What Christians Can Learn from the Woke

Can we learn anything from them? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I posted on Facebook recently about watching a WhatCultureGaming video recently about video games ruined at the last minute. It was about the damage done to a game called Mask of Eternity and how some Christians had taken charge of the material of King’s Quest and have everything thoroughly sanitized. The end result was intense damage to the series.

What’s really sad as I said is that we as Christians tend to do this often. We make media that for the most part is just awful. No one wants to do anything with it. I’m not at all saying we should never make material that is for us, but if we are making material that is meant to be evangelistic, we are failing at it.

I am not at all saying to forego biblical orthodoxy to make sales, but I am saying that it doesn’t matter how orthodox or accurate your material is if no one wants to engage with it. You could have the best material in the world, but it requires for it to be effective for someone to interact with it. If they’re not doing it, then you are not reaching anyone then.

One of my friends commented saying that this reminded them of what we see from Woke material nowadays. Disney has recently experienced a large number of bombs in their material. Why? Well, they want to say it’s because the audience is bigoted and any number of reasons, but the real reason is people don’t want Woke.

The reason is the audience knows that they are being preached to. They know that that character that is same-sex attracted is being included just for service to the ideology. The fans know that Aragorn in the novels is not black, but what does Rings of Power care about that? (Never mind how Netflix goes with that.) Having a Latino family was not a major seller for Blue Beetle.

Why? Because these people are bigots? No. It’s because the message is being forced to us. We don’t care about how diverse the cast is if we don’t care about the content and when you focus on the diversity instead of producing good content, people don’t want to see it.

We are doing the exact same thing. We are making content that people do not want to see because we are so focused on getting that Christian message out there and it has to be spelled out explicitly. There has to be a moment with a cross and a message on how Jesus died for you. The Christians have to be wonderful holy saints who never struggle. The non-Christians have to be bent on evil at every single step.

Nothing will reach that Chrisitan audience like telling them they are lower in every way to their Christian counterparts, even though many of them don’t experience that in real life.

Look instead at franchises that do it right. How many non-Christians do you know of who have read the Narnia books and enjoyed them? I’m going through Young Sheldon now and I recently saw an episode where Sheldon, who is an atheist, gets introduced to the Lord of the Rings series. Did Sheldon realize he was getting a Christian worldview secretly taught to him? Doubtful. There are plenty of fandoms still built up around Tolkien’s work and without him, those of us like myself who enjoy RPGs might have never had the chance.

Some of you might not think Harry Potter is a Christian series, but even if you don’t, look at the way she did it. She got her message out by producing content children wanted to read. Children wanted to read books that had hundreds of pages.

Star Wars is built largely on the concept of Eastern Religions. Star Trek is built on humanism. You have devout Christians who enjoy both. I’m not at all saying they shouldn’t, but I am saying that the content was a cover to get the message out there. Many Christians are wise enough to enjoy the story without agreeing with the content, but we can still learn from them.

I commented on the original video and got told that Christian music could be an exception as it can be good. Sometimes, but consider this. Too many of our songs today are really more therapy than anything else. I don’t say this to knock therapy, but the songs are meant to help us more than to teach about God. Another point is how many non-Christians do you know who regularly turn on Christian music and listen to it? Meanwhile, how many Christians do you know who enjoy listening to non-Christian music?

Another video that got me thinking about this approach to media more was this one. If you don’t want to go to the video, which is about a history of Christian video games, let me show you some of the comments. (Names excluded)

I’m not Religious but if they actually made a bible game that was like Bayonetta, God of war or hell even something like skyrim or Breath of the wild, I’d play it

I mean, although the binding of isaac does contain Cristian aspects I find it hard to classify it as a Cristian game, since it is essentially more critical of religion rather than promoting the belief. Even if it’s not necessary outright stated that religion is bad or anything. Gotta say though, I did learn quite a bit about christianity through playing the game, both through its references and by the fact that it made me interested and there by had me look up what these characters and references was all about.

OK bur a Christian bayonetta would be ok with me. I might actually play it

And looking through, one problem said in the comments is Christians behind much of this material don’t care about the art. They only care about the message.

There you go.

I personally would like to see something like an Assassin’s Creed counterpart that is Christian. Do you know how many people have started learning about historical events because of an Assassin’s Creed game? There are plenty of ways to make Chrisitan games. Just don’t treat your audience like idiots. Trust them to figure it out. (Keep in mind, Jesus didn’t spell out His parables to the audience either.)

Then do this with movies. Do this with literature. Do this with music. Do this with TV shows.

The best content in the world won’t matter if it doesn’t reach the audience.

Learn from the Woke. Learn what not to do.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Problem With Evolutionary Debates

Do both sides make a mistake in the debate? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In a Facebook group I’m a part of, someone who is an atheist posted something about evolution with an idea of evolution vs. Christianity. I replied saying that I am an evolutionary agnostic. I don’t know and I don’t care. It doesn’t affect my reading of Genesis, my view of inerrancy, my arguments for God, or my case for the resurrection.

This is not to say I don’t have some questions. I definitely do. The biggest one I have is how it is that men and women raised independently sexual reproductive systems that work together interdependently. The thing is, I don’t present this as a defeater because I am sure research has been done and I have not taken the time to look into it because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter to me.

So in reply to this post that was made, I state I am an agnostic and someone who I suspect is a Christian comes and asks me questions about how to explain XYZ if evolution is true. These could have been basic questions. I said I’m not arguing for it, but I did ask the question that I normally ask. What was the last book you read defending evolution? The answer was none, just watching debates.

Friends. I try to be consistent. Reading contrary thought is important to argue a position.

All this does it leave me thinking about similar mistakes internet atheists and a lot of Christians make when arguing this topic.

First, a reality, both sides tend to accept basic ideas in each belief system. Your average Christian has no problem going to a doctor, flying on a plane, driving a car, using electricity, etc. Insofar as these are not controversial, this is not an issue.

