Thursday, September 29, 2011
And There Was No More Christmas
I seem to continually be receiving emails from friends about the “Islamization of the world”. Some are from concerned Christians, others are from concerned non-Christians, and others are from non-Christians who think that because I'm a Christian I should be concerned. And what sort of things do these emails say? They say that there is somewhat of a conspiracy that the Muslim religion intends to become the predominant religion in the world by settling in countries and major cities which are not predominately Muslim at the present time. And then, as they become a sizable majority, they will slowly gain more and more influence to thoroughly impose Islam upon that country. I’m always wary of how much truth there is to these sorts of emails, but recently my wife started work for the local school where my children attend, and she has told me that the school announced privately to staff that there probably won’t be any Christmas celebrations whatsoever this year. Furthermore the reason for this, so the story goes, is that we mustn’t offend the Muslim community by celebrating an overtly Christian occasion. So there certainly seems to be some truth to all this talk of “Islamization”, though I would also concede that it’s due to all this Islamization hype that the Muslim community are blamed for this when the truth may be otherwise. I don’t think there’s any big conspiracy; I’m fairly convinced that the Principal of that school is an Atheist and her agenda isn’t to keep Muslim’s happy but to take advantage of any excuse that takes religion out of the school’s culture.
I must admit that I’m not really in my comfort zone speaking on this... though I keep getting fed these emails, I’m not one to necessarily trust such sources. It is, however, plainly evident by looking at the world around us these days that Islam is on the rise. I am happier to call it “Islamic Revival” than “Islamization”, much like we would speak of a Christian Revival. From my perspective, the Church has been compromising itself for a long time now... many Churches are not right these days; failing to acknowledge the authority of Scripture, ordaining homosexuals, denying that Christ is the only way of salvation, and many other errors. And it is precisely the Biblical pattern that God would allow another religion like Islam to rise up, and to subject His Church even to persecution, just as God gave Israel over to their enemies as judgement for their faithlessness. Consider what it would do for the Church if it were persecuted, (not that we actually wish that upon ourselves)... To use a Biblical idiom, it would be “refined by fire”. Anyone not truly committed to Christ would soon abandon the Church. And even the banning of Christmas at my children’s school is a kind of persecution, but what effect will it have on local Churches? Will they care?
We should look at the rise of Islam from this perspective... the Church has struggled somewhat to go and preach the gospel to Muslims in their own lands, so God is bringing them to us. We should see their presence in our neighbourhoods as opportunities to reach them with the gospel. But what I see instead is fear and hatred towards them because of these emails that circulate. I’m not going to pretend that Christmas celebrations being cancelled at my children’s school isn’t a sad thing, but to react with hatred would be the opposite of Christian. How can we hate those who are without Christ? It should stir up our compassion. People say "Look at what he Devil is doing through Islam", but I would want to say look at what the Devil is doing through these emails that circulate, using them to provoke Christians to hatred. Let’s not forget who we are, and what our Lord taught us. Let’s examine ourselves and repent of any hatred we have toward the Muslim community.
and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Mark 6:34
Monday, August 29, 2011
From Whence Cometh Evil?
It has been said that the Problem of Evil is the biggest problem for Christianity, and I think that statement is something a majority of people tend to agree with. In fact, one schools-based ministry said that this was the number one question asked by high school students. So it's certainly worthwhile spending a disproportionate amount of time discussing it. I've certainly written on it before, but let's try to put it all together and maybe dig a little deeper into it.
To begin with, I think we need to recognize at least two different kinds of evil. There is “human sin”, or deliberate acts of evil on our part, and there is suffering as a result of natural causes; from disease to natural disasters to just plain growing old. This is "natural evil." God is responsible for both kinds of evil; but how can God be responsible for evil at all if He is supposedly "all good"?
Now, to be responsible for evil does not make God evil if He has a sufficiently good reason for allowing evil. So we must conclude that God does have a good reason for allowing the various evils in the world. Other options exist, but I don't think they work... we cannot, for example, say that God is not, in fact, responsible for the evil in the world, because being all powerful He is surely able to both stop all evil in an instant, but also to prevent evil occurring in the first place. So I think that God, who is also wiser than us all, must have a good reason for the evil in the world. The question is, what is His reason? Does a satisfactory reason even exist?
In a sense we really don't know God's reasons for allowing evil, especially when it comes to specific cases of evil. But I do think the Bible gives us information as to why God allows evil generally. And with regard to the two kinds of evil, I think God has different reasons for each. So let's deal with human sin, firstly. Why did God allow Adam and Eve to disobey Him in the first place, thus consigning all of mankind to hell? Here, I have already put forward what I consider to be my strongest case, when I wrote #34: If God is good, why did He create anything evil in the first place? So I'll repeat the key point here. I think that God created a world with sin so that He might demonstrate His love for us in sacrificing Himself as an atonement for our sins. This is God's “good reason” for allowing human sin. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). And “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us...” (1 John 3:16). In other words, God wanted to show just how deep His love is by sacrificing Himself for us, even though we are sinners. If we were not sinners saved by His grace, what little would we know of His grace and love?
Now, we would want to try to “compare equations” here. In a world without sin we have no need for the atonement, which means we have a lesser understanding of the depths of God’s love, though we would at least have partial knowledge. We also have no people at all going to hell. So we ask ourselves, is it all worth it? After all, Christ needn’t have suffered in that scenario, either; so it’s better for Him too! But trying to pin relative values on each of these things is a human exercise, subject to a human perspective. We can trust that God did consider the atonement; the revelation of His love and character, “worth it all.” And I certainly think that we won’t fully appreciate God’s plan of redemption this side of death.
But let’s move on to “natural evil”. Why the earthquakes, and why the floods, and why even old age and death? These things are a result, or judgement, of human sin, so the Bible declares. They are indiscriminate because we are all sinners alike. And like any punishment, it ought to have the effect of making us regret our sins. In just about every culture and religion this is recognized; that whenever there is a natural disaster, it is said... “The gods must be angry!” In fact, the motivation for worship in most pagan religions was to satisfy the gods lest they be angry and bring droughts or some such natural disaster. I think that this is an idea that God has “programmed” into our minds. In Christianity, as we read the Old Testament, God told Israel that their disobedience would lead to poor crops and various other “natural evils”. Knowing this, what was their reaction supposed to be? Obedience. And when these things came upon them, what was their reaction supposed to be? Repentance.
Probably the best example of this is the story of Pharaoh when the ten plagues came upon Egypt, at the hand of Moses. As you read that story, you’re just dumbfounded! How after each plague, Pharaoh still won’t obey God and let Israel go free. You just can’t believe how anyone could be so defiant. If Pharaoh had let the people go after the first plague there would have been no further damage. But God even hardened Pharaoh’s heart, for this reason... that “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” (Exodus 7:5). That is “Egyptians” (plural). God prolonged the demonstration of His power so that all of Egypt might recognize Him as God, and perhaps they might forsake their own gods and turn to Yahweh. And not for Egypt only, but word of these events reached the whole of Canaan, as we see later on. Any who did not turn to God would have been as stubborn and defiant as Pharaoh.
