Friday Mentionables - Suffering, Molinism (again? ugh), Nietzsche, and patriotic atheism!

It's that time again. Your favorite time of the week - Friday mentionables!

Theology
Sentintias Why I'm not an Arminian
Paul Helm Shunning Middle Knowledge
Theology for the Church ROSES vs TULIP
Design of Providence Therapeutic Theology III: the lost context

Uncategorized
A View From the Right Atheism is Patriotic? What the...?
Nietzsche on the Deaths of Socrates and Jesus

Quotes on suffering from Sproul and Bill Craig

"God deserves to be trusted. He merits our trust in Him. The more we understand of His perfections, the more we understand how trustworthy He is. That is why the Christian pilgrimage moves from faith to faith, from strength to strength, and from grace to grace. It moves toward a crescendo.

and

The bottom-line assumption for anyone who believes in the God of providence is that ultimately there are no tragedies. God has promised that all things that happen—all pain, all suffering, all tragedies—are but for a moment, and that He works in and through these events for the good of those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). That’s why the apostle Paul said that the pain, the suffering, the affliction that we bear in this world isn’t worthy to be compared, isn’t worthy to be mentioned in the same breath, with the glory and the blessedness that God has stored up for His people (Rom. 8:18)."

Sproul, Surprised by Suffering

"Christ endured a suffering beyond all understanding:  he bore the punishment for the sins of the whole world.  None of us can comprehend that suffering. Though He was innocent, He voluntarily underwent incomprehensible suffering for us.  And why? - because He loves us so much. How can we reject him who gave up everything for us?

When we comprehend his sacrifice and his love for us, this puts the problem of evil in an entirely different perspective. For now we see clearly that the true problem of evil is the problem of our evil.  Filled with sin and morally guilty before God, the question we face is not how God can justify Himself to us, but how we can be justified before Him.

When God asks us to undergo suffering that seems unmerited, pointless, and unnecessary, meditation upon the cross of Christ can help to give us the moral strength and courage needed to bear the cross that we are asked to carry.  So, paradoxically, even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of evil.  If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil, for He redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good, fellowship with Himself."

William Lane Craig, The Problem of Evil

Quote of the Week - R.C. Sproul on What a Christian Is To Be Conerned About

"As Christians, we are to be concerned about three qualities: the good, the true, and the beautiful. These three are virtues that touch the very heart of Christianity. It is a triad of values, each of which points beyond itself to the character of God. We are concerned about goodness because God is Good. We care about truth because God is Truth. We care about beauty because God is Beautiful."

-R.C. Sproul, Lifeviews, 1986

R.C. Sproul on miracles

"...if miracles are expectable—there’s nothing miraculous about them. If they’re ordinary then they carry no certifiable weight. It’s by their extraordinary character that they have sign power: sign-ificance." - Sproul 

The above quote is from today's blog post over at Ligonier. Sproul clearly explains the definition of miracle and if we can expect miracles today.

Excerpt:

"Now of course when people ask me, do I believe in miracles, they’re asking one question and I’m answering a different one. If they’re saying to me, “Do you believe that God is still working in the world supernaturally?” Of course I do. “Do you believe that God answers prayers?” Of course I do. “Do you believe that God heals people in response to prayer?” Of course I do. All miracles are supernatural, but not all supernatural acts are miracles. Theologians get real tight in their making of distinctions, and when I say I don’t believe in miracles today, I don’t believe in the tight kind of miracle in the very narrow sense where a miracle is defined as a work that occurs in the external perceivable world; an extraordinary work in the external perceivable world against the laws of nature, by the immediate power of God. A work that only God can do, such as bringing life out of death, such as, restoring a limb that has been cut off—by command—such as, walking on the water, such as, turning water into wine. 

...

Now God’s still alive, He’s still working; He’s still answering prayers in an amazing way. I’ve seen marvelous answers to prayers, I’ve seen people healed of so called terminal illnesses, I just have never seen anybody raised out of the cemetery, or an arm that is severed grow back, or a preacher walk on the water, or water turned into wine. But in any case, the Lord Jesus did these miracles not only in the broad sense, but also in the narrow sense. It’s the miracles of the New Testament that are so important to us, because they are God’s attestation of Jesus’ and of the Apostles, before whose authority we submit."

Read the full post here.

Here is Sproul on the goal of Christian living

Here is a video on suffering as a Christian by Sproul

Should Christians be surprised by suffering?

In light of some recent comments on Christians and suffering that I've read on a few blogs, I wanted to share a few thoughts on the topic. Should Christians be surprised by suffering in their own lives? Should they be surprised by suffering in the world? We shouldn't be surprised by the suffering we endure in this life. Peter wrote in his letter, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you."

