ECREE

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at atheist sound bites. These are claims that are made by atheists in the blogosphere. Tonight, we’re going to be looking at ECREE which is “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

I understand this one goes back to Carl Sagan. (Why does it seem that scientists seem to think they’re good at philosophy when they’re not?) This was his response to those who held theistic beliefs. A lot of times today, it’s given as a stopper to Christian beliefs. Many a Christian has been unable to respond to this sound bite.

To begin with, if anyone has the claim that would be seen as extraordinary, it would have been Sagan. After all, most people in history have been theists and even most people today are theists of some sort. Most people probably thought Sagan’s claim of “The cosmos is all there ever was, is, and ever will be” was extraordinary.

That gets us to the first problem with this. The idea of what is extraordinary is subjective entirely. Who determines what is and isn’t extraordinary? I find Sagan’s claim to be extraordinary. He finds my claim to be extraordinary. Is there any neutral party between us?

We can also ask what constitutes extraordinary evidence? As one of my professors said in response to this claim when he was given it, “Does it glow?” As it is in the first problem we have with this sound bite, the term “extraordinary” is just way too ambiguous to know what is meant by it.

Let’s suppose also a claim was made that I found to be hilarious. Does that mean that the evidence for the claim would have to be hilarious? Whether something is hilarious or not can differ from person to person. What we need is a different measure whereby to determine what kinds of evidence are to be given for an argument.

Here’s my solution. First off, if you are making a claim of science, your evidence should seek to be scientific. If you are making a claim of philosophy, you should seek philosophical evidence. Historical claims are to be backed by history. Mathematical claims are to be backed by Math.

Who has the burden of proof? Anyone making a claim does. Of course, the inability of one person to back their claim does not prove the other is true, but it can weigh heavily in their favor. If Sagan says “The cosmos is all there was, is, and ever will be,” then that’s a claim and it needs to be backed. If I say “There is a God,” that’s also a claim and it needs to be backed.

What about evidence? You give the reasons for believing what you believe and so does your opponent. If you find an argument faulty, you tell why. If you don’t find the data convincing, you tell why. ECREE is a sound bite that simply stops debate and sadly assumes atheism as it is atheists who use it the most.

That gets us into a topic for another day however.

Faith Is Believing Without Evidence

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve spent a lot of time lately looking at atheistic soundbites that one will regularly encounter in the blogosphere. Tonight, I’m going to look at one that I think really shows the new atheist movement for what it is.

Before that however, let’s be clear about words. The meaning of a word is inherent in the text the word is in. I cannot go to what you say, attribute my own meaning to the words you use, and make you mean something different. No. I need to seek to understand how you mean the word to be used and if it’s a word in an ancient book, I need to understand how the people of the time used that word and not how people today use it.

For instance, we can read about marriage in the Bible and while it is still a relationship between a man and a woman that’s monogamous and sexual and life-long, that does not mean everything is the same. We will be hard-pressed to find information about choosing your spouse in the Bible and how to behave on a date. The concept just wasn’t around back then.

I’d like to apply this to faith. Go through the new atheists be it their books or their audio debates and hear how they talk about faith. See constantly how they berate people believing something for which they say they don’t have evidence. The irony is rich and it should be something that the new atheists deserve to be shamed for.

Each of them should know better, and none of them apparently do. Dawkins knows Alister McGrath. He can disagree with McGrath, but he surely knows McGrath doesn’t believe without evidence. Harris is supposed to be a graduate in philosophy from Stanford. He should know about the philosophical arguments for God’s existence from Christian philosophers.

Consider also Victor Stenger who regularly makes this kind of claim as well. Oh Stenger will every now and then reference Craig and Zacharias, but he will not really interact with them. In his book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science and Reason” he will counter apologists who argue against the new atheism. Now I find nothing wrong with that. I think if you’re of a belief and you think an argument against your belief is faulty, you should argue against it. However, I also think if an argument is for your belief and faulty, you should argue against it. I certainly don’t want my viewpoint to be presented with bad arguments.

The problem is Stenger will give the impression that there are no arguments for theism. In fact, his total jump to science shows this. Oh we’ve heard the philosophy and the theology before, but we all know that doesn’t matter! Let’s go to science and if science says it’s not true, then it’s not true! It’s the priesthood of science that I’ve spoken about here. Forget philosophy and forget theology. They don’t matter. I think atheists would rightly reply with scorn if a Christian said “Forget science! All we need is Jesus and the Bible.” Heck. I’d reply with scorn. That’s not a Christian attitude at all since we are to be people of truth. That’s not just biblical truth. That’s ALL truth!

