Is Scripture Self-Attesting?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve lately been looking at the topic of presuppositionalism. Last time, we discussed some more about the Scriptures and how we will have to examine them to see which God is the one we should be serving or if any of them even can rightly claim that.

Now I don’t plan on making this a wholesale apologetic on defense of the Scriptures. That can be done and it has been done and I would be glad to recommend resources on the topic. For now, I’d mainly like to deal with the idea that the Scriptures are self-attesting. That is, that the Bible is all we need and the Bible will defend itself.

In a sense, the Bible is self-attesting. It makes the claim itself to be the Word of God. Does that mean that it is the Word of God? No. However, at the same time, it doesn’t rule it out. We should consider that if someone describes themselves to us in a certain way, we can consider that as evidence of their nature. If someone claimed to be a perfect pipeline to God, for instance, we could consider that that is the case, or we could consider it as evidence that this person is quite arrogant.

I am also not wanting to deny that there is a great beauty in the Bible that we ought to recognize. For instance, as someone who has done research on the cults, when finishing reading the Book of Mormon, I found I had a greater appreciation for the Bible as the Book of Mormon is a book written to have the appearance of Scripture and frankly, it doesn’t pull it off well. The Bible’s own writing is quite different.

However, I do not accept the claim that the Bible is the Word of God because it says it is the Word of God. After all, the Koran makes some high claims about itself. Why should I believe one Scripture over another if both are making identical claims about themselves? The answer is that we need to actually look outside the Scripture.

This is what the early church had to do and what people had to do before there was any Scripture. For the early church, all they had was the Old Testament as we see it today. They didn’t have the letters of Paul or the gospels for a couple of decades. They saw the Bible as the Word of God based on the authority of Christ and they were convinced that he had risen from the dead by the testimony of the eyewitnesses and the working of miracles.

I also do not believe we can simply see what Scripture has to say about itself and then go from there. It’s part of the evidence, but it’s not all of the evidence. In our day and age, we simply must give a defense of the Scriptures and their authenticity, which is also what the early church did. Now does the Wisdom of God confound the world? Yes. What does that mean? It simply means that the way that God chose to do things was not the modus operandi the world would use. For them, to say a crucified man was meant to be the king of the world and save mankind was nonsense, but it was the way God worked.

Now does that mean that we can never trust the power of Scripture? No. If someone wants to become a Christian by hearing Scripture alone, then great. If not and we need to defend the Scriptures and show their authenticity, then we are prepared to do that also.

We shall continue next time.

 

Determining The God

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Last time, I wrote in our series on presuppositionalism of how I do believe that God is necessary to explain reality, but the knowledge of God is not necessary for someone to claim knowledge of reality. The question then becomes which God will it be. Will it be the “generic” god of natural theology?

We are often told that only the true God can explain reality. That is correct. Only a God who exists can bring about reality. Using reason alone, what is the God that exists?

The first quality is that this God must exist. By this standard, faiths like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all claim that their God exists. What else do they have to say about their God? Well God is omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent in each one. In fact, using just natural theology, there really isn’t a way to tell the concepts apart.

Note this. A Muslim, Christian, and Jew can each use the same theistic proofs in order to make their case. Maimonides and Avicenna both would have been fine with using the five ways of Thomas Aquinas for instance. A Muslim or a Jew today could use the Kalam Cosmological argument that William Lane Craig uses.

At this point then, the philosopher simply lists some attributes of God using reason alone and all three faiths can claim that their religion fits with that. Of course, there are other systems that could fit just as well. A deistic concept could explain the existence of the universe and objective morality. So how is it then that we can determine which concept is the true one?

If all we have is philosophy, we cannot. All our philosophy can do is tell us which concept is not true. It is not capable of showing which one is true. While we would affirm that the triune God is the one that explains reality, the question is if we can simply use reason and get to the truth of the gospel from that.

