Happy New Year 2020

I just finished reading Wilfred McClay's book on U.S. history, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Society. It is an excellent book, optimistic about America, but still revealing its faults and challenges. Probably the most balanced text on American history I have ever read. I strongly recommend it.

In his epilogue, McClay wrote briefly on the nature of patriotism. He warns of its excesses, but he also notes its importance. He writes:

There is a strong tendency in modern American society to treat patriotism as a dangerous sentiment, a passion to be guarded against. But this is a serious misconception. To begin with, we should acknowledge that there is something natural about patriotism, as an expression of love for what is one's own, gratitude for what one has been given, and reverence for the sources of one's being. These responses are instinctive; they're grounded in our natures and the basic facts of our birth. Yet their power is no less for that, and they are denied only at great cost. When the philosopher Aristotle declared that we are by nature "political animals," he meant that we are in some sense made to live in community with one another. It is in our nature to be belonging creatures. One of the deepest needs of the human soul is a sense of membership, of joy in what we have and hold in common with others.

I found this to be a thoughtful reflection, perhaps something to consider as we move into the new year.

Happy New Year.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

When Charlie Brown asks someone one to tell him what Christmas is all about, Linus replies:

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

This is what Christmas is about, Charlie Brown.


Merry Christmas to all from Godbeforemidnight!! See you in the new year!!

Christianity is a Rescue Religion

As Christmas draws near, it's important to reflect on what the holiday is all about. Christopher Ash in his book, Repeat the Sounding Joy, tells us that Christmas is about rescue; that is, Jesus was on a rescue mission!

Christmas is not about sweetness or feeling good in the middle of winter. It is about rescue. Christianity is a rescue religion. Jesus came to save lost people, desperately needy people. The angel gave him that name before he was conceived so there could be no doubt about that. In his great book The City of God, the fifth-century bishop Augustine catalogues at some length the miseries of living as sinners in a world under sin (he also goes to great length to speak of God's kindness!). Then he writes that there is no escape from this life "other than through the grace of Christ, our Saviour, God and Lord. The very name Jesus shows this, for it means Saviour; and what he saves us from most of all is a life after this one which is more miserable still: an eternal life which is more like death than life."

Death can be an eternal life with our without God. Christmas provides the assurance that we can live forever with the Lord. That is good news.

I Am Gospelling You!

Here is another excerpt from Christopher Ash's book on the first two chapters of Luke, Repeat the Sounding Joy. He offers an interesting view on what "gospel" means; specifically, the use of the word in Luke 2:10: "But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.'"

Here it is:

Here's the message: "I bring you good news" (v 10) - literally, "I am gospelling you." In the ancient world a "gospel" was the announcement of a new government. When a new king took over a country, messengers went through the land proclaiming the "gospel" of this new ruler. So who's the ruler? He arrives in "the town of David" (Bethlehem); he's going to be a "Saviour"; he is "the Messiah" (or "Christ"), "the Lord" (v.11). So he's a king - the King in David's line, the great Ruler promised all down the Old Testament years. And, precisely because he will be a powerful Ruler, he will be the Saviour of all God's people."

That's a great insight, isn't it? I new "gospel" meant "good news" but didn't know about its connection to the proclamation of a new ruler!

Our Promises Broken, His Promises Kept

This is another excerpt from a Christmas devotional we are reading, Repeat the Sounding Joy, by Christopher Ash. Here Ash talks about the promises of God revealed at Christmas:

Christmas is God keeping a promise. Christmas had to happen, because God had promised that it would....

Plenty of tears will be shed this Christmas for broken promises: marriage vows cast away, business commitments reneged on, pledges of care for elderly parents or young children lying torn up on the floor like discarded wrapping paper. Maybe your life is littered with the debris of a broken promise, and it hurts so much. Perhaps you feel the dreadful guilt of a promise you yourself have broken, knowing that others are hurting. But - most wonderfully - God is utterly faithful and keeps his promises without fail. Christmas - properly understood - brings comfort to the casualties of broken promises.

....

When God redeemed the people from slavery under the Pharaohs, he was remembering his promise to Abraham. When he brought them into the promised land, he was keeping the vow he had made to Abraham. When he gave them David the king, he was acting on his solemn oath. And yet all these little mercies and rescues pointed forward to one great final keeping of the covenant. On that day the "seed" of Abraham - one wonderful man, God incarnate - came to earth and took upon himself a fully human nature in order to live for, love and die for sinners, and be raised from the dead. The astonishing, unique man, whose birth we remember at Christmas, is the seed of Abraham. In him all the promises of God say their resounding "Yes!" (2 Corinthians 1:20) Jesus Christ is God keeping his covenant to Abraham.

And so, amid the misery of broken promises and shattered dreams, when we despair of our own unfaithfulness to our promises, take heart that at Christmas God has kept his covenant promise to Abraham.

Leaping for Joy

For advent season, my wife and I are reading a book by Christopher Ash, Repeat the Sounding Joy. It's a daily devotional that walks the reader through the Christmas story in Luke 1-2. Ash offers great insights into the text; it's definitely worth the $12!

In particular, Ash's perspective on Luke 1:39-45 is very interesting. This passage recounts Mary visiting her cousin, Elizabeth, and as Mary greets her, Elizabeth's baby "leaped in her womb." Elizabeth's baby, of course, would become John the Baptist. Ash finds deep meaning in this reaction. Here is what he says:

John the Baptist will be the last prophet, the final spokesman, of the old-covenant era. In his preaching he will be the summing-up witness for the Old Testament. And everything about his preaching will point to one man, and one man alone. We know this from what the Gospels teach us of his public ministry. But here, even before he is born, his whole tiny being leaps for joy in the presence of the only-just conceived Jesus. In this lovely moment, we learn that the whole of the Old Testament, as it were, jumps for joy in the presence of the One to whom it has pointed, for whom it has longed for all these centuries of waiting. All the longings of the Old Testament feed that joyful jump of John the Baptist!

May our hearts never be slow to leap for joy at the wonder and truth of Jesus. Pray that you would know the thrill and delight of this King more and more this Christmas, and beyond.

Living with Regrets

The following is an excerpt from a blog post by Ed Welch found here. It is a post about regrets, how we should deal with them in the Christian life. What is that balance between acknowledging sin and feeling bad for our failures and living in the grace and mercy of Christ?

Here are some of his thoughts:

It feels so right – so spiritual – to live with regrets. It means you feel bad for the wrong things you have done or think you have done, and that sounds like a good thing. If you forget those wrongs, you are acting like they were no big deal.

How many “if only’s” do you have in your life?

....

Maybe you believe your regrets will be your protective talisman to help make sure you don’t repeat past sins. That makes sense and sounds spiritual, but it’s a false gospel. It is the sweet mercies of God that compel us to fight sin. One way to identify the nefarious nature of regrets is that they do not give mercy the prominent seat at the table. These regrets might be so stubborn that they will only leave through repentance. While you have been repenting of your perceived contribution to past regrets, the real reason to repent is much closer to the present: you are saying, “Lord I don’t believe that you cover my past, though you probably cover the pasts of other people, and I certainly don’t believe that confidence in your goodness and hope for tomorrow is even permissible.” Call it unbelief. If you want to get nasty, call it pride, in which you believe yourself rather than the Lord. Either way, repent.

I have my own regrets—you have yours. God’s mercies are stockpiled even higher.

Regrets of the past can keep us locked in sin in the present if we do not accept God's mercy. Especially as we enter this holiday season, we should remember that Christ came to free us from the sins of the past, present, and future. Sola gratia.

Addressing Our Word Problems

Word problems are heart problems. Christ said, "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Our problem with words is not primarily a matter of vocabulary, skill, or timing. Have you ever said, "Oops, I didn't mean to say that!" Often it would be more accurate to say, "I'm sorry I said what I meant!" If the thought, attitude, desire, emotion, or purpose hadn't been in your heart, it wouldn't have come out of your mouth. Christ isn't saying that people never put their feet in their mouth and say something stupid. We all have. But he is asking us to own the connection between our thoughts, desires, and words. The real problem with your communication is what you want to say and why you want to say it, which ultimately has nothing to do with your language skills. Christ reveals that the what and the why are shaped by the heart. Therefore, if we hope to transform the way we talk with one another, the heart must change first.

[by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp from Heart of the Matter]

The Flipside of Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving approaching, we should try to position our hearts towards gratitude. But there are forces that keep us from being grateful, one of them is a sense of entitlement.