Meanwhile, your average atheist will accept some things about Christianity. Many will accept that there was a historical Jesus. (Although there are far too many who are mythicists.) Many will see a lot of good in a lot of the ethical teachings of Christians. They will tend to disagree on sexual matters, but they are likely to accept things like giving to the poor, loving your neighbor as yourself, not stealing or lying or murdering, etc.

The problem is when you make it either-or. You have to accept everything or you accept nothing. You have to choose which side you are on. Are you on the side of Christianity or of science.

Which buys into the idea that these are automatically irreconcilable. There are a number of devout Christians who are scientists. Historically, there has been no split between the two.

But now let’s look at your average Christian in the pew. For them, Christianity is a great blessing in their lives. They have experiences of wonder and love that rightly or wrongly, they think come from God. They have a strong ethical system, a hope of heaven someday, and a loving community. They think Christianity just explains the world. At the same time, they have no problem with the basic science activities I mentioned above.

Now the atheist comes to them and says “You are not rational if you accept all of that and you have to accept this viewpoint that you don’t understand and reject everything that is dear to you.” Add in also that in the grand scheme of things, this belief that man evolved will not really make much difference to this person likely in their day-to-day life. Do you really think a Christian will go for that? The atheist really needs to listen to the Christian on why their Christianity matters. Keep in mind, for the sake of argument, the Christian could be totally wrong in what they think, but it is still what they think.

Richard Dawkins and the rest of the new atheists often make this mistake. When Richard Dawkins writes on science as science, it is spellbinding. Even if you disagree with him, you can see the wonder he has in what he’s describing. Yet when he talks about something related to Christianity, he is speaking largely from ignorance and anyone who has a clue on Christianity rejects it. It gives a Christian a pass to say “Well, if he’s this ignorant on Christianity and speaking like he’s an authority, why should I trust him on science?” Again, Dawkins could be totally right on science, but he’s damaging his reputation when he posts on things he doesn’t understand.

Honestly, if Dawkins wanted to promote science, the best thing he could do would be to just write about science. When he makes it science vs. Christianity, he’s less likely to reach people. If someone comes in who is a Christian to the world of science and does good scientific work, why should Dawkins care if they’re a Christian or not as long as they’re producing good material?

If an atheist wants to argue against Christianity, what they really need to do is read Christians who are informed talking about what they believe and why. Read multiple views on Genesis. Read about cases for theism and the resurrection of Jesus.

Now it sounds like I’ve been hard on the atheist, but the Christian isn’t entirely innocent in this. If a Christian goes to the scientist and says “You must reject XYZ in order to be a Christian” and the scientist is convinced that XYZ is a well-established fact about the world, then we have a problem. If the Christian says, “You must accept that Scripture says this about the world” and the atheist doesn’t think that claim about the world is true, he is likely to tie that in to theism and the resurrection of Jesus. Saint Augustine said this centuries ago and yet it sounds like it could have been written today:

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [1 Timothy 1.7].” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1 Chapter 19 Paragraph 39)

If a Christian then argues this way, he’s not going to present a case that the atheist will accept. It’s the same problem again. If you make it the Bible vs science to an atheist, he will choose science every time, and who can blame him?

Am I forbidding a Christian from arguing against evolution? Not at all. It’s not what I do, but if you want to do it, it must not be the Bible vs. science as that just feeds the idea that there is a war between the two. If evolution is to fall, let it fall because it is somehow shown to be bad science. (It is not my call if it is or not or will be or not.) I suspect most atheists would agree with this. If evolution can be demonstrated to be bad science, then it is to be rejected.

If you want to make a case for Christianity, then go with a claim for theism and then the resurrection of Jesus and get in everything else after that. If you think a person has a less robust form of Christianity, such as rejecting inerrancy or what you think is a false view of Genesis, but they hold to essential Christian doctrine like the resurrection of Jesus, the Trinity, etc. then rejoice. They believe the essential matters.

So then, if you want to argue against evolution, then you need to read the best evolutionary scientists you can and learn their position and do the work to show why you think it is scientifically flawed. If you are not willing to do this, then don’t argue it. There is nothing wrong with asking questions, but treating them like defeaters is a problem.

Again, atheists and Christians both make this mistake and it sadly ends with ignorance of both science and Christianity. Let’s do better.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 8

Is Jesus God’s Wisdom? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In these replies, I have been contending that Jesus is God’s Wisdom. Today, we’re going to look into that a little bit more.

The most common interpretation of ‘all things’ in 1 Cor 8:6 is that this embraces the Genesis creation and
that the Son is being placed as the one through whom that creation came into being “through/by
whom are all things”.
But to us there is one God, the Father, out of whom are85 all things, and we to/for him; and
one Lord Jesus Christ, through/by whom are all things, and we through/by him. 1 Cor 8:6
(KJV revised)

Yes. This is the most common interpretation and that’s for good reason. It makes sense of the passage. This is especially clear when you get to chapter 10 still about meat offered to idols and are told that the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. (1 Cor. 10:25-26)

But Perry says:

J. Murphy-O’Conner discusses cosmological readings of 1 Cor 8:6, showing how they are often based
on extra-Biblical comparisons with parallel texts that have ‘all things’ being of one God but through an
agent such as Wisdom or the Logos. He notes example philosophical texts from the Stoics and Philo, but
several Second Temple religious texts can be adduced for Wisdom having a role in creation. One
argument for a cosmological reading is that all things come from God, and so food comes from God, and
is acceptable. The problem with the argument is that vv. 1-7 is directed to those who already have this
knowledge; it is not directed to those who need persuasion. Another argument is a comparison with 1
Cor 11:12 where Paul states “but all things are of God”. However, it is not certain that Paul is making a
point here about creation; he could be making a contrast with the new creation as with 2 Cor 5:18 (“But
all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”). If we exclude creation as the
topic of v. 6, then the parallel between Christ and Wisdom vis-à-vis creative agency is diminished.

Naturally, Perry is not interacting with Second Temple thought, but he says that if Paul is saying this, then it seems that it would be something that they didn’t know. Well, by this standard, let’s point out some other things they didn’t know in the letter.

1 Cor. 11:23-26:

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Cor. 15:3-7:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles

So by Perry’s argument then, this material that Paul says he passed on to them, they would not have known about. Why present something they already knew?