In no way. Philosophy cannot prove Christianity. Many a Christian can study philosophy thinking that he will prove Christianity. He cannot. Does that mean it is useless? Far from it! Philosophy can support Christianity and prove false arguments that are used against Christianity as well as increasing our understanding of Christian doctrines. It is quite important to a Christian.

However, to say that reason could deduce the gospel is really to lower the gospel. It is to say that we do not need God to reveal the gospel or His nature for us to understand them. We can figure them out on our own. The traditional views of apologetics have it that we need God to reveal Himself to know these things. One cannot reason to the God of Christianity, although they can reason to a God who has many attributes of the God of Christianity.

Consistency is necessary for truth, but it is not sufficient to prove something is true. A detective needs more than a consistent theory to prove that X did the crime. He needs evidence. So how are we going to get the evidence of which worldview is true? Will we have to examine the writings themselves and see what they say?

Interesting thought that.

And that is something to discuss another time.

Knoweldge of God?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve been writing on presuppositionalism lately and the knowledge of God. I’ve already made several points about moral knowledge. What about knowledge of God Himself? Is it possible for the pagan to have knowledge of God without having a salvific knowledge of God?

In a way, it seems that the presuppositionalist is in a bind. We are told on the one hand that man can have no knowledge without being able to support it in the triune God. On the other hand, we are told that all men know who God is and need to repent of their rebellion against him. Which is it that is the case? Does man know God or not?

Romans 1:18-21 is often the key text cited. However, it is a difficult one that many exegetes have wrestled with. When man is said to know God, what exactly is meant? It can’t be salvific knowledge of God here or else that would mean that those who were saved apostasized. An arminian would not have a problem with that, but one who is a Calvinist, as presuppositionalists are, would. This does not mean Calvinism or eternal security or the perseverance of the saints is false. It simply means that believing in presuppositionalism entails believing in Calvinism and believing in Calvinism means one cannot accept this interpretation.

Then if it isn’t salvific knowledge, what is it? Does it mean that everyone knows that God is triune and that He has revealed Himself in Christ? Doubtful. We would need some evidence that there were any among the pagans or even among the Jews themselves prior to Christ who were affirming the doctrine of the Trinity. Not something like the Trinity such as the Jews having the idea of multiple hypostases and plurality possibly being in God or pagans supposed having a Trinity when they have a triad instead. It would need to be the bona fide Trinity.

What does it mean then? It refers to man has a knowledge of God that is basic and can grasp His basic attributes even if imperfectly. That this knowledge is not necessarily salvific is a far cry from saying that it is false. One can read much of Aristotle’s work in the Metaphysics on God and see much that is true from a Christian perspective. Some of it is false, but not all. How did Aristotle get there? He reasoned from the things that were seen.

Are we to say Aristotle had lucky guesses or did He have knowledge of God? I believe the latter. How is that possible however? How could you have knowledge of God without knowledge that God is triune? It is because that knoweldge of God is knowledge of being. We can know something about existent things without knowing how we know them.

Again, this is not denying that the existence of God I think is necessary for there to be an explanation for such things, but it is saying that one does not need to have knowledge of the existence of God in order to say one knows these things. At this point, the question can be asked “Well which God does provide that basis if not the triune God?” Let us look at that tomorrow night.

Prayer Pansies

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’m going to be taking a break from our series to look at a situation that has happened recently concerning prayer at a high school graduation. Many of us when we graduated had a prayer said and the older you are, I would think it’s more likely that that took place.

However, the Medina Valley School District in Texas has ordered that public prayer be prohibited at a high school graduation ceremony. (Link at bottom) Note that in the link when clicked, the judge says that if there is a prayer said, the family and their son will suffer irreparable harm.

What?!

So if someone dares mention the name of Jesus publicly (Except of course if they’re using the name of the person that Christians hold in the highest esteem as the perfection of all that is good and holy) then this family will suffer great harm? Exactly what kind of harm are we talking about? Are we talking about being on a psychiatrist’s couch for years saying “It was awful. They actually said ‘Jesus’ around me and prayed.”