Now, those plagues were miraculous in nature, so we might argue that it’s not the same thing when we’re unrepentant in the face of natural disasters. I’m not saying, however, that we can necessarily be saved apart from Biblical revelation. Pharaoh essentially had, or was part of, Biblical revelation. And when Israel experienced natural disasters, they had the Word of God which explained to them what was happening, though there was nothing necessarily miraculous about their droughts and so forth. It is sufficient, however, that natural disasters and even death itself, does at least suggest there is a God who judges; just as those pagan cultures, without knowledge of the Bible, associated disasters with the “anger of the gods”. In recognizing there is a God, it is then up to each individual to seek knowledge of Him, and mercy from Him. Of course, an atheist might say that they simply don’t see evidence for God in natural disasters. Yet to call one’s self an atheist presupposes some notion of God. And to discuss the Problem of Evil in the first place presupposes an understanding that there is a God who is responsible for natural evil. It doesn’t make a difference whether this knowledge was innate or learned; God’s purpose is accomplished in anyone who understands this so-called “Problem of Evil” at all.
But we also want to ask ourselves; isn’t there a better way to get people to turn from their sins and to turn to God? Are natural disasters and death at all effective in doing this? Well, if you’re looking for a more gentle approach from God towards mankind, then you have it... it’s the Bible. God has given us His Word, freely available to us these days on the Internet, but always quite accessible to many. It’s there for you to read and give your full attention, or for you to completely ignore. But I suppose that, due to the same hardness of heart that caused Pharaoh to ignore the continual evidences of God’s wrath and power, we are more inclined to ignore the “gentle approach” as well. But death of loved ones, and especially when our own death is nigh, most definitely causes a person to think seriously about the reality of God.
In these short paragraphs, we have barely explored this issue, really. Just consider, as well, that when Christians find opportunity to care for the victims of natural disasters, or even the elderly amongst us, God’s love is made known. This is just a hint of at least one more reason why God’s ways are wiser than we imagine. We may not know the reasons why God allows evil in this world, but I don’t think we have to. I think it suffices to know that He has a reason, and to believe that He is trustworthy. Some will say that God owes us a reason, but I don’t think that’s true. It’s not like we’re equals with God. But I don’t think we could even know God’s reasons, because I think it would take the mental capacity to see all of space and time before us, all at once. To see the true nature of every man’s heart, and to see every consequence of every action and to see and understand the very nature of God fully... I think that’s just the beginning of what it would take to understand God’s good reasons for allowing evil. And I think that this is a topic that could fill many books, but that this is precisely part of the whole “big picture” - that in contemplating the “why’s” of theology, we see more and more of God’s wisdom and power and glory.
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. (Ecclesiastes 3:16-17)
To begin with, I think we need to recognize at least two different kinds of evil. There is “human sin”, or deliberate acts of evil on our part, and there is suffering as a result of natural causes; from disease to natural disasters to just plain growing old. This is "natural evil." God is responsible for both kinds of evil; but how can God be responsible for evil at all if He is supposedly "all good"?
Now, to be responsible for evil does not make God evil if He has a sufficiently good reason for allowing evil. So we must conclude that God does have a good reason for allowing the various evils in the world. Other options exist, but I don't think they work... we cannot, for example, say that God is not, in fact, responsible for the evil in the world, because being all powerful He is surely able to both stop all evil in an instant, but also to prevent evil occurring in the first place. So I think that God, who is also wiser than us all, must have a good reason for the evil in the world. The question is, what is His reason? Does a satisfactory reason even exist?
In a sense we really don't know God's reasons for allowing evil, especially when it comes to specific cases of evil. But I do think the Bible gives us information as to why God allows evil generally. And with regard to the two kinds of evil, I think God has different reasons for each. So let's deal with human sin, firstly. Why did God allow Adam and Eve to disobey Him in the first place, thus consigning all of mankind to hell? Here, I have already put forward what I consider to be my strongest case, when I wrote #34: If God is good, why did He create anything evil in the first place? So I'll repeat the key point here. I think that God created a world with sin so that He might demonstrate His love for us in sacrificing Himself as an atonement for our sins. This is God's “good reason” for allowing human sin. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). And “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us...” (1 John 3:16). In other words, God wanted to show just how deep His love is by sacrificing Himself for us, even though we are sinners. If we were not sinners saved by His grace, what little would we know of His grace and love?
Now, we would want to try to “compare equations” here. In a world without sin we have no need for the atonement, which means we have a lesser understanding of the depths of God’s love, though we would at least have partial knowledge. We also have no people at all going to hell. So we ask ourselves, is it all worth it? After all, Christ needn’t have suffered in that scenario, either; so it’s better for Him too! But trying to pin relative values on each of these things is a human exercise, subject to a human perspective. We can trust that God did consider the atonement; the revelation of His love and character, “worth it all.” And I certainly think that we won’t fully appreciate God’s plan of redemption this side of death.
But let’s move on to “natural evil”. Why the earthquakes, and why the floods, and why even old age and death? These things are a result, or judgement, of human sin, so the Bible declares. They are indiscriminate because we are all sinners alike. And like any punishment, it ought to have the effect of making us regret our sins. In just about every culture and religion this is recognized; that whenever there is a natural disaster, it is said... “The gods must be angry!” In fact, the motivation for worship in most pagan religions was to satisfy the gods lest they be angry and bring droughts or some such natural disaster. I think that this is an idea that God has “programmed” into our minds. In Christianity, as we read the Old Testament, God told Israel that their disobedience would lead to poor crops and various other “natural evils”. Knowing this, what was their reaction supposed to be? Obedience. And when these things came upon them, what was their reaction supposed to be? Repentance.
Probably the best example of this is the story of Pharaoh when the ten plagues came upon Egypt, at the hand of Moses. As you read that story, you’re just dumbfounded! How after each plague, Pharaoh still won’t obey God and let Israel go free. You just can’t believe how anyone could be so defiant. If Pharaoh had let the people go after the first plague there would have been no further damage. But God even hardened Pharaoh’s heart, for this reason... that “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” (Exodus 7:5). That is “Egyptians” (plural). God prolonged the demonstration of His power so that all of Egypt might recognize Him as God, and perhaps they might forsake their own gods and turn to Yahweh. And not for Egypt only, but word of these events reached the whole of Canaan, as we see later on. Any who did not turn to God would have been as stubborn and defiant as Pharaoh.
Now, those plagues were miraculous in nature, so we might argue that it’s not the same thing when we’re unrepentant in the face of natural disasters. I’m not saying, however, that we can necessarily be saved apart from Biblical revelation. Pharaoh essentially had, or was part of, Biblical revelation. And when Israel experienced natural disasters, they had the Word of God which explained to them what was happening, though there was nothing necessarily miraculous about their droughts and so forth. It is sufficient, however, that natural disasters and even death itself, does at least suggest there is a God who judges; just as those pagan cultures, without knowledge of the Bible, associated disasters with the “anger of the gods”. In recognizing there is a God, it is then up to each individual to seek knowledge of Him, and mercy from Him. Of course, an atheist might say that they simply don’t see evidence for God in natural disasters. Yet to call one’s self an atheist presupposes some notion of God. And to discuss the Problem of Evil in the first place presupposes an understanding that there is a God who is responsible for natural evil. It doesn’t make a difference whether this knowledge was innate or learned; God’s purpose is accomplished in anyone who understands this so-called “Problem of Evil” at all.
But we also want to ask ourselves; isn’t there a better way to get people to turn from their sins and to turn to God? Are natural disasters and death at all effective in doing this? Well, if you’re looking for a more gentle approach from God towards mankind, then you have it... it’s the Bible. God has given us His Word, freely available to us these days on the Internet, but always quite accessible to many. It’s there for you to read and give your full attention, or for you to completely ignore. But I suppose that, due to the same hardness of heart that caused Pharaoh to ignore the continual evidences of God’s wrath and power, we are more inclined to ignore the “gentle approach” as well. But death of loved ones, and especially when our own death is nigh, most definitely causes a person to think seriously about the reality of God.