Or maybe, just maybe, Paul is using what they already know to make a point….

We can certainly say if we exclude creation, then the Wisdom argument is diminished, but what difference does new creation make to Paul’s argument? Paul is talking about how to interact in this creation, not the new one. Does Perry think there will be meat for sale from pagan markets in the new creation?

The competing interpretation is soteriological. Within 1 Corinthians, Paul uses ‘all things’ to embrace
different concepts. First, he says that the spiritual man judges all things (1 Cor 2:10-16). Such a person is
the recipient of the Spirit from God who works ‘all things in all’ (1 Cor 12:6; Eph 1:23) – all these things
are distributed throughout the body in terms of the spiritual gifts (‘spiritual things’, 1 Cor 12:1ff). All
things are for the believers so that the abundance of grace might be spread to all (Rom 8:28, 31-32; 2 Cor
4:14-15). This is why all things are ‘new’ in the new creation (2 Cor 5:17-18). Secondly, and politically, the
day will come when God will put all things under the feet of Christ, and after fulfilling his work, Christ
will deliver all things to the Father (1 Cor 15:27-28; Eph 1:10-11). Of these two uses of ‘all things’, 1 Cor
8:6 would fall into the first category of ‘spiritual things’ because Paul is talking about knowledge in 1
Corinthians 8.88 Christians judge, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

But this faces the same problem. Paul throughout the section is talking about this creation. Why think the context has switched so spiritual matters when the question is about meat in the marketplace?

The underlying point here is that ‘all things’ is a common enough way to talk generally. Elsewhere, Paul
will refer to thrones, rulers, lordships and authorities as ‘all things’ (Col 1:16); he will comment that he has
suffered the loss of all things (Phil 3:8); and in his Mars Hill speech, Paul declares that God gives all
things to all. The ‘all things’ of 1 Cor 8:6 are the gifts of the Spirit which are ‘of’ the Father but ‘through’
Jesus Christ (e.g. Eph 2:18; Tit 3:5-6).

Perry has thrown this out without a reason why I should accept it. At this point, Hitchens’s Razor applies. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Perry has given me no reason to take his claim seriously and I see plenty to the contrary.

There is a further point of contrast with the cosmological reading. Paul states that believers are
‘through/by’ Jesus Christ – this is a reference to the new creation of men and women in Christ (Rom 6:11,
23; 2 Cor 5:17; Col 1:20; Gal 3:14; 6:15), who in turn receive the spiritual gifts. Paul’s point is based in the
present and not the past of the Genesis creation.

And when did those present things come about? Oh yes. In the Genesis creation. Paul is pointing to the beginning and the order God established. How else could He have done this?

Thus I conclude this paper thoroughly unpersuaded, at least of Perry’s point. If anything, I am more persuaded that the more traditional reading is the correct one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 7

Are those verses really about Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this section, Perry asks if some passages are really about Jesus. Let’s go through them.

The use of Joel 2:32 in Rom 10:13.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, ‘Lord Jesus’, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved…For there is no difference between the Jew
and the Greek: for the same lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Whosoever shall call
upon the name kyrios shall be saved. Rom 10:9-13 (KJV revised)
On the basis of the mention of the Lord Jesus in v. 9, it is assumed that ‘same lord over all’ and ‘call upon
the name kyrios’ equally refer to Jesus. Hence, Capes avers, “Since ku,rioj refers to Jesus in 10:9, he
probably had Jesus in mind here also.”

And this seems quite accurate to me, but what does Perry say?

An allusion or echo of Joel 2:32 exists in, “with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord” (1 Cor 1:2). This places Jesus into the position of the saviour that Yahweh occupies in the
‘calling’ of Joel 2:32. It could be used to support the claim of Capes about Rom 10:13 but, equally, we
should observe that the name ‘Yhwh’ is not referenced in 1 Cor 1:2. Since salvation is a matter of God working through Jesus, the appeal for salvation can be described directly in terms of Joel 2:32 and
Yahweh or in allusive terms referring to Christ.

An allusion? It’s an outright quote. Paul doesn’t speak of Jesus as a representative. He speaks of Him as the Lord. The name YHWH is not referenced in 1 Cor. 1:2? What of it? We have Romans 10:9 right there and right next to it 10:13. Wouldn’t that be a better go-to?

The expression ‘lord of all’ evokes God’s rule over the nations (Jew and Greek). In 1 Chron 29:11-12,
Yahweh is ‘head above all’ (LXX has, differently, ‘lord of all’) and ‘riches’ are also said to come from him
in this text. These two points of contact suggest that Paul is quoting from this prayer, but it is also
common enough to address Yahweh in these terms (e.g. 2 Chron 20:6).
This in turn suggests that the use of Joel 2:32 is also a reference to Yahweh ‘calling upon the name of
the Lord’. This is a specific refrain74 in the Jewish Scriptures for invoking God to act as a saviour, see the
table below for examples.

Yet if we turned to Romans 9:5, we get that Jesus is God over all. The problem Perry has ultimately is “Well, if we take this and read it this way and look at it this way, it could possibly refer to this.” Maybe, but why should I pick that over the traditional interpretation that countless exegetes have said instead?

Another example of commentators mistaking identity is the quotation of Jer 9:23-24 in 1 Cor 1:31,
That, according as it is written, ‘He that glorieth, let him glory in kyrios’. 1 Cor 1:31 (KJV); cf. 2 Cor
10:17
Thus saith Yhwh, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his
might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am Yhwh which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and
righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight’, saith Yhwh Jer 9:23-24 (KJV revised)
The principal actor in Paul’s treatise in 1 Cor 1:19-31 is God: God destroys (v. 19); he brings to nothing
(v. 19); he has made (v. 20); he saves (v. 21); he chooses (vv. 27-28); and he makes (v. 30). Christ is the
‘object’ in the discourse – the ‘Wisdom of God’. It follows that v. 31 is a simple use of kyrios for ‘Yhwh’
and that the believer is to boast in God’s acts. Accordingly, Capes is simply wrong to conclude, “As indicated by his description of Christ’s work in 1:30, Paul quoted this Yahweh text (ku,riojin LXX,hwhy
in the Hebrew text) and applied it to Christ.”On the contrary, in v. 30 Christ is God’s work! The
boasting is related to the acts of God.