When some of us were growing up, we actually learned how to deal with that which did not go our way and did not try to shape the rest of the world to fit our particular tastes. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to change the world, but this is simply forcing everyone else in the area to bow to the sensitivities of one family without cause.

This is along the lines of people who are told at their workplace to not say “Merry Christmas” but “Happy Holidays” lest someone get offended. If a Jew comes up to me and wishes me a happy Passover or a Muslim wishes me a happy Ramadan, I’m not going to be offended. I would in fact be happy to discuss their religious beliefs with them.

Strangely enough, this offense is never a big deal when it goes the other way. Jesus can be openly mocked and maligned anywhere, after all, that only offends Christians. If someone wants to mock Jesus, that’s their right. I also have a right to respond to them, but the way to do it is not through bullying in the courts but in debating our worldviews.

There is also much mockery for Christian practice in the world. I know someone who is a devout Christian who recently got a job at a Wal-Mart where he works with several guys his age. He is a college student and he is often mocked because as a single man, he is a virgin and plans to stay that way until marriage, a common Christian practice.

Is what’s being done to him wrong? You bet it is. Offensive? No doubt. Painful? Sure. What’s the proper way to handle it? The way he’s doing it. He’s looking for reasons why he does think pre-marital sex is wrong and until then, just not giving in. If some people want to be jerks, let them be jerks. For now, he’s dealing with something obviously wrong and he’s not whining to the court system. He’s growing up and taking it for the time being believing standing strong in his virtue will win out.

Instead, our culture has become so weak that we’re crying out that the worst thing you can do to someone is offend them. There is no place for needless offenses of course, but there are some offenses that ought to just be overlooked instead of thinking that one has to be a victim entirely to one’s circumstances.

This family however thinks it’s more beneficial to treat their son like a child who must have everything go his way and make everyone else go without a simple prayer just because of the cause of offense. The early Christians were thrown to the lions and set on fire and in response, they wrote to the emperor and stated their case. They simply wanted toleration.

For the people who often speak the most about tolerance, you’d think they’d be willing to tolerate some. Apparently not. Tolerance is a great virtue, provided everyone else practice it.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/02/prayer-prohibited-at-graduation-ceremony/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moral and Levitical Laws

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been looking at Presuppositionalism lately and pointing out how it is possible to have knowledge of truth without having direct awareness of the God of the Bible. Of course, I do not deny that that God exists, but I do deny that one has to have epistemological knowledge of Him to have knowledge, a.k.a. justified true beliefs. An atheist reader who I respect responded to what I said yesterday and was asking about laws like what we find in Leviticus.  The Ten Commandments are for us some, but how do we know what is and isn’t?

Good question.

Right off, I’m pleased that the question is being asked rather than the usual canard that’s thrown out of “Well the Bible says homosexual activity is an abomination, but it also says the same thing about eating shellfish.”

To begin with, both of the injunctions against homosexuality in Leviticus are to be found in chapters 18 and 20. I’m not going to go through the whole list, but I want to call attention to how each of those chapters ends.

First, Leviticus 18:24-28.

24 “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

And now, we move on to Leviticus 20:22-24.

22 “‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. 24 But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations.

Notice something in each of these passages? In each one, God tells the people that the inhabitants of the land are being cast out because of committing these acts. In the Bible, you do not see God punishing other nations for failing to keep the ceremonial Law of Israel. Note also the distinctions that are made for Israel such as dietary are later shown to be no longer in effect in the New Testament, such as in Mark 7. Does that mean these were wasteful and pointless laws? Not at all. They were established to keep in the mind of the Israelites purity.

What about abominations?

The word can refer to an abomination in two ways. One is in a ritual sense and one is in an ethical sense. Consider how it would be wrong to throw dirt onto your neighbor’s carpet. It would also be wrong to murder his wife there and spill her blood on the carpet, but when we say both of those are wrong, we do not mean they are wrong in the same sense.