In these short paragraphs, we have barely explored this issue, really. Just consider, as well, that when Christians find opportunity to care for the victims of natural disasters, or even the elderly amongst us, God’s love is made known. This is just a hint of at least one more reason why God’s ways are wiser than we imagine. We may not know the reasons why God allows evil in this world, but I don’t think we have to. I think it suffices to know that He has a reason, and to believe that He is trustworthy. Some will say that God owes us a reason, but I don’t think that’s true. It’s not like we’re equals with God. But I don’t think we could even know God’s reasons, because I think it would take the mental capacity to see all of space and time before us, all at once. To see the true nature of every man’s heart, and to see every consequence of every action and to see and understand the very nature of God fully... I think that’s just the beginning of what it would take to understand God’s good reasons for allowing evil. And I think that this is a topic that could fill many books, but that this is precisely part of the whole “big picture” - that in contemplating the “why’s” of theology, we see more and more of God’s wisdom and power and glory.
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. (Ecclesiastes 3:16-17)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Blessings of God
Life has been good for me this past couple of years. We own an investment property we're renting out, which we bought with money we inherited from a rich aunt. In the midst of global financial struggles, the company I work for is doing really well. We really don't lack anything. But recently we decided to redevelop that rental property, and in the last two weeks the tenant has moved out and the building has been demolished. So we're now without rental income, and we're about to start forking out to builders and so forth. We expected it to be a time of financial struggle for this family. But a few days ago the kindergarten my son attends asked my wife if she'd like to do some work there. She did her first day today and it sounds like there will be somewhat regular demand for her; they were most impressed with her skills and experience (she worked in child care for nearly ten years.) So I want to thank God, first of all, for taking care of this family.
This blog is intended to show you the world through a Christian's eyes, and in recognizing the way in which God has blessed us today, and thanking Him for it, I'm hopefully doing just that. But what of this "prosperity gospel" that some speak about? It's the idea that being a Christian should mean that you will always have everything going for you. In the extreme sense, it says that God will see to it that you won't ever struggle financially, you won't ever get sick, and so on and so forth. And if you do, it's for lack of faith on your part. But this is not the right way to see the world, Biblically.
Today I am thankful to God, and this work that has been offered to my wife is a wonderful surprise for us. But our expectation, as I said before, was that we would be facing a financial struggle. Of course, it was never going to be all that bad, relatively speaking. We're not living in a third world country, or even on the poor end of the spectrum in our own city. The worst it will ever get for us will probably still appear ludicrously wealthy to many people in this world. Why are we so fortunate? Is it because of our faith? No; many of our non-Christian neighbours are more wealthy than we are. God has blessed them just the same. But do they recognize that and give thanks for what God has given them? That would be an exercise of faith. So it's not your faith that brings wealth, but faith exists independently of wealth. We exercise faith when we acknowledge the blessings of God, and are content no matter what situation we're in.
So when things aren't going well, how do we explain it? It's not a lack of faith on our part. Is it that God is mad at us for having done something wrong, perhaps? No, in many ways it can be a privilege to suffer, because the excise of faith through suffering is an amazing witness to the world; and bearing witness of Christ is every Christian's joy. For people to say "Look, despite all they've been through they're still as faithful to God as they ever were!", is a powerful testimony. As one man said, after his wife had been through chemotherapy for cancer, what strengthened him was the realization just how much of a privilege the ordeal was, as though God were saying "I'd put this burden on someone else, but not many could handle it like you can!" He was all the more determined to conspicuously show the world his steadfastness in faith as he and his wife were going through this trial.
The attitude of Christianity is not "always look on the bright side of life", as though whatever situation you're in is a blessing if you could only see it that way. Suffering cancer, or going through the ordeal of your husband or wife going through cancer, is not a blessing. There may be blessings incidental to it, but the suffering is not a blessing. We wait for a world in which there is no suffering. But as it is now, suffering is a fact of life. And as I have said, faith is independent of your situation. We exercise faith toward God in all situations; for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till in the resurrection we are united.
"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11-13)
This blog is intended to show you the world through a Christian's eyes, and in recognizing the way in which God has blessed us today, and thanking Him for it, I'm hopefully doing just that. But what of this "prosperity gospel" that some speak about? It's the idea that being a Christian should mean that you will always have everything going for you. In the extreme sense, it says that God will see to it that you won't ever struggle financially, you won't ever get sick, and so on and so forth. And if you do, it's for lack of faith on your part. But this is not the right way to see the world, Biblically.
Today I am thankful to God, and this work that has been offered to my wife is a wonderful surprise for us. But our expectation, as I said before, was that we would be facing a financial struggle. Of course, it was never going to be all that bad, relatively speaking. We're not living in a third world country, or even on the poor end of the spectrum in our own city. The worst it will ever get for us will probably still appear ludicrously wealthy to many people in this world. Why are we so fortunate? Is it because of our faith? No; many of our non-Christian neighbours are more wealthy than we are. God has blessed them just the same. But do they recognize that and give thanks for what God has given them? That would be an exercise of faith. So it's not your faith that brings wealth, but faith exists independently of wealth. We exercise faith when we acknowledge the blessings of God, and are content no matter what situation we're in.
So when things aren't going well, how do we explain it? It's not a lack of faith on our part. Is it that God is mad at us for having done something wrong, perhaps? No, in many ways it can be a privilege to suffer, because the excise of faith through suffering is an amazing witness to the world; and bearing witness of Christ is every Christian's joy. For people to say "Look, despite all they've been through they're still as faithful to God as they ever were!", is a powerful testimony. As one man said, after his wife had been through chemotherapy for cancer, what strengthened him was the realization just how much of a privilege the ordeal was, as though God were saying "I'd put this burden on someone else, but not many could handle it like you can!" He was all the more determined to conspicuously show the world his steadfastness in faith as he and his wife were going through this trial.
The attitude of Christianity is not "always look on the bright side of life", as though whatever situation you're in is a blessing if you could only see it that way. Suffering cancer, or going through the ordeal of your husband or wife going through cancer, is not a blessing. There may be blessings incidental to it, but the suffering is not a blessing. We wait for a world in which there is no suffering. But as it is now, suffering is a fact of life. And as I have said, faith is independent of your situation. We exercise faith toward God in all situations; for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till in the resurrection we are united.
"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11-13)
Sunday, August 7, 2011
God Don't Make No Junk
I recently saw a documentary about our DNA, and I heard something that I'd like to comment on. And this blog has always been "one Christian's view of the world"; I'm just an average person, only somewhat educated in Biology, who is evaluating and reacting to the everyday things that average people are exposed to. So I'm not claiming to have thoroughly researched this in technical scientific journals and such. This is just my reaction to what I heard on this particular BBC documentary, simply called "The Gene Code".
When Darwin developed the theory of Evolution, he reasoned along the lines that some species of animal have features in common with other species of animal. This is how we get the idea that man descended from apes. Apes have very similar bodies, it would appear, to human beings. This is what really drives the whole theory. So what happened when DNA was discovered? From a Christian perspective, I think it does serious damage to the theory of Evolution. It's nothing short of a miracle that all of our features are governed by this one "device", which is quite literally a language common to all life. However, Evolutionists stick to their guns and see DNA as responsible for all this evolution. When I have discussed evolution with other lay-people in the past, they have often explained to me that the similarity we find between species, such as humans and apes, correlates to the similarity between those species' DNA. But what I learnt on this documentary was that this isn't always the case.