Yet again, what is the problem here? If we say Jesus is the Wisdom of God, then this fits with it. You can either glory in the Father at the work of Jesus or glory in Jesus that He is the one through whom the Father acts and either one works with a Trinitarian mindset.

So getting back to 1 Cor. 8:6, Perry says:

1 Corinthians 8:6 distinguishes God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ with its prepositional
statements. If we compare these to 1 Cor 10:26, they disambiguate Paul’s quotation: the earth is ‘of the
Lord’ (tou/ kuri,ou) and it is God the Father ‘from whom’ or ‘out of whom’ are all things (evx ou).

And again, reading this from a Wisdom approach, what is the problem? This is exactly what I would expect.

While Perry goes in, I really don’t see anything interacting with this Wisdom approach.

We shall continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 6

How did Paul view Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There are however literary identities. One kind is a typological identity.
Nevertheless, when it [the heart, v. 16] shall turn to kyrios, the veil shall be taken away. Now the
Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor 3:17 (KJV revised)
And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and
they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of
the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them…And till Moses had done
speaking with them, he put a veil on his face…But when Moses went in before Yhwh to speak
with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. Exod 34:30-34 (KJV revised)
The comparison here is with Moses ‘going in’ before Yhwh without a veil. The use of the verb ‘to turn’
picks up the children of Israel ‘outside’ who ‘turned away’ from Moses (Exod 34:31 – they turn back,
same verb in the LXX). Paul is saying that when the heart of the Jews turns to Yhwh, the veil will be taken
away, i.e. they will then be like Moses.
Paul’s first exegetical comment upon the incident is that ‘The Lord is the Spirit’. The identity here is
typological; Yahweh in Moses’ day stands for ‘the Spirit’ in Paul’s day. That Paul is thinking in terms of
typological comparison is shown by his earlier remarks. The Corinthians were not a letter written in
‘tablets’ of stone but one that was written in the ‘tablets’ of the heart with the Spirit of the living God (2
Cor 3:3). In order for the Jews to be such a letter, they would have to ‘turn’ to the Spirit. Paul is stating
this imperative by his assertion that ‘the Lord’ (Yahweh) is ‘the Spirit’.

Or, maybe, just maybe, Paul does mean the Lord is the Spirit.  Could this interpretation be possible? Sure, but why should I think it is likely? It is true that Perry goes on from here, but I find nothing that I think really clinches this argument. It’s as if he gets to make an assertion and then moves on. Responding to David Capes, he says:

Capes says that “the most convincing evidence that ku,rioj in [2 Cor] 3:16 refers to Jesus comes from [2
Cor] 4:5”,
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
2 Cor 4:5 (KJV revised)

Well, yes. That does seem convincing. Paul speaks of the Lord in one chapter and then a scant few verses later, he says Jesus is Lord, a common saying of his.

This illustrates the problem confronting exegetes; ku,rioj is used to refer to Yahweh and Jesus Christ and
commentators can get confused over usage. Paul’s point here in v. 5 is about the content of preaching,
whereas in the previous chapter, his concern has been with understanding the driving force of preaching
the Spirit. Paul’s teaching about the Spirit takes the form of a typological comparison with Yahweh.
Capes is therefore simply mistaken. With typological identity, the type may have the same role, status or
function as the anti-type. In the comparison between Yahweh and the Spirit, both are the source of
instruction.

I look over this and I wonder how this is a response to what was said. The content of the preaching would be Jesus is Lord which would mean…..Jesus is Lord? And then when we see a reference to the Lord in 2 Cor. 3, perhaps that same Lord is Jesus? There doesn’t seem to be anything odd about this reading.

For Perry who seems to suspect theological motives under every interpretation he disagrees with, it looks like he is the one who is letting his theology guide his interpretation.

Next time, we will discuss alleged cases of mistaken identity.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 4

Is Jesus YHWH? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What dose it mean to say Jesus is included in the divine identity?

If we consider relative identity (‘a is the same F as b’),45 it doesn’t seem that this framework will give us
an understanding for inclusive identity. Logically, two are one (the same) relative to their satisfying a
categorical predicate (‘the same F’; Fido and Pooch are the same breed’). Does Paul think that Jesus is the
same God as Yahweh? One doubt would be that he distinguishes them in terms of ‘God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ’. However, putting this doubt aside, if Paul believed that they were the same God,
this doesn’t necessarily imply that he is ‘including’ Jesus in the divine identity of Yahweh/God of Israel

Yet Perry never seems to define what is meant by this. Do we mean they are the same God? If you mean they are the same person, then no. I am not surprised that Jesus is differentiated from the Father. If anything, this convinces me. They needed two different ways to speak of them to avoid confusion.

The language of the divine nature deals with this. There are two persons at least that share the divine nature. Again, what that is needs to be fleshed out for us, but for the ancient audience in a high-context society familiar with Jewish thought, that would have been much better understood.

If we think of shared identity or group identity, these are examples of ‘inclusive’ identity. We might say
‘a is a member of the same class as b’. There are many gods and many lords and these would be classes in
which we might place the God of Israel and the Lord Jesus Christ. Putting it in this way, doesn’t
obviously include Jesus in the class of many gods, but rather the class of many lords. In fact, 1 Cor 8:6
doesn’t lend itself to an inclusivity thesis, since Paul would seem to affirm that the “tous” class of gods
has only one member and likewise the “tous” class of lords. He assigns deity to the Father and lordship
to Jesus

IF Perry goes with this, then he would have to deny that the Father is Lord since the Father is not in the class of Lords but Jesus is. If Jesus not being in the category of gods means He cannot have the divine nature, then the Father not being included in the category of lords means He cannot have the nature of Lord. Is there any Jew that would remotely think that possible?