What about the things preachers tell us on television? Aren't we supposed to have "our best life now"? With just enough faith can't we live a life full of health, wealth, and pleasure? Well, all of those are things are indeed pleasurable. Health and wealth are definitely pleasing to us, but I think if one's focus is on health, wealth, and fun then one is missing the point of Christianity.

God does not rescue us from earthly suffering, instead God rescues us from sin and ultimate suffering. What is ultimate suffering? I would say that ultimate suffering is eternal separation from God. That is the suffering God rescues us from. I'm not convinced that Christians can have their best life now here on earth. To think such a thing is possible is truly wishing and not an idea that holds much weight. 


I think modern Christians are surprised by suffering because prosperity teachers (for example Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer) teach their listeners that Christians are entitled to prosperity and to activate that prosperity you just need a little faith, you know the kind that is the size of a mustard seed, and then BOOM you will be rich, healthy, and have a fun time here on earth. These guys also teach that if you're a poverty stricken Christian then you're not living the "life of faith" and that if you "just had enough faith" you wouldn't be in the mess you're in. If you hear crap, I mean, teaching like this and think that it's biblical teaching, then yeah, you're going to be surprised when you're budget doesn't look like Bill Gates' budget aren't you? The "prosperity theology" will also make people do things like Meyer wrote in her book “We laid hands on the check and prayed. I went and got all of our checkbooks and my pocketbook and Dave got his wallet and we laid hands on them and put the blood on them, asking God to protect our money, to cause it to multiply and to see to it that Satan could not steal any of it from us” (p.111 The Name, The Word, The Blood.)

I don't mean to imply that being rich and healthy are bad things to pursue. What I am saying is that Christians shouldn't expect those things as rights or that health and wealth is due to them simply because they are Christian. God does not owe us material pleasure. He rescued us from ultimate suffering, which is far greater than any material gain we can ever have in our earthly life. The Apostle Paul explores that concept in his letters to various churches and people that the present suffering we endure now cannot compare to the eternal life given to us from God. While that thought isn't always the best answer for a friend, family-member, or even yourself, to the question of suffering; it is the biblical answer I think and also a far more satisfying answer than "Well, if you just had enough faith you could get out of this mess you're in."

Suffering is a common theme in the Bible and not at all incompatible with Christian theism. I won't get into the topic here because I've wrote on it elsewhere, but I mention it in this blog post to make the point that Christians shouldn't be surprised when a flavor of suffering comes our way because it will hit all of us sometime in our life. When it comes our way we endure it and not lose trust in God because a calamity has knocked us down.

Check out this video below by R.C. Sproul and please check out the links.

Links

Is the Word Faith movement biblical? There are more links at the bottom of this article related to the Word Faith movement

Why suffering?

Understanding Evil: The best of all possible worlds

Understanding evil

R.C. Sproul on the Christian mind

"What God reveals is intelligible; we can understand it with our intellect. He doesn’t ask us to throw away our minds in order to become Christians. There are people who think that to become a Christian, one must leave one’s brain somewhere in the parking lot. The only leap that the New Testament calls us to make is not into the darkness but out of the darkness into the light, into that which we can indeed understand. That is not to say that everything the Christian faith speaks of is manifestly clear with respect to rational categories. I can’t understand, for example, how a person can have a divine nature and a human nature at the same time, which is what we believe about Jesus. That’s a mystery—but mysterious is not the same as irrational." 

More here. (image taken from the same link)

Trusting in God's sovereignty

I was thinking on God's sovereignty today, remembered Macarthur's answer to a question about trusting God, then remembered how I felt once I understood God is sovereign. Macarthur was asked the following 

"HARDY: Some raise that with the whole concept of trust; that affirming this doctrine and growing in your understanding of it actually builds and increases your trust in God instead of trusting --

MACARTHUR: The greatest thing that a believer can do above and beyond everything is worship. That is the highest responsibility. The sovereignty of God is the single most glorious reality about God. Even His grace would lose its luster if He weren't really in control of it. His mercy would be diminished. It is His sovereignty that over-arches everything. And, you know, when I worship the Lord just as a way of life, it doesn't matter what happens. It doesn't matter if I'm well or sick; it doesn't matter if I live or die; it doesn't matter if things go well or don't go well. It just never interrupts my confidence in the sovereignty of God. So, you know, I think that's the key to my -- to just living life on the same high level of joy, come whatever comes, because you know that this is all fitting into His perfect plan.

