole life. 

Finally, these things are not in any particular order, except perhaps the order that they occurred to me as I went.  All of these are equally important to me – and indeed, all of them are interrelated and pretty much inseparable. [Editor's note: This week we'll cover 1-3; next week we'll cover 4-6].

OK, without further delays, here is What the Cross Means To Me:

1. I matter. A lot of people over the years have implied a philosophy that the individual person does not really matter.  Those people say that there is always some larger goal that is more important than a single person; and therefore the person is not really very relevant.  Many of those persons have been within the church; some of them have been without.  But wherever they lie, from whatever viewpoint they come from, they tell me that I, as an individual, do not matter.

When people say things like that; when they tell me that I’m irrelevant; that I’m just one drop in a huge ocean; that God has a higher agenda and greater things to worry about than a little guy from backwoods Louisiana; when people say it’s a big picture and I’m barely a pixel on the frame; when that haunting small voice inside of me tells me that I’m worthless; when I hear and feel and think these sorts of things, my reply is always the same:

This issue arises viagra for sale australia when the penile organ doesn’t get a satisfactory measure of blood throughout a sexual movement. It cheap viagra professional takes at least 1 hour to finish the way toward mending in a session. Treatment viagra purchase canada is depends on the severity of pain. To avoid these unwanted diseases, Chiropractic can be your key to get rid of this condition and live a passionate sexual life. prescription free cialis I point to the Cross.

If I didn’t matter, then why did Jesus die for me?  I – Luke the individual – must mean something to Him.  God at least must think that an individual life is worth saving – because He died to save mine.

2. My sin matters.  Equally as importantly to me – but likely much less popular with the me-first American culture in which I live – is the fact that my sin matters. 

It’s true that God would not have died for me if I didn’t matter.  But He also would not have died if He didn’t take sin super-seriously.  If God didn’t care about my sin – if it weren’t important to Him – why all the fuss?  I mean, I don’t offer my life for a piece of broccoli.  The annals of history are not replete with the cry “give me the tuna salad or give me death.”  Few – if any – people have ever died for a Milli Vanilli album.  I would not trade my life for something that doesn’t matter.  So when God died to account for my sin, that says something about how important my sin is to Him.

When I’m mean to people; when I’m selfish or angry or prideful; when my actions hurt others; that’s a big deal to Him.  It’s a big deal because those other people matter, too (more on this in an upcoming post called What the Cross Means to Other People) and because He wants us to be everything we were made to be.  He wants us in right relation to Him.  He thought my sin important enough to die for; so I should, too.

3. Mercy meets justice. “There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” the Bible says in Romans.  I’ve done a lot of bad stuff, and God wants me to repent and stop doing that stuff (see #2 above).  He almost always told the people He encountered to stop sinning (a fact often lost on people when they read stories about His mercy).  And yet – and yet – before that obvious and necessary step; before the thing every decent person would say to do, which is to stop behaving badly; before this obvious thing, which is justice, He did something maybe not so obvious and certainly not necessary: He Himself stood in the way of condemnation.  He offered mercy and pardon and a chance to start over.

This is the central theme of the New Testament, and it is woven throughout it in multiple ways and with multiple stories and metaphors.  Perhaps the most common expression goes something like this: Jesus took my place; he literally bore my sin inside of Him; I should have been punished, but He was punished instead. 

There is an ancient Arab parable that is along the following lines.  A rich Prince was walking one day in the marketplace.  He saw a hungry man steal a piece of bread.  The thieving man was caught, and the Prince watched as the authorities stretched out the criminal’s arm – in order to chop off his hand.  A sword was raised and about to strike before the Prince, having mercy on the criminal, said: “Stop! I am the Prince of this kingdom, and I order you to spare this man’s hand.”  The policeman in charge looked at the Prince and – somewhat apologetically – replied, “I am sorry, oh noble Prince, but the laws of the land are clear – a hand is the penalty for a theft.  Not even your majesty can countermand that.”  The Prince nodded, stretched out his own arm for all to see, and said, “I know that – which is why I want you to take my hand instead.”