It is one thing to claim that Paul includes Jesus within the divine identity of the God of Israel; it is another
thing to show this worked out in his writing. We have noted the declarative quality of Christological
Monotheism. For example, we might ask whether (for Paul) it was God the Father that included Jesus
within his identity. If this were the case, and suppose that he did so through the bestowal of his Spirit
upon Jesus, does this have any implication as regards intrinsic deity in respect of Jesus? If Jesus is
included within the divine identity of the God of Israel, is the identity nevertheless still retained by the
God of Israel as his identity in such an inclusion?

Perry is responding more to adoptionism in this case than to Trinitarianism. First off, there is nothing that says Paul has to work this all out in his writing. In his society, his listeners would be expected to work that out and know the background knowledge to do that. Perry wants an ancient writing to read like a modern one.

Next time, we will look at some verses that seem to identify Jesus with YHWH in the New Testament.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 3

What about the Shema? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Perry begins this section with this:

J. W. Adey comments, “The ‘one God’ of Biblical revelation is a single ‘person’ God, the Father only,
unambiguously unitarian or monotheistic…” The Shema would seem to be a clear expression of that
monotheism. The singleness of God is not about his (compound) unity, but about there being a sole
God.

We all agree that the Shema refers to one God, but thus far, that does not equal one person in the one God. I have long said that the biggest mistake Arians make is the assumption of unipersonalism. Every Trinitarian agrees that there is one God.

Christological Monotheism holds that Jesus is included within the divine identity of the God of Israel. As
a second move it affirms a continual adherence on the part of Paul to Jewish Monotheism. The two
propositions introduce a confusion into the definition of monotheism between what is one and unity.
Jewish (as well as scriptural) Monotheism is not about unity but about there being a single God. The
compound unity of the Father and the Son is not informative for Paul’s use of the Shema

Perry can say all he wants that this introduces a confusion, but what is meant? If he means hard to understand, that applies to most everything about God. God is omniscient and people have free-will. God is eternal and acts in time. Now if he could show something was a contradiction, that would be a problem, but thus far, he hasn’t. If his point is that there is a sole God, then he is not arguing against Christological monothiesm. We hold to that.

This observation introduces a requirement for Christological Monotheism: it needs to show that
‘inclusion within the divine identity’ is actually relevant to a characterization of ‘monotheism’. The contrary
challenge is that we can characterize Jewish Monotheism, Scriptural Monotheism and Pauline
Monotheism, referring to the singleness of God, as well as showing that Jesus is included within the
divine identity of the God of Israel but without this being a matter of monotheism and instead being a
matter of cosmology. The drive to have ‘inclusive identity’ part of a definition of monotheism seems
anachronistic and based in the needs of Christian theology rather than an accurate description of NT
history.

Even if Perry was right about motives, so what? The data is what matters. Besides that, the assumption is that the later Fathers got a Christology in mind and then went back and plugged that into the New Testament. Maybe, just maybe, they read it out of the New Testament?

If we want to be faithful to the etymology ‘mono/theism’ (mo,noj/qeo,j), then we should include the
following Pauline ‘mono’ texts ‘only God’ (1 Tim 1:17; cf. Jude v. 25) and ‘only Sovereign…who only has
immortality’ (1 Tim 6:15-16). These texts, coupled with the distinction between the Son and the invisible
God in Colossians, gives us a consistent monotheistic pattern in Paul’s thought that doesn’t include the
Son.

Yet a Christological monotheist can say the Son is included in the divine identity and so when we speak of the only God, then that is what is going on. Does Perry do the same though when we get to Jude 4 and Jesus is our only Lord? Based on what is said here, if Perry interprets that the same way, then the Father cannot be our Lord.

We should ask whether it is possible for the Shema to be rewritten or rearranged so as to include Jesus Christ
within the divine identity of the God of Israel. The question here is whether the semantics of ‘one’ (dxa,
́eHäd) in the Shema allow this possibility. Our argument is that they do not, because ‘one’ is about
singleness and not unity whereas ‘inclusion within the divine identity’ is about unity, i.e. requires a sense
corresponding to ‘unity’ in the Shema.

Okay. Let’s see then.

A quotation of the Shema in Zech 14:9 assists this analysis.
And Yahweh shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be Yahweh one, and his name
one. Zech 14:9 (KJV revised)
Adey comments on this text, “the way
́HD qualifies Yahweh and ‘Yahweh’ in Zech 14:9, classifying but not
(it is said) identifying, connects and complies syntactically and semantically with reading
́HD as a numeral
‘one’ in the Shema.”35 And a further quotation,
Have we not all one father? Hath not one God ( ́ē
l) created us? (Mal 2:10 KJV)
Adey’s comment on this text is, “The singularity of ‘God’ is further emphasized by the grammatically
singular form ́ēl”.36 The singleness of Yahweh is also seen in the complementary statements that God is
alone God or that Yahweh is alone Yahweh (2 Kgs 19:15, 19; Neh 9:6; Ps 83:18).

And the problem is? I don’t see it. We all affirm that there is one God. What is the problem?

Where ́eHäd might be used for ‘oneness’ or ‘unity’, then there is a two that remains two, as for example in
the case of “the two shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Adey observes,
“…whilst ‘one’ in the appropriate context may be transposed into a metaphoric sense as ‘unity’
(‘oneness’), dismantling ‘one’ as ‘unity’ does not end up with ‘one’ (thing). ‘Unity’ requires at least two (parts or persons) for its meaning. In Deut 6:4 the only theistic party is Yahweh. The text has
none other that is God but He, and this justifies asserting that the given four semantic units in the
Shemastatement are insufficient to provide for or even evoke the concept of (some pluraloneness
as) unity.

And again, I don’t see the problem here. Unity requires at least two. That’s what we have. At least two persons. Thus, God can be a unified one since He has three persons.

That’s all to say about the Shema for now. Let’s see what comes up next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 2

Is Jesus in the divine identity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So let’s just jump right back into it.