I remember -- this is a good illustration. I remember a few years ago we had some people come here from another church. And, of course, that's not uncommon. But they came from a church where their families were in leadership in the church, pastoral leadership. And so coming here was a big thing. And they came from a charismatic church. And they came here, if I understand the story right, they came here one time when I preached on the sovereignty of God. And they never went back. And what they said to me was we've lived our whole life under the sovereignty of Satan. This is absolutely transforming. Satan makes you sick; Satan messes with your babies; check the kids at night, 3 o'clock in the morning Satan might kill your baby with SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome; pray Satan out of your bedroom, bathroom, dining room, Satan's liable to do -- I mean, you know, Satan made the planes crash into the Towers, Satan does -- everything's -- and poor God, you know, is -- (Pastor indicates by wringing His hands.) And this caused paroxysms of fear, heart palpitation, panic attacks; really unbelievable kind of things.

I mean who could possibly worship God in that kind of environment? Then you get the people together, and you whip them into some kind of emotional frenzy; call it worship. But down underneath it is a theology that literally makes it impossible to worship God, because God's not in charge. The opposite of that, of course, is to understand that everything works within the framework of God's purpose and will. And no matter what happens, you know, even the worst of things, are intended for your good and His ultimate glory." 

I also remembered what R.C. Sproul wrote, "Our problem is this: We do not yet possess the full light of the remote. We are still looking in a dark mirror. We are not utterly devoid of light, though. We have enough light to know that God has a good purpose even when we are ignorant of that good purpose.

It is the good purpose of God that gives the final answer to the appearance of vanity and futility in this world. To trust in the good purpose of God is the very essence of godly faith. This is why no Christian can be an ultimate pessimist.

The world in which we live is not a world of chance. Its beginning was not an accident, its operation is not an accident, and its telos, or goal, is not an accident. This is my Father’s world and He rules it without caprice. As long as God exists, vanity is a manifest impossibility."

Given the sovereignty of God, you might wonder the same thing a questioner asked William Lane Craig recently. He wrote, "Your Middle Knowledge response, as far as I can ascertain, is that God knew before he created these people that they would reject the Gospel, so he put them in second century Tibet where it didn't matter anyway. No harm, no foul." Now, Craig gives a long answer (one worth checking out), but I will only post an excerpt:

"1. God is all-powerful and all-loving.

and

2. Some people never hear the Gospel and are lost.

The Free Will Defense attempts to show that the religious pluralist has not been able to prove a logical incompatibility between (1) and (2) and, moreover, that we can show (1) and (2) to be compatible by adding a third statement which is compatible with (1) and entails (2), to wit,

3. God has created a world having an optimal balance between saved and lost, and those who never hear the Gospel and are lost would not have believed it even if they had heard it.

Now your objection, Steve, is only to the second part of the Free Will Defense. You don’t think that (3) is possible or plausible.

...

But now you raise a quite different objection aimed specifically at (3). “Before God sticks Fred in second century Tibet wouldn't He have to ascertain that Fred would freely reject the Gospel in all circumstances, not just some of them?” Well, He wouldn’t have to, but that’s my hypothesis. Clearly, God could place a person anywhere He wants in human history, regardless of how that person might freely behave in different circumstances. But my suggestion is that God, being so merciful and not wanting anyone to be damned, so providentially orders the world that anyone who would embrace the Gospel if he were to hear it will not be placed in circumstances in which he fails to hear it and is lost. Only in the case of someone who would be saved through his response to general revelation would a person who would freely respond to special revelation, if he heard it, find himself in circumstances where he doesn’t hear it.

I’m mystified that you find this suggestion “intuitively unattractive.” On the contrary, I think it magnifies the goodness and abundant graciousness of God, that He would prevent anyone’s being lost though the accidents of history and geography. God is so good that He won’t allow anyone to be lost if that person would under any circumstances respond to the Gospel and be saved. 

In any case, you then go to your plausibility objections. These are just irrelevant, as explained above. So long as (3) is even possibly true, which you seem to concede, it shows that (1) and (2) are logically compatible, Q.E.D.

But I can’t resist saying something about the plausibility of (3). Why isn’t (3) plausible? You suggest that God would have to vet all the options in order to actualize such a world. That’s not really true, but is in any case no problem because the doctrine of middle knowledge entails that God knows which of all the possible worlds known to Him via His natural knowledge are feasible for Him to actualize. All feasible worlds are given to Him by His middle knowledge, so sovereignly picking one is just no problem. 