However, the sad irony of all of this is while the new atheists condemn faith as believing something without evidence, I have never seen them give any evidence that this is what the biblical writers meant by faith. Readers. I ask you this and you can tell me if I’ve missed it. Have they ever once cited a Greek lexicon that says this is the definition of faith? Have they pointed to any Greek authorities? Have they shown any research abilities whatsoever in looking up what faith means?

I have a few copies of Vine’s in my room. Vine’s does not say that this is what faith is. Faith is instead to be granted to that which is trustworthy and reliable. To have faith in Jesus means to say that you find Jesus to be one who is worthy of trust and you choose to side with him.

Where do the new atheists get the idea? The first place I checked is the abomination that causes misinformation. Here’s what the first sentence on Wikipedia is about the topic:

“Faith is the confident belief or trust in a person, idea, or thing that is not based on proof.”

Well to begin with, very few of our beliefs are based on absolute proof. You do not have proof that that box of cereal at the grocery store contains cereal. You do not have proof that the surgery you’re going to undertake will succeed and you’ll walk away more healthy. You do not have proof that that airplane you’re about to board will get you where you want to go.

What’s really bad about the Wikipedia definition however is that it gets its definition from a dictionary. That’s just fine if you want to use a word in its modern sense and I can agree that sadly to many moderns, faith means believing something without evidence. To argue against the Bible however, you must take the word as the writers of the Bible took it to mean.

For instance, when the Christmas carol says “Don we now our gay apparel”, we don’t look at that and say “They want us to dress like homosexuals?” We know that “gay” meant happy. Today, it’s been twisted to mean something else. It doesn’t mean we look back and think the writers of the Christmas carol had some sexual fetishes we don’t know about.

The new atheists however don’t do that. For them, shoddy research has been their calling card. God belief is not something any rational person would believe to them a priori so why spend any real time studying it? Why also think any readers would do the same? The new atheists say that this is what faith is, so let’s just have all the drones repeat it. (For people claiming to be free-thinkers, you’d think some of them would actually think differently)

Even if atheism were true, I think arguments like this should be enough to discredit the new atheists as not doing appropriate research. What’s the result of this? They end knocking down a straw man that doesn’t exist, having several atheists think Christians don’t have real arguments, having some Christians think likewise, and destroying the false faith of many who really do believe without evidence.

Not only that, it is just intellectual dishonesty. When you present your opponents’ viewpoints, you present them in their best possible light with the best arguments that you can possibly come up with. The new atheists do not do this and I cannot think of any good reason why they do not.

If you are a follower of the new atheists, I urge you to consider this. If they’ve done this bad of research on a basic point, can you trust them on greater points?

Science Made Me A Naturalist

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! I’ve said I’d like to look at some atheist sound bites. Fear not however. I will be looking at some Christian ones as well and there very well could be more Christian sound bites that cause me grief than atheist ones. Tonight on the atheist side, I’d like to look at the topic of how some claim science makes them naturalists.

The problem with this statement is that it is actually a statement that assumes a certain kind of theology. Whenever I deal with such people, I like to grant them as much as I can for the sake of argument. You believe in macroevolution? Fine. I’ll accept that. You believe in an eternal universe? Fine. I’ll accept that. You believe in a multiverse instead? Fine. I’ll accept that. Whatever they believe, I will accept.

Now what’s their argument?

The idea is that God must be necessary to fill in some gaps in the scientific record. Somewhere along the way of natural processes, there must be some sort of gap and lo and behold, this is where God steps in. Now let’s be fair here. It could be that there are some gaps in science in which the answer is that God did indeed act. I believe every Christian scientist should be open to that. I do not see how this should be seen as a science stopper. We can ask how he did it instead if possible.

Or, we can look and use science as a tool to ask why he created something that way. Imagine for instance if somehow we could find the very first cell that ever was and somehow know that God made it the way it is fossilized. We would all want to study that cell and compare it to cells today and say “This is the prototype. Why is it this way? Is this the best or is it meant to improve from here?”

The Christian can be open to any way however. If God did do it, whatever it is, then fine. He did it. However, the atheist cannot be open to any way. The answer cannot be that God did it. While the Christian can often be accused of being closed-minded, it is the atheist who must be closed-minded. His system cannot admit of any supernaturalism whatsoever. The Christian system can freely admit of naturalistic hypotheses.

