Tag: suffering

Do You Want To Get Well?

Do you really want healing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When we read John 5, we read the story about a man at the pool of Bethesda wanting to be healed by being put in the water. Jesus asks him if he wants to get well. The man says he wants to, but every time the water starts up, someone gets in before him. Jesus heals him at that point.

Now I know skeptical readers of my blog will think that event never happened, but that doesn’t matter right now. I want to focus on something else. That question Jesus asks can seem surprising. Do you want to get well? Of course, he wants to get well! Right?

Maybe not.

Sometimes, we talk about the problem of evil and personal suffering with sickness of some kind, be it mental or physical. Now most of us would say we want to get better if we have something, but do we really want to get better? The reality is that sometimes we do not want to get better. Some people base an identity around their sickness.

“Whoa, Nick. Hold on a second. I have an email from you and in your email you say you’re an Aspie. Aren’t you identifying with your condition?”

Yes. I am. I also would not take a cure if I were offered one because I think the condition has a lot of strengths to it that I don’t want to risk losing. However, I don’t speak about Aspergers saying “Woe is me!” Instead, I speak about it saying, “Yes. I have this condition, but I choose to overcome the deficiencies and live a successful life.”

Not all people do that.

Sometimes it has been said that happiness is a choice, but do we really want to be happy? If we do, we need to realize that means letting our guard down many times and not having control of our lives given to others who don’t deserve that control. Some people don’t really want that.

In some ways, when we do that, we are holding the universe hostage, or at least trying to. “I won’t be happy unless XYZ is going on in my life.” Make it whatever you want. It could be a great marriage, a great career, great kids, your sex life, the health of yourself or others, or any combination thereof.

Perhaps we should really ask what does it take to make us happy? If we are Christians, do we truly need anything besides Jesus Christ for our joy? Now when I say that, this isn’t to say that other aspects of life shouldn’t bring us joy or can’t. Many of the items mentioned above are great for bringing joy. However, picture any of them and ask “If you lost that and you still had Jesus, could you have joy?”

This isn’t to say you wouldn’t mourn what you lost. There is a place for sadness and mourning. We are told to weep and mourn with those who weep and mourn. We’re not told to just say “Cheer up and get over it.” There are real realities to mourn. Jesus Himself wept at the graveside of Lazarus, even knowing what He was going to do.

But if we say that we refuse happiness unless we have anything else in our lives, then we are putting ourselves in our own prison. If Jesus asked us “Do you want to be well?” our answer could very well be, “No.” It might seem like a simple question, but sometimes those are the best ones to start with. If you are not having joy in your life right now, well why not?

Whatever it is that you’re lacking in your mind, do you have to have it? I am not saying it wouldn’t be nice if you did, but is it essential for your joy? If it isn’t, then what is? If it is, then you are making your joy dependent on that and do you really want to do that?

This doesn’t mean also you try this path alone. There’s nothing wrong with seeking out a good therapist and good friends. Recovery from some matters is not easy. If it is physical health, you can still have joy. My friend, Ed Komoszewski, has a virus that has been rampaging his body for years and causes great pain, but talking to him you’d never know it. He’s got a lot of joy. It’s not easy, but he has it.

If we complain about evil, let’s make sure it’s not of our own making. Suffering has very little to do with what actually happens to you. How you respond to it personally makes up most of the suffering that you go through. What happens to you is usually not in your control. What you do in response usually is.

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

Evil is Temporary

Will this truly pass? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, in preparation for a possible upcoming operation, I had to go and get a COVID test. It involves a swab being put in each nostril while a nurse counts to ten. I was sure that wasn’t a whole ten seconds, but I wasn’t going to complain.

I had seen Allie get this done before and so I wasn’t looking forward to it for myself. Still, there was the desire to be the tough guy and take it. It reminds me of a time Allie and I went to the Titanic museum and you can stick your arm in water that was the temperature of the water the night the Titanic sank. I thought I would be the tough guy there and show Allie how I could handle it.

I couldn’t last two minutes.

So while the swabs were in, it was horrible, but as soon as they were gone, there was some mild irritation, but then not too long later, I was just fine. I thought about that later that day. That’s the way most suffering is. Something that we can consider so awful and extreme can just a year later be forgotten about.

“Just forgotten about? I lost my child in a car accident years ago. You don’t just forget about that!”