There is a scene in the documentary in which the host is shown an array of quite diverse skulls. They had a number of them including a whale's skull, a hippo's, a crocodile's, a camel's, a tiny little bat's skull, and of course a human skull. Now according to Darwin's reasoning, animals which appear to have more in common ought to be more closely related. But it turns out, according to this documentary, that in terms of DNA the hippo was considered more closely related to the whale than to the camel! This was the example they used, and they acknowledged how completely unexpected this was. They were blind to the problem this poses for Evolution, but this evidence would be so unexpected to Darwin, I wonder whether he wouldn't have said, "Well, that just proves me plain wrong!"
What I learned was that all of those skulls were all constructed in the very same way. Apparently DNA works like this... All of those animals might have the exact same genes. Each would have the gene for a nose, for example. What makes the difference is the duration of time that gene is active during the development of the particular animal. While the nose gene is active, the nose is being "generated". The nose gene would be active for a short time in human beings, giving us a short nose, but for a longer time in a camel, giving it a long nose. To me, this suggests that every animal on the planet could have the exact same genome, and yet still look as diverse as they do; because it's not what genes you have, it's in this orchestration of when each gene "switches on and off".
But who or what is performing this orchestration? Is it God Himself? In a sense, I would say that it is. And that's based on the Bible, in a passage such as Psalm 139:13 which reads "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb." In what specific ways God is involved, I don't know, but it may simply be that He designed the DNA structure, and fore-ordained the DNA I would inherit. But the documentary goes on to talk about something which scientists call "Junk DNA". This is DNA which doesn't seem to have any purpose. Now, I recall a conversation I had once with an atheist chap. I asked him "Surely, according to Evolution, the living world should be full of features which have no real purpose, since some parts of us should be random mutations and such which haven't actually formed anything useful "yet". Why does everything have a function or a purpose?" Well, he suggested I consider nipples on a man... But, no, I think my point is still an important one. I think that even nipples on a man have a purpose - in relation to temperature control, I've heard. Often we may not have come to know or understand the purpose of something, but I believe that all physical features have a purpose. Even if we grant what must be at least 99.9% of features which are known to have a purpose, this is highly suggestive of a Designer-God. So I was not convinced that some 80% of our DNA is useless "junk". And the host of this documentary acknowledges this, agreeing with my opinion that we simply haven't discovered its purpose yet. And part of its purpose, he suggests, could be in this orchestration of when genes are switched on and off.
Yet another conversation I had with an atheist comes to mind. He argued, (parroting Dawkins), that theism hinders science because theists are content to simply say "God did it!" Of course, this isn't really true at all; there are few genuine examples of a Christian scientist resigning to the idea that "this is a mystery of God which we will never know." But on the other hand, the Evolutionist clearly expects (and should expect, if they are to be consistent with their world view) that some things simply have no function or purpose at all, and so write them off as "junk", ceasing further investigation. This is certainly a world view which hinders science. Of course, Evolutionists aren't consistent with their world view, which is why the host of this documentary was able to say that scientists now suspect that Junk DNA isn't junk after all. But this inconsistency demonstrates how they are essentially dishonest with themselves, accepting a world view which contradicts reality.
But none says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’ (Job 35:10-11)
What I learned was that all of those skulls were all constructed in the very same way. Apparently DNA works like this... All of those animals might have the exact same genes. Each would have the gene for a nose, for example. What makes the difference is the duration of time that gene is active during the development of the particular animal. While the nose gene is active, the nose is being "generated". The nose gene would be active for a short time in human beings, giving us a short nose, but for a longer time in a camel, giving it a long nose. To me, this suggests that every animal on the planet could have the exact same genome, and yet still look as diverse as they do; because it's not what genes you have, it's in this orchestration of when each gene "switches on and off".
Yet another conversation I had with an atheist comes to mind. He argued, (parroting Dawkins), that theism hinders science because theists are content to simply say "God did it!" Of course, this isn't really true at all; there are few genuine examples of a Christian scientist resigning to the idea that "this is a mystery of God which we will never know." But on the other hand, the Evolutionist clearly expects (and should expect, if they are to be consistent with their world view) that some things simply have no function or purpose at all, and so write them off as "junk", ceasing further investigation. This is certainly a world view which hinders science. Of course, Evolutionists aren't consistent with their world view, which is why the host of this documentary was able to say that scientists now suspect that Junk DNA isn't junk after all. But this inconsistency demonstrates how they are essentially dishonest with themselves, accepting a world view which contradicts reality.
But none says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’ (Job 35:10-11)
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Secular Morality
I was having a most interesting discussion with a friend of mine once. We got to talking about the old question of morality apart from God. He claims to have found the best system of ethics apart from God that there is. In fact, he said that this is how all people live, whether they realize it or not. It’s simply a version of Utilitarianism, for those who want to find out more. It goes like this... In whatever we do, we must act so that we maximize happiness in the world. Now there is actually a version which says we should all maximize our own happiness, but the problem with that is clear: If I think murdering some people will make me happy, then should I do that? Of course not. But this friend of mine has it covered by saying, “No, you have to maximize everybody’s happiness.” So we have this sort of ledger of happiness where I might refrain from doing something that will make me happy but leave some people unhappy, or I might actually do something which makes me unhappy if it will make other people happy. It accounts for selfless acts. And this friend of mine believes that this is how we all really do live our lives. He gave this example; When we see a girl being beaten up by some man, we might intervene if we think we can overpower that man. But if we don’t think we can overpower him then we won’t intervene. Why? Because if we fail to overpower the man he’ll have beaten up the girl and us, leaving more people “unhappy” in this equation. But if we can overpower the man then we intervene because reducing the length of this girl’s ordeal reduces the amount of unhappiness clocking up on the “unhappiness meter” of this equation. And of course, there are degrees of happiness and unhappiness; one punch to the girl’s face might be worth a great deal of unhappiness, whereas the mild pain to my fist when I beat this guy up doesn’t count for much at all. So we all need to do a mental sum of how much happiness versus how much unhappiness our actions will result in, and do whatever maximizes happiness in the world.
There are a lot of problems with this theory. First of all, it really just seems to describe the psychology of a person’s decision making rather than tell us what’s actually right or wrong. The man might choose to maximize happiness by letting the girl get beat up since he feels that he can’t overpower the man. But that doesn’t tell us that his decision was the moral one. But even as a system of deciding what to do it has problems. How do we quantify happiness? What prevents me from thinking that the amount of happiness I’m going to get is far more significant than it really is, and the amount of unhappiness I’m going to generate is far less significant than it really is? There is a risk that we can justify immoral acts by claiming (and perhaps genuinely believing) that what we're doing will ultimately bring happiness to people despite some initial unhappiness. But as I discussed this system of ethics further, I realized it can actually justify anything at all. I asked my friend, “Let’s say that a man and a woman find themselves alone some place. The thought to rape this woman enters his mind. Now, this will make him happy and her unhappy. But what if the amount of happiness he gets precisely equals the amount of unhappiness she feels over being raped? Do the two cancel out?” Well, ignoring the complicating factor of unhappiness felt by her friends and relatives, my friend says “This is an ethically neutral situation; it’s neither right nor wrong.” … “So he’s OK to rape her?”, I asked him to confirm. … “It’s neither right nor wrong,” he said to me. “Alright,” I said, “what if this girl now gets pregnant, and this child, though conceived in violence, is the joy of her life! It brings her so much happiness daily! According to your theory, the rape was not just ethically neutral, it was in fact the right thing to do!” And to my surprise my friend nodded! “Yes,” he said, “...the resulting happiness from our actions may not be known until maybe years later.” And then he gave this example; “What if I had the opportunity to kill Hitler when he was just a little boy? That would actually have been a right thing to do, preventing the murder of even one single Jew, but we can only know that now.” So now we have just compounded the problem; we can literally justify anything because it may, in fact, lead to more happiness! If only we were omniscient and could know the net outcome of our actions!
