A Thinker's Faith

What do you do when a skeptic brings up the topic of the Biblical age of the earth? Do you quickly change the subject, or perhaps just argue that it doesn’t matter, as long as you believe in Jesus? Well, there are better answers available to the informed Christian. This post addresses two questions regarding the Genesis account of creation.

If God is omnipotent (all-powerful), why did he take six days to create everything? Why not speak everything into existence all at once?

Before addressing it, I need to point out that though this question is interesting, it does not directly relate to the question of whether God does or does not exist. However, these sorts of questions are often thrown at Christians in an attempt to sidetrack the conversation from more relevant topics. Why doesn’t it relate? Because it says nothing about whether belief in God is logically valid or rational. We don’t call a person irrational who could have painted a picture in one week, but instead takes a month to do so. Neither would we require an explanation for his actions. It is the right of the creator of a piece of art to take as long as he likes. That said, there are reasons for the six days of creation that are alluded to in Scripture. One I have already touched upon. The universe is not merely the result of cold, cause and effect processes, but it is the handiwork of a creative, personal Being. It seems to me then that God took his time as an expression of his creative nature. However, it is also evident within Scripture that God’s time-frame of creation was a template for the children of Israel to work six days of the week and rest on the Sabbath day. (Exodus 20:8-11) This Sabbath in turn was meant to be a foreshadowing of the spiritual rest that is found in Christ. (Hebrews 4:1-11)  So, as you can see, there are very good reasons for God’s creative methodology.

How is it that the bible explains the earth to be 6,000 to 8,000 years old when we know that dinosaur bones are at least 65 million years old? The ‘missing link’ fossil ‘Ida’ found recently is estimated to be at least 47 million years old. 

The issue of the age of the earth is currently a hot topic for evangelical Christianity. Much has been written on the subject by qualified authors, so I will not attempt a super technical response. I would like to admonish fellow Christians to not be bullied into adopting an old-earth compromise such as the gap theory, (millions of years hidden between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) or theistic evolution. These poor interpretations of Scripture introduce a multitude of irreconcilable inconsistencies into the Christian worldview. I know that many Christians see the literal six days of creation as an increasingly indefensible position in light of “modern scientific findings.” So, how can an educated, rational person disregard what so many scientists claim to be true? The answer is simple.

I recognize that this debate is not primarily a scientific debate at all! It is a philosophical debate.

Scientists who believe the Genesis account of creation are not blindly ignoring information that does not fit their viewpoint. They are looking at the exact same data, but they are looking at it from the perspective of a different philosophy or worldview. It does not take much effort to see that the modern scientific world is dominated by materialism (the belief that the physical world is all that is real) This domination is so powerful that if a scientist dares to propose a non-materialistic origin to the universe he or she is often ostracized and persecuted as if she were teaching that the world is flat.(something that is demonstrably false) Because the dominate materialistic theory regarding the origin of the universe involves a billions of years timeframe, current artifact dating methods include this bias. The problem is that these assumptions often cannot be proven or disproven independently by the scientific method. That is why the issue is one of worldview, and not the same as, for example, proving that the earth is a sphere. Finally, it is important to note that Christians who hold to a biblical young earth are not just ignoring the obvious while claiming that everyone who disagrees with us is biased. These biases are real and demonstrable. Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to find alternative views regarding the age of the universe, because the established scientific system appears to only permit investigation that supports the dominate philosophy. Answers in Genesis is a great organization that has what is in my opinion the best widely available information which is free online and addresses every aspect of old-earth theories. You may love them or hate them, but they include research and sources for all their information that can be evaluated by anyone who dares set aside their biases.

These questions are found here: 

Earth image by DonkeyHotey, via Flikr under CC license

Dinosaur image by Mariana Ruiz Villarreal LadyofHats (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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This is one of the most enduring questions that every Christian faces. We ask it in the middle of our own painful experiences and we try to formulate an answer when someone else directs the question to us. This conundrum reaches to a deep place in our heart, and so we seek more than just a dry, philosophical answer. Additionally, there are different theological traditions that address the problem from significantly different perspectives.