I feel like that in my own life; I feel like Someone has loved me enough to take my place, to take what I deserved; to offer His hand for my theft.  There is some sense in which I understand that God cannot make it all right to steal – He cannot simply declare my theft, which is evil, to be good.  That would go against the truth of what is; it would be unjust.  He can, however, offer in some wild and incomprehensible way to take my place; and Christianity says that’s exactly what He has done.    

Next week, we pick up this theme by discussing in more detail some of the implications of this Great Exchange (via numbers 4-6 on the list).  In the following week, we end this three-part series by discussing what the Cross means for how I view other people.

Posted in Reader Mailbag, Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings, What Christians Actually Believe | 3 Comments

10 More Rules to Live By

Posted on August 1, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

So let’s just say it in plain and clear language: My rate of electronic linguistic generation has been positively languid, not to say listless, in the past few weeks.

Whew!  It felt good to get that off my chest, all plain and clear like. [Apologetic Editorial Staff Note: Not even the pompous idiot that is our senior writer is that incompetent at typing a sentence.  He is, however, still unfunny. For those of you who don’t have a Thesaurus handy and thus were not aware what his failed attempt at humor meant, he was trying to apologize for failing to post in over a month.  We realize the apology is unnecessary – we are all of course happiest when he does not post].

OK, seriously, I think I’m going to start firing some of my editorial staff.  [Staff: Major existential hilarity ensues.] Back to the point.  So the good news is that I’m back from a month-long and not-entirely-intentional hiatus from blog posting.  (I blame Grundy – his thoughtful post made me think so hard my hair started complaining of excessive heat.  That just ain’t right).

The bad news is that I am still a terrible communicator.  But you must take some responsibility, too.  Why are you even reading this stuff?

Anyhoo, just so you don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, my wonderful readers, before I leave again for a week-long vacation with my family, I’m going to post 10 More Rules to Live By.  The one of you who actually read it may remember the original, and (judging by blog post stats) wildly unpopular “10 Rules to Live By,” which you can access here.  I post sequels to such incredibly unpopular things because I care about you.  Or because I’m lazy.  Or because I’m inspired by Hollywood making a sequel to the Expendables.  Seriously — the Expendables? That was really worth a second look?

(As an aside, on the original post, you can also see the first instantiation of the popular commenter Ned the Angry Argumentative Guy, an alter ego I sometimes assume to criticize myself in bizarre ways).  

When I get back from vacation, I hope to resume a more normal posting schedule, by which I mean I will try to post once a week but end up posting about twice a month instead.  In the works for the upcoming weeks are What the Cross Means to Me, Are Academics Atheists?, A Review of the Book Misquoting Jesus, a series of cheeky and annoying articles on religion and politics (yikes!), some more movie and television reviews, a shockingly self-absorbed article on the Top 5 Apologetic Professor Posts of All Time (where, as the name implies, I actually rate my own articles), and an article where I code myself for how complex I am. Seriously, doesn’t that sound a little bit interesting?

For now, here are the rules to live by:   

1.  At least once a week, spend time with your children doing something that is more fun for them than it is for you.

Nonexclusive donssite.com tadalafil buy india 100mg pill is commonly less expensive than its marked counterpart. There are many symptoms of chronic hand pain, including numbness, tingling, weakness, neck pain, shoulder stiffness and general dysfunction. you could try this out generic cialis online The weak and quick ejaculation lowers the self-esteem of a man, experiencing impotence issue can be devastating not only cheap generic cialis to a sexual life but his entire sense of being. The USP of Kamagra cheap cialis from canada is that it is less expensive than its brand-name comparable. 2.  If you’re forty years old, become angry at your computer, and must swing your fist at the keyboard to punish it for its insolence…don’t let your fist of doom land anywhere near the “e” key.  If you do, it might break in half.  Hypothetically speaking, of course. Anyway, it turns out that you really, really need the E key.  Try punishing the Q or F11 key instead.