However, let us suppose natural causes were found for all that goes on in our universe. The Christian is not in trouble and the atheist is still making a leap from a physical claim to a metaphysical claim. He can say that he thinks it less likely that God exists. To say that science demonstrates this is nonsense, a lesson it would have been good for Victor Stenger to learn.

Consider Dawkins in the same way. Dawkins has a whole book on this called The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins believes that once he has demonstrated macroevolution, then theism is dead. Even the Christian who does not believe in macroevolution need not fear Dawkins. Evolution can be an instrumental means for instance. God could have used evolution to bring about humanity. Some might find the idea abhorrent or just flat-out wrong, but even if you do, why not grant it for the sake of argument? Your goal is not to get your potential convert and disciple to affirm a scientific view but to affirm a theistic view.

Ultimately, the problem with this idea is that it defines God by function rather than by essence. Christians believe God would be God even if He had never created a universe. Why? What is it about Him that makes it so that he just exists even if nothing else does? Just think about it. Does he have a derived existence or not? Does God have a nature plus existence? If so, can God’s nature, which is to be, be without being? (Note that He says it is His nature to be in Exodus 3:14)

I am not saying the ontological argument is valid. I do not believe the idea of God can produce the reality of God. However, if by our reasoning we come to see that God is that which exists by nature, then it naturally follows that God exists. He cannot not exist. Of course, I refer the reader to my studies in the Summa Theologica on this blog for more information.

For too long scientists have been the new priesthood. I fear that when we give science the highest authority, then we are stating something not just about God but about man and reality as well. We will be stating that the greatest matters are those which are purely physical. None of us I know of believe that, but in giving science the highest grounds, we affirm it.

Reading The Bible Produces Atheists

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! I’d like us to start taking a look at some atheist soundbites that are often thrown around the blogosphere. Some of these can be found in the books of the new atheists as well, which isn’t surprising, though it’s something I wonder of who borrowed from whom.

Anyway, one that I have seen frequently is that for several atheists, they claim that reading the Bible is what made them atheists.

I find such a claim as highly exaggerated and would reveal poor thinking on the part of one who came to such a conclusion. To begin with, there are some atheists who would say that reading the Bible made them Christians. In fact, I would in a way disagree with that statement as well.

The Bible does not have some magic power in itself to make someone become something. If it did, everyone would lead a more holy life by reading the text. The knowledge that the devil and the demons have of the text would enable them to be pure and holy angels. (Of course, I don’t believe fallen angels can repent)

What matters is how the person approaches the text and what their will is. We all know that if we want to find fault with something we usually can. Of course, if that something has no fault, such as God, then we are not seeing Him as He is, but as we want to picture Him.

Picture instead someone coming to the Bible not really knowing about the book. They don’t know that it claims to be the Word of God. Naturally, they will see this as they go along in the text. However, they just pick it up and read and start at the beginning seeing the existence of a God that created the world.

Will they find things that puzzle them? Yes. Will they find things they like? Yes. Will they find things they don’t like? Yes. The question is, how will they respond? Will they see if the things they like are really as they see them and rejoice in them? Will they study the things that puzzle them? When they find things they don’t like, will they study that as well and see if first off that might be something in them wrong that indicates dislike, or if maybe it isn’t what they thought it was after study?

Let’s suppose we focus on the parts of the Bible that people don’t like often, such as the wars in the Old Testament and the doctrine of Hell in the New Testament. Let’s suppose that someone decided that there was no justification for these. I think that would be incorrect, but let’s take it for the sake of argument.

How could you wind up at the doctrine that there is no God from that alone? You haven’t tackled natural theology or other religions or philosophy of any kind. You might have in your minds a disproof of the God of Christianity, but does it follow that you have disproven theism? After all, Christianity could be false and theism still true.

Could it in fact be the presuppositions some come to the text with? They don’t like a God who judges sin. (All the while asking why God doesn’t do anything about evil in the world. When he does nothing, they complain. When he acts, they also complain.) Could it be a belief in a God who does not do miracles? Could it be that you don’t think God should judge you or someone you know?

If that’s the case, it’s not reading the Bible that does it. It’s the ideology one has and uses the reading of the Bible to justify that ideology. Rather than spending time arguing presuppositions, it is just easier to come to the Bible and not let it shape your worldview, but let your worldview shape it. (I don’t think we should do that with any book for that matter. When we read a work, we should take what we can from the author’s worldview to better understand it. We might find a deficiency in our own to improve, or we might even agree with his at the end.)

