Christianity - Wholly Different

Van Til (1895-1987)
[Anyone with such hair is worthy of
some measure of our attention]

"There is an eternal, internal self-conscious interaction between the three persons of the Godhead. They are co-substantial. Each is as much God as the other two. . .The diversity and the unity in the Godhead are therefore equally ultimate. . .The Christian teaching of the ontological Trinity, therefore, gives it a clearly distinguishable metaphysic, epistemology, and ethic. In all these three Christian theism is wholly different from any other philosophy of life." - Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, pages 29-30

Good Things Mean God Is

Do not be deceived my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 

James 1:16-18

If you ask the Bible why we have good things, the answer is that God, who is good, gives them to us. Without the God of the Bible there would be nothing, let alone good somethings. If the world were random having evolved as the naturalists and evolutionists tell us, would there be so many good things? I  don't think so. I hypothesize that there would be only what is necessary for survival but nothing for joyfulness. The design would be radically different; or, I should say, because there would be no design there would be no goodness. Our bodies would work, but without taste buds. We could procreate, but without intimacy and orgasms. I imagine you see where I'm heading with this. If God is the source of all goodness, then a world without Him is not good.

In the verses above the good and perfect gift being described is the gift of salvation from sin and its effects and consequences. But James means for us to recognize God not only as the giver of redemption, but also the giver of every good gift and every perfect gift. This text came to mind this morning when I was preparing my second of three breakfasts -- a banana slathered with Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter. I thanked God for that food combination believing that wondrous concoction to be a good gift from my Heavenly Father. And He gave it to me to enjoy (1 Ti 6:17). Food is fuel. Our bodies are designed to run on the stuff. Isn't it a gift that we get to like the fuel, not just consume it? God could have given lots of fuels that all taste the same, and/or taste bad, and/or have no taste at all. But He did the good and generous thing -- He gave a variety, with different tastes, textures, smells, etc. That's good.

Consider the many good things you have and enjoy. And consider the perfect salvation He gives in His Son Jesus Christ. And know that God is.

When He opens His hand, we are filled with good things.

Ps 104:27-28

God Is Not Ever-Suffering

I've been talking a bit about the existence of the God of the Bible and a person's belief in it. And in doing that I've spent a small amount of space describing those who take the atheistic or agnostic position. God's titles for such folks are "fools", "scoffers", and "scorners". And here's what I read this morning on the matter:

"The LORD's curse is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Toward the scorners He is scornful, but to the humble He gives favor. The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace" -- Proverbs 3:33-35.

The Bible declares God to be patient, loving, slow to anger, and long-suffering. It does not declare Him to be ever-suffering. He will not strive with a person endlessly (Ge 6:3), as His flooding of the world proves.

The Reasonable Faith

We cannot reason our way to God. The God of the Bible is the God of reason, truth, and history. But none of these things connect us to Him redemptively; faith does. However, sound reason is not incompatible with faith, but actually works with it to lead us to truth. Faith in God, as it turns out, is the most reasonable thing to have. All truth originates with God and therefore points us to Him (Ro 11:36). Winfried Corduan is right to write, "We do not need to be gingerly in our investigations of truth. If a belief cannot withstand hard questioning, it may not be worth holding. If Christianity is true, it should be able to withstand the hardest questions we bring to it. If Christianity is not true, we should reject it."

He goes on to say, "It must be kept in mind that it is not as easy to show Christianity to be false, even hypothetically, as some people think."

The "fool" who says there is no God (Ps 14) is a fool because he acts against sound reason, not faith. He acts against the world of evidence that communicates to all of his senses and mind that there is indeed a creator with distinct divine attributes. The testimony of history also testifies to God's existence and work. A key reason the Bible generally and the New Testament particularly are so credible is because of the massive eyewitness testimony on which they are based. Christianity happens in real time and real space. It is rooted in corroborated historical events, unlike any other belief system. It's key events and characters have been seen and heard and documented. The Bible as a historical document cannot be successfully shown to be untrue. It stands the tests of historical authenticity. Now, that being said, receiving this historical document as the Word of God requires some faith, which is the gift of God (Ep 2:8), comes by hearing His Word (Ro 10:17), and so does not come by our senses.

The testimony of conscience is also a powerful witness to God's presence in the world (Ro 2). So are our otherwise unexplainable longings for love, justice, beauty, and so forth. These come from being made in God's image and likeness (Ge 1), and they clearly distinguish us from His other creatures.

By All Means, Question God

Keeping with the theme of my last post, I urge you all to hit Christianity with your most perplexing questions. Take your best shot at the Bible. Both God's Word, and God's religion, will prevail, because they are rooted in Him. Both have been under assault for thousands of years; and on this very day Christianity is experiencing its greatest expansion, because it is true. The gospel is not news that merely persuades; it transforms. It changes hearts, because "it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Ro 1:16).