The following is a quote from Julie Lowe from her blogpost:

Discontentment is easily triggered in us because we have an underlying sense of entitlement. We believe that we are inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. I deserve that new electronic device, or that vacation, or peace and quiet when I come home after working all day. Entitlement justifies whatever self-focused response pours out of my mouth or actions. Entitled desires quickly become demands that excuse putting myself first and the needs of others last (if at all). These things, no matter how much I desire them, are not innate human rights but wants that have risen to a level of necessity in our hearts and minds. In contrast, Scripture tells us that our goal is not to look for what we deserve but to be poured out as an offering to others (Philippians 2:17). We are to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).

In order to be grateful, we have to rid ourselves of the sense that we deserve a bunch of stuff. Humility puts us in a position to be thankful for what God has given us.

What Has God Called Me to Do?

Each day we should remind ourselves of the utter simplicity of God's comfort and call. First, God comforts us with his presence and power and calls us to trust him. We are to entrust to God the things we cannot control. Second, God calls us to obey, and promises to bless us as we do. In good and bad circumstances, we must ask, "What has God called me to do and what has he provided in Christ to enable me to do it?"

I can admit my faults with no need to minimize, hide, or give way to paralyzing guilt. I can confess that I need to grow without beating myself up. I can cry out when life is hard but accept responsibility for the way I deal with it. I don't have to cover my sin, polish my reputation, and keep a record of my successes. I can look at my tomorrows with enthusiasm and hope. Yes, I am still a flawed person in a broken world. But my view of myself is not dark and depressed because the gospel has infused it with hope. Christ is with me and in me, and I will never be in a situation where he isn't redemptively active. Though change is needed in many ways, I am not discouraged. I am in the middle of a work of personal transformation. This process is often painful, but always beneficial.

[by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp from Heart of the Matter]

What Else Do We Really Need?

Jesus was being accosted by the Tempter - Satan himself - when he cited [Psalm 63](in Matthew 4:4). Fittingly, Jesus hadn't eaten for forty days. No doubt, food was his primary need. But in the midst of near starvation, he said that there was something more important than food: to be strengthened by the Spirit of God as he rested on the very words of the Father. Spiritual food can seem unsatisfying at first, but have you ever had someone say to you, "I love you?" Wouldn't you gladly pass on a buffet in order to hear such words? In Jesus' case this spiritual food was more important than physical life itself. Now we begin to understand how God remains faithful to his promises even when his people go hungry. The physical food points to something better.

The apostle Paul often went hungry but he saw absolutely no contradiction between that and God's generous care for this truest needs. Paul knew that, no matter how well fed, the physical body was inevitably going to die. But a fed spirit is satisfied for this life and the life to come. To make it more personal, if Paul had God, what else did he really need?

[by Edward T. Welch in Heart of the Matter]

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

What's Wrong with SpongeBob Squarepants?

After a 25 year hiatus, I now have a subscription to National Review again. The magazine formed my conservatism back in the 80's and early 90's - I owe the writers a great debt.

While "God Before Midnight" is not a political blog, sometimes political stories can be encouraging and even funny. I found this story to be both: encouraging because this is the kind of nonsense that believers don't have to get tangle up in, and funny because, well, it's fun when other people do. The "you're a racist" trend is hopefully running its course. Articles like this show the desperation of it and how ridiculous it can be. Where racism exists, it needs to be addressed. Trying to find it under every rock, river, and...sea, undermines its seriousness.

This is from the November 11, 2019 issue.

**********************

The latest entry in the ever-lengthening list of Things You Never Knew Were Racist is none other than SpongeBob Squarepants. His animated antics with Patrick Star, Pearl Krabs, Squidward Tentacles, and the other Sponge worthies may seem innocent but in fact, says University of Washington anthropology professor Holly M. Barker, suppress "public discourse about the whitewashing of violent American military activities" by "normalizing the settler colonial takings of Indigenous lands" and "maintaining American military hegemonies in Oceania." How so? The series is set in Bikini Bottom, a seafloor community assumed to be underneath Bikini Atoll, the site of a 1946 U.S. nuclear test for which the indigenous population was permanently removed from the atoll. That action was arrogant, to be sure, but blaming "the cartoon's appropriation of [the islanders'] homelands" for the indigenous population's current troubles is problematic because (a) the show's characters don't live on Bikini Atoll, but miles beneath it, (b) they are a wide variety of diverse colors, so it makes no sense to call them racist, (c) they're sea creatures, and (d) did we mention that it's a cartoon?

Get Over Yourself!

Navel-gazing refers to the excessive focus and concentration on the self. Call it "the belly button generation." Like infants who have just discovered their belly buttons, we are captivated by ourselves. It might be OK for infants to not be much aware of the world beyond their own selves, but as we grow up we need to see that there's a world around us, or we will lead rather shallow lives. At some point, we must outgrow our fascination with ourselves. This is yet another reason to study church history. We need to know that we are not the center of the universe. More importantly, we need to be reminded of what matters most. In this regard, we can receive guidance from one of the towering figures in church history: Augustine of Hippo.

....From the very first word of The Confessions, Augustine wants his readers to know what's important. The first word in the Latin is magnus. It is usually translated "great," and one recent translation refers to it as "vast." Augustine uses the word to refer to God. The first word and the truth it represents control Augustine's great book. There is something and someone far greater than us. The Greatest, in fact. After Augustine calls God the Greatest, he refers to himself as a mere segment, a dot. Now that's perspective. Rather than starting with our own belly button, we start with eyes upward, enthralled and awed by the transcendent greatness, magnitude, and vastness of God....While we are in this world, with its mixed-up perspective that sees people as big and God as small, we can magnify the greatness of God in our hearts and minds.

[excerpt from 5 Minutes in Church History by Stephen J. Nichols]

Is Confronting Unloving?

No biblical writer wrote more about love than the Apostle John, who is known for this reason as the "Apostle of love." However, this is what the apostle of love said about church leaders who had left the path of truth:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the anti-Christ, he who denies the Father and the Son. (v.22)

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil. (3:10)

Could we accuse John of lack of love for the firmness with which he resists theological error? Biblical love disciplines, corrects, reprehends, and tells the truth. And when it sees error that is followed by repentance and contrition, it forgives, forgets, and supports.

Therefore, the love that is practiced by those who get offended by the defense of the faith, the exposing of error, and the confrontation of untruths is not biblical love. Lack of love would be letting people continue to be tricked without at least trying to show them their errors.

[excerpt from "Is Confronting Unloving" by Augustus Lopes in TableTalk, November 2019]

Hebrews 5:8-9

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

Looking Up

Are you faced with “more than enough” hardship today? Do the challenges you face seem insurmountable? Does the journey seem too much? Where do you look for help? If you’re like me, you don’t always look up. In fact, too often we look out, we look in, or we look down. What do I mean?

Sometimes we “look out” expecting that our help comes from other people. There is a certain rightness to this. Others do bear our burdens (Gal 6:2). Others are called to encourage our faintheartedness and help our weakness (1 Thess 5:14). Others comfort us with the comfort of Christ (2 Cor 1:3–4). But they are not our Messiah. In their own human frailty, they often fall short of what we truly need.

If others are untrustworthy helpers and unable to bear the full weight of our suffering, where else do we look? Sometimes we “look in.” We look inward for the fortitude and perseverance to face our hardships. We ratchet up our planning and our doing. That strategy may work for a season but inevitably our small boat of personal resources swamps in the wind and waves of life in a fallen world. As I feverishly bail water, I realize I’m in a losing battle. The broken relationship is irreparable. The cancer is terminal. Reputation is forever tarnished. The chronic pain is truly chronic. The business will indeed fail. Then what? I find that at these points, too often I “look down.” I become discouraged and overwhelmed. Life shrinks to the rocky ground before me and in that earth-bound gaze I try to plod on.

When we experience the insufficiency of looking in, out, or down, this is precisely the point at which our loving and faithful Father King calls me—and you—to look up. To call out for mercy in our time of need. To fix our gaze on mercy personified—Jesus Christ—who sits enthroned in heaven. He faced “more than enough” suffering in the humiliation of his freely chosen incarnation, earthly life, and death (Phil 2:6-8). He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief (Isa 53:3). And in the midst of his horrific suffering, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death (Heb 5:7). In his resurrection victory over sin, suffering, and death he now invites you, weary traveler, to draw near to the throne of grace, that you may receive mercy and find grace in your time of need (Heb 4:16).

Look up to the merciful One who stands ready to help.

[by Mike Emlet on the CCEF blog]

St. Ignatius of Antioch

I bought a book recently entitled, 5 Minutes in Church History, by Stephen J. Nichols. It contains short stories about people who have made a difference for God's people. In chapter 2, the author focuses on St. Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John.

Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch who had to deal with many false teachers. In particular, he had to confront the false teachings related to Gnosticism which claimed that Christ did not come in the flesh, he really wasn't born, he really didn't live, he really didn't die on the cross, and he really didn't rise again.