Frankly, it’s the presuppositions that I think matter. Even if you could prove that there is justification for Hell and the wars in the Old Testament, it does not follow that God exists or Christianity is true. Deal with ideas like an anti-supernatural bias and the standard of good and evil first. Then you are prepared to approach the Bible and be ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. That doesn’t mean believing blindly. It means letting the text speak for itself and have it be innocent until proven guilty.

Watch for this one on the blogosphere, and don’t fall for it.

Resurrection: Trash Talk

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been looking at the doctrine of the resurrection. I stated that this came after doing the funeral service of my grandmother. We’ve talked a lot about what the doctrine is, but what does the doctrine mean?

Let’s look again at 1 Cor. 15 and go to verse 55.

“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

We can say that this is beautiful poetry and it likely is, but there is something else going on here. Paul is doing what your mother told you to not do. (However, it doesn’t stop me from doing it in gaming battles with my friends.) He’s trash-talking death. He’s making fun of it.

Why is he doing this? This is the difference that resurrection makes and again, I return you to my funeral message.

When my grandmother died, the story did not end there if the resurrection is true. The story has for us a little interruption. For her, it is going on now, although that is not going on bodily and that is something we must keep in mind. We cannot say my grandmother is living in a new and glorified body now. That is promised at the final resurrection at the physical return of Christ.

Death does not have the last laugh. Rather than separating us from God forever, death actually brings us closer to God when we are in Christ. Since Christ is the one who conquered death, we by being found in Him take part in that victory as well. For a parallel, when a sporting team wins an event like the World Series or the Super Bowl, the whole town celebrates as if every person in the town played in the game and won it. They consider themselves the winners because those who were their representatives as it were, won.

When death comes, we should indeed mourn that the loved one has passed, just as I mourned the death of my grandmother, but we are not to mourn like those who have no hope, as 1 Thess. 4 says. We do not say we do not ever see them again. We say “Until we meet again.”

Let us celebrate the life of the one who lived as surely they would want us to do such. What we mourn is not that the person has died per se. We mourn in no way for the person. We mourn for the current end to our interaction with that person. After all, what have we to feel sorry for someone who is in the presence of God at this time? What we are saddened for is that this person was so special to us and we can no longer interact with them. (Indeed, I still see my grandmother on my phone number list and sometimes wish I could talk to her about what’s going on in my life.)

Also, the closer you are to the person, the more you will mourn. Our sadness when the loved one dies is that we are grieving what we have lost and as much as we have a relationship with that person, we mourn. Note also that part of this will be based on our own temperament and we do all mourn in different ways.

My grandmother’s life was not a waste, just as the life of your loved one in Christ, but if someone wants to treat it like a waste, do not live your life better in any way. Do not have an appreciation for the good things in life that they would want you to have. Do not seek to live a more holy life as you celebrate the good life that this person lived. Do not change your life in any way. If you do not do that, then while that person’s life was not a waste, you will be treating it as a waste.

Mourn, but also celebrate. Death is conquered. The story is not over. Rejoice in that. Just as I shall see my grandmother again someday, you shall see your loved one again someday, and that meeting will never end.

Rejoice!

Resurrection: Flesh and Blood

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the doctrine of the resurrection. We established some historical bedrock upon which we can say the resurrection is true. Now, we’ve been going through the rest of 1 Corinthians 15 to see what else we can learn about the resurrection. Tonight, we’re going to look at the topic of flesh and blood.

When we get to verse 50, we are told that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What does Paul mean by this?

There are other times this phrase is used. Let’s look at the text.

Matthew 16:17

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Ephesians 6:12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Hebrews 2:14

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

The first reference would be to contrasting heavenly revelation from earthly revelation. The source of the truth of what Peter believes is not man but God. Of course, we cannot say “You cannot be man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” It would fit in just fine in contrasting an earthly nature with a heavenly one.

The same could go for the Ephesians passage. Our war is not on Earth per se but with heavenly powers. The evils of the world may be represented by those on Earth, but they are not those on Earth. Again, we can say that flesh and blood refers to something of an earthly nature. Of course, we could contrast that what we fight is not of a heavenly nature, but of a hellish one, which would be a fallen heavenly nature.

In the last one, we find that Jesus took on flesh and blood to be like his brothers. It is implied that in doing so, he destroyed the power of death by taking on death. Only one of an earthly nature could die. Again, the idea that we have seen throughout 1 Corinthians 15 fits in.