Wright asserts that Paul has taken kurios from Deut 6:4, but offers no argumentation for this proposal.
He then concludes, “There can be no mistake: just as in Philippians 2 and Colossians 1, Paul has placed
Jesus within an explicit statement, drawn from the Old Testament’s quarry of emphatically monotheistic
texts…producing what we can only call a sort of christological monotheism.” We have criticized
Wright’s exegesis of Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 in previous articles, but only Philippians 2 uses a
characteristic monotheistic OT text (Isa 45:23). We might agree that Phil 2:10 places Jesus within the same
eschatological situation as Yahweh in Isa 45:23, but placement within a situation is not the same as
inclusion within the divine identity and so Wright’s comparison is false.

This seems to be too easy a dismissal of Wright. YHWH is the one who won’t share His name with another and for all the talk that Perry made last time about there being no parallel to the Shema for Jesus, can he find a parallel where everyone else bows at another name besides that of God? If it works one way, it ought to work the other way too.

The case for the christological monotheist is based around the claim that kyrios is picking up ‘Yhwh’ from
Deut 6:4 and using this name for Christ, thus identifying Jesus with Yhwh in some sense. The first
counter-argument to this claim is that, even if Paul is picking up ‘Yhwh’ from Deuteronomy, bearing the
name ‘Yhwh’ doesn’t imply an identification of Jesus with Yhwh. This is shown in two ways: first, the
name that is above every name was given22 to Christ by God (Phil 2:9); and secondly, the name was also
given to the Angel of the Lord who led Israel through the wilderness (“My name is in him”, Exod 23:21).

For the first objection, this is an assumption of unipersonalism whereby if a name is given, then that person cannot be in the identity, but this is not explained why. Jesus is given this name as a public vindication of what He had done publicly. Had He not done a public act, He would not have been known in this way.

For the second, I have regularly pointed to the Angel of the Lord as a Trinitarian precursor. He acts in ways that only God can act. He is the one speaking in Exodus 3. He appears to Hagar in Genesis 16 and she refers to Him as the God who sees me. Rather than demonstrating the point is incorrect, Perry is actually with this demonstrating the point is highly accurate!

The Angel of the Lord is a type of Christ leading his people through the wilderness. In the same way that
he bore the name, so too Christ bears the name. Hence, any basis there might be in the possession of this
name for identifying Jesus with Yhwh would also apply to the Angel of the Lord. Yet the Angel of the
Lord is distinguished from Yhwh in the same way that Paul distinguishes ‘one…and one’ in 1 Cor 8:6.

Obviously, great scholars like Bauckham and Wright never noticed that there was a distinguishing here. The Angel of the Lord is often treated as YHWH, but yet somehow is seen as a servant of YHWH. Consider how in Genesis 19:24 we read that YHWH on Earth rained down fire and brimstone from YHWH out of Heaven. If you come in with the assumption that God must be unipersonal, you have to read the texts in a way to avoid any plurality in the Godhead. If you dismiss that, you must remain open to the idea that perhaps God is a unique being in a sense that He is multipersonal while we are unipersonal.

However, before we reach this conclusion, we should ask, as a second counter-argument, whether
kyrios in 1 Cor 8:6 is actually picking up ‘Yhwh’ from Deut 6:4 in the first place. ‘Yhwh’ is a proper name,
but kyrios in 1 Cor 8:6 is not being used here as a proxy for this proper name precisely because it is
modified by ‘one’. The ‘one’ is in a semantic contract with the ‘many’ of v. 5, which in turn has the
plural of kyrios. This in turn brings that plural into a semantic contract with the singular of v. 6. Thus,
because the plural is functioning as a descriptive title, so too kyrios in v. 6 is functioning as a title and not
as a proxy for the name ‘Yhwh’. Accordingly, we can observe a symmetry between the two clauses: just as
‘God’ is not a proper name in ‘one God’ so too ‘Lord’ is not serving as a proxy for a proper name in ‘one
Lord’.

I am unclear as to what difference this makes. It is as if Perry is treating YHWH as a personal name. (By the way, aren’t all names given to someone?) Paul is making a contrasting statement indeed saying that the pagans have many gods and many lords, but we only have one. If he submits two different beings here, then he has a sort of ditheism going on. If he has one God with at least two persons here as both are in the divine nature somehow, then he does not.

Even if we went to the Shema, saying Lord as a proper name wouldn’t make sense. Did the Jews need to know there was only one YHWH? Even when they were  living in idolatry, they could say there was one YHWH, but there was also one Asherah, one Molech, etc. Yet if they say there is one God and one Lord and those are combined, then they have monotheism.

If the first clause, ‘there is one God, the Father’, is monotheistic, what type of clause is ‘there is one Lord,
Jesus Christ’? Is it possible to have a god and a lord within a scriptural faith? Is this conjoining of the Father and the Son so innovative that it redefines Scriptural Monotheism and Jewish Monotheism? Is the
associative partnership implicit in ‘of whom are all things’ (the Father) and ‘by whom are all things’ (the
Son) actually (or still) monotheistic?

But this is just begging the question. It is saying that if we go with the understanding of Bauckham and Wright and Capes and others, then we are redefining monotheism. It’s kind of hard to redefine a term that means “There is only one God.” The Trinity necessarily has it that there is only one God. Perry also since he is refusing to look at intertestamental literature is ignoring any data that Jews had to the contrary in pre-Christian thinking. Once again, if anything is redefining it, it is somehow having Jesus being a being that is separate and yet somehow Lord. By framing the Shema in this way, Paul is saying that you can’t have one without the other. If the Son is exclusively Lord, then the Father is not, but if the Father is exclusively God, the Son is not. Putting them both in the same identity avoids the problem.

Our two clause reading of 1 Cor 8:6 is immune to Bauckham’s reasoning for Christological Monotheism.
He says, “there can be no doubt that the addition of a unique Lord to the unique God of the Shema‘
would flatly contradict the uniqueness of the latter…The only possible way to understand Paul as
maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the unique identity of the one God
affirmed in the Shema‘.” All we have to observe here is that the second clause is not ‘adding to’ the ‘one’
of the monotheism in the first clause and that ‘one…and one’ does add up to two! We do not have to
maintain Paul’s monotheism by deploying a late-20c. theological construct like ‘included in the divine
identity’. We can maintain his monotheism by confining his avowal of monotheism to the first clause.