As you would expect, this question presents itself in a multitude of different forms, and these examples come from a list of questions that Christians are supposedly unable to answer. (link at the end of the page)

“If God is so perfect, then why did he create something so imperfect allowing pain, suffering and daily atrocities?”

The assumption here is that a world with suffering and evil is incompatible with a perfect (all-powerful, and perfectly good) Creator. By itself, this may seem to be a strong argument; however, a Christian has something to add. The perfect Creator created a world in which such things exist because he has a morally sufficient reason to do so. A number of possible reasons exist as to how this is the case, including the following: (these barely scratch the surface of all the great solutions that have been ventured thorough the history of Christianity)

1. In order to preserve man’s free will, God allows mankind to make both good and bad decisions, and in order for those decisions to have meaning, he allows their consequences as well. (Remember that even God cannot do the logically absurd, and it seems incoherent to imagine that He could make man free, while at the same time ensuring that man never chooses to cause another person suffering.)
2. In order for humans to be humans, they must have a world which functions according to certain rules of cause and effect. This means that God doesn’t usually step in and save mankind from the immediate consequences of his own actions. One of these consequences is the curse of sin that initially altered the world and brought about death and suffering.
3. God has certain things that he wants mankind to learn, and certain virtues that he wants him to develop which he could not do in a perfect world.
4. In order to allow mankind to have the ability to seek a relationship with Christ, he maintains an appearance of distance, allowing people to accept or reject him. This means that he does not often make highly visible intrusions into the physical world. Though we believe that he does when it suits his purposes, and we have no way of knowing how much evil he prohibits through means that are invisible to us.

The next question is related to the first:

“Why do innocent children have to suffer with terminal diseases such as cancer? What part of ‘God’s plan’ is this exactly?”

Many of the above reasons are relevant for this scenario, but the aspect of innocence makes this particular question difficult. We have trouble understanding how it is justifiable for an innocent person to face such pain and tragedy. In fact, under laws that most people consider fair, we would hold a person guilty who knowingly allowed such things to happen. So, why is it acceptable that God would allow them? I think that the best answer to that question is the ability of God in eternity to guarantee that every person’s suffering is countered with some overwhelming good. This is similar to a parent reassuring a child that the pain of the needle is worth enduring due to the result of the vaccine.

You may wonder why I present a number of possible answers to these questions instead of giving a specific reply. I believe (without resorting to the clichéd, but ultimately true “His ways are not as our ways” answer) that this is the best approach for some very good reasons.

First, God is a person, not a process. Think of how difficult it can be to understand the actions of someone that you know well if you don’t have all of the information that they are privy to. Not only do we not know exactly what God’s purposes are, we should expect it to be that way. This means that at the best, we can only give possible answers to why God might allow a specific instance of suffering, but we can say with confidence that his allowing it is not necessarily incompatible with who we know Him to be.

Finally, the problem of evil for a Christian must always be framed in the knowledge that Christ came to earth and lived life as a human, as if “playing by his own rules.” He endured the difficulty of life as a human, suffered pain and loss, and endured a horrible death of crucifixion. Finally, he guarantees to not only redeem believers from the penalty of our own sin, but to redeem the whole of the universe from the effects of sin’s curse. Whether one chooses to accept these ideas, they show the meaningful way in which the Christian worldview deals with the problem of pain.

These questions can be found here: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/107211_top-50-questions-christians-cant-answer

Image courtesy of http://dietjustice.blogspot.com/2011/04/chronic-pain-suffers-let-down-by-nhs.html

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Has anyone ever asked you who made God? What did you answer?

Every worldview contains difficult questions that must be answered. Christianity is no exception. Atheists especially seem to have certain pet questions that continue to resurface no matter how many times they’ve been addressed. It is the job of every Christian to know how to answer these questions which range from genuine, deep topics that take time to think through, to ridiculous disingenuous ”gotcha” attempts. (Think the old chicken or the egg “dilemma”)

In the next few weeks, I would like to attempt to share the answers to some of these questions that I have discovered. I have found actual questions from various internet sources, and I will present them as found, with as brief a reply as feasible. I hope that you will join me for this important exercise.

Though every worldview has its difficult questions, I have discovered that the questions the Christians wrestle with have good answers, though they might not be the ones that we want. Ultimately, I have discovered that these questions pale in comparison to the unresolved problems within anti-Christian belief systems.