How is it known which is which? The context is the key. Moral laws are generally upheld throughout the Bible as a whole. Ceremonial and civil are not. For instance, with ceremonial laws, God Himself states that He does not desire sacrifice but rather pure hearts. Why have sacrifices then? To point to Christ and to show that there is a price for sin. See also judgments on other nations.

The Law of Israel was given for Israel and Gentiles were never to be under it. The Natural Law of morality however is for everyone and everyone is accountable to it. Of course, those with Scripture are more accountable as they should definitely know better with explicit commands from God, but sadly, we often do not.

I hope this clears up any difficulties.

 

Were The Ten Commandments New?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve been looking lately at presuppositionalism and today, I’d like to look at the moral knowledge that we have that is found in the Old Testament. This is a mistake that atheists frequently make as well when they go to the Ten Commandments. What I’d like to discuss is if the Ten Commandments were really something new.

The Ten Commandments are often seen as the moral principles that Christians are to follow. Now to an extent, we are, but the Ten Commandments were never given to Gentiles. We are to follow the commandments not because we suddenly transform into the Jewish people, as if we have to keep Levitical Law as well, but because the Ten Commandments also correspond with Natural Law by and large. The one we could ask about the most would be the Sabbath command, but even then we can say that we ought to honor time.

Atheists will often point to claims such as the Law of Hammurabi containing such precepts as well and it being much more detailed. Ricky Geravis in an article he wrote claimed to be being a good Christian since he could claim that he was following the Ten Commandments, as if the definition of a Christian is one who follows the Ten Commandments.

What has this to do with the presuppositional approach? It is about moral knowledge. To see the problem with the atheist view on this, all we need to do is just consider something for a moment that should be painstakingly obvious. When God told the Israelites a command such as “Do not murder,” do we really think they heard that word from Moses and said “What?! We’re not supposed to be doing that?! Dang! Guess we’d better stop!”

Of course not. So what is the purpose if the Ten Commandments were nothing new? Why would God tell His people to do that which they already knew to do?

Question: When is it that a woman is told to love and cherish someone for the rest of her life?

Answer: A wedding.

Now the point here is that when a wedding takes place and a woman is given this charge by the minister, does the woman really think “Wait. I’m supposed to do that?!” I had no idea!”

No. Nor does a man think differently when he’s given a similar charge. They both state it however as a public proclamation of what they already have established for one another. It is no longer something kept between just the two of them. It is a promise that they have made and have now made in the eyes of God and man.

In essence, the Ten Commandments are God doing that to Israel. The fullness of what it meant to be God’s people would come later, but God is asking His people if they will be His bride and the obeying of them is saying “I do.” There is nothing new in them. They are instead the step taken to establish the covenant between God and Israel as a nation. He has bought them out of slavery and now He desires to make them His own.

This would also mean that this is part of moral knowledge. Even without having a thorough understanding, it was to be known that murder was wrong. They did not need to believe in the triune God to know that. Of course, the triune God is the basis for morality, but saying the triune God is the ontological basis for morality is different from saying one must have epistemological knowledge of the triune God in order to know that murder is wrong. I agree that one needs a basis, but I do not see any reason that God must be specifically Christian nor do I think such has been given.

For the atheist, to treat the Ten Commandments as new moral commands and think that following them establishes one as a Christian is simply false. In reality, on the externals, a lot of us do well at the Ten Commandments. We can have problems sometimes with things like lying, honoring parents, or coveting. For Christians, we can make idols in our hearts and fail to love God as we ought, but for the horizontal level, most of us today do fairly well.

Keep in mind however that Christ took these to a whole new level and on that new level, we tend to not do so well. That is the reality and in that case, we need the power of Christ in us in order to improve on those. However, even if from this point on in your life you lived them perfectly, it would not merit you salvation as you’d still have your past sins to atone for.

If the Commandments are seen instead as a marriage covenant, we see more of what is going on and we realize that following the teaching of God for Israel was a way of honoring their side of the covenant. Of course, we also know that they didn’t do too well, but let us remember the warning of Paul and not take pride for if the natural branches were cut off, we could be as well. For the Christian, we are to exhort one another to righteousness. Let’s keep doing such.