The language is 20th century, but is the idea? That is the question. We could just as well ask if anyone in the time of Paul was going around talking about Christological monotheism like Perry is. Would that invalidate his case? Absolutely not.

One and one does indeed add to two. So you either have two persons in the divine identity, or you have two beings, one distinctively God, but then the other must be distinctively Lord. If this is the Shema then, it is Perry that is dividing it and not Bauckham.

We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 1

Is 1 Cor. 8:6 a Trinitarian text? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In light of my blog on 1 Cor. 8:6, I was challenged to go through a paper by Andrew Perry that can be found here. So I did go through and sadly, much of what I saw from someone who is no fool on the topic was still going by the same mistakes many anti-Trinitarians make. Let’s dive in and see what i saw.

Wright says that it has an “apparently extraordinary ‘high’
christology” and it is a “Christian redefinition of the Jewish confession of faith, the Shema”. This remark
shows that Wright (and it is true of others4) is conducting his analysis within the socio-historic context of
Jewish Monotheism in the Second Temple period. He (and it is true of others) is not considering the text
just within the context of inspired Scripture, i.e. what text means within the context supplied by the Spirit
alone. This narrower and different context of appraisal generates the questions: does the Spirit present
Deut 6:4 as a ‘Jewish’ confession of faith or rather a proclamation of divine revelation? Would the Spirit
‘redefine’ its own presentation in Deut 6:4?

One wonders how it is that one is supposed to know what the Spirit, which here is listed as an “it” is saying. Does Perry alone have this insight or is it just that no Trinitarian has it? Has Wright committed a major flaw in actually going to the socio-historical context to understand the text? Could it be that Paul did not write in a vacuum but that Jews actually did some thinking about the Old Testament from the ending of the Jewish canon to the time of Jesus?

And if they did, could it perhaps be beneficial to us to look at that? Yes it could be, but Perry will have none of that. This reminds me greatly of Francis Beckwith’s statement that if they can’t win with logic, they will trump with spirituality.

This also assumes that the Shema has been redefined in an evangelical understanding of 1 Cor. 8:6. It has not been. The Shema is still a statement of monotheism. Instead, Jesus is being included in that monotheistic context. Were the Shema changed into a statement of ditheism, yes, that would be a change, but that is not what is going on here.

The intertextuality of the NT with the OT is so vast and any intertextuality with
contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish literature so tiny that the method of bring extra-Biblical parallels to
bear must take second place.

Tiny? Not at all. Are we to assume that in all those Jewish writings, they didn’t really have anything much to say about the Shema, the defining statement of Jewish monotheism? On the one hand, we have it that this was supposed to be a defining doctrine of Israel. On the other hand, the references to it would be tiny.

The flow of ethical argument in this part of the Corinthians’ letter is also not essential for a discussion of
how Christological Monotheism reads 1 Cor 8:6. The situation in Corinth and the teaching about
knowledge which Paul was opposing is addressed by a statement with two main clauses: one that is
monotheistic and one that is about the Lord Jesus Christ. To say that there are two clauses, only one of
which is monotheistic, is to take the opposite position to Christological Monotheism, and it doesn’t
depend on any particular view about the situation in Corinth regarding food offered to idols. This is our
‘critical’ argument against Christological Monotheism. Hence, we are characterizing the position of this
paper as ‘monotheistic Christology’.

Yet the argument from us is that all of the clauses here are monotheistic. If they are not, then it is not the Shema. As soon as Perry presents it any other way, then he is not really engaging with the argument as is from the evangelical perspective. He can say that to interpret his position is opposite of Christological monotheism, but it seems to boil down to “This position is wrong because it disagrees with my position.” That only works if you establish your own position.

In looking at 1 Cor. 8:6, Perry says that the proposal is:

“Any Greek-speaking Jew who hears a Christian say what 1 Cor 8:6 says is
bound to hear those words as a claim that Yhwh is now somehow identified with Jesus Christ.” Such a
proposition, without evidence in Second Temple writings from Greek-speaking Jews, is of little value as it
stands.

First off, I thought that the Second Temple writings didn’t matter. Now supposedly a silence from them does matter. Which is it?

Second, what is actually supposed to be said in these writings? Are we to expect Greek Jews outside of the apostles were talking about Jesus? However, if the question is could the Jews conceive of someone being in this kind of position, the answer is yes.

If you asked the Jews how God made the world, they would tell you through Wisdom. This is seen in Proverbs 8 especially. The extra irony to this is that this is a passage ancient and modern-day Arians point to to say Jesus is a creation. However, what do Jewish writings say about Wisdom? Let’s go to the Wisdom of Solomon starting at chapter 9 verse 9.

With you is wisdom, she who knows your works
and was present when you made the world;
she understands what is pleasing in your sight
and what is right according to your commandments.
10 Send her forth from the holy heavens,
and from the throne of your glory send her,
that she may labor at my side
and that I may learn what is pleasing to you.
11 For she knows and understands all things,
and she will guide me wisely in my actions
and guard me with her glory.
12 Then my works will be acceptable,
and I shall judge your people justly
and shall be worthy of the throne of my father.
13 For who can learn the counsel of God?
Or who can discern what the Lord wills?
14 For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,
and our designs are likely to fail,
15 for a perishable body weighs down the soul,
and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind.
16 We can hardly guess at what is on earth,
and what is at hand we find with labor,
but who has traced out what is in the heavens?
17 Who has learned your counsel
unless you have given wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high?
18 And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,
and people were taught what pleases you
and were saved by wisdom.”

No doubt, Wisdom is being referred to here. Yet let’s look at what happens in the next chapter.

Starting at verse 18:

She brought them over the Red Sea
and led them through deep waters,
19 but she drowned their enemies
and cast them up from the depth of the sea.
20 Therefore the righteous plundered the ungodly;
they sang hymns, O Lord, to your holy name
and praised with one accord your defending hand,
21 for wisdom opened the mouths of those who were mute
and made the tongues of infants speak clearly.

Beg your pardon?