3.  Do not apologize for making reasonable rules for those you are placed in charge of.  It is your duty.

4.  However, you also have an equally-important duty to empathize with and understand the people who must obey your rules (including children, co-workers, and pets).

5.  Despite what health experts will tell you, it is better to die immediately than live in a world where you must eat brussel sprouts.

6.  If you are a parent, you have a responsibility to guide your child.  If you shirk this responsibility under the guise of modern the children have equal say dogma, you will still guide your children anyway – only most likely you will guide them down the wrong path.

7.  If you are driving from Billings towards North Dakota, you will discover what all academic scholars have long maintained…North Dakota does not actually exist.  You can drive forever in eastern Montana and never reach North Dakota.

8.  At least once a week, quietly let someone ahead of you in line without ever getting credit for it.

9.  Despite all the hype you hear, professional wrestling is, in fact, real.

10.  Political elections in in America are, of course, completely faked.  No one could possibly make this stuff up!

Posted in Rather Bizarre Social Commentary, Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings | 6 Comments

When Atheists and Christians Scandalously Agree

Posted on June 20, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

During my last post, I intentionally included the word “scandalous” throughout the article – because that sort of thing seems to increase viewership on Hannity’s and Bill Maher’s TV shows.  And, as a result of this strategy, I took a little bit of reasonable flak for calling the agreement of atheists and Christians scandalous, when it fact it is a perfectly benign and healthy part of life that – frankly – we could all use a little more of.

Now, a normal person would simply clarify that he didn’t mean the word “scandalous” to be taken seriously (I didn’t) and was only being rather intentionally silly and cheeky.  As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now:

I am not a normal person.

And thus rather than taking such an imminently reasonable strategy, I have instead included the offending word in the title of this post and justified its inclusion with the following graph, which I hope convinces you that the very survival of the Apologetic Professor depends on increasing scandalous language:

graph_scandalous language

No, seriously (I mean it this time!), to those of you who commented on my last post, I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.  If you are just joining in, a few weeks ago we had a guest poster – an atheist! – named Grundy.  I have posted a series of rebuttals to his excellent article.  And I must say that Grundy has been an incredibly good sport in engaging my rebuttals with very reasonable and gracious replies.

This week, I continue my irritating (yet I hope mildly endearing) theme of pointing out some ways in which Grundy and I actually agree – and illustrating how those points do not really affect my own faith.  My goal here is not to put words in Grundy’s mouth – so I’d like to note that he wasn’t really trying to make an argument for atheism per se in his post.  Rather, my point is to simply illustrate how his article relates to my own faith.  So I hope the following comments are taken in that spirit!

[From the Apologetic Professor editorial staff:  We don’t think he succeeded in being conciliatory. Indeed, we are quite sure he did not really even try.  We here at the Apologetic Professor would like to express our sincere regrets for the pompous hypocrisy of the senior writer.  To paraphrase Dilbert, the man is like a huge insincere spider, weaving poorly-constructed, yet surprisingly-effective, webs of hypocrisy!  And we’re his friends! I’d hate to think what his enemies would say.]

Uh…huh.  Thanks, guys.  Anywho, as with my last couple of posts, I’ll list Grundy’s reasons for being an atheist and then my own responses.

Grundy’s reason for being an atheist: “I am comfortable with my eventual non-existence.”

Apologetic Professor response: So am I.  At least, I am as comfortable with it as Grundy is.  I suspect that both of us would sing a different tune if we were being held at gunpoint!

Indeed, more than just being comfortable with it, in those horrible, awful moments when I have suffered the indignity known as a kidney stone, I would definitely prefer non-existence to life.  Incredible pain has a way of offering some useful clarity.