Ultimately, Ignatius wants the false teachers to see the truth of the gospel. He declares:

Only you must pray for them, if by any means they may be brought to repentance. For if the Lord were in the body in appearance only, and were crucified in appearance only, then am I also bound in appearance only. And why have I also surrendered myself to death, to fire, to the sword, to the wild beasts? But I endure all things for Christ, not in appearance only, but in reality. That I may suffer together with Him, while He Himself inwardly, strengthens me: for of myself I have no such ability.

St. Ignatius went on to suffer a martyr's death. It was important to him that his suffering was real and meaningful, like that of Christ himself. This message mattered to him.

Under the Roman emperor Trajan, Ignatius gave his life to the faith because he failed to deny Christ but instead confessed Him. He became one of the first martyrs of church history.

God's Promises in Suffering

If you are looking for answers, Job is one of many places you can turn. Another is to God's promises. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (1 Corinthians 10:13). This is one of the better known promises, and it is one where God appears to have reneged, because suffering often feels like more than you can bear. Therefore, it is important to consider for two reasons. First, it is a great promise. Second, if you are starting to believe that it isn't always true, then you may start asking where else God's promises might have exceptions. Such doubts erode faith.


This passage is saying that you too will go through the desert, and when you do, the Spirit will strengthen you in such a way that you can avoid grumbling and idolatry. God's promise is that he will never put us in a situation where we have no choice but to sin. He either will relieve the intensity of the temptation or he will give use grace to trust and obey in the hardship.


[by Edward T. Welch from Heart of the Matter}

Navel-gazing, Descartes, and Evangelism

After a philosophical discussion in church today with Lee Dise, I turned back in my old books to the writings of Rene Descartes. When I was taking a philosophy class, we read some of his works, including Meditations on First Philosophy in which he makes his "I think, therefore, I am" or "cogito, ergo sum" argument; an argument in search of certainty, not so much for himself, but for those who do not believe in God. In the Meditations, he finds certainty, first, in his own existence, and then from there in the things of this world and God himself. From the passage below, you will see that this is not navel-gazing: Descartes was certain of God's existence, but he wanted to develop an argument through philosophy, so that "infidels" could be certain, too.



When we think of philosophers, we often picture the atheists of today who strain language and logic to deny the existence of the Christian God. As I looked back at my notes, I observed - once again - that Descartes was not of this ilk. The passages from the opening of Meditations reflect a man of deep faith, trying to figure out how to share that faith with a fallen world.

I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological argument. For although it is quite enough for us faithful ones to accept by means of faith the fact that the human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade infidels of any religion, indeed, we may almost say, of any moral virtue, unless, to begin with, we prove these two facts by means of the natural reason. And inasmuch as often in this life greater rewards are offered for vice than for virtue, few people would prefer the right to the useful, were they restrained neither by the fear of God nor the expectation of another life; and although it is absolutely true that we must believe that there is a God, because we are so taught in the Holy Scriptures, and, on the other hand, that we must believe the Holy Scriptures because they come from God (the reason of this is, that, faith being a gift of God, He who gives the grace to cause us to believe other things can likewise give it to cause us to believe that He exists), we nevertheless could not place this argument before infidels, who might accuse us of reasoning in a circle. And, in truth, I have noticed that you, along with all the theologians, did not only affirm that the existence of God may be proved by the natural reason, but also that it may be inferred from the Holy Scriptures, that knowledge about Him is much clearer than that which we have of many created things, and, as a matter of fact, is so easy to acquire, that those who have it not are culpable in their ignorance. This indeed appears from the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter xiii., where it is said “How be it they are not to be excused; for if their understanding was so great that they could discern the world and the creatures, why did they not rather find out the Lord thereof?” and in Romans, chapter i., it is said that they are “without excuse”; and again in the same place, by these words “that which may be known of God is manifest in them,” it seems as through we were shown that all that which can be known of God may be made manifest by means which are not derived from anywhere but from ourselves, and from the simple consideration of the nature of our minds. Hence I thought it not beside my purpose to inquire how this is so, and how God may be more easily and certainly known than the things of the world.

To God be the glory.

The Perils of Self-Rule

As I mentioned, I'm reading a book by Wilfred M. McClay on a history of the United States. Very good book, so far. At the end of a chapter on the start of the Revolutionary War, McClay explores the sentiments behind the conflict; that is, what stirred the colonists to action. McClay centers the motivation squarely on a desire for self-rule. He writes:

Perhaps nothing better illustrates that centrality than an interview given in 1843 by Captain Levi Preston, a soldier who fought the British at Concord in 1775 and was interviewed at the age of ninety-one by a young Mellen Chamberlain.

"Captain Preston, why did you go to the Concord Fight, the 19th of April, 1775?"
The old man, bowed beneath the weight of years, raised himself upright, and turning to me said: "Why did I go?"
"Yes," I replied; "my histories tell me that you men of the Revolution took up arms against 'intolerable oppressions.'"
"What were they? Oppressions? I didn't feel them."
"What, were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act?"
"I never saw one of those stamps, and always understood that Governor Bernard put them all in Castle William. I am certain I never paid a penny for one of them."
"Well, what then about the tea-tax?"
"Tea-tax! I never drank a drop of the stuff; the boys threw it all overboard."
"Then I suppose you had been reading Harrington or Sidney and Locke about the eternal principles of liberty."
"Never heard of 'em. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watt's Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanack."
"Well, then, what was the matter? and what did you mean in going to the fight?"
"Young man, what we meant for those red-coats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should."

And that, concluded Chamberlain, was the ultimate philosophy of the American Revolution.

This desire for self-rule, I think, is fundamental to human nature. The will to take dominion, as God commanded, is tied into this desire to rule. This desire for self-rule fueled the American Civil War, the cause for Northern Ireland, the protests in Hong Kong and other conflicts and movements all around the world - some more noble than others.

But, as with all human endeavors, there is always a dark side. Man took the command to take dominion given by God to the extreme: autonomy. Humans are commanded to rule over the earth, but not over themselves separate from God's sovereignty. The Garden was man's first attempt at self-rule and it was disastrous. Republicanism and democracy can be noble and effective ways to govern, but when humans kid themselves by thinking that they can rule without God, there can be no end to the negative consequences.

The lie of godless self-autonomy is not only poisonous for governments, but individuals as well. We were not made to be independent. We were made to be completely reliant on a loving God who only wants the best for his people. We deny that truth at our own peril.

Priorities

I was talking to someone who was struggling with getting too wrapped up in work and neglecting other areas of his life. He doesn't have any kids yet. This is the advice I gave him:

Love God.
Love your wife.
Love the brotherhood.
Make a living.

Life in the Middle

The problem with relationships is that they all take place right in the middle of the story of redemption - God's plan to turn everything in our lives into instruments of Christlike change and growth. Our relationships are lived between the already and the not yet.

Already Jesus has come to save us, but his saving work is not yet complete. Already the power of sin has been broken, but the presence of sin has not yet been eradicated. Already we have change in many ways, but we are not yet all we will be in Christ. Already we have learned many lessons of faith, but we don't yet trust God fully. Already God has established his kingdom in our hearts, but that kingdom has not yet fully come.

Our life with others is always life in the middle. We are always building the community in the tension between God's already-and-not-yet grace. And we have no more control over the not-yet than we have had over the already. The timetable is in the hands of the sovereign Lord of grace. Our job is to learn how to live in the middle. We live as broken people who are repaired, among neighbors in the same condition - always thankful for what has already been done, but ever aware of our need for what we have not yet been given.

[Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp from Heart of the Matter]

What is History?

I just picked up a history book by Wilfred M. McClay entitled, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. I'm really looking forward to reading it. In the introduction, he offers this thoughtful perspective on history:

History is the study of change through time, and, theoretically, it could be about almost anything that happens. But is must be selective if it is to be intelligible. Indeed, in practice, what we call "history" leaves out many of the most important aspects of life. It generally does not deal with the vast stretches of time during which life goes on normally, during which people fall in love, have families, raise their children, bury their dead, and carry on with the small acts of heroism, sacrifice, and devotion that mark so much of everyday life - the "unhistoric acts," as George Elliot wrote in the closing of Middlemarch, of those "who lived faithfully in hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." There are a few moments, like the American holiday of Thanksgiving, or great public commemorations, at which the low murmur of those ordinary things becomes audible and finds a measure of public acknowledgment. But by and large, "history" is interested in the eruptions of the extraordinary into the flow of the regular. It must leave out so much. (emphasis added)

If I find interesting things to share, I'll post more as I go along.