I Want It!

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Yesterday I happened to speak at my church where I was given the task of preaching on 1 Corinthians 13. Within that sermon, I made a point on love not seeking its own. I would like to expand on that point in today’s blog as I continued thinking on it throughout the day.

Go to any department store or grocery store and watch children with their parents in line begging for something like a piece of candy. What is their reason that they always give for why their parents should buy that for them?

“I WANT IT!”

As Christians, we’re told to not seek our own but the good of others. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting something for yourself to an extent. You need the basic necessities of life. However, your main priority is to be the Kingdom and we are told that we ought to esteem others as better than ourselves and be seeking their good more than our own.

We are to be childlike indeed, but we are not to be childish, and yet so many times we are. We each seek simply what we want and who cares about anything else? There are times that things don’t go our way and we don’t get what we want. What are we to do then? Grow up and deal with it. God never promises to give us everything we want.

But what is our problem? Is it that we want things? Could it be that the Buddha was right after all and the key to happiness is to extinguish our desires? Would it be better if we did not want anything after all?

Well, no.

C.S. Lewis said that the problem is not that our desires are too strong but rather that they are too weak. We do not want that which we ought to want and want what we ought not want. Where our desires can be for the right object, they can often be not in the right proportion. We are told to seek first the kingdom of God because too often we’re too busy seeking our own kingdom.

What we often think with our petty wants is that we want something and we want it then and so since we do, we ought to have it then and because the world doesn’t go the way that we want it to, we get angry about it. Though we may not agree with the stoic philosophers in all they said, they had a great truth in saying that our happiness ought not to be dependent on the contingent external circumstances around us. We as Christians should seek our ultimate happiness in God.

We can have other things that can bring us happiness and if we get them, that could be good. If not, oh well. We don’t get everything right now. For instance, my wife and I like many of you at this time are concerned about our finances with my just having a part-time job and donations being down. The problem with worry is saying “If we do not have what we need right now, we will never have it” forgetting that in this very passage Jesus tells us to seek the kingdom and not worry about what we need. Just trust God to provide.

But if that provision is not here right now, it can be difficult.

Of course, a lot of the idea of what we want is the problem of sin. A young couple wants to have sex without having the burden of going through marriage, and so they just go for what they want. A person wants justice against an enemy and rather than wait on God to provide it someday, decides that murder is a better option. Someone wants an object he cannot get and rather than go out and work for it and earn it, he decides upon thievery.

Being the way we are, we also take this attitude and put it onto God.

“Well if God wants everyone to be saved, obviously, He should just give everyone a grand vision of Himself and prove He exists right now!

Nothing happened?

See. God doesn’t exist!”

This is actually a common argument that can be seen in atheistic circles. If God existed, He would do something like this. Why think this is the case however? Do we not often think we know the best way to get something that we want and it turns out that that isn’t so because there are other factors in the situation that we overlook?

Yet somehow, we think we have it all figured out when how it should be that God goes about His plan.

Perhaps if we wish to argue the existence of God, we should argue from truths that we know rather than speculations about what should be?

Then, we need to change our desires. We need to desire the things of God more and if we do not, we need to ask why. There is some good in all that we want, but we need to ask ourselves if we are really wanting the good.

We don’t want to be children after all.

Truth of God in Genesis

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’m going to be continuing our look at the presuppositional approach tonight by going to the beginning, that is, the book of Genesis. Can we find that the writer did affirm truth outside of an explicit knowledge of God or not?

To begin with, let’s start with some moral truths. The only command we know of given to Adam and Eve is to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Other than that, they are given quite free reign. The question has often been asked how it is that they would know that they ought to obey God. However, the Genesis account indicates a unique relationship between Adam and God in that God walked in the garden and Adam was not too surprised to see Him, only ashamed that he was naked before God, and that God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. It is likely that Adam did understand where he came from as a creation of God to some extent, though this does not make him a master theologian.