Well, I heard another secular theory for morality without God. This time it was from a philosopher named Shelley Kagan on YouTube. He said, “The moral rules are those which we would give to each other if we were perfectly rational and wise.” And I thought to myself, “In other words, it’s what we would do if we were God!” You see, in both of these systems of morality, our own lack of knowledge and wisdom brings the whole system down. We cannot arrive at a system of ethics that we can actually live by. This philosopher went on to say that this hypothetical meeting where we all decide on the moral rules of life must take place behind a "veil of ignorance" where we don't know what our position in life will be. This is so that the rules remain fair; it is like saying "I've always gotta put myself in other people's shoes to see how the rules I'm going to live by affect them." Now, here we're trying to develop a system for determining what the moral rules are, and yet the system itself has this rule imposed upon it, which is essentially a moral rule. The system which is supposed to give us all moral rules already presupposes the existence of a moral rule; that of fairness. The Utilitarian theory does the same; it presupposes that there is a moral rule to respect and promote the happiness of others; you can't just increase your own happiness.
These theories don’t tell us where our moral values come from. Rather, they try to provide what “must be” the rationale for what we do already consider moral or immoral. They fail to do that, as we’ve seen, but that’s really what they’re attempting to do. There is a sense of morality we have built into us, and often when these theories justify things we know to be immoral we seek to modify the theory to deal with the violation; like introducing a rule about fairness into the Kagan’s theory, or about respect for all people’s happiness in the Utilitarian one.
When my friend’s system justified rape, I asked him, “But isn’t that immoral?” He said, “Yeah, but it’s too contrived a scenario. In reality we worry about the unhappiness of guilt which will stay with us forever...” Now guilt is an interesting thing. It’s the regret of having done something wrong. But if part of what determines right and wrong in the first place is whether I’ll feel guilt or not, then right and wrong have to be independent of the process which involves an evaluation of how much guilt I’ll feel. Christianity, on the other hand, tells us where our sense of right and wrong comes from. God created us with it. Christianity gives us a maxim as well; “love thy neighbour”. This can be problematic; I can justify sexual immorality because “I love her”, or I can justify many cruel acts because it’s “tough love”, where we have the same problem that the Utilitarian faced: “Happiness will be achieved after some initial experience of unhappiness.” But the Bible clarifies this maxim with example after example of what it means to “love thy neighbour”. The Utilitarian, if they gave such a volume of examples and clarifications, would have no basis for them. Christianity, on the other hand, says “This is what love is, whether you agree or not, because love is the very character of God, and the character of God is precisely what is being revealed to you in these Scriptures!”
I have yet to hear a theory of morality which doesn’t simply try to explain or rationalize the moral laws we all tend to assume by nature. You can’t have morality without God because love for another person only makes sense when there is a Creator of that person who created them for a purpose. People have value because God has wonderfully made them and cherishes everything He creates. Without God the only value a person would have to us is what we might gain through them for ourselves. This is true because without God, “I” stand in the place of God; there is none higher or more important in the universe than me.
Perhaps more interesting than the question “What is moral?” is the question “Why be moral?” I don’t believe an atheistic world view has an answer to this question. People say that we should be moral for the sake of the survival of the species, but if our species dies out through rampant immoral behaviour, so what? There is no God who’ll care about that, and no human who’ll care either since they’ll all be dead, and the dead don’t care about anything. But what about the Christian perspective? I suppose we could say “Be moral to please God.” But then we might ask “Why should I please God?” I think the answer to that question is “Because that’s the very purpose of your existence.” God made us to glorify Him. We should please God because we were made in His image. That is, we were made to imitate God. We were made to have a relationship with God, but if we have a relationship with God, how can we sin against Him? As tempting as sin is, and as upsetting as it might be to be called a “square” sometimes, I know that I am never happier than when I am being obedient to God. Why? Because I’m fulfilling my very purpose in life. To be moral is to be who you were created to be.
I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.
Psalms 119:93
There are a lot of problems with this theory. First of all, it really just seems to describe the psychology of a person’s decision making rather than tell us what’s actually right or wrong. The man might choose to maximize happiness by letting the girl get beat up since he feels that he can’t overpower the man. But that doesn’t tell us that his decision was the moral one. But even as a system of deciding what to do it has problems. How do we quantify happiness? What prevents me from thinking that the amount of happiness I’m going to get is far more significant than it really is, and the amount of unhappiness I’m going to generate is far less significant than it really is? There is a risk that we can justify immoral acts by claiming (and perhaps genuinely believing) that what we're doing will ultimately bring happiness to people despite some initial unhappiness. But as I discussed this system of ethics further, I realized it can actually justify anything at all. I asked my friend, “Let’s say that a man and a woman find themselves alone some place. The thought to rape this woman enters his mind. Now, this will make him happy and her unhappy. But what if the amount of happiness he gets precisely equals the amount of unhappiness she feels over being raped? Do the two cancel out?” Well, ignoring the complicating factor of unhappiness felt by her friends and relatives, my friend says “This is an ethically neutral situation; it’s neither right nor wrong.” … “So he’s OK to rape her?”, I asked him to confirm. … “It’s neither right nor wrong,” he said to me. “Alright,” I said, “what if this girl now gets pregnant, and this child, though conceived in violence, is the joy of her life! It brings her so much happiness daily! According to your theory, the rape was not just ethically neutral, it was in fact the right thing to do!” And to my surprise my friend nodded! “Yes,” he said, “...the resulting happiness from our actions may not be known until maybe years later.” And then he gave this example; “What if I had the opportunity to kill Hitler when he was just a little boy? That would actually have been a right thing to do, preventing the murder of even one single Jew, but we can only know that now.” So now we have just compounded the problem; we can literally justify anything because it may, in fact, lead to more happiness! If only we were omniscient and could know the net outcome of our actions!
Well, I heard another secular theory for morality without God. This time it was from a philosopher named Shelley Kagan on YouTube. He said, “The moral rules are those which we would give to each other if we were perfectly rational and wise.” And I thought to myself, “In other words, it’s what we would do if we were God!” You see, in both of these systems of morality, our own lack of knowledge and wisdom brings the whole system down. We cannot arrive at a system of ethics that we can actually live by. This philosopher went on to say that this hypothetical meeting where we all decide on the moral rules of life must take place behind a "veil of ignorance" where we don't know what our position in life will be. This is so that the rules remain fair; it is like saying "I've always gotta put myself in other people's shoes to see how the rules I'm going to live by affect them." Now, here we're trying to develop a system for determining what the moral rules are, and yet the system itself has this rule imposed upon it, which is essentially a moral rule. The system which is supposed to give us all moral rules already presupposes the existence of a moral rule; that of fairness. The Utilitarian theory does the same; it presupposes that there is a moral rule to respect and promote the happiness of others; you can't just increase your own happiness.