The Gospel in 2 Minutes

Brothers

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Why the Resurrection Matters

Once in awhile, it's good to go back to basics, back to the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Once in a while, I'll include something like this on the blog. Here is a key "basic": The reason for the resurrection. This comes from an essay by Brian G. Hedges.

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The resurrection of Jesus (alongside his crucifixion) is the central historical event in the Christian faith. Without the resurrection there would be no Christianity. “If Christ has not been raised,” wrote St. Paul, “then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

I am a Christian because I believe in the resurrection. I am convinced that after dying a violent death on a Roman cross on a Friday afternoon in 30 A.D., Jesus of Nazareth came back to life and emerged from the tomb on Sunday morning.

This is not easy to believe. But if it is true, it is the most pivotal event in human history. Much has been written in defense of Jesus’ resurrection, the most thorough and convincing book being N. T. Wright’s massive 800-page volume, The Resurrection of the Son of God.[1] If you haven’t done so, I hope you’ll weigh the evidence for yourself.

What is unquestionable is that the first generation of Jesus’ followers did believe he had risen, and were convinced that everything had changed as a result.

Consider just three of the ways the New Testament highlights the significance of the resurrection.

1. Jesus’ resurrection means that his sacrificial death on the cross was sufficient, and therefore our sins can be forgiven.
 
Paul emphasizes this in 1 Corinthians 15, reminding us that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (vv. 3-4). Then, in verse 17, he argues that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

In other words, Paul saw a direct connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the sufficiency of his death to atone for our sins. When Jesus rose again on the third day, it was the public announcement that God was fully satisfied with the sacrificial death of his Son.  In his resurrection, Jesus was vindicated (1 Timothy 3:16).  But in his vindication, we are vindicated too. That’s why Paul says in Romans 4 that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).[2]

2. Jesus’ resurrection means that death is defeated once and for all.

As Peter proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, “God raised [Jesus] from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Acts 2:24). Death lost its grip on Jesus!
But the resurrection means that Jesus not only defeated death for himself, but that he defeated it for us. He died and rose as a new representative for humanity, as the Second Adam. “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,” writes Paul, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). His resurrection guarantees ours.

Perhaps no one has said this more eloquently than C. S. Lewis. In his 1947 book Miracles, Lewis wrote:

“The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits,’ the ‘pioneer of life.’ He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has been opened.”[3]

This is both personal and powerfully hope giving to me. I have terrible eyesight, because of a degenerative eye disorder called karetoconus. I have a child with Type 1 diabetes, who takes at least four insulin shots a day. And my mom, at only 64 years old has advanced Alzheimer’s and hasn’t recognized me for several years. But the resurrection of Jesus means that someday I will have 20/20 vision, and my son will never need another shot again, and that Mom will know me once more.

3. Jesus’ resurrection means that the material world matters.
 
Lest there be any misunderstanding, when the apostles said that Jesus rose again, they meant that his physical body came back to life. The risen Jesus wasn’t a phantom or ghost, but a breakfast-eating, flesh-and-bone, human being (see Luke 24:36-43 and John 21:10-14).

As the Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist John Updike once said,

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.[4]

 Though we wait for the full consummation of new creation, the Scriptures also teach that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is already working within us (Ephesians 1:19-20). The resurrection, you see, not only assures of God’s forgiveness and comforts us in suffering as we anticipate the final reversal of death, disease, and decay; it also motivates and empowers us to push back the tide of suffering and evil in the present world, through word and deed, in mercy and in justice, all in Jesus’ name.

[Essay by Brian G. Hedges from Christianity.com]

Galatians 5:19-25

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do[e] such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Spring Cleaning

Ephesians 3:16 - 17a: "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith..."

D.A. Carson offers some commentary to really help us understand Paul's message:

When Christ by His Spirit takes up residence within us, he finds the moral equivalent of mounds of trash, black and silver wallpaper, and a leaking roof. He sets about turning this residence into a place appropriate for him, a home in which he is comfortable. There will be a lot of cleaning to do, quite a few repairs, and some much-needed expansion. But his aim is clear: he wants to take up residence in our hearts, as we exercise faith in him...

Make no mistake: when Christ first moves into our lives, he finds us in very bad repair. It takes a great deal of power to change us; and that is why Paul prays for power. He asks that God may so strengthen us by his power in our inner being that Christ may genuinely take up his residence with us, transforming us into a house that pervasively reflect his own character.

Tomorrow Never Knows

I was looking for something to blog about this morning and spotted a book I had read years ago - The Beatles, the Bible, and Bodega Bay. The book is as quirky as the title. It's written by the former US manager of the Beatle's Apple Records, Ken Mansfield. Mansfield was - and even after the Beatles - a giant in the recording industry, associated with artists, such as the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, James Taylor, Waylon Jennings, Glenn Campbell, and scores of others. In addition to his business relationship with the Beatles, he also became their friend: he was there when they performed their last live concert on the roof of Apple Records corporate headquarters in 1969.

In the 1980's, after many personal and spiritual struggles, he became a believer. In the late 1990's he was diagnosed with an incurable type of bone cancer; he wrote this book as a memoir of that time and his time with the Beatles. He was supposed to be dead by now, but he's alive and well at 81 years old. CBN interviewed him here.

Anyway, I picked up the book this morning looking for inspiration. I was thinking I would find something in the "Bible" part of the book, but instead I found a short story about John Lennon. It struck me because it reminded me that we never know when someone will be taken from us. We shouldn't take life for granted. We should value the precious time we have with one another. Mansfield recalls:

In 1976, I unexpectedly ran into John at Ringo's house in Beverly Hills. I had just finished producing Waylon Jennings' new album Are You Ready for the Country? for RCA Records, Nashville. Ringo, who was a big fan of Waylon's, had called and asked for an early listen. When I walked into the living room at Ringo's house, I was surprised to see John slouched moodily on the couch. Knowing what I know now, he must have really liked me that day because he had never been meaner. He was in L.A. for his last recording session for almost four years, playing piano on his composition "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Ringo's Atlantic album Rotogravure. No doubt he had dropped in to relax and be alone with his old friend and bandmate. I had unwittingly been cast as an intruder by Ringo's invitation that day. Anyway, I needed a lyric change approval from at least three of the Beatles on a female version of "Hey Jude" - which we retitled "Hey Dude" - that I had cut with Jessie Colter ("I'm not Lisa") for Capital Records.

I had bribed Ringo for his signature with a private, exclusive playback of Waylon's album.

I bribed Paul by sending him a pair of sunglasses from Rodeo Drive that he had seen in a fashion magazine.

I took advantage of John's mood and bribed him by leaving Ringo's house.

I never say him again.

Enjoy the people in your life.

When Life is Not Happy

God doesn't prescribe a happy life. Depression is a form of suffering that can't be reduced to one universal cause. This means that family and friends can't rush in armed with THE answer. Instead, they must be willing to postpone swearing allegiance to a particular theory, and take time to know the depressed person and work together with him or her. What we do know is that depression is painful, and, if you have never experienced it, hard to understand. Like most forms of suffering, it feels private and isolating.

It is common for spiritually mature men and women who feel depressed to think that they are doing something wrong. After all, Scripture is filled with words of joy and happy hearts. When they aren't feeling happy, they feel that they must be missing something or that God is punishing them until they learn some hidden lesson. On earth, however, God doesn't prescribe a happy life. He doesn't legislate emotions. Look as some of the Psalms. They are written by people of great faith, yet they run the emotional gamut. This one even ends with "darkness is my closest friend" (Psalm 88:18). When your emotions feel muted and always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is, "Where do you turn - or, to whom do you turn?"

- by Edward Welch, from Heart of the Matter

Making Peace and Creating Evil

Years ago I picked up a used book (not sure where)by Joseph Brennan entitled Foundations of Moral Obligation. As you may have guessed from my long series on science and atheism, the problem of moral obligation is of great interest to me. I once wrote a 40-page paper on the topic.

I started re-reading the book last week, and just began the chapter, "Job and the Problem of Evil." Heavy stuff. From here, my mind bounced to one of the more challenging passages in the Bible, Isaiah 45:7: "Forming light, and creating darkness; Making peace, and creating evil; I Jehovah do all these things" (translation by John Calvin). Others translate evil as "calamity" (NASB), "disaster" (NIV), and the King James reflects Calvin's translation. Does God create disaster, calamity...evil? Where does evil come from? This has been one of the great philosophical and theological challenges of all time. I won't be able to address that fully here, but I wanted to share Calvin's view of the passage. I think he gets it right.