His children meanwhile are knowledgeable of sin somehow and what they ought do and ought not do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long before murder enters into the picture. Note in the passage as well that Cain fears justice from other people. We can spend so much time answering the question of Cain’s wife that we miss the concept of justice.

The preaching of Noah is much much later. However, we are only told of Noah’s preaching and no miracles. The world is to understand that they are doing wrong. This is an important point in that without the aid of Scripture which did not exist at the time, people were to know moral truths. This is something I plan to look at in much more detail when we get to Exodus.

There is similar activity taking place with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God tells Abraham that the outcry against the towns is great. Why did judgment come to these towns? Because they ought to have known better. They would root this knowledge in the power of reason. Now there is no denial that God’s existence explains the ontological source of the moral truths, but how one knows the moral truths is different. One can know moral truths without holding to a theistic worldview.

Whether an atheist is being consistent or not is a different question, though it is an important one. However, that one cannot explain necessarily how they know certain truths does not mean that those truths cannot still count as knowledge. Few people overall are philosophers who will ever sit down and examine truth this way. Ask the average person on the street when he was born and he’ll tell you. Ask him how he knows and he could point to testimony of parents and/or birth certificates. Ask him how he knows those are reliable and he’ll give something else. At one point, unless he just walks off out of irritation he’ll say “I just know!”

There are some who start philosophy in a position of denial saying they don’t know anything. This seems problematic at the start for how can we say that we know that we don’t know anything? How could such a claim be backed unless one had an argument and one thought that that argument was valid. Of course. some philosophers have still used a similar method. Descartes decided to start with only believing whatever could not be doubted at all. Descartes’s claim of “I think, therefore I am” has been called into question. Why should the fact that he thinks lead to his ontological existence?

Descartes had started with a method. Why not start with a truth instead? We look at what we know and then ask “How is it that I know this thing that I know?” This was the method of the medievals and I believe it’s the method most of us would use. It doesn’t mean we accept all things blindly. We can question ourselves on some knowledge claims and should, but there are things that we do just know.

Why is this important? Because in Genesis, judgment is assumed to be understood to be deserved. Even if one does not know the God who is doing the judging, one is to know that they are doing something wrong and they are living in violation of a moral law. For theism, Abraham was called out and it is unlikely he had such a theistic knowledge that he was able to speak about the Trinity at that point.

Why bring this up? For the ancients, knowledge was possible. This was even without at times having access to direct revelation of God, such as Scripture, since it did not exist. One could appeal to reason in this case, and there is nothing wrong with that! God created reason and meant it to be a mechanism for finding truth. The problem is not reason but reasoners. Of course, I agree with the presuppositionalists in saying the problem of man is moral largely, but that does not mean I agree with the way they get to the truth.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Trust In The Storm

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Before doing continuing writing on presuppositionalism, I’d like to write about some of what’s going on. It’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but I am hoping that this can be a blessing to you readers as well as reveal to you the honest reality of what our situation is like over here.

As regular readers know, I moved to where I am a little over 3 and a half years ago to continue education. Since that time, it has been a wild ride. It was in late December of 2008 that I was offered a job with a ministry. It was much better than what I was doing then and it certainly paid a lot better so I took it. I was doing something I got to enjoy and getting paid well for it. Meanwhile, my roommate and I had found an awesome church and I’d already got to teach a number of times.

Back in August of 2009, I visited a friend who was coming to the Seminary and he told me about a girl that I should talk to. She lived in another state four hours away so I emailed her. We started talking that way and on AIM and eventually on the phone. In September, we decided that we wanted to give a dating relationship a try. The next month, I went to meet her. At the end of that month, I took her to meet my parents. With the wisdom of many counselors behind me, in December, I proposed, and she said yes.

All is going well. Right?

Then comes April with the end of the month being near. My wedding is about three months away. My boss calls me into the office wanting to talk to me and at that point, I hear the devastating news that the company can’t afford to have me around any more. This was entirely out of the blue with no warning whatsoever. Thus, I’m about to get married and saving up money for a honeymoon and living with my wife (after the wedding of course) and then the rug gets pulled out from under me.