Wisdom did that? Isn’t that what God did in the Old Testament? Indeed. It also doesn’t say God by His Wisdom did X. It said Wisdom did this. At the same time, there is still an idea of the Lord being praised. Go ahead and keep reading and you can ask “Is this praising Wisdom or the Lord?” Not only that, but if we look at the last verse quoted above, we can see a parallel to Exodus 4:11.

Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

All of this needs to be taken into consideration. One cannot just say “Well, the Wisdom of Solomon isn’t in the Bible” (I realize some Christians do have it in theirs, but for those who do not, that does not mean we can disregard it even if we don’t view it as Scripture.). Data is data. The Bible was not written in a vacuum.

One more point for tonight. Perry goes on to say this:

A more plausible proposal would be that a Greek-speaking Jew would see an allusion in Paul’s words to
the Shema in, for example, ‘God’, ‘us/our’ and ‘one’, but it is not obvious that Yhwh is to be identified
with Jesus Christ. Rather, the descriptive aspect of ‘our God’ and ‘one’ is picked up by ‘to us…one
God’, which therefore in turn identifies ‘the Father’ as Yhwh rather than Jesus Christ. Further, the
counting aspect of Paul’s conjoined statements, ‘one…and one’, rather militates against the interpretation
that Christ is being placed within the identity of the one God of Israel. The Shema has a single
occurrence of ‘one’ whereas 1 Cor 8:6 has two occurrences. Finally, if we accept Wright’s claim, we still
have to do the work of saying what we mean by ‘included within the identity of the one God of Israel’ –
this could be explained as simply as the indwelling of God’s Spirit rather than anything more complicated,
say, such as a recognition of an incarnation.

But if Kurios is a reference to YHWH in the Shema and it is applied to Jesus here, then yes, Jesus is being identified as the Lord in the Shema. The problem with making a divide is ultimately, you can say Jesus isn’t the one God, but then you have to say that YHWH isn’t the one Lord. If anyone is guilty of dividing the Shema and splitting it, it is the anti-Trinitarian.

Do we still have to do the work of explaining what is meant by being included in the divine identity? Yes. And? Having to do the work of explaining the concept isn’t a problem. Saying the indwelling of God’s Spirit is quite complicated. There were plenty of people in the Old and New Testaments that were said to be indwelled with the Spirit of God. Are they to be included in the Shema because of that?

We will continue with more of this next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Conclusion

How does it all end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We return to Sophie to find out where her story ends.

Where the rubber really meets the road though, is in the personal experience of god. It’s where Christians return to, and what they rely on.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Not me. I will point her consistently to the Thomistic arguments and to the case for the resurrection of Jesus. Personal experience usually only convinces those on the inside already and is way too subjective. The irony here is that throughout this chapter, Sophie talks about her personal experience regularly as a now non-Christian.

It was woven into my being, but for me there had not been a defining, dramatic conversion. It is fair to say I knew no “before” but I had, what I considered to be, a personal relationship with the Christian god through Jesus and there was nothing more normal to me than that. I could hardly conceive how people functioned without it. During my deconstruction, eventually I had to take a cold hard look at this aspect of my belief, and my overall feeling on the matter boiled down to this; How most unremarkable this ‘walk’ with the Lord was. How completely underwhelming this supposed supernatural, life-to-the-full experience had been. How completely hidden this deity had been despite purporting to desire deep connection.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is a reason why I encourage Christians to NOT go by personal experience. We present Christianity in a way that is outside the experience of most people and then they feel let down, when it was really never Jesus that let them down, but an idealized version of what He’s supposed to do. If your Christian walk is built on anything other than the resurrection of Jesus, your walk is going to fail.

I didn’t seem capable of discerning God’s will, I just had ‘hunches’ much like secular folk.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is again nothing that has been part of historical Christianity.

I was assailed by anxiety, depression and fear as much as the next terrified little humanoid. There was no peace in the storm, there was Xanax.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

We need to show grace to people suffering from mental stress beyond normal. I take medication for anxiety. It’s great for me. Since my divorce, I was regularly in the throes of panic. If we can go to doctors for physical healing and take medications, we can do the same for mental healing.

I eventually had to concede that, despite trying, there was no “personal relationship” with God. I had tried but found it lacking and I could hardly see the point, much less muster up the enthusiasm anymore. I stopped communicating.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I have argued against the idea of Christianity as a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is my king. I am His slave.

The amazingness of us even being on earth has given me goosebumps, awe and gratitude.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Sure, but gratitude to who?

If I’ve learnt anything from the experience, it is that I am not qualified for the job of evaluating this religion and its claims. I don’t have the theological training, the language expertise in Greek or Hebrew, and I have neither evolutionary biologist nor cosmological background. I don’t have sufficient historical information that I can evaluate on how much Christianity copies from other religions, or just how much neuroscience can explain spiritual phenomena. Needless to say, it’s a minefield with the added difficulty of the credibility of the sources and the cognitive bias present in almost everything. And that, that in itself, is enough to discredit it. Surely God would not have made the matter so hard that reasonably intelligent, truth-seeking people end up on either side of the fence and it’s just down to chance as to whether you can make the leap of faith or not? It seems it is. For that reason alone, I find it therefore quite improbable that this particular god exists.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Go back and listen to old sermons preached centuries ago and find that the common man was being taught what we would consider difficult today. However, if you say you don’t possess the ability to evaluate, then why are you just doing this evaluation right now? Once again, I don’t think Christianity is Sophie’s problem, but an idea of Christianity instead.

in the end, Sophie looks to be open. I hope she is. I hope if she ever reads this blog she will reach out. I would love to introduce her to a Jesus who doesn’t want you to find “His personal will for your life”, but just asks that you serve however best you can. You aren’t supposed to listen for His “Still small voice” but you’re supposed to study the Scriptures diligently. He doesn’t always take away the storm, but He is there with you and no, you won’t always feel it.

Also, if this book is ever redone, the only parts worth keeping are the ones by Skydive Phil and Ed Atkinson, even though I highly disagreed with them still. Definitely find someone better than David Johnson who regularly had some of the worst argumentation. Overall, this one really won’t provide you with decent argumentation for the most part.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)