It is common for some ignorant Christians to urge folks, especially their children, not to question. They are afraid that their faith can't take the hard hits. This is an embarrassing fear; for it assumes that the message and ways of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, are weak. But there is nothing weak about Jesus. And it is Him that always welcomed honest questions. Honest questions rooted in honest doubt are not offensive to Jesus, and should not be offensive to His people. Jesus appreciates integrity and curiosity. What He does not tolerate is insincere questioning from those who are out to disprove Him but cannot do so with integrity. He doesn't appreciate nonsense questions such as, "Can God create a rock that He cannot lift?" He does not take seriously those who would toss the Bible because they don't get the answers they like to such queries as, "Where did Cain get his wife?", "How can God condone the killing of children described in the Old Testament?", and "Why doesn't God prevent natural disasters?" Asking the questions is encouraged, provided the heart behind the asking is open to God's answers, and not hard against Him, and so seeking to discredit Him no matter His answer. Again, honest doubt is acceptable. Arrogant doubt is not.

It is not my mission in this post to answer these particular questions in any detail. However, off the top of my head I would say Cain married his sister, the killing of the children was a form of mercy, and natural disasters are meant as physical visible signs of invisible spiritual realities -- like universal human guilt. There are Scripture texts on all of this for those who care to seek.

I plan to continue with this theme tomorrow. But for now let me close by mentioning some New Testament characters that might interest you. Consider Thomas (Jn 20), often called "doubting Thomas" because he asked to see the scars of Jesus' crucifixion before he would believe. Jesus accommodated the request. Consider also Nathanael (Jn 1). He's the one who, when told by Philip that the Messiah of whom the Law and Prophets foretold had been found, asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth, meaning Jesus. Jesus' response to this was to say of Nathanael that he was "an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit." Or in Mark 9, there is the father of the demon possessed child, who goes to Jesus for help, but goes with doubt. He says to Jesus regarding his faith, "I believe, help my unbelief." Jesus did.

But then there are the Pharisees who relentlessly questioned Jesus but always to trap Him, or discredit Him. Jesus was not at all accommodating to them. He cursed them, embarrassed them, rejected them, and condemned them. He called them the blind sons of hell (Mt 23).

So go on, take your very best shot at Jesus. He can take it. And if you take an honest shot, He will receive it graciously, and just might rescue you too.

If Anything Is, God Is.

A couple of days back my four year old daughter said to my wife, "Mommy, tell me about God". They were not then in a conversation about God, or the Bible, or anything particular to that realm (though all things have to do with this realm). The question seemed to come out of nowhere as it broke through the common place activity of the hour. As Marian spoke to Tess about God, Tess asked to see God. Marian explained that God is an unseen Being, the invisible Reality. So of course the next question from my daughter was, "If God is invisible, then how do we know that He's real?" This question is asked by those who are 4, and 40, and 80. It is the same old question, and it is a question the Scriptures answer for us.

Romans 1, for example, says that knowledge of God is made plain to us because God has shown it to us (v19). The Apostle Paul goes on to say that God's invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (are not invisible)(v20). The invisible Spirit who is God has revealed Himself in the visible creation. The evidence for God's existence is so "plain" and "clear" says Paul, that those who disbelieve in Him are "without excuse" (v20). Those who don't believe in the Creator God of the Bible are not stupid; they're blind, and they suppress the truth God has made plain (v18).

Let me put it this way, somewhat philosophically: If anything exists, God exists. I know this because I am not insane. Crazy maybe, but not insane. I know that something cannot come from nothing. Nothing is nothing. There is no thing in nothing. Nothing is non-existence. And nothing comes out of non-existence. So if anything exists, a creator exists. If anything is, a maker is. That's just basic reason. You and I know of nothing without a beginning (excluding God). We know of nothing without an origin. So for a person to argue that in the reality that we occupy, there is no God, is asinine. But it's beyond asinine, it's a form of insanity because she is arguing against all that we all already know -- that if there is a something, it has an origin, and that origin must be a self-sustaining one. One may argue that the God of the Bible is not that origin, but he can't rationally argue for no self-sustaining origin. If a thing exists, it has an origin, and there is a creator. For anything material to exist, there must be a non-caused first cause. There must be an independent, outside creation reality,  with the nature and power and will to create.

You need not believe in the God of the Bible to believe in this rationale. You only need be a living creature, and trace backward the existence of anything. At some point you reach the point where you run out of material causes, yet, the thing whose history you are tracing still exists. For example, I am holding a pen. I trace its origins back to the makers of the plastic and the ink and the metal, and to the hands that put it all together in a factory, and even to the materials of the earth drawn out to make the plastic and the ink, etc. But eventually I can go no farther in the material universe, yet the pen is still in my hand. How is that possible? God is.

At the end of the day as I examine reality, that God exists makes perfect sense, while an absence of God makes no sense. Whether you're tracing the history of a pen or of a person or of the universe as a whole, the same old questions arise and the same old answer satisfies -- God is.

Biblical faith is not blind faith, but the opposite. It's eyes wide open trust in a God that has gone to great lengths to make Himself known, even creating a universe, and sending His Son into it, so that we are all without excuse.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky displays His handiwork. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard -- Ps 19:1-3.

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him -- He 11:6.

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God" -- Ps 14:1a.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world -- He 1:1-2.