You suggest, more plausibly, I think, that that there are no persons whom God could have created who would under all circumstances reject His grace for salvation. Maybe you’re right; but how can you know? I just don’t think we’re in a position to make those kinds of judgements. You talk about the insanity of unbelief; and yet such persons are all around us, people who have heard the Gospel again and again, who have the Bible, who have read apologetics material, and yet who refuse to believe. In fact, I’ve had unbelievers say to me on more than one occasion, “Even if I knew that Christianity is true, I still wouldn’t bend the knee!” (Remember we're talking only of freedom-permitting circumstances here.) 

How do you know that God couldn’t put together a world in which the unreached are people who wouldn’t bend the knee under any circumstances? In fact, this hypothesis has real implications for other issues like the wider problem of evil. For example, maybe only in a world involving scads of natural and moral evil could God arrange the sort of world we’re envisioning. Maybe His desire to achieve an optimal balance between saved and lost overrides the benefits of a world with less natural and moral evil. It may well be that getting the right counterfactuals of creaturely freedom in place to achieve (3) involves putting up with a lot of otherwise gratuitous evil. 

Now you ask, why create “Fred” in the first place? Here’s the real nub of the issue, I think, and why you find my hypothesis unattractive. You think God could have just left Fred out. But that’s not true, if my hypothesis is correct! There may be no world feasible for God involving universal, freely embraced salvation which comes without other overriding disadvantages. Sure, God could have refrained from creating Fred (or both Fred and Sophie), but then the resulting world might have been even worse or at least no better. The hypothesis is that God has done the very best He can, given the true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him. 

Your claim that “there are an infinite number of beings God can create who would freely accept the Gospel without somebody else rejecting it” is guilty of the same error you alleged earlier, namely, speaking without a context. Suppose that for any possible person there may be circumstances under which he would be freely saved without someone’s being lost; it doesn’t follow that there is a feasible world in which every person would be freely saved without someone’s being lost. For the relevant circumstances may not be compossible. Your pun on Sophie’s Choice (a choice between two bad options) reveals that you haven’t yet grasped the theory of middle knowledge, for God doesn’t create such a choice for Himself. The counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him are outside His control. He has to play with the hand He has been dealt.

So I’m a good deal less confident than you are about our ability to pronounce on what worlds are feasible for God. Therefore, I’m not inclined to regard (3) as implausible. In any case, we both agree that it is possible, and that suffices for the purposes of the Free Will Defense." 

Being finite creatures, our scope is limited, we don't have the full light of the remote as Sproul said so we can't know perfectly things like "Why did God create Fred knowing Fred wouldn't be saved?" Notice I said we can't know perfectly things like that, but we can have some grasp on such things. I think Craig gives a good answer to such a hard question. Some Christians do think unbelief is insanity, however there are those who don't. Like Craig, I've heard answers that echo "Well, even I knew for certain Christian theism is true, I still wouldn't bow my knee to such a God." Others wouldn't. Some don't think the evidence for Christian theism is hard enough and consequently don't put their faith in God; these people have said they would believe if there was just harder evidence. The list goes on for reasons why people are Christian theists.

The probability of a world existing of free moral creatures and all of them freely embracing salvation is zero I think. To be truly free, creatures need moral freedom and moral freedom entails at least the possibility of evil in the world. God wanted to accomplish plenitude - the highest good possible; the best of all possible worlds requires moral freedom, which also brings the possibility of evil.

The sovereignty of God is a challenging, yet comforting doctrine. It's challenging due to the raising of questions like "Why did God create person X, knowing he or she wouldn't put faith in Him?" and the other, "Why did God allow this to happen to me or them?" They are hard questions, but they aren't without good answers. The doctrine is comforting in that I know God has a good purpose even when I am ignorant of what that purpose is at the time. Honestly, I am going through some junk right now in my life personally and outside my experience, i.e. my family is going through some junk too. If God was "up there" ringing his hands, trying to keep everything together for everyone then I would wonder just powerful He really is. Would he not be like the mythological gods? I think so. I'm not sure how worthy of worship a god like that would be. Is God's sovereignty a crutch? Not at all. Though it's comforting at times, other times I am upset and quite mad at the lot in my life at that time. I'm human after all. At the end of the day though, I agree with a statement made by William Lane Craig, "...even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God,...God is the only solution to the problem of evil.  If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil." 

Further reading
Molinism and the soteriological problem of evil once more 

Why suffering?

Why do some people not believe?

Check out the multiple resources on the problem of evil here at Apologetics315

The goal of Christian living

R.C. Sproul's teaching series Pleasing God is available to watch online for free at Ligonier's website.

Here is the first lecture in the series on the goal of Christian living.



Watch the rest of the series, click here

Why suffering?