By the words "light" and "darkness" he [Isaiah] describes metaphorically not only peace and war, but adverse and prosperous events of any kind; and he extends the word peace according to the custom of Hebrew writers, to all success and prosperity. This is made abundantly clear by the contrast; for he contrasts "peace" not only with war, but with adverse events of every sort. Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin; but it is very obvious how ridiculously they abuse this passage of the Prophet. This is sufficiently explained by the contrast, the parts of which must agree with each other; for he contrasts "peace" with "evil," that is, with afflictions, wars, and other adverse occurrences. If he contrasted "righteousness" with "evil," there would be some plausibility in their reasonings, but this is a manifest contrast of things that are opposite to each other. Consequently, we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the "evil" of punishment, but not of the "evil" of guilt.

But the Sophists are wrong in their exposition; for while they acknowledge that famine, barrenness, war, pestilence, and other scourges, come from God, they deny that God is the author of calamities, when they befall us through the agency of men. This is false and altogether contrary to the present doctrine; for the Lord raises up wicked men to chastise us by their hand, as is evident from various passages of Scripture (1 Kings 11:14, 23). The Lord does not indeed inspire them with malice, but he uses it for the purpose of chastising us, and exercises the office of a judge, in the same manner as he made use of the malice of Pharaoh and others, in order to punish his people (Exodus 1:11, 2:23). We ought therefore to hold this doctrine, that God alone is the author of all events; that is, that adverse and prosperous events are sent by him, even though he makes use of the agency of men, that none may attribute it to fortune, or to any other cause.

This topic has particular relevance on this day: September 11.

As I read through the chapter on Job and the problem of evil, I may share some additional thoughts.

America's Original Sin

The following is an excerpt from an article by Janie Cheaney in World Magazine. The title of the article is, "The Only Way Forward: The Solution is Spiritual if the Goal is Peace and Fellowship." Resentment, revenge, envy, and craving justice is a dead end.

Racism, rooted in the African slave trade, is said to be "America's original sin." An original sin is the primary fault from which every other fault stems. For that, we should look to the misapplication of American freedom, which translated into expanded opportunities to exploit as well as to succeed. Exploitation is not essentially racist. It is egoistic and acquisitive, and no one is exempt. America's original sin is actually the Original Sin. Racism is an effect, not a cause.

What to do? Proposed solutions are mostly about money. But the problem is spiritual not material, and so is the solution: forgiveness.

Is forgiveness fair? No, but Someone who was owed a much greater debt showed us that forgiveness is the only way out of the bondage of sin, "For freedom Christ has set us free." To forgive centuries of wrong, traces of which persist to this day, means to lay it down and walk away. The history still stings, but the farther you walk the less you feel it, especially when walking toward the light.

What do we want - fellowship, or alienation? Peace or warfare? Our Father desired peace and fellowship with us enough to pay dearly for it. Guilt must be borne, and the one to bear it was His own Son. He considered the gain worth the price. God willing, may my brothers and sisters, so long out of Africa, make that reckoning. I can never compensate them, but Christ can.

Keeping Pride in Check

Pride is exalting yourself to a position you don't deserve. It's thinking to highly of yourself. It's making yourself more valuable, more competent, more intelligent, more sassy, more fun, more whatever. You stand on a pedestal looking down your nose at everyone else.

If you know God, there is no room for pride. A relationship with our sovereign and good God, and a trust in His Son, puts our pride in check (James 4:5-6). Rather than seeing ourselves as big and seeing everyone else (including God) as small, we have our perception rearranged so that everything takes on its proper size. God becomes big in our lives, and we become minuscule. Our pride withers as we stand before the awesome majesty of a holy and merciful God. We are no longer the center of our universe - Christ is, and we bow down to Him. (Deepak Reju - Tabletalk)

The Divine Destiny of Common Clay

Now the beautiful relationships given to us repeatedly in Scripture between God and man are those of a father to his children and a shepherd to his sheep. These concepts were first conceived in the mind of God our Father. They were made possible and practical through the work of Christ. They are confirmed and made real in me through the agency of the gracious Holy Spirit.

So when the simple - though sublime - statement is made by a man or woman that "The Lord is my Shepherd," it immediately implies a profound yet practical working relationship between a human being and his Maker.

It links a lump of common clay to divine destiny - it means a mere mortal becomes the cherished object of divine diligence. (From A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller)

You Are There in Their Hearts

But they fled that they might not see You seeing them, and blinded might stumble against You; since You forsake nothing that You have made — that the unjust might stumble against You, and justly be hurt, withdrawing themselves from Your gentleness, and stumbling against Your uprightness, and falling upon their own roughness. Forsooth, they know not that You are everywhere whom no place encompasses, and that You alone are near even to those that remove far from You. Let them, then, be converted and seek You; because not as they have forsaken their Creator have You forsaken Your creature. Let them be converted and seek You; and behold, You are there in their hearts, in the hearts of those who confess to You, and cast themselves upon You, and weep on Your bosom after their obdurate ways, even Thou gently wiping away their tears. And they weep the more, and rejoice in weeping, since Thou, O Lord, not man, flesh and blood, but Thou, Lord, who made, remakest and comfortest them. - Confessions, Book V, Chapter 2

Forgiveness is a Heart Transaction

Because the people around you are (like you) still sinners, they will fail, they will sin against you, and they will disappoint you. That is when you can extend to them the same grace you have received. Our anger, irritation, impatience, condemnation, bitterness, and vengeance will never produce good things in their lives (or ours). But God can produce good things in them when we are willing to incarnate his grace. We become part of what he is doing in their lives, instead of standing in the way. So, what does it mean practically to let the cross shape your relationships?

It means being ready, willing and able to forgive. The decision to forgive is first a heart transaction between you and God. It is a willingness to give up your desire to hold onto (and in some way punish the person for) his offense against you. Instead, you entrust the person and the offense to God, believing that he is righteous and just. You make a decision to respond to this person with an attitude of grace and forgiveness. This vertical transaction (between you and God) prepares you for the horizontal transaction of forgiveness between you and the offending person, when you are given that opportunity. - Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Trip

What Does It All Mean?

Mitch Stokes in his book, How to be an Atheist, wraps up things by pressing the consequences of naturalism even further; that is, if naturalism is true, it not only means that moral nihilism is true (there are no objective, human independent standards of right and wrong), but nihilism is true. Nihilism would imply that there's nothing objectively valuable about our lives, nothing independent of us. Our lives have no objective worth or meaning. As Richard Dawkins himself says, "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." So, nothing matters. But is that so bad? Philosopher Thomas Nagel asks, "Does it matter that it doesn't matter?" His thought is why not adopt the following attitude:
"It's enough that it matters whether I get to the station before my train leaves, or whether I've remembered to feed the cat. I don't need more than that to keep going....[but, he cautions it] only works if you really can avoid setting your sights higher, and asking what the point of the whole thing is."
And so, I guess, we all make our own meaning...or not. Life doesn't have to have meaning if you don't want it to. Stokes sums up this approach to meaning:

If meaning is really grounded in a valuer, then we'll never find meaning outside of persons. There is, then, no meaning from the universe's point of view; universes aren't the kinds of things that can have points of views. Or values. So, in one sense the bar is set very low; if you find something meaningful, then it is meaningful. If you value something, then it is valuable. To you. Your values are not my values, just as your feelings are not my feelings, nor are your beliefs my beliefs, strictly speaking. Of course, you and I can value the same kinds of things. That is, we might both find meaning in the same cause, for example. We might both value communism or education or world peace or gardening.

So when we think about meaning and God, how is finding meaning in God any different than finding meaning in gardening, painting, cocaine, pornography, or communism? Is God just one choice among many? On one hand God is very different from these other things: he is holy and set apart, not part of the world; according to Christianity, the world and everything in it are his; he is the ultimate authority regardless of what we think. Moreover, God has designed us to only function properly when we love the things he loves and hate the things he hates. We flourish when our preferences align with his. And because this is God's show, the things he finds meaningful are as objective as things get, in that they're human independent (but not person independent). They are in a very real sense, eternal values.

On the other hand, we can in a sense choose God from among other things. This is clear as we often don't value what God values. If we were to argue that his values are objective, universal values, they certainly do not dictate our every action...believer or non-believer. So, it's not a forgone conclusion that we'll value what God values, or find meaning where he does. We can apparently choose to align with or against God. Stokes concludes:

But the point is this. The cosmos is profoundly personal. It's a place where the highest value turns out to be place of relationships. God calls us to a relationship of mutual love. In fact, God himself is a relationship among divine persons....It is only in the proper relation to these persons that we find value and meaning that are ultimately satisfying.

For me, moral obligation to God leads us to be what humans were meant to be; obedience and commitment to God make us fully human. Moral nihilism raises humans to be no higher than being a collection of atoms banging together who only aspire to getting to the train on time and calling it a day. In this sense, in order to be fully human, the ground of moral obligation cannot be human, but something or rather someone who knows what we ought to become. Trapped in our human bubble, we cannot see outside of ourselves to determine that standard or agree to what it should be. So, we muddle along until we are shown what we can and should be.