Yet this isn’t just about comfort with non-existence in the abstract.  It’s rather about a desire for Heaven in the concrete.  I’m abstractly comfortable with my potential non-existence, in the same way I’m abstractly comfortable with the idea of not eating broccoli for the rest of my life.  But in the concrete, I still have a desire for food. Well, the Bible says God has “set eternity in the hearts of men.”  I think that’s true.  All else being equal, in a kidney-stone-free-state, I would rather live than die.  I’m not alone: That’s pretty much fundamental, as far as we can tell, for all species.  Life wants to go on living. If it didn’t, it would not be life for very long.

levitra on line http://secretworldchronicle.com/about/voice-talent-veronica-giguere/ Some men do not receive any benefit from external massage. Generics also play an enormous half in other sorts of drugs like here are the findings viagra prices. This process makes the vessels flexible and allows the design of future clinical trials with more accurate selection and stratification of the population under pfizer viagra mastercard investigation. Physically it leads you to many health issues sample of viagra and disorders amongst them one is erectile dysfunction. And to some degree that survival instinct, stretched across time, implies a desire for eternal life.  All else being equal, I would rather live forever in eternal bliss than I would not live at all.  So I may be comfortable with my non-existence, but there is a sense in which I (and probably, in varying degrees, everyone) have a motive to go on living, if I had a choice.

(Of course, I also, like any sane person, prefer non-existence to both kidney stones…and hell. We shoot horses when they are in pain and do not seem capable of recovering.  It’s hardly controversial to say that. But talking about hell is a different issue entirely, and one that I’m going to leave aside in this post.)

What I’d like to emphasize here is this: Yet again, I completely agree with Grundy on pretty much all these points, and yet again I’m completely unaffected in my belief in Christ.  So if we’re asking the question – and that is the primary question these debates are about – of whether or not God exists, to me my own comfort with my non-existence is essentially irrelevant.

(For the next point, I think it’s useful to give Grundy’s entire quote, so that I’m not misrepresenting what he said.)

Grundy’s reason for being an atheist: “I am uncomfortable with absolute authority. If there is anything we can learn from history, it’s that leaders often do horrible things when no checks or balances are in place. In fact, there is no one there to tell them what they are doing is horrible–because if anyone did, something horrible would happen to them. This is a function of relative power and authority. God, if He exists, has ultimate power and authority. The authors of the bible knew this and have depicted Yahweh and/or Jehovah accordingly. Both experience and scripture inform my aversion to absolute authority, but it doesn’t contribute to my disbelief in God. It contributes to why I wouldn’t worship Him even if He did exist.”

Apologetic Professor response: This is trickier.  On the one hand, you could probably search the earth and stars, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone more uncomfortable with absolute authority than yours truly.  I hate people telling me what to do, just because they happen to be in charge.  Pretty much anyone that knows me knows that you can basically never get me to do anything by simply telling me to do it.  I’m funny that way.  [Apologetic Professor editorial staff: It’s actually not that funny.]

Indeed, one of the reasons Jesus appeals to me is that He was (and is) leading a kind of rebellion against established religious authority.  Essentially the only group of people He consistently railed on was the religious establishment.  He walked into their primary Temple and threw them out, for crying out loud!  You gotta love His chutzpah.  I’ve often felt Jesus is at the fore of an eternal revolution – a revolution against the darker part of my own nature, against the darker part of secular culture…and against the darker part of claimed religious authority.  I imagine that if He showed up today, some of the people who would be most shocked at his rebukes would be Christian leaders! (And in fact, that’s almost word-for-word what He says will happen in the Bible – a lot of people are going to be surprised when He comes).

So I’m with Grundy on this one up to a point.  I also agree with the sentiment that absolute authority in human hands is terrible – I’ve said on this blog before that I think the Church has historically been at her worst when she’s had the most political power.