It has been a busy month, so that is why it's been a while since I've written a blog post. Anyway, this first post will be on the question, "If God is all powerful and all good, why does he allow suffering?" This is a powerful question. Think about it for a second. If indeed God is all powerful, would he not be able to eliminate evil from the world? A being that is all powerful would be able to do so. If he doesn't then he is not good. Yet, Christians claim their God is all powerful and all good. If the God is all good, he wouldn't want his creatures to suffer at all, would he? I certainly wouldn't want my children to suffer. I would do everything in my power to stop the suffering and evil plaguing them. So, what's the deal? This God must not be all powerful and also all good. Or either he is indeed all good, but not all powerful. Something is up.

Mr. Hitchens has given the illustration that God is "up there" looking down on His creation with folded arms looking at the creation with indignation, like a malevolent dictator. On the surface, especially after hearing the dilemma I wrote above, that would seem how God is. Why is there suffering if God can do something about it? Since He doesn't, it would seem He doesn't care at all what happens to us.

Some pastors and Christians say a person suffers due to the judgment of God on their lives. I don't think we are in a position to say that. How can I know if a person's sickness or a person's car having been stolen is due to God's judgment for some sin in their life? R.C. Sproul wrote, "In the ninth chapter of John, the Pharisees say to Jesus, “Why was this man born blind? Was it because of his sin or the sins of his parents?” Jesus said, “Neither one.” We can’t come to the conclusion that an individual’s suffering in this world is in direct proportion to that individual’s sin. That was what Job’s friends did when they came to him and tormented him by saying, “Boy, Job, you’re really suffering a lot. This must be an indication that you’re the most miserable sinner of all.” But the Bible says that we can’t use such a formula. The fact is, if there were no sin in the world, there would be no suffering." 1 We are in no position to judge.

A better answer to the question comes from Greg Koukl. He tackles the question by asking a question (He learned this from Doug Geivett). He asks, "What makes you think that taking away evil in the world has anything to do with God's strength?"

Koukl then goes on to say:

"God certainly is strong enough to obliterate evil from the earth or to have prevented it in the first place. No question about that. But let me ask you a question. Is it a good thing that God created human beings as free moral creatures, capable of making moral choices? It strikes me that the answer to that is yes. Because God is good--which is one of the things in question here--God created free moral creatures. 

But this changes everything, doesn't it? What makes you think that strength has anything to do with God creating a world in which there are genuinely free moral creatures and no possibility of doing wrong? 

You see, now we're back to square circles. It's just as ridiculous to ask God to create a world in which we have genuinely free creatures with no possibility to do wrong, as it is to ask Him to create a square circle. The task has nothing to do with His strength. It has to do with the nature of the problem. If you're going to have morally free creatures--that is, human beings that can make moral choices for themselves--and if God is good, then He is going to create creatures that will be truly morally free. But that entails, of necessity, at least the possibility of evil in the world." 2

God could have created us to make free will decisions without the possibility of choosing evil, but would we have genuine freedom? No, we would have had freedom in the larger sense of freedom, i.e., the freedom to make choices (what to eat, vocation, leisure), but we wouldn't have freedom in the narrow sense, which is moral freedom; we wouldn't have been able to make moral choices. Why is that important? Because God wanted to accomplish plenitude - the highest good possible; the best of all possible worlds requires moral freedom, which also brings the possibility of evil.

All that God made is good, even those things that appear evil to us are good. Our scope is limited because we are finite. If we could view things as a whole, we would be able to see that those things which appear to be evil are actually contributing ultimately to the greater good. This is difficult for us to understand, especially in a time when we are suffering because we want to know why x event is happening to us, but we simply do not know why we were in that place at that time. Some things are easy to know why. For example, if you touch a hot stove, you will get burned or if you willingly take a risk attempting to do a back-flip on your dirt bike; those are things that have answers, but not all of human suffering has easy answers. Cancer for instance does not have an easy answer, nor does being at the scene of a crime have an easy answer. These are things we are simply not in a position to judge "why" they happened.

William Lane Craig wrote, "To borrow an illustration from a developing field of science, Chaos Theory, scientists have discovered that certain macroscopic systems, for example, weather systems or insect populations, are extraordinarily sensitive to the tiniest perturbations.  A butterfly fluttering on a branch in West Africa may set in motion forces which would eventually issue in a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean.  Yet it is impossible in principle for anyone observing that butterfly palpitating on a branch to predict such an outcome.  