These theories don’t tell us where our moral values come from. Rather, they try to provide what “must be” the rationale for what we do already consider moral or immoral. They fail to do that, as we’ve seen, but that’s really what they’re attempting to do. There is a sense of morality we have built into us, and often when these theories justify things we know to be immoral we seek to modify the theory to deal with the violation; like introducing a rule about fairness into the Kagan’s theory, or about respect for all people’s happiness in the Utilitarian one.
When my friend’s system justified rape, I asked him, “But isn’t that immoral?” He said, “Yeah, but it’s too contrived a scenario. In reality we worry about the unhappiness of guilt which will stay with us forever...” Now guilt is an interesting thing. It’s the regret of having done something wrong. But if part of what determines right and wrong in the first place is whether I’ll feel guilt or not, then right and wrong have to be independent of the process which involves an evaluation of how much guilt I’ll feel. Christianity, on the other hand, tells us where our sense of right and wrong comes from. God created us with it. Christianity gives us a maxim as well; “love thy neighbour”. This can be problematic; I can justify sexual immorality because “I love her”, or I can justify many cruel acts because it’s “tough love”, where we have the same problem that the Utilitarian faced: “Happiness will be achieved after some initial experience of unhappiness.” But the Bible clarifies this maxim with example after example of what it means to “love thy neighbour”. The Utilitarian, if they gave such a volume of examples and clarifications, would have no basis for them. Christianity, on the other hand, says “This is what love is, whether you agree or not, because love is the very character of God, and the character of God is precisely what is being revealed to you in these Scriptures!”
I have yet to hear a theory of morality which doesn’t simply try to explain or rationalize the moral laws we all tend to assume by nature. You can’t have morality without God because love for another person only makes sense when there is a Creator of that person who created them for a purpose. People have value because God has wonderfully made them and cherishes everything He creates. Without God the only value a person would have to us is what we might gain through them for ourselves. This is true because without God, “I” stand in the place of God; there is none higher or more important in the universe than me.
Perhaps more interesting than the question “What is moral?” is the question “Why be moral?” I don’t believe an atheistic world view has an answer to this question. People say that we should be moral for the sake of the survival of the species, but if our species dies out through rampant immoral behaviour, so what? There is no God who’ll care about that, and no human who’ll care either since they’ll all be dead, and the dead don’t care about anything. But what about the Christian perspective? I suppose we could say “Be moral to please God.” But then we might ask “Why should I please God?” I think the answer to that question is “Because that’s the very purpose of your existence.” God made us to glorify Him. We should please God because we were made in His image. That is, we were made to imitate God. We were made to have a relationship with God, but if we have a relationship with God, how can we sin against Him? As tempting as sin is, and as upsetting as it might be to be called a “square” sometimes, I know that I am never happier than when I am being obedient to God. Why? Because I’m fulfilling my very purpose in life. To be moral is to be who you were created to be.
I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.
Psalms 119:93
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Answering the Letter to Dr Laura, Part 6
We have one last bullet point in the Letter to Dr. Laura.
My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
Well there are a few things alluded to here. But let’s start with Leviticus 19:19, which also mentions not breeding two kinds of cattle together as well. This is probably the most interesting of the laws cited in this Letter. Leviticus 19:19 doesn’t appear to be a moral law; there’s nothing immoral about planting two seeds in the same field, or using two kinds of fabric. Rather, this appears to be a sort of metaphorical lesson for Israel alone. It has to do with Jew versus Gentile. If Jews are sheep and Gentiles are goats... then there should be no “interbreeding”. And actually, this is true both in the metaphorical sense and the literal sense, as the Old Testament forbids intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. When an Israelite considers these laws they are to be reminded of the separation of Israel as God’s people from the rest of the nations. In New Testament terms, the same principle is applied to believers and unbelievers. Jesus tells the parable of a man who sowed “good seed” in his field, but his enemy sowed weeds amongst it all. The parable represents the mixing of believers and unbelievers, and acknowledges that this is a corrupt situation. It is certainly an allusion to this very law. The New Testament also tells us not to be “unequally yoked”. It inevitably leads to strife if a Christian should marry an unbeliever, or for a Christian to become business partners with an unbeliever. These relationships are far too intimate, and a clash of world view will always cause trouble. But having less intimate relationships with unbelievers is not forbidden. That’s the point Jesus makes in the parable cited above; that we aren’t to uproot all of the “weeds”, but bear with living amongst them where there is a tension between our competing world views. As Christ came to live amongst sinners because He loved them, so we live amongst them and love our neighbour sincerely. Though marrying foreigners was forbidden in the Old Testament, we have examples of Gentile wives such as Rahab or Ruth. In both examples these women had become devoted to Israel’s God. The prohibition really applies to the spiritual state of a person rather than the sort of physical category they fit into. So this was a law that applied to Israel, and applies to the Church in principle today.
Regarding the comments on blasphemy, the writer refers to an incident in Leviticus 24 where a man was stoned for blasphemy. This set a precedent that all blasphemy would be dealt with in the same way. I don't think that using God's name as a swear word is really what the Bible has in mind here. This would have been an expression of hatred for God, or more likely a denial of God's authority and power. In the context of Israel, a people whom God chose to represent God on Earth before the other nations, this was a serious offense which needed to be "stamped out" immediately. There is nothing worse than hypocrisy amongst the people of God, whether it was back then or today, where unbelievers look at one who is supposedly a Christian and yet doesn't seem to think much of God at all. Whether this is by verbal denigration or by living a life contrary to the teaching of Scripture, it is a serious thing to bare false witness of Christ; which is essentially what happens when someone is looking to you and thinks you're a follower of Christ but you don't speak or act like it. In fact, so many of the criticisms that unbelievers have towards Christianity are criticisms I myself have towards people who call themselves Christians but probably aren't really, or aren't acting like it. Such people give unbelievers this wrong idea of Christianity which makes it all the more difficult for unbelievers to come to Christ. Here, this fellow who blasphemed in Leviticus was probably not a true believer in God. But being associated with Israel he would have been seen as one of God's people, and would therefore be perceived as some kind of apostate. The writer might be implying that this is a ridiculously harsh penalty for someone who happens not to believe in the God of the nation. After all, everybody tends to support religious freedom in our society. But this also pre-supposes that the God of Israel is fictitious anyway, because if there really was a Yahweh who chose Israel as His people and appeared before them in the wilderness, then this isn't just about a man who has a different philosophy to others - this is a blatant act of defiance; amongst God's representatives, no less. It's not analogous to a Christian intolerance of unbelievers in society, it's more analogous to Christian intolerance of unbelief and heresy from within the Church. Now, we don't put heretics to death. Though this has occurred in the history of the Church, I don't think we should be doing that. After all, when the New Testament gives instruction on Church discipline it doesn't mention the death penalty. Exclusion is as bad as it gets.