Repeatedly, we see two different types playing against each other and this is found in the contrast between Adam and Jesus. Adam was earthly and Jesus is heavenly. It is not talking about their make-up but rather where their source of energy is from. The earthly man is from the Earth and desires the things of the Earth. The heavenly man is from the heavens and desires the things of the Heavens.

Thus, there is a strong case against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others that this passage teachings that we must be immaterial. In fact, we’ve seen throughout our study that nothing there teaches immateriality and better fits with the idea of physicality, such as was the case with Christ’s own physical body.

So what difference does this make?

We’ll see tomorrow.

Resurrection: A Life-Giving Spirit?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our look at the doctrine of the resurrection. Our focus has been on the fifteenth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians and looking at some historical bedrock. We’ve laid out a historical bedrock from which a case can be made for the resurrection and now we’re looking at what that resurrection means.

When we get to verse 45, we find that Paul says that Adam was made a living soul but Christ was made a life-giving spirit. What’s going on here? Are we to believe then that Christ rose as a spirit as the Jehovah’s Witnesses would have us believe and that the resurrection is not physical then?

Not at all. Let’s point out that already we’ve seen abundant evidence that Christ rose physically and that this was in the epistles. We see in the gospels more evidence of this, such as Luke saying that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

Now some skeptic of the NT could say that what is going on is that Luke is trying to contrast his Christology from Paul. A Jehovah’s Witness wouldn’t say that, so the technique will still work on them. An atheist would however and so we’re going to have to deal with Paul from Paul, which is just fine. In fact, it’s always the main place to start. Look at the author’s own works as much as possible and let them define their terms.

No one would read the Genesis account and think that Adam was something non-physical. However, note that Adam is a living soul in that account. Are we to assume then that Adam was an immaterial being since we generally do understand souls as referring to something immaterial? Not at all.

What we are to understand about Adam is his being in contrast to the being of Christ. Adam is natural in his nature. He lives in the flesh. Christ on the other hand was raised the way that we are to be raised as we saw yesterday. We are to be raised in physical bodies that are instead powered by the Spirit. Such is the case with the body of Christ.

N.T. Wright and others believe that what is going on is that Paul is contrasting all throughout this chapter the resurrection with what is going on in Genesis 1 and 2. The resurrection is not just a doctrine about the nature of human beings. It’s a nature about the creation entirely. That’s why there’s the passage culminating in verse 28 about the whole of creation being united to God.

If Adam was not created as immaterial however, there is no reason to think Christ was raised immaterial. That is not to say that we deny that there is an immaterial aspect to man. It is saying that one does not arrive at the conclusion from 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Christ did rise only spiritually.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Resurrection: Physical?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking at the topic of resurrection lately and we’re going to be eventually looking at what difference it makes. Tonight, we’re going to be tackling the question of if the resurrection is spiritual or physical.

Let’s look at the text from 1 Corinthians 15, the chapter we’ve been going through.

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

For some, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, this would seal the deal. We are raised in spiritual bodies. It’s no surprise that they also teach that Christ was not physically raised but was raised spiritually. However, if we look at it deeper, which we do at Deeper Waters, will we see the same situation?

To begin with, spiritual in this case is not to be seen as the opposite of physical. Much of what I say comes from Mike Licona’s book “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.” Licona went through the writings of the Greeks from the 8th century on and could not find one use of the word natural that simply meant physical.

As for spiritual, there are times where it does mean something immaterial, but there are also noted times that it does not refer to something immaterial. When it is used of bodies, with one exception, it does not seem to refer to bodies that are ethereal. What I gather from the references is that they seem to refer to something more enlightened. That would fit what’s going on in 1 Corinthians.

We could get some further clues by looking at the rest of 1 Corinthians.

2:15

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

3:1

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

14:37

If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.

Is Paul seeking for the people of the church to be immaterial? Is he telling them that if any of them consider themselves to be immaterial then they can judge what he says?

More likely, it is referring to a kind of life that is lived. Spiritual people are those focused on heavenly matters and the things of the Spirit. Natural people are those who are still focused on the things of this world. Now to an extent, we all have to think about things of this world. That is no sin. The question is if those are the things that drive us.

We can make the same comparison to the bodies. It is not physical vs immaterial in regards to the nature of the body. It is more asking where does the source of their energy come from. Our new bodies will be bodies that are powered by the Spirit. We will not be ruled by the desires of the flesh but the desires of the Spirit.