The brutal murder of an innocent man or a child's dying of leukemia could send a ripple effect through history so that God's morally sufficient reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries later or perhaps in another country.  Our discussion of divine middle knowledge (chapter 26) stressed that only an omniscient mind could grasp the complexities of directing a world of free creatures toward one's pre-visioned goals. One has only to think of the innumerable, incalculable contingencies involved in arriving at a single historical event, say, the Allied victory at D‑day.  This has relevance to the probabilistic problem of evil, for we have no idea of the natural and moral evils that might be involved in order for God to arrange the circumstances and free agents in them requisite to some intended purpose, nor can we discern what reasons such a provident God might have in mind for permitting some evil to enter our lives.  Certainly many evils seem pointless and unnecessary to us ‑ but we are simply not in a position to judge." 3 

In a lecture on the problem of evil, Craig said that the best thing we can do when we are suffering is to ask ourselves, "What can I learn from this?" He mentioned that he had to learn that, just like us, the hard way. He has dealt with suffering, just like the rest of us. The intellectual answer to the problem of evil is easy to deal with, but the emotional problem is tougher. I'll let Craig finish this post for me. 

"Christ endured a suffering beyond all understanding:  he bore the punishment for the sins of the whole world.  None of us can comprehend that suffering. Though He was innocent, He voluntarily underwent incomprehensible suffering for us.  And why? - because He loves us so much. How can we reject him who gave up everything for us?

When we comprehend his sacrifice and his love for us, this puts the problem of evil in an entirely different perspective. For now we see clearly that the true problem of evil is the problem of our evil.  Filled with sin and morally guilty before God, the question we face is not how God can justify Himself to us, but how we can be justified before Him. 

When God asks us to undergo suffering that seems unmerited, pointless, and unnecessary, meditation upon the cross of Christ can help to give us the moral strength and courage needed to bear the cross that we are asked to carry.  So, paradoxically, even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of evil.  If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil, for He redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good, fellowship with Himself." 4

Sources:

1. R.C. Sproul - If God is all powerful, then why does he allow suffering?

2. Greg Koukl - The strength of God and the problem of evil

3. William Lane Craig - The problem of evil

4. Craig, ibid.

Christians like wearing blindfolds

Does a Christian have to be irrational in order to believe the truth-claims of the Bible? A step further, is it even irrational to be believe in a creator God of the universe? It all depends on the person actually. To be honest, there are irrational theists. There are those who find great comfort in saying, "It takes faith," when asked about their worldview. I will be so bold to say there are those who not only have comfort in that answer, but actually take pride in the answer of "I take it on faith," because they think they are really "spiritual" for leaving their mind in the street in matters of God and religion. 

Let's look at some examples. The following example is from an article written by Kenneth Copeland.

"You have to act by faith, not according to your feelings or reasoning. Faith is based on eternal truth and is more dependable than the evidence of your physical senses. According to 2 Corinthians 4:18, we are not to look at things which are seen,but at things which are not seen. The things which are visibleare temporal, or changeable. The things which are invisible are eternal—they never change. Don’t focus your attention on what you perceive through your five physical senses. Keep your heart fixed on the Word of God. Then what you see will come in line with the Word." 

I understand not making a decision based on feelings because a decision based on emotion is not a good move to make. However, how are you to act by faith if you abandon reason? I also must wonder what Copeland means by "Don't focus your attention on what you perceive through your five physical senses. Keep your heart fixed on the Word of God." How is one to fix his heart on the word of God if he must not perceive using his five senses? I know that's a bit sarcastic, but Copeland is promoting blind faith as if blind faith is virtuous and that irrationality is foreign to God and the Christian life. That couldn't be further from the truth. 

Consider what R.C. Sproul says in this article.

"Any discussion of faith and reason has to ask the question, “What is faith?” The biblical answer, according to the author of Hebrews, is that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (11:1). The author goes on to say that by faith we understand that the world was formed by the Word of God. The first thing we notice in this assertion is that faith is something that is substantial, not ephemeral. Secondly, faith represents a type of evidence. It is the evidence of the unseen. At the heart of the concept of New Testament faith is the idea of trust, namely, that faith involves placing one’s trust in something. In this regard all human creatures are subject to depending at one point or another on faith. I am not an expert in medicine, so I must give a certain trust to the diagnoses offered to me by experts in the field. That trust may be provisional until I find that it is not based in substance or evidence. But in the meantime, to trust what we do not see is not necessarily a matter of being irrational. Without reason, the content of biblical faith would be unintelligible and meaningless. So we say that biblical faith is not the same as reason, but that faith is rational and reasonable. The first assertion that faith is rational means that faith is intelligible. It is not absurd or illogical. If biblical revelation were absurd and irrational, it would be utterly unintelligible and meaningless. The content of the Bible cannot pierce the soul of a sentient creature without first going through the mind. It was Augustine who declared that faith without evidence is credulity. At this point we understand that though faith is rational, it is also reasonable. Biblical faith does not call people to crucify their intellect or take irrational leaps of faith into the darkness with the hope that Christ will catch us. Rather we are called to leap out of the darkness and into the light." 