Finally, to wrap this up, there is a comment on the death penalty for sexual immorality. The specific case here is sleeping with one's in-laws. Of course this letter is primarily about the law against homosexuality, which happens to be the verse just prior to the one cited about incest. The passage as a whole forbids various kinds of sexual acts with various other family members, and also sex with animals. In other words, here is a list of things you can't have sex with. I find it interesting that we would all agree with most of the prohibitions. Nobody defends incest or bestiality. But same sex relationships are put at the same level as these things. On what basis do people say that it is wrong to have sex with your sister but it's okay to have sex with another man? The very argument of this letter is that Christians sort of “pick and choose” which laws to obey, but isn’t this what the writer is doing by arbitrarily choosing that homosexuality is right, while they would surely affirm that incest is wrong? If we make an exception for homosexuality, what grounds do we have for maintaining that incest is still wrong? Or bestiality? We can't even appeal to some idea that homosexuality is hereditary, because frankly any man is “hereditarily predisposed” to becoming aroused by their sister or their mother's female body, were they to dwell on such thoughts. God has designed a man and a woman's body to correspond to one another sexually. But not only did He design our bodies, He also designed our social structure. He designed the family, and He also put us above animals. These relationships are according to God's design for mankind, and so sexual relations across these relationship boundaries is forbidden as they corrupt God's design for society in ways I probably can't even imagine myself. But take, for instance, the relationship between a mother and daughter. A mother is supposed to be someone the daughter looks up to and reveres. How messed up would that become if they were both sleeping with the same man? God has set up His laws because He loves us. His concern is for what these sins will do to us when we break those laws! Like a child who is told not to talk to strangers, it can be hard to understand how God has our best interests in mind when He forbids us to do what we want to do. But we can trust that He does, and so live in obedience to His law.
The letter finally finishes with this sort of tongue-in-cheek remark...
Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
We've seen a lot of laws which, according to Christian theology, are no longer binding upon the people of God, (that being the Church). To reiterate what I've said throughout this series of posts; the Mosaic Law consists of Moral laws, Ceremonial laws, and Judicial laws. Of these the Ceremonial, such as animal sacrifice, are no longer practiced because Christ has fulfilled the purpose of these laws. He is our perfect sacrifice, for example. There is no priesthood because Christ is our priest, which also does away with all of the duties performed by Old Testament priests. The Judicial laws were specific to the people of God as a nation, and this was to teach us the metaphor of the "Kingdom of God". But now the Spiritual Kingdom has come and the illustrations of the Judicial law, like the illustrations of the Ceremonial law, are done away with. God's word is eternal and unchanging, but if the word of God makes promises and predictions about a future state of affairs, as these laws do, then when these predictions are fulfilled we don't expect to live as though they haven't. The Moral law remains, however. These are those laws which plainly remind us of what is right and what is wrong for all time. People will forever argue about whether right and wrong can change, but when you believe in a God whose unchanging character determines what is right and wrong, then you will be one of those who believe in an unchanging Moral Law. This letter may reinforce the convictions of unbelievers who already believe in a moral relativity, but it ought not change the minds of Christians who believe in a God who says what He means and means what He says.
<- Part 5
My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
Well there are a few things alluded to here. But let’s start with Leviticus 19:19, which also mentions not breeding two kinds of cattle together as well. This is probably the most interesting of the laws cited in this Letter. Leviticus 19:19 doesn’t appear to be a moral law; there’s nothing immoral about planting two seeds in the same field, or using two kinds of fabric. Rather, this appears to be a sort of metaphorical lesson for Israel alone. It has to do with Jew versus Gentile. If Jews are sheep and Gentiles are goats... then there should be no “interbreeding”. And actually, this is true both in the metaphorical sense and the literal sense, as the Old Testament forbids intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. When an Israelite considers these laws they are to be reminded of the separation of Israel as God’s people from the rest of the nations. In New Testament terms, the same principle is applied to believers and unbelievers. Jesus tells the parable of a man who sowed “good seed” in his field, but his enemy sowed weeds amongst it all. The parable represents the mixing of believers and unbelievers, and acknowledges that this is a corrupt situation. It is certainly an allusion to this very law. The New Testament also tells us not to be “unequally yoked”. It inevitably leads to strife if a Christian should marry an unbeliever, or for a Christian to become business partners with an unbeliever. These relationships are far too intimate, and a clash of world view will always cause trouble. But having less intimate relationships with unbelievers is not forbidden. That’s the point Jesus makes in the parable cited above; that we aren’t to uproot all of the “weeds”, but bear with living amongst them where there is a tension between our competing world views. As Christ came to live amongst sinners because He loved them, so we live amongst them and love our neighbour sincerely. Though marrying foreigners was forbidden in the Old Testament, we have examples of Gentile wives such as Rahab or Ruth. In both examples these women had become devoted to Israel’s God. The prohibition really applies to the spiritual state of a person rather than the sort of physical category they fit into. So this was a law that applied to Israel, and applies to the Church in principle today.
Regarding the comments on blasphemy, the writer refers to an incident in Leviticus 24 where a man was stoned for blasphemy. This set a precedent that all blasphemy would be dealt with in the same way. I don't think that using God's name as a swear word is really what the Bible has in mind here. This would have been an expression of hatred for God, or more likely a denial of God's authority and power. In the context of Israel, a people whom God chose to represent God on Earth before the other nations, this was a serious offense which needed to be "stamped out" immediately. There is nothing worse than hypocrisy amongst the people of God, whether it was back then or today, where unbelievers look at one who is supposedly a Christian and yet doesn't seem to think much of God at all. Whether this is by verbal denigration or by living a life contrary to the teaching of Scripture, it is a serious thing to bare false witness of Christ; which is essentially what happens when someone is looking to you and thinks you're a follower of Christ but you don't speak or act like it. In fact, so many of the criticisms that unbelievers have towards Christianity are criticisms I myself have towards people who call themselves Christians but probably aren't really, or aren't acting like it. Such people give unbelievers this wrong idea of Christianity which makes it all the more difficult for unbelievers to come to Christ. Here, this fellow who blasphemed in Leviticus was probably not a true believer in God. But being associated with Israel he would have been seen as one of God's people, and would therefore be perceived as some kind of apostate. The writer might be implying that this is a ridiculously harsh penalty for someone who happens not to believe in the God of the nation. After all, everybody tends to support religious freedom in our society. But this also pre-supposes that the God of Israel is fictitious anyway, because if there really was a Yahweh who chose Israel as His people and appeared before them in the wilderness, then this isn't just about a man who has a different philosophy to others - this is a blatant act of defiance; amongst God's representatives, no less. It's not analogous to a Christian intolerance of unbelievers in society, it's more analogous to Christian intolerance of unbelief and heresy from within the Church. Now, we don't put heretics to death. Though this has occurred in the history of the Church, I don't think we should be doing that. After all, when the New Testament gives instruction on Church discipline it doesn't mention the death penalty. Exclusion is as bad as it gets.