We shall look further tomorrow.

Resurrection: It’s Good Even If Not True?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our look at the doctrine of the resurrection based on 1 Corinthians 15. I’m only hitting what I consider to be the most important parts. A more exhaustive look can be found in the works of N.T. Wright and Mike Licona and I encourage the reader to read those anyway.

Time for a thought experiment. What if Jesus did not rise? What if you’ve lived your whole life as a Christian and then receive undeniable proof that Jesus did not rise? How would you respond? Would you choose to be a Christian anyway? If you didn’t, would you say it had been worthwhile anyway as you lived a good life?

Paul will have none of that. Look at what he says in verses 17-19.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

For Paul, this is the clincher. If Christ is not risen, there is no hope. If Christianity is a myth, I would tell you to abandon it. (To any atheists reading this, I know about your billboards and if you want to convince me it’s a myth, I need this little thing called evidence.) If Christ has not been raised, don’t be a Christian.

Why? To be a Christian is to identify yourself with Christ. Think of what that means at the start. The first century man was told to consider this man who was on the cross and was put to death by the Romans for claiming to be a king and by the Jews for a charge of blasphemy. By making him your savior, you are in essence saying your identity will be found in that man.

So you want to be identified with someone accused of rebellion against Caesar and of blasphemy in the first century?

The reason you would do so is that you believed God raised him from the dead and his resurrection was a vindication of his claim. It was God putting the stamp of approval on what Jesus said and did. In doing such, he overturned the same of the cross and brought redemption for all.

However, if he has not risen, there is no forgiveness and we are indeed deluded. We are in that case spending our lives identifying ourselves with a dead criminal. The pagans would not even want to do that! If that is the case, then Christians ought to be pitied. People ought to feel sorry for them.

Fortunately, that’s not the case. The reality is that Christ is risen and we do have hope. Paul will not have any of this nonsense of “It doesn’t matter if he rose again. The faith helps you be a good person.” If he did not rise, then by all means find another route to salvation to get yourself righteous before God.

May we all take the resurrection as seriously as Paul did.

Resurrection: Conversion of Paul

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been going through the topic of the resurrection. We’ve been covering key historical facts that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 and tonight, we’re going to discuss the conversion of Paul.

This is one where the explanations for what happened to Paul on the Damascus road can be quite funny. For instance, Dan Barker has said that maybe Paul was struck by lightning. (You’d think some of those who were with him would have mentioned that and Paul would have asked why his hair was suddenly standing on end and his clothes smelled all crispy.)

Epilepsy is another common explanation, but Beauregard and O’Leary in “The Spiritual Brain” state that this is among the least likely explanations. The word for a thorn in the flesh refers to an irritation and not a serious problem. In fact, I would also add that this is given to Paul according to his testimony AFTER he had a vision of Heaven.

Another idea is that Paul had excessive guilt. This however is a modern idea. Internal guilt would not make sense to an ancient person. They understood shame to those who were their in-group, the ones they took their identity from. Paul would not have had that with the Sanhedrin. If anything, the texts we have indicate that Paul would have been quite respected among them.

What evidence do we have however that Paul genuinely was a Jew against Jesus and then he was a Jew for Jesus? We have his own testimony and that of Luke. Philippians 3 and Galatians 1 both give examples of the way Paul was before his conversion and throughout the epistles you can read about how he persecuted the church.

The explanation that Paul gives for his change is that he saw the risen Christ. As a result of that, he went off and spent some time alone before hitting the evangelistic road. I believe that it was at this time Paul was probably reading the Old Testament and seeking to understand it in light of what he had seen in Christ. If only more of us would do that! That includes myself! The early Christians had as their Bible the Old Testament only and I am sure most of them knew it better than most of us.

Let’s also be clear on something else. Paul was not an idiot. He was very well educated for his time and he would not have made Christianity his faith unless he was intellectually convinced of it. That he was willing to go against the Sanhedrin and effectively banish his heritage in light of Christ should tell us about the seriousness of his conversion. When we read 2 Corinthians 11, we see all the nice little “perks” he got from his new faith.

Thus, we have strong evidence that Paul was converted as a result of seeing the risen Christ and no evidence against it. In the light of the inadequacy of other theories to explain it that rely on modern ideas pushed onto an ancient culture or on speculation without evidence, why not go for what Paul himself says is the explanation? He really did see Jesus.