Sproul accurately describes faith. Trusting in the evidence given by an object or person. I trust my mechanic to fix or service my car. I have good reason to put my faith in the mechanic to service my car with excellence. Why? Because of the track record. He has given me good reason to believe so! If faith is how Copeland explains it, i.e., wishing and speaking positively in attempt to make it true then the whole time I'm waiting on my car to be done I better look at the mechanic and speak, "You will fix my car! I know you will! I speak it and confess that it's true!" Why? Because I can't trust that my mechanic will fix my car based on his proven record of fixing my car in the past and rest easy knowing he is a good mechanic and my care is in good hands because that would be using reason and reason is a thing to be despised if you're a true Christian. What an absurd thing to believe.

I know I'm being snarky, but it's just so annoying to hear things like, "Christian, you must act on your faith by blindly wishing and speaking those things into existence, " or "Ya just gotta take those things on faith." Why? You wonder if these folks have studied church history or even read the Bible. 

Consider what Greg Koukl says here:

"Here is what Peter said. Acts 2:36, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." There it is again. "Know for certain."

This is throughout the entire Scriptures. Exodus, Acts, Romans 1:4. Paul talked about Jesus who is the Son of God, who is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. How do we know Jesus is the Son of God? Is that just a faith statement? Is it something we just wish were the case? Is that something we hope for in a leap of faith? Paul says he was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection. We know he was the Son of God because He raised Himself from the dead. Now, that is evidence."

In the book of 1 John we see this all brought together. 1 John 5:13, "These things," John says, "I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."

You can know it, ladies and gentlemen. Remember how John started out his book? He started out by saying those things which we have seen, those things that we know personally. "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life." 

Do you think he is trying to get a point across there? He is saying, we've got the goods. We've got the evidence. Therefore our faith is not vain hope. It is not simply wishing. We've got convictions. We have put our trust in God based on the evidence, and that's what Biblical faith entails."

I can guarantee you your Christian life will be lived much better living a life of true faith. I hear people all the time (I have friends and family who subscribe to the Copeland idea of faith) speak as if they can't say anything "wrong" about themselves, e.g., you can't say "I have a cold," or "I'm having hear trouble," because then you don't have "faith" in God. I cannot imagine ever that God wants us to live that way. I don't read anywhere in scripture about people speaking positively 24/7 and never acknowledging their suffering. If you have a cold, you have a cold. Speaking the contrary will not heal you or make it go away. Faith is not wishing friends, faith is trusting in God and His promises based on evidence given to us by revelation. 

What is the evidence you ask? 

Start by looking here. Wintery Knight has an abundance of Christian resources for you to know for certain God exists and is the God as described in the Bible.

Why read the bible?

I was reading blog posts about the recent 2011 Ligonier National Conference the other day when I stumbled across the transcript of the Q and A session with R.C. Sproul and John Piper. The question was, "What does it look like for a believer to treasure the holiness of God?" Part of Sproul's response:

"Being on a quest to know God must be a passion, not something we just do in our spare time. That desire takes us every time to the Word of God.

As a philosophy major, my professors emphasized the acquisition of critical reading skills. That is a worthy enterprise. But that does not happen when I read the Scripture. I have to read it carefully, but it criticizes me. I can’t argue against it. It is wonderful because it is saving me, putting salve on my wounds. I am meeting God. He is revealing His mind and heart to me in the Word of God. You have to immerse yourself in the Word."

Whenever I read the bible in the past, the reading wasn't from a desire to read God's revelation to us nor was the reading a product of my wanting to know God; it was because I felt like that was the right thing to do and that I had to do it. I really didn't want to read the bible then. It's not that I hated it, I just wasn't into it. When you're not into something, you won't want to read about it. Sproul makes a very excellent point when he said that being on a quest to know God must be a passion. He's exactly right. When I want to know about something, it's from a desire to know that something.

I don't blame people when they don't want to read the Bible, because when you're not interested in something, then you're not going to study it, are you? Generally, folks that really "wear out" their Bible are those that have a passion to know God. If the passion isn't there, then you're not going to study the Bible, much like if you don't have a passion for history, you're not going to read a history book. However, if you do have a desire to know about God, then the best thing you can do is read the Bible. It's just like Sproul said, "...it is saving me. putting salve on my wounds. I am meeting God. He is revealing His mind and heart to me in the Word of God."

What is reformed theology?