Finally, to wrap this up, there is a comment on the death penalty for sexual immorality. The specific case here is sleeping with one's in-laws. Of course this letter is primarily about the law against homosexuality, which happens to be the verse just prior to the one cited about incest. The passage as a whole forbids various kinds of sexual acts with various other family members, and also sex with animals. In other words, here is a list of things you can't have sex with. I find it interesting that we would all agree with most of the prohibitions. Nobody defends incest or bestiality. But same sex relationships are put at the same level as these things. On what basis do people say that it is wrong to have sex with your sister but it's okay to have sex with another man? The very argument of this letter is that Christians sort of “pick and choose” which laws to obey, but isn’t this what the writer is doing by arbitrarily choosing that homosexuality is right, while they would surely affirm that incest is wrong? If we make an exception for homosexuality, what grounds do we have for maintaining that incest is still wrong? Or bestiality? We can't even appeal to some idea that homosexuality is hereditary, because frankly any man is “hereditarily predisposed” to becoming aroused by their sister or their mother's female body, were they to dwell on such thoughts. God has designed a man and a woman's body to correspond to one another sexually. But not only did He design our bodies, He also designed our social structure. He designed the family, and He also put us above animals. These relationships are according to God's design for mankind, and so sexual relations across these relationship boundaries is forbidden as they corrupt God's design for society in ways I probably can't even imagine myself. But take, for instance, the relationship between a mother and daughter. A mother is supposed to be someone the daughter looks up to and reveres. How messed up would that become if they were both sleeping with the same man? God has set up His laws because He loves us. His concern is for what these sins will do to us when we break those laws! Like a child who is told not to talk to strangers, it can be hard to understand how God has our best interests in mind when He forbids us to do what we want to do. But we can trust that He does, and so live in obedience to His law.
The letter finally finishes with this sort of tongue-in-cheek remark...
Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
We've seen a lot of laws which, according to Christian theology, are no longer binding upon the people of God, (that being the Church). To reiterate what I've said throughout this series of posts; the Mosaic Law consists of Moral laws, Ceremonial laws, and Judicial laws. Of these the Ceremonial, such as animal sacrifice, are no longer practiced because Christ has fulfilled the purpose of these laws. He is our perfect sacrifice, for example. There is no priesthood because Christ is our priest, which also does away with all of the duties performed by Old Testament priests. The Judicial laws were specific to the people of God as a nation, and this was to teach us the metaphor of the "Kingdom of God". But now the Spiritual Kingdom has come and the illustrations of the Judicial law, like the illustrations of the Ceremonial law, are done away with. God's word is eternal and unchanging, but if the word of God makes promises and predictions about a future state of affairs, as these laws do, then when these predictions are fulfilled we don't expect to live as though they haven't. The Moral law remains, however. These are those laws which plainly remind us of what is right and what is wrong for all time. People will forever argue about whether right and wrong can change, but when you believe in a God whose unchanging character determines what is right and wrong, then you will be one of those who believe in an unchanging Moral Law. This letter may reinforce the convictions of unbelievers who already believe in a moral relativity, but it ought not change the minds of Christians who believe in a God who says what He means and means what He says.
<- Part 5
Monday, June 13, 2011
Answering the Letter to Dr Laura, Part 5
Carrying on from yesterday, we have the next point.
Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?
On this occasion we have a law which is in that class of Moral Laws, though taken out of context it doesn't appear so. Let's look at the verse in context...
"You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD." (Leviticus 19:26-28)
This is not a list of unrelated prohibitions. These are all related. They all refer to pagan worship practices. This is not saying that it is immoral to have a hair cut, or even to have a tattoo. But cutting one's hair in a certain pattern, or having certain images tattooed on ones' self were things done in the worship of pagan idols; as was cutting ones' self for the dead, and interpreting omens or telling fortunes. To mock the Bible as saying you cannot have a hair cut would be like hearing a Christian preacher today tell you "Don't mess with Tarrot cards," and then mock Christianity saying "They forbid playing card games!"; as though Christianity forbids a game of Bridge. No, the prohibition on fortune telling and all kinds of occult practices still stands for Christians today, but a hair cut to look tidy and fashionable has never been a problem. As for whether Christians can or can't get a tattoo, this law certainly wouldn't forbid them unless it were in an occult context. A Christian with a tattoo in honour of some non-Christian religion or philosophy just doesn't make sense.
Looking at the next point, we have reference (again) to the Ceremonial laws regarding ceremonial "cleanliness".
I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
There is a lot of confusion about the reason God gave laws regarding “ceremonial cleanliness” (or “purity laws”). Many have offered their own rationale which usually seems to make sense for one set of purity laws, but not for others. I have my own rationale also, but I don’t think there is just one reason for them all. Rather, there are various purity laws given, each with their own purpose in mind. But here we’re talking about the laws regarding food. It was not permitted for an Israelite to eat pork, and not even to “touch their carcasses”. One of the reasons for these dietary laws seems to be to separate the Israelites from the other nations, so that one was greatly hindered in attempts to share a meal with foreigners. Sharing a meal is something the Bible considers to be significant in the relationship between people. After reminding the people to distinguish between clean and unclean animals, God says “You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.” (Leviticus 20:26). In Acts 10, God clearly abolishes the distinction between clean and unclean animals in the vision of Peter, and Peter clearly understands this to mean the abolition of a distinction between Jew and Gentile. While the people of God in the Old Testament were a nation separate from other nations, (Israel, and anyone who would come to God through Israel); the people of God in the New Testament include both Jew and Gentile alike who come to God through Christ. This is sufficient for our purposes here to see why touching the skin of a dead pig is no longer applicable today. But touching the skin of a dead pig was never a moral transgression, and there remains no moral laws cited in this Letter which are abrogated by the New Testament.
Part 4 <- -> Part 6
Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?
On this occasion we have a law which is in that class of Moral Laws, though taken out of context it doesn't appear so. Let's look at the verse in context...
"You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD." (Leviticus 19:26-28)
This is not a list of unrelated prohibitions. These are all related. They all refer to pagan worship practices. This is not saying that it is immoral to have a hair cut, or even to have a tattoo. But cutting one's hair in a certain pattern, or having certain images tattooed on ones' self were things done in the worship of pagan idols; as was cutting ones' self for the dead, and interpreting omens or telling fortunes. To mock the Bible as saying you cannot have a hair cut would be like hearing a Christian preacher today tell you "Don't mess with Tarrot cards," and then mock Christianity saying "They forbid playing card games!"; as though Christianity forbids a game of Bridge. No, the prohibition on fortune telling and all kinds of occult practices still stands for Christians today, but a hair cut to look tidy and fashionable has never been a problem. As for whether Christians can or can't get a tattoo, this law certainly wouldn't forbid them unless it were in an occult context. A Christian with a tattoo in honour of some non-Christian religion or philosophy just doesn't make sense.
Looking at the next point, we have reference (again) to the Ceremonial laws regarding ceremonial "cleanliness".
I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
There is a lot of confusion about the reason God gave laws regarding “ceremonial cleanliness” (or “purity laws”). Many have offered their own rationale which usually seems to make sense for one set of purity laws, but not for others. I have my own rationale also, but I don’t think there is just one reason for them all. Rather, there are various purity laws given, each with their own purpose in mind. But here we’re talking about the laws regarding food. It was not permitted for an Israelite to eat pork, and not even to “touch their carcasses”. One of the reasons for these dietary laws seems to be to separate the Israelites from the other nations, so that one was greatly hindered in attempts to share a meal with foreigners. Sharing a meal is something the Bible considers to be significant in the relationship between people. After reminding the people to distinguish between clean and unclean animals, God says “You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.” (Leviticus 20:26). In Acts 10, God clearly abolishes the distinction between clean and unclean animals in the vision of Peter, and Peter clearly understands this to mean the abolition of a distinction between Jew and Gentile. While the people of God in the Old Testament were a nation separate from other nations, (Israel, and anyone who would come to God through Israel); the people of God in the New Testament include both Jew and Gentile alike who come to God through Christ. This is sufficient for our purposes here to see why touching the skin of a dead pig is no longer applicable today. But touching the skin of a dead pig was never a moral transgression, and there remains no moral laws cited in this Letter which are abrogated by the New Testament.
Part 4 <- -> Part 6
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