But…well, look.  All that being said, (1) it really doesn’t matter one whit whether or not Grundy and I are comfortable with absolute authority – it only matters if that authority exists.  To be fair, Grundy said explicitly that he wasn’t using this as an argument against God’s existence, only that He would not worship a God who had absolute power.  Granted – but since we are arguing about God’s existence in the main here, I’d like to point out that our comfort level, one way or the other, may be irrelevant to the truth of the matter.

More importantly, (2) I don’t think Grundy’s implication that you should not worship someone just because they have authority is very sensible.  I don’t worship God because He is in control; I worship Him because He is good.  Both Hitler and Gandhi had power; my reason for disrespecting Hitler and respecting Gandhi is because I think one largely bad and one largely good; not because one had power and one didn’t.

In fact, I think of this question somewhat the other way around: If I could choose, would I want a universe that (a) was completely amoral, run by nothing, meaning nothing, and essentially chaotic, (b) was run by some guiding Power that was completely good and had my best interests at heart, or (c) was run by an evil guiding power?  And I think answer c absolutely sucks – I’d pick “a” to that.  But it’s not clear that “a” is better than “b.”  I mean, my problem with a Kingship isn’t that the King has power – the President has power, too.  My problem is that the King might be bad, and I don’t want that much power, unchecked, in the hands of a bad person.  Democracy is a kind of antidote against bad people running amok for a long time.  But even in a democracy, power is ceded; democracy is just a way to try and be sure the power doesn’t end up in bad hands permanently.  If it were always in good hands de facto, democracy would be unnecessary.

My point is not to debate political philosophy, but rather to simply say this: If God is perfect, loving, good, and just, as Christians have always claimed, then I’m not particularly uncomfortable with Him running the universe.  I don’t worship Him because He runs the universe – I worship Him because He is the kind of God that, in spite of having all claims to absolute power, gave that power up in order to save my soul.  As the Bible says, Jesus, despite being God, “did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped.”

Thus I worship Him because He is good, and because He is good, I’m fine with Him having power – yes, even absolute power.

Posted in Does God Exist?, Myths About Christianity | 4 Comments

When Atheists and Christians Agree

Posted on May 28, 2013 by The Apologetic Professor

With a title as positively scandalous as “When Atheists and Christians Agree,” you know this article is going to be good!

[That’s a teaser, folks.  I’ve been watching movie promotions quite a lot lately, and I am trying out some borrowed methods to increase my viewership].

Imagine that you are having a debate with your friend about politics.  It doesn’t matter what issue you are debating about or what side you are on – let’s suppose you are a Democrat and your friend is a Republican.  And in the middle of this heated debate, your Republican friend looks up at the sky and says “well, the reason I’m a Republican is that I find the sky to be blue.  It might be hard for you to understand…after all, you’re only a simple Democrat and probably are color-blind anyway.”

A couple of weeks ago, we had a delightful guest poster on this blog named Grundy, who was arguing for an atheist point of view.  And I must admit that often, when reading his post, I felt like the Democrat in our hypothetical example must feel (if she is the fully-color-vision-capable person I take her to be).  She probably feels like replying “but the sky is blue to me, too, my fair Republican friend, and yet I’m still a Democrat.”

Well, that’s how I reacted while reading much of Grundy’s post on why he was an atheist.  I kept thinking, “ok, sure, I’m with you…that’s how life seems to me, too…and yet I’m still a Christian.  I see it as blue as you see it, but it doesn’t affect my faith at all.”

So today, and next week, we are going to cover four of the primary reasons Grundy lists as to why he is an atheist.  And it turns out that most of the time, the personal reasons he gives for atheism are things that also probably equally apply to me.  In other words, Grundy and I agree on a large percentage of what he said: We simply do not agree that these things are arguments for atheism.

In each case, I’ll quote the subject heading from Grundy’s list of reasons for being an atheist and then my own response to that.

Grundy’s reason for being an atheist: “I am comfortable with the unknown.”