Fortunately, several friends and family came through at this time sending much in the way of donations. One kind donor who I’ve never even met in person sent enough money to make sure my wife and I could go on our honeymoon, and we did have a very nice one. For awhile, I had more money than I’d ever had before. Of course, wedding gifts were also coming in which were quite a help.

Still, there was no steady income coming in and in the midst of this, we saw difficulties. My pet back home had passed away recently. My grandmother later died around Thanksgiving last year. I was still unemployed. I had a sudden flare-up in my abdomen after getting back from Thanksgiving as well and it turns out it was my gallbladder and we had to have that removed. I only recently got a part-time job in retail. It brings in some, but it’s not enough to cover the bills really. We’ve had to apply for food stamps, something that I hated to do, and even those we’ve run dry now. The transmission on the car could need to be worked on soon and we are looking for a new place to live as our rent is bound to go up soon.

It’s been hard every time to get out the checkbook.

Still, I’ve tried to be a good husband and I hope I’ve succeeded. I do not raise my voice to my wife and if she says something or does something that needs to be addressed, I am firm but gentle in how I deal with the situation and make sure that I affirm her afterwards every time. I try to love her with the grace that I believe God has loved me with. I’d still say I have a long way to go.

Last night, we were at a college ministry that she likes to go to. Other than the leaders, I believe we are the only husband and wife there and I am quite certainly, other than the leaders, the oldest one in attendance. I found myself sitting during much of the singing. Honestly, a lot of music doesn’t usually prepare me for worship. Give me 2-3 songs for 10-15 minutes and I’m fine. I know a lot of you enjoy and appreciate music more than I do. Good for you. God bless you. Somehow, I find it hard to connect with worship music often. There are exceptions. The Mrs. can tell you that when I hear “Holy, Holy, Holy” I have to sit down immediately with the awe of the God I serve.

As we listened last night however, I found myself angry over what was going on in my life and wondering where God was then. It can be hard to hear about the goodness of God and the love of God when He seems to have left you. I also think however that it is important to realize that this can be a normal attitude to have. The Psalmist had it several times and was honest entirely with what he said. I believe it was Madeline L’Engle, a Christian writer, who wrote the following:

Dear God,
I hate you.
Love, Madeline.

It’s seven short words but so much is contained in those words. L’Engle has a deep anger in her at that point, but she ends it on love. She realizes that though she does not seem to be on good speaking terms with the Almighty at this point, she does seek to trust Him and she wishes to just let Him know exactly what is going on.

That is where I was last night. Ironically, the speaker that night was speaking on a topic I do know well and at the end for Q&A, I had offered to help and so he told me to come up as well as we all answered questions and I believe the listeners loved the responses that I had to give. I often look at such answers as simple answers anyone could give, but that could be a way of discounting myself. It is not to say that the answers are everything, but they are the result of years of studying.

There I am then upset about what is going on and in fact, I use the recent history to answer a question about how God is sovereign over all things and bring up a principle that is essentially that of Romans 8. My wife and I discuss on the way home all that has happened. I tell her how things feel and she tells me how things are. She tells me the thing we have to do now is to trust in God that he will get us through.

It is odd when one who is normally the teacher gets taught the exact things he’s supposed to be teaching.

So in the midst of the storm, I write to those also in the midst of the storm. In America, we know times are tough economically. The gas prices keep rising higher and higher every day. The cost of living just increases and it creates a lot of political unrest. As one at a job where donations for a Children’s charity are being collected, I see firsthand that giving is down. People aren’t wanting to part and a number come through my line saying “I need a donation.”

In all of this, my wife is right. All we can do is trust in God. When we prayed last night, we prayed honestly. We told God we weren’t happy with what was happening and that at times, he seems to be absent. However, where else can we go? As a theologian, I know the arguments that show me the nature of God and how He knows all things and the future is in His hands. It may look at the time like he does not know what He is doing, but He does.