What is Reformed theology? Are there some questions about it that are unanswered for you? Are the things you know about Reformed theology only things you've heard from its opponents? Let R.C. Sproul teach you about Reformed theology in this free 12 part teaching series available in video and audio at Ligonier.org.







Teaching Series Overview:
1. Introduction
2. Catholic, Evangelical, and Reformed
3. Scripture Alone
4. Faith Alone (part 1)
5. Faith Alone (part 2)
6. Covenant
7. Total Depravity (part 1)
8. Total Depravity (part 2)
9. Unconditional Election
10. Limited Atonement
11. Irresistible Grace
12. Perseverance of the Saints

You can watch (or listen) to the entire series online for free, but you can't download the video or audio for free. You have to pay to download it, but it's free when viewed online.

What is Reformed Theology? teaching series.

The Providence of God series by R.C. Sproul

Ligonier Ministries offers free teaching series on their website. Some series can't be downloaded, but can be listened to online for free, like this series titled The Providence of God. There is a study guide to go along with the series that can be downloaded for free and then you can print it out (48 pages) or just follow along on your computer.


Enjoy.


The Providence of God series by R.C. Sproul

The Providence of God study guide

Defense of the Trinity part 3

UPDATE: For a full explanation (parts 1 - 3) click here.


I'll continue the defense of the Trinity by finishing the explanation of the third person of the Trinity, i.e., the Holy Spirit. In the last post, I gave scripture references to the Holy Spirit as God. In this post, I hope to communicate clearly that not only does the Holy Spirit possess deity, but that he also has a differentiated personality. I'll give three reasons why the Holy Spirit has a differentiated personality. 


Personal Pronouns

Scripture refers to the Holy Spirit with personal pronouns (John 14:26; 16:13). 

He Does Things Only Persons Can Do

Teach (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27)

Convict of sin (John 16:7-8)

Be grieved by sin (Ephesians 4:30). 

Intercedes (Romans 8:26). 

The Holy Spirit has intellect (1 Cor. 2:10, 11), will (1 Cor. 12:11), and feeling (Eph. 4:30). 

I will close with an excerpt from an article written by John Macarthur:

In describing the Trinity, the New Testament clearly distinguishes three Persons who are all simultaneously active. They are not merely modes or manifestations of the same person (as Oneness theology incorrectly asserts) who sometimes acts as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as Spirit. At Christ’s baptism, all three Persons were simultaneously active (Matt. 3:16–17), with the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking from Heaven. Jesus Himself prayed to the Father (cf. Matt. 6:9), taught that His will was distinct from His Father’s (Matt. 26:39), promised that He would ask the Father to send the Spirit (John 14:16), and asked the Father to glorify Him (John 17:5). These actions would not make sense unless the Father and the Son were two distinct Persons. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit intercedes before the Father on behalf of believers (Rom. 8:26), as does the Son, who is our Advocate (1 John 2:1). Again, the distinctness of each Person is in view.

There is only one God. The members of the Godhead are co-existent, co-equal, one in essence and yet three in person. Remember the mathematical illustration of 1 x 1 x 1 = 3, and the love illustration to help you with understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. It is a monotheistic belief rooted in scripture; not a belief in three gods in one or a belief of one person manifesting himself in three ways. Norman Geisler puts the Trinity in words as, "while God is one and many at the same time, he is not one and many in the same sense. He is one in the sense of his essence, but many in the sense of his persons."


Sources:
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics

John Macarthur, "Our Triune God."

Related posts

Explaining the Trinity contains all of my posts on the Trinity


For further study:
R.C. Sproul, "Mystery of the Trinity."
 
William Lane Craig, "The Trinity and God's Omni-Attributes
 
William Lane Craig's "higher learning" article on the Trinity. 

Walter Martin Video What is the Trinity? 

Excellent article, "What is the doctrine of the Trinity?" by Matt Perman

The Trinity: One What and Three Whos by Ken Samples

R.C. Sproul: The Mystery of the Trinity Study Guide

Ligonier Ministries has free resources for study and I just found a great free resource that is related to the area of study here at 'Reformed Seth,' that is, the Trinity. R.C. has a series called, "The Mystery of the Trinity" which can be viewed for free here, and the free study guide can be found here. You can save the study guide to your computer so you can study it anytime you want, instead of going to Ligonier's website each time you want to study it. 

The video series has six lectures, the study guide goes right onlong with the lectures, so you can bring up the video lectures and use your study guide along with them to have a good study of the Trinity. Whether it answers questions, or brings up more questions, you'll definitely be thinking more openly about the Trinity. 

For more R.C. Sproul resources click here.

Walter Martin's short defense of the Trinity here.

John Macarthur on the Trinity here.