That brings me back to the original question: Who did make God?

Answer: No one made God, He doesn’t need a creator. This question is kind of like asking what a triangle smells like. Triangles don’t by nature have odor, and God doesn’t by nature need a creator. It seems strange to think that any thing or person could just “be,” but that is because we only know a world in which everything comes into existence then ceases to be. However, it is reasonable that such a world comes from a Person who is outside the box of the physical non-eternal world, and unmoved by the forces which we humans are unable to escape.

Image found here, and is under a CC license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystaljingsr/3914729343

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I wonder what Gutenberg would have thought about the Internet. His printing press revolutionized the world of ideas, yet it was still a comparatively few who had the means to put their ideas in print and bring them to the hands of others. In contrast, today a person needs only an internet connection and in seconds he can express his ideas to millions of people all over the globe. How do you think this ability has affected the western world?

Whereas it was once difficult for the common man to have access to the ideas of others in the form of books, now we are constantly immersed in a sea of ideas. This is not a bad thing, but combine it with post-modern thought and you have an interesting phenomenon. Not only do we swim in a sea of ideas, we are constantly told that there is no such thing as truth, there is only opinion and no person’s opinion is better than another’s. Tolerance, in the form of respect for another person as an individual (even if you regard his beliefs as wrong) has been replaced with the belief that every person’s opinion merits the same acceptance. Where does this leave us? I believe that there are a vast number of people in America, Christian and non-Christian, who have never had a large portion of their important beliefs challenged. Among these beliefs are the fundamental teachings of the Christian faith, but in this case, I am talking about broader worldview applications such as parenting philosophies, or political ideologies.

Not only has the Internet provided a method for every person to express his or her opinions, one can do so with little expectation of having to defend them. While it may be easier today to find occasions to argue with a person that we neither have nor ever will meet, we seem to have the opposite attitude toward people that we know. Even when our friends (or acquaintances) share ideas and opinions online that we find to be completely false, incoherent, or otherwise flawed, our tendency seems to be to avoid any confrontation, even in the form of a simple clarifying question. Perhaps our response takes the form of our own opinion vented into the void of cyberspace, but designed not to appear as a reply to a specific person. While I’m not advocating emotional shouting matches (EVEN IN THE FORM OF AN ALL CAPS COMMENT), I do wonder if we should be so unwilling to question the ideas of others in an appropriate way.

Ideas matter because actions flow from ideas. Ideas, beliefs, worldviews, theories, and arguments have a major common attribute. Their value lies in their correlation with reality, and the manner in which they follow good logic. Let’s face it, I may be the nicest guy in the world with the best intentions, but that doesn’t fix a false belief, or a bad argument that I employ.

I believe that we do each other as friends and fellow Christians a grievous disservice when we either avoid questioning the expressed beliefs of others, or isolate our own beliefs from these questions. Here is why:

A belief for which you are unable to provide warrant (the reasons why you are justified to think its true) is worthless and unworthy of expressing to others.

Why? Because the moment you hit “post” it becomes just another opinion in a sea of opinions. Yet, there is a constant stream of opinions expressed by Christians who are unable to provide this warrant. It’s important to note that this does not imply that all those beliefs are wrong. Some of them are, and some of them have good warrant that need only be uncovered. Sometimes a person believes something that is true, but has a bad reason for doing so. That is the value of having friends that are not afraid to challenge us. They help us think through our beliefs and weed out the bad, and they are in a much better place to do it than some random person, say, in the comments section of a news story. (come on, admit it, you know you do it)

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we need to be arguing constantly. God given discernment should tell us that some friendships and relationships are open to certain topics and not others. Nor am I saying that it is supposed to be easy to have our beliefs questioned. We do tend to take it personally when we think that another person is implying that we are wrong about something, but isn’t it better to be challenged than to go on with a flawed belief, or without the ability to defend my true beliefs? That brings me to my final point. Humility. Let me say it again. HUMILITY. It makes us approachable because we understand that we are flawed humans and that our understanding is limited. That knowledge also compels us to always show respect even when we disagree vehemently with another person, and it keeps us from using personal attacks in the place of sound arguments.

May the discussion begin…

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