As the old hymn puts it - and as Stokes ends his book - "This is my Father's world."

The Price of Autonomy

Stokes begins the penultimate chapter of his book with this summary:

I began my discussion of morality with Dostoyevsky's nagging question, if God is dead, is everything permissible? You've no doubt gleaned that my short answer is yes: without God there are no universally binding moral rules. Sure, there are all manner of "moral" rules that we impose on ourselves and others. But none of these are actually binding in the way we imagine moral laws to be. If naturalism is true, there's no morality apart from what humans value, want, or prefer. Morality is purely a matter of taste, In short, naturalism implies moral nihilism, the view that there are no human-independent moral rules.

But despite this logical connection, most atheists are not nihilists. Why wouldn't they follow the logical path set out by Stokes and agree with his conclusion? Stokes concludes that the reason is basically that nihilism is too disturbing. He writes, "Ted Bundy? Jeffrey Dahmer? The Asmat people of New Guinea? Their behavior isn't wrong? Could it be true that there's nothing wrong with skinning someone alive? Is it plausible that my revulsion toward this kind of horror differs only in degree from my revulsion toward cold, slimy asparagus? It's going to be hard to get naturalists to sign up for this; nihilism is not an easy position to rally around." To the Asmat people of New Guinea, the nihilist can only say, "I wouldn't do that, but I guess you can."

As philosopher Albert Camus said, "It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end."

Then one has to consider that if the conclusions of nihilism are wrong, then perhaps nihilism is wrong, and then perhaps naturalism itself is wrong. If naturalism cannot authoritatively state that Ted Bundy's actions are wrong, then sober skepticism should call into doubt the validity of naturalism and have us consider the validity of the alternative: the existence of God.

To me, and Stokes mentions this, the battle of worldviews comes down to the question of autonomy. If nihilism is true, one could argue that we are not bound to any morality. What we endorse in the deepest recesses of our hearts, is up to us: "Autonomy, you'll recall is really the most important thing that humans can value, according to Enlightenment thinkers. They wanted the freedom to think, say, and act as they wished, without any interference from "the Man," whether it be the church, traditional philosophy, the state, or whoever."

Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre laments that autonomy: "man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

Perhaps, with nihilism, the Enlightenment got more than it bargained for.

We'll wrap this series up on the next post.

Morality Grounded in God or Someone or Something Else?

In this next chapter, Stokes explores how God can be used as a ground for morality. In this post, I don't have the space to discuss Euthyphro's objection from Plato's dialogue or the divine command theory - both discussed expensively in this chapter. The former is based on a question posed by Socrates in response to Euthyphro's assertion that pious acts are those that are loved by the gods. Socrates counters after realizing that this definition is ambiguous: are the acts pious because the gods love them, or do the gods love these acts because these acts or pious? The dilemma is that either moral value depends on God and is therefore arbitrary (i.e., it depends simply on what he likes and dislikes); or else the source of moral value is independent of God entirely. Euthyphro's dilemma challenges the divine command theory which states that morality is based on God's preferences and not on the intrinsic nature of an impersonal cosmos. So, morality is based on God's preferences which are founded on his nature. Since it's based on God' preferences, is God's morality arbitrary? Sort of...one could argue. But God always acts consistently within his character, therefore, morality may be arbitrary (his preferences) but it's not capricious (consistent in his character). Like I mentioned, I can't cover all of this in detail. A Google search will provide plenty of information on the topic. But what Stokes wants to get across is that, in his opinion and among some atheists, there is agreement that morality isn't objective in the sense of being person independent; it's person dependent: God or someone else. And for the former, God's nature determines what is good and good is defined as "what God values."

The next critical question Stokes addresses is, "Why should we obey God?" Why are his preferences more authoritative than human preferences? What is it about God that makes him (relevantly) different from humans? Should we obey him because if we didn't he would punish us? Is it because he created us and so has authority over us? These reasons don't sit well with atheists and a number of Christians. Does might make right? In strictly human relationships, do we owe allegiance to another person simply because that being is stronger or responsible for our existence? Should a child obey an abusive parent just because the parent brought him into the world? The child may obey in order to avoid more physical pain, but is he morally obligated - is it the right thing to do - to obey that parent? I think most of us would respond no to that question. Stokes notes that most theists aren't motivated primarily because God is stronger, nor even because he created them. They obey God because they want to.

Of course, God is God and his authority and power are awesome and, as the ruler of the universe, he can be its lawgiver and can tell us what is permissible and what is not. But this is one reason why atheists find God so distasteful: they see him as an overbearing authoritarian dictator. But theists see God differently. As in a human family, children obey often enough not out of fear of punishment, but because they love their parents, feel loved by them, and are grateful for the care and comfort their parents provide. There's a sense of loyalty and belonging. In a real sense, believers obey God because they want to; and they want to because they value certain things. And God can influence that alignment of values through "regeneration" and "sanctification"; through those processes, God's values become our values. Humans become better humans when they align with God's values and image.

There is certainly more to discuss about how morality can be grounded in God. But a strong argument can be made that God's morality is not capricious; while it reflects his values and preferences, his standards can be known, and they do not change. Subjective, yes, but there are standards: torturing a kitten is always wrong; rape is always wrong; adultery is always wrong. Without God, morality becomes subject to changing human values, preferences, and needs. Why is one human's preferences or one group's preferences more authoritative than another's? We are all equally human. We can't say that rape is always wrong and adultery is always wrong. As a matter of fact, the latter used to be wrong according to social and political human morality, but not anymore. It probably doesn't feel wrong to the adulterers, but it probably seems wrong to the offended spouse. Which preference or value rules the day? Society still holds that rape is wrong, but why? Because the offender will get arrested by the government? If there was no law against rape (like in Nanking during the Japanese invasion of China) would it still be wrong? If so, why is one human preference more authoritative than another? If morality is not independent of humans, then how do we know which of our values and preferences are right? Who is the valuer we ought to obey? Who or what becomes the moral umpire?

These are difficult questions that I'm trying to sort through and make sense of. I know what I believe, but one of the purposes for me reading this book is to try to understand those on the other side. That is, how do they reconcile the problems that I see when I apply sober skepticism to the belief that God does not exist?

Stokes explores some of these questions in the next chapter.

Morality is Personal

In the last few chapters of the book, Stokes argues for the personal and subjective nature of morality. The subjective part is interesting and counter to the beliefs of most Christians: most of us argue that that there are objective moral standards, usually making a reference to Romans 1:20-21. While I'm sure Stokes would assert that God's moral values are True in an objective sense, he argues from a position of subjectivity first; in the opening sentence of chapter 16 he writes, "[Sam] Harris and I agree on at least one thing: we both believe that all value - including moral value - requires a valuing subject." He continues:

...if all value depends on a conscious valuer [a person], on a valuing subject, and if naturalism is true, then all value is entirely dependent upon human preference, and therefore, fails to be authoritative in the way morality requires.

Something is valuable because a conscious mind places value upon it. Gold is valuable because humans place a value on it. However, if I'm stuck on a desert island with no food or water, but find a pirate's gold treasure, the value of that gold diminishes in light of my current needs, wants, preferences, and values. In my home where I have food and water, the gold becomes valuable again. Values fluctuate depending on the valuer and circumstances. In a closed system with only human valuers, there are no objective values...they will change with needs and preferences. In this closed system, who is determine which needs, preferences, or values are authoritative? In this system, moral obligation - moral duty, the "ought" - disappears. Social and political obligations do not have the authority of moral obligation; that is, things one must do or not do regardless of human preferences, needs, desires, or values.

If morality is subjective, then there must be subjects; therefore, obligations are relational. The moral concepts of right, wrong, and obligation require a mind, someone to do the permitting, the forbidding, or the requiring, and, similarly, someone to do the obeying: "Right, wrong, and obligation are concepts related to the actions that people perform in relation to some standard set by another person or persons." I think this is an important point. Harris' concepts of well-being - of suffering and happiness - are not complete. If a tree falls on me in the woods and breaks my leg - and my well- being suffers - is the tree "wrong"? Should the tree be punished for the suffering it inflicted upon me? No. So, although my well-being was diminished, no moral violation occurred. It seems we need more than mere "well-being" for morality, and one of the additional things we need is a community of person.

While standards of morality are based on what we value, this doesn't mean that there isn't anything objective about morality: there can be an objective fact of the matter about whether something meets a moral standard, even if the standard itself if subjective. For example, if a knife ought to be sharp, then we can determine if a knife meets that standard of sharpness. Once we deem reneging on a promise to be wrong, it's an objective fact that your reneging is wrong. Regardless, the point is the same: according to Stokes, moral standards are a matter of preference, of what persons value.