Apologetic Professor response: So am I.  And so were most of the people who wrote the Bible. Paul said in the Bible “the man who thinks he knows does not yet know as he ought to know.”  He also said that he sees “through a glass darkly,” that we know only “in part,” and that the stuff we do know is temporary and will “pass away.” The book of Ecclesiastes is a 12-chapter discussion of meaninglessness and confusion that could be a textbook for some existential philosophy course.  I could go on.

Mallet Finger The authors feel non-operative management of mallet finger is indicated in cases of all soft tissue mallets and bony mallets which are well reduced in a splint without DIP joint subluxation. viagra without prescription check stock But with the modern medication like cheap viagra without prescription, Cilais and viagra it is no more an issue even if you are diagnosed with ED. viagra from canadian pharmacies On the other hand, sex can actually calm you down without posing any side-effects. Our insistent need to mimic foreign cultures and cialis pills australia adopt lifestyles inimical to healthy living is duly reflected in the current relationship. Rather, I’ll just say that since Christianity teaches that much is unknown and we should learn to accept that, I find it rather odd that someone would be an atheist for this reason.  So when Grundy says (and I’m quoting directly) “I’m simply comfortable with my lack of omniscience,” how can I respond but say: “Awesome – welcome to Christianity!  We believe none is omniscient but God, so you’ll fit in fantastically well with us!”

To be fair, Grundy does elaborate here about how Christians have used God to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.  That’s true – we have.  I’ve discussed this myself before on this blog, as have other Christians (such as Francis Collins).  I’m not a fan of the “God of the gaps” approach to apologetics.  So basically Grundy and I agree on everything relevant to this issue…and yet, curiously, my faith in Christ is completely unaffected.  As a result, I am left to conclude that this argument is essentially irrelevant – Christians are not led to have a fear of the unknown by the Bible and we don’t need gaps in our knowledge to demonstrate that God exists.  We can’t demonstrate that God exists; but He can.  Since it turns out He is real after all, I don’t trouble too much about it.

Grundy’s reason for being an atheist: “I am comfortable with chance.”

Apologetic Professor response: I am comfortable with chance, too.  It turns out, if Christianity was true, so was God – since He allowed the ultimate random-noise generator to be introduced into the universe…that generator that we call free will. 

Really, on the surface, this is quite a strange a straw man to raise against the faith that I believe so heartily in.  Atheism provides no more, or no less, reason to assume that life is constructed of chance events.  Most atheists are materialistic determinists for a reason – and materialistic determinism doesn’t suggest chance exists, but precisely the opposite: It suggests that everything in this closed natural system is a result of something else in that closed natural system.  Chance in an atheistic world simply means “those physical processes we do not yet understand,” since the idea is that if we could understand them all, everything is predictable (and therefore nothing is actually due to chance).  It is probably only through Divine intervention that anything like true chance could enter the universe.

Now, my own argument in the above cleverly-written-but-intellectually-vapid paragraph is fatally flawed by quantum mechanics and the theory of indeterminism – in other words, some aspects of the movement of particles appear random and maybe that’s how it is.  But, really, at the very least, all that is pretty consistent with any theory of the universe. I don’t think pursuing this line of reasoning gets us any closer to determining if God actually exists. My reasons for believing in God would essentially remain unchanged whether we talk about chance or not, and personally, I like chance.  I certainly do not have a discomfort with it.

Having said all that, it turns out that – for those of you who read his post – Grundy does make some good arguments in this section. But as they really have little to do with chance per se, and they are more substantive, I’ll deal with them a couple of posts from now.

In summary, Grundy stating he is an atheist because he is (a) comfortable with the unknown and (a) comfortable with chance strikes me a bit as stating he is an atheist because he finds the sky blue.  I find it blue, too; but we are still really no nearer to answering the fundamental question at hand.  

Next week, we cover how Grundy and I are equally comfortable with our eventual non-existence and how we both have a strong distaste for absolute authority – and yet, curiously, my faith remains scandalously unchanged by these points of agreement.

Posted in Does God Exist?, Myths About Christianity | 7 Comments