Last night, she insisted for our Scripture reading that we read Matthew 6:25-34 about worrying. I also read Romans 8:28-30. I can say that if these events have got us focusing on Scripture, at least some good is coming out of them. Biblically, all of it will work for good. It is not saying all that is happening is good, but that it will work for good.

So if you’re in those hard times too, hang in there. You’re not alone. We’re in them together. Don’t also assume as some do that because one is in ministry the blessing of God is constantly on their life with them doing well. Oh God has blessed me indeed, especially seeing as I have a loving wife, but there are a lot of hardships at the time as well. Being a Christian does not insulate you from suffering but gives you a reason to fight on in suffering.

I hope this account has been helpful to some of you. I plan to continue our regular series soon, but today, I was of the opinion that this should be written on instead.

Eschatological Insanity

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve decided I’m going to write again on the recent rapture talk with a look at what it is that the atheistic community is saying as well as looking at what Camping himself has said about his predictions and see what it is that can be learned.

Consider this one first from Atlanta. What does the writer tell us?

The argument from my reading is that the idea of Christ returning is just patently absurd and that we all want to go to a Disneyland with no sex, booze, or anything fun.

Yes indeed. We all want to sign up for that one. It’s bad enough that the author thinks he’s made a real representation of the story, but then he says that the problem is falsifiability. Yes readers. You read that right. Christians are afraid to test their belief. Therefore, all that needs to be done is set a date for the rapture. If it does not happen on X date, then it is false and will never happen.

Let us hope that the author never takes bets on professional sports.

The problem is not that Camping has an eschatology. Everyone does. The problem with setting dates is the idea from Matthew 24:36 that only the Father would know the date. As is the case of course, this is only a little detail that is overlooked. Such an attitude of setting a date and not seeing it happen could lead to a number of odd conclusions.

We will have flying cars by September 30, 2015. If we do not have them then, we will never have them.

We will be invaded by aliens on July 6, 2034. If we are not invaded then, we will never be invaded.

Israel and Palestine will put an end to the land war on April 22, 2029. If they do not do so then, they will never do so.

Science is a great tool, but one cannot deal with the past and the future using just the scientific idea of falsifiability. All that we have had falsified is that the rapture did not happen on the date Camping predicted. We do not have a falsification of the belief that Christ will ever return.

Next we have P.Z. Myers here.

Ah yes. This is what religion fosters. Just have examples of people believing crazy things and you can see what it does.

Fair enough….

Could it be anything like saying without evidence that Jared Loughner was a Republican who listened to talk radio despite even all the evidence coming in to the contrary and jumping on a screen shot without even investigating it to prove to the rest of the world that you were right only to find out that that shot was not accurate?

All something Myers did by the way.

No. The problem is not religion. The problem is just that a lot of people don’t know how to think and they add religion into the mix. The same can happen with any belief. Now I agree with what Myers wants in the end to happen to Camping. However, Myers is taking the sensational and making it the typical, instead of realizing that 99.9% of Christians around the world condemn this nonsense.

Far be it for Myers to actually deal with a sane position on eschatology….

Finally, we come to Mr. Camping himself. What does he have to say? Let’s take a look.

And here we have just a humble Bible teacher who says he makes no apology. Never mind that he’s made a laughingstock of the church leading those of us who condemned what he said into embarrassment as we are inevitably seen as thinking the world was going to come to an end that day simply because we’re Christians.

There is nothing humble about Camping. It is only arrogance to think that you can know something that Christ Himself said He did not know. Now Camping has gone to a spiritual understanding saying that Judgment Day did come and that the world will be destroyed on October 21st and it will not be spiritual, but he himself is not selling his possessions before then.

How convenient….

Family Radio is paid for by donations. No one at this point should donate a penny to such a cause. The church has been mocked as a result of what Camping has done. There are far better ministries out there that can be supported and many of them are from Christians who really do think about the issues and can help defend the faith against adversaries today.

It is a shame that eschatological insanity rests on all sides. That someone like Camping even has a platform shows how much the American church has fallen.