Stokes also brings up the concept of function, in particular, in relation to what makes a good person. A good doctor is someone who can help a person gain health; a good accountant is someone who can keep track of money. But what makes a good person? A good person performs the function of a person. A good person is what a person ought to be. Of course, this assumes a person has a function, that they're for something, that they have an end or telos. If naturalism is true, what is a human for? Well, says who? It would appear that humans don't have an objective (human-independent) function. A telos or end or goal seems to require a mind that can have that goal in mind. Can humans agree on what the end of being human is? Under naturalism, the purposes or goals will vary from one person to the other. Good is ultimately defined by us. What makes a person good is whatever we say makes a person good.

In the next chapter, Stokes asks if humans cannot ultimately ground morality, can God?.

Is/Ought Distinction

Remembering the last post, Sam Harris is trying to move from descriptive physical facts ("is")about the well-being of sentient creatures to value judgments ("ought") about such facts: "That is, what Harris would really like is for science to be able to determine value." Let's say that science can give use objective facts about the well-being of conscious creatures; for example, science can show us that a person's well-being is increased when he receives a massage; brain synapses fire, endorphins are released, etc. Physiologically, well-being is improved. OK, but from this point, Harris needs to be able to infer or otherwise move from these purely physical facts about brain states to statements about what we ought to do. Massages increase well-being. Does that mean I have to get one? Going back to the last post, this sounds like prudential value, not moral value. In other words, there is an implied "if"; if I want to feel better, I should get regular massages. But is it evil or wrong if I don't? Stokes points out: "Even if science can tell us which things will result in an increase of well-being, it can't tell us we ought to value well-being - even our own, much less someone else's. Peter Singer writes:"...information about the consequences of our actions does not tell us which consequences to value, but only which action will or will not bring about the consequences we do value...."

Science cannot dictate or determine what to value. Stokes argues, "What we value morally is up to us, not science." (I'm interested in how he'll unpack this statement.] If science states, "You must value your well-being and the well-being of others above all things!" A reasonable response could be, "Why? And why should I listen to you?"

Ok, if science isn't the source of moral obligation, what or who is?

Morality and Well-Being

Sam Harris, famous atheist and neuroscientist, wrote a book on how morality can stand on its own without being propped up by God. In his book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Harris grounds morality in the "well-being" of conscious creatures [including some animals] and "depends entirely on events in the world and on states of the human brain" into which science can speak. Harris defines good as anything that "supports well-being" and bad as that which causes harm: "It seems uncontroversial to say that a change that leaves everyone worse off, by an rational standard, can be reasonably called 'bad,' if this word is to have any meaning at all." Later he writes, "A rational approach to ethics becomes possible once we realize that questions of right and wrong are really questions about the happiness and suffering of sentient creatures." This view is similar to 19th utilitarianism which held that morality is what promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people."

This is a worthwhile theory to consider, but there are some issues with it; for example, can we always know the greatest good? How do individuals experience the "greatest good" or collective happiness? If morality is determined by a state of the brain ("well-being"), how can we experience a brain state other than our own? As Stokes writes: "The maximum pleasure ever experienced by anyone is still that of a sole individual's brain state. A collective or additive happiness or well-being is something that no one experiences. It doesn't exist." And when this state of well-being is expanded beyond the human species to certain animals, determining the collective well-being becomes even more difficult. According to ethicist Peter Singer, our moral actions, in some cases, have to consider the well-being of animals: "[In considering pain] the principle of equal consideration of interests demand that we give equal weight to the interests of the human and the mouse." If a true, moral system is to tell us what we ought to do in any given situation, the task become more difficult when we have to consider not only the greater good of the humans involved, but animals, too. And since animals cannot communicate as clearly as humans, in many cases, humans would have to guess about the well-being of the animals and impart our values on them; thereby, risking protests of speciesism.

The other potential problem to consider is, how subjective are Harris' morals? Harris' morality seems to focus on "prudential goods"; that is, those that are good for the subject or the person. Prudential values appear to be conditional rather than absolute. There's always an "if"; for example, if you don't want painful cavities, you should go to the dentist. The lack of cavities is certainly a state of well-being, but not going to the dentist and avoiding the anxiety and discomfort of drilling is also a state of well-being. It's hard to declare from a state of well-being perspective that a person "ought" to go to the dentist. Harris' morality seems to be prudential...conditional. Non-prudential, moral values don't seem to be conditional in this way; for example, you ought to love your neighbor no matter what, regardless of what you or anyone else thinks; regardless of your goals, desires, or needs.

I guess the question is, can Harris' state of well-being morality tell us what we must do - what we ought to do? Does it have the authority and clarity?

A Mistake We Were Born to Make

Mitch Stokes begins Chapter 13 of his book, How to be an Atheist, with a quote from ethicist Peter Singer and evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser on the evidence for the evolution of morality:

[studies] provide empirical support for the idea that like other psychological faculties of the mind, including language and mathematics, we are endowed with a moral faculty that guides our intuitive judgments of right and wrong, interacting in interesting ways with the local culture. These intuitions reflect the outcome of millions of years in which our ancestors have lived as social animals, and are part of our common inheritance, as much as our opposable thumbs are.

Stokes summarizes the position: "The general picture is this: our moral beliefs have been fashioned over time to help us survive. 'Ethical' behavior tends to keep us alive long enough to produce the next generation."

But the question remains: Can evolution really explain our moral sense?

To atheists holding this position, everything people (or anything) does is for survival, even altruism. We are nice to other people - sometimes self-sacrificing our well-being for another - because that act will create a society or environment that is more likely to propagate the species. For example, by being altruistic to kin, we establish a close knit group - family - that serves as a positive environment to raise and protect children. So, even altruism is selfish.

Atheists argue that our sense of right and wrong has evolved to increase chances for the survival of the species. Therefore, morals do not come from outside of nature...not from God. Moral obligations are useful, and don't have to come from some authority; in other words, moral realism (objectivity) is not necessary. We may think that morals are independent of our minds - some objective standard we are tapping into from God - but that's not the case. Morals are just "common sense." As Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene writes:

...we are naturally inclined toward a mistaken belief in moral realism. The psychological tendencies that encourage this false belief serve an important biological purpose, and that explains why we should find moral realism so attractive even though it is false. Moral realism is, once again, a mistake we were born to make.

Evolution has been quite clever so far.

And, of course, if evolution has given us our moral sense, then that moral sense can change. We probably haven't arrived yet as a species, so our morals are also evolving. With time, then, do our moral beliefs improve? And if so what does that look like? If survival and propagation of the species are the trajectory, then one could argue that certain behaviors that we currently find untoward could aid survival: rape, aggression, xenophobia, and male promiscuity. More babies, be wary of strangers, destroy potential threats to survival. These are certainly natural inclinations, yet they now offend us. We choose to consider them wrong. As Stokes notes, since morality is up to us, however, we can choose to put rape and aggression on the immoral list. This is good news. But the bad news is that morality seems to be merely a matter of preference. We can choose our standards.

Finally, while the overarching goal of evolution is survival at any cost, "nothing in evolution says that you ought to value your own survival above all else." This sentiment is summarized by atheist Jerry Coyne:
"How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can't. Evolution is simply a theory about the process and patterns of life's diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can't tell us what to do, or how we should behave."

OK. Maybe evolution cannot tell us what we ought to do, but naturalists have posited other ways that we can account for objective moral standards without God. That's next.

Feeling Moral

In this chapter, Stokes answers some miscellaneous questions before he goes deeper into his argument in chapter 13, where he pokes at evolution to see how it can account for objective morality.

Here's some passages I plucked out that I found interesting:

No one - or no one I know - thinks that atheists can behave [morally]. Atheists can love their spouses, care for the poor, desire world peace, and enjoy long walks on the beach. Atheists can behave in accord with traditional moral standards, regardless of whether naturalism can ground these standards. We've all seen it done. The real question is whether naturalism can support or account for the moral standards themselves.

We have such a powerful sense of objective right and wrong that we often can't imagine alternatives....And therefore many people - philosophers included - mistake the strength and universality of our moral beliefs for an argument that these beliefs are true. Atheist philosopher Kai Neilsen claims that morality needs not be justified by religion. Why does he think this? He explains:
"Torturing human beings is vile; exploiting and degrading human beings is through and through evil; cruelty to human beings and animals is, morally speaking, unacceptable; and treating one's promises lightly or being careless about the truth is wrong. If we know anything to be wrong we know these things to be wrong and they would be wrong and just as wrong in a Godless world and in a world in which personal annihilation is inevitable as in a world with God and in which there is eternal life."

[Yes, but to say that] "we all know these things are wrong, and that they would be wrong even if there were no God, is to beg the question. After all, this is what we're questioning. At this point...this is a conclusion that must be argued for, not merely restated." In other words, if we grant that we all know these things are wrong, we have to ask what makes them wrong. That's the goal.

Stokes goes on to show how Hume - the great skeptic - concluded that morals are subjective, but they feel like they are not. Yet - according to Hume - this should not be disconcerting because even though morals are subjective, we feel and act as if they are not. That is they seem objective and humans act accordingly. We get the authority of objective morals without having to admit that we are beholden to a supernatural law giver. Most naturalist do not follow Hume to this conclusion that there is nothing more to morals than the strength of our convictions, but if that is the case, what is the naturalists justification for our morals? If they are to hold to their sober skepticism, they'll need to base morals on something more than strong feelings.

For help. let's turn to Darwin.

The Enlightenment Project

Beginning in Chapter 11 to the end of the book, Stokes sets out to challenge "The Enlightenment Project," an attempt starting during the Enlightenment to ground morality in something else than God. Stokes will argue "that given the very nature of morality, if God does not exist - that is, if naturalism is true - there can be no morality in the robust sense that we understand it. Morality, whatever else it turned out to be, would be grounded in nothing more than human preference." Princeton University ethicist Peter Singer agrees:

Without the notion of an independent moral reality to back them up, however, claims made on behalf of these moral rules or principles can be no more than expressions of personal preferences which, from the collective point of view, should receive no more weight than other preferences.

From all of this, Stokes will argue the following point: If naturalism is true - if God does not exist and everything arises from natural causes and laws - then there is no morality. By "no morality" Stokes means there is not objective morality, no morality that is independent of human beliefs and desires. And if this is the case, then morality wouldn't have the kind of authority we need. As the great atheist J.L. Mackie wrote:

We need morality to regulate interpersonal relations, to control some of the ways in which people behave towards one another, often in opposition to contrary inclinations. We therefore want our moral judgments to be authoritative for other agents as well as for ourselves: objective validity would give them the authority required.

Atheists, obviously, hold that there can be morality without God. Stokes - applying our grid of sober skepticism - will attempt to show that this position should - at minimal - be controversial, and is, more than likely, untenable.

God: The Failed Hypothesis?

Stokes closes this part of the book, with this question: Could science ever show that God doesn't exist?
For those who are already committed to believing that naturalism is true, then of course God cannot exist. Stokes quotes from scientist Lee Smolin:

It is true that the universe is as beautiful as it is intricately structured. But it cannot have been made by anything that exists outside it, for by definition the universe is all there is, and there can be nothing outside it. And, by definition, neither can there have been anything before the universe that caused it, for if anything existed it must have been part of the universe. So the first principle of cosmology must be "There is nothing outside the universe."

One way to show that God does not exist is to assume the impossibility of his existence. Here, naturalism assumes that nothing can exist outside the universe. Ok...can you prove that? No. It is a presupposition.

Another approach to proving God does not exist is to assume that people believe in God as a source of explanation. How else can we explain this "beautiful" and "intricately structured" world? If science can show that there's a perfectly natural explanation for the universe, then this would remove the reasons for believing in God. This seems like a reasonable argument, but it falls short because - for the vast majority of people - they don't believe in God because his existence provides the best explanation for the world and everything in it. It's mostly quite the opposite: People already believe in God and, therefore, he becomes the source of explanation of the universe. Scientific theories that challenge my beliefs may cause some consternation, but I'm not going to abandon my believe in God because God is not fundamentally a scientific hypothesis that is subject to inference. It is the result of a personal revelation and relationship with him. Credo ut intelligam: "I believe so that I may understand" not "I understand in order that I may believe."

And even if scientists like Hawking were entirely successful in their arguments, the most they may be able to show is that it's not impossible that God didn't create the universe. They offer an alternative explanation. OK. But an "it's not impossible that God didn't create the universe" argument is not that impressive. Hardly a slam dunk.

To end this chapter, Stokes poses a "what if": What if science can show that it can explain everything and that there is no being such as God. It is nowhere near accomplishing this, but Stokes concedes the point for sake of argument. Suppose Hawking and friends are right. What follows from this?

In the last part of the book, Stokes explores the state of morality in a world without God.

God and Physics

In this chapter, Stokes brings home the notion that physics is not good at metaphysics; that is, physics helps us a lot in the observable realm, but is not trustworthy at all regarding the unobservable realm. Stokes summarizes:

Let’s land the plane on the whole discussion and turn to the question of whether science has shown that God doesn’t exist (or, more modestly, that it provides at least some good evidence that he doesn’t). It seems to me that we can say with a modicum of confidence that if science doesn’t get it right about the basic elements of nature – the constitution and behavior of matter, energy, and spacetime, for example – then there are good reasons to doubt what it says about such “unobservables” as God, angels, demons, the soul, and the afterlife. Even if none of these existed, science wouldn’t necessarily be the most reliable source of this gloomy news.

But Stokes also warns about “religious physics-based metaphysics” too. This is interesting. Thinkers like William Lane Craig and Hugh Ross use scientific theories to provide evidence of God’s existence. They will use theories about dark matter and quantum mechanics to demonstrate that science and faith are aligned. The apologetic is: If you believe in science, you should believe in God. But as we have seen, scientific theories come and go. When they go, does evidence for God go with them? We need to be cautious in making these connections.

This type of evidence is often used in the intelligent design argument. As we study life around us, things look designed. Evidence from how humans build things spills over to how God builds things. We infer design from evidence. Stokes argues for caution even here. He thinks this notion of design comes not from inference, but from a God given instinct (Stokes does not cite this, but Romans 1:19 might help here) to form belief in God, what John Calvin calls sensus divinitatis. Interesting and something to think about. Either way, the point is we need to use caution when attaching God’s existence to temporal and often erroneous conclusions from scientific inference.

God give us science so we can learn about him and his world. Like many things in life, we do not see things perfectly. It’s the nature of a fallen world. But we are getting better at understanding his world through science. Why doesn’t God just show us the truth all at once instead of allowing us to fumble around and learn about his universe just a little at a time? I don’t know. As Stokes points out, it’s analogous to the problem of evil. We don’t fully know why God allows horrible atrocities to occur in this life. But we do know that all things – even evil things – work together for good. They are part of his plan.

The failures – and the triumphs – of science are also part of his plan. In the end of this age, perhaps then, it will all be perfectly clear.

Unraveling String Theory

Newtonian physics ruled the day until the early 1900's when quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity shocked the scientific world. Together, these two theories seemed to account for the entire universe: quantum mechanics takes care of the subatomic world, while general relativity handles everything else. However, neither one by itself can explain how the universe works and their explanations for how the universe works are completely incompatible with one another. Physicist Brian Greene writes, "When the equations of general relativity commingle with those of quantum mechanics, the result is disastrous. The equations break down entirely." Physicists have been living with this problem for decades because, basically, the discipline is bifurcated: "In all but the most extreme situations, physicists study things that are either small and light (like atoms and constituents) or things that are huge and heavy (stars and galaxies), but not both. This means that they need use only quantum mechanics or only general relativity...." However, physicists do need a theory that can combine or unify these disparate phenomena for situations where both theories could be used simultaneously, like when studying the center of a black hole.

Stokes continues with a study of the pursuit of a unifying theory. Currently, this involves the development of superstring theory or string theory. I won't try to explain this theory in a couple of sentences - you can Google it if you are interested. M-Theory is apparently the mother of all string theories, but even that is a network of theories, which - according to Stephen Hawking - "is good at describing phenomena within a certain range." So, it's a unified theory comprised of many theories. Interesting. For all of its relative beauty and elegance, however, there is little observable evidence for string theory. Author Peter Woit wrote the following:

No matter how things turn out, the story of superstring theory is an episode with no real parallel in the history of modern physical science. More than twenty years of intensive research by thousands of the best scientific papers has not led to a single testable experimental prediction of the theory.

Obviously, the situation in physics is obviously vastly more complicated than what I could cover here, and I'm certainly in no position to critique the scientists' efforts. But it does seem clear that the bases for scientific theories - that is, what is actually happening beyond what can be observed - are not on rock-solid ground. For example, if general relativity and quantum mechanics are irreconcilable then doesn't at least one of them have to be wrong? As aether served as a good predictor of behavior in the real world, but got the explanation - the "why" wrong - could this be the same fate of these two theories?

Could be? Maybe? Probably? Stokes' point is that it's reasonable to be cautious about science's explanations of phenomena even within their own purview. Shouldn't we then be cautious about scientists' claims about the existence - or non-existence - of God? Scientists - as good, sober skeptics - should be wary. So why aren't they?