True, which is why I said it can be. Not all evils are like this. What happens to a parent in this situation is awful, but the thing is the suffering while still ongoing doesn’t remain at the same level. You manage to learn to live somehow even if it is difficult and even if there always is that hole in your heart.

Sometimes you will get reminders that will still hit hard. To this day, whenever I visit the gravesides of my grandmother and aunt, I am tempted to cry about my loss still. On the anniversary of the death of a loved one or at holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, an empty chair is a painful reminder.

But you learn to manage.

It’s the same with feelings of happiness and joy. They do diminish over time. Now if you pause to think about something really good in your life, you can at times start to experience the joy again, but it doesn’t last. There is a law of diminishing returns in place.

The Christian answer to this is that all evil will be overshadowed by God in the end and knowing Him for the Christian. There is no law of diminishing returns with knowing Him in eternity because there will always be more to experience. God being infinite cannot be exhausted at all by us. We will spend all of eternity going deeper and deeper.

Our problem often today is we treat things that are temporary, like the evil we suffer, as if they were eternal. We then treat the eternal things, like our after-death, as if they were temporal. There are temporal things here for us to enjoy, but they are all meant to point us to the eternal to enjoy.

Whatever evil you are suffering now, even if it is a permanent evil, the level you are experiencing it at will pass. It will not last forever. There will be a new day eventually and you will find yourself not being hurt as much. Of course, you should still seek to take the steps to recover as much as possible and if it was a victimization you had, the best thing to do is to wake up and say “I am not going to be a victim anymore” and then follow through.

Evil is temporary for the Christian. Whatever you fear will pass before too long. It could be that something you are dreading now you won’t even think about a year from now.

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

Jesus Drowned Babies?

Did Jesus drown babies? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve seen a meme making the rounds on Facebook that says “btw, Jesus drowned babies.” Well, this is interesting since the second person of the Trinity always existed, but He wasn’t known as Jesus until the incarnation, but I digress. We get the point. Jesus is God and God drowned babies so Jesus drowned babies.

What are we to say? I mean, we are against abortion which is the taking of the life of an innocent baby. Therefore, shouldn’t we look at an event like the flood and think that it is awful?

To begin with, it’s interesting how many atheists who post this are actually pro-abortion. Apparently, if you’re God, it’s wrong for you to take a life. However, if you’re a human being who is far less knowledgeable and good, then taking that own life within your body or the body of the woman you love is your moral right and must be defended.

Some atheists are against abortion thankfully and so they are being consistent at least. For those who aren’t, this is a problem. I asked one atheist multiple times in a group I’m in on Facebook why it is that killing babies is wrong. I mainly got some stunned response that I was questioning that premise. My reply was not at all, but I accept it on theistic grounds and he can’t so what’s his reason?

Still waiting.

One of the mistakes with this kind of thinking is that it assumes that God is a moral agent just like we are. We know this is not the case though. Even among ourselves, there are different degrees of authority. A parent can punish their own children. That doesn’t mean that someone else has the right to do so. A first-responder can do things that I cannot by their own authority. If the president wants to pardon a criminal, he can. If my friend is a criminal and I want to pardon them, I can’t.

What about God? God is the source of all life and the one who provides it. As said in Job, if He withdrew His breath, all life would perish immediately. Every single one of our lives is in His hands and every single one of them will die someday by accident, illness, or murder. As Clay Jones says, everyone you know will die that way and the only way you will avoid seeing that is your own death the same way.

So God will do what is moral. Right? Wrong. God does what is good. Goodness and morality are not the same thing. Goodness can go beyond acts that are demanded by morality. Morality is doing what you ought to do and there is no ought for God. There is nothing that He is bound to do.

This means that God doesn’t owe you anything whatsoever. The only obligations He has are those He has obligated Himself to, mainly to keep His word since He is truth. If God promises you something, He will do it. Other than that, He is in no debt to you whatsoever.

That means also He owes no one a single moment of life. Not a one. Upon what grounds can it be said that God took a life too early, as if He owed that person some more life? None.

Also, a big difference between us and God is God can restore life again, even eternally. We can’t do that. Once we kill that baby in the womb, we are done. There is nothing more we can do. God could do a miracle if He wanted, but there is nothing we can do on our end.

If we picture God as a moral agent like we are, then we do have a problem, and that’s what many atheists do. They think that God is in the same boat we are and plays by the same rules. It won’t work. God has no moral obligation to anyone and can give and take away as He wants.

Some might ask why He does. Many people out there have lost babies and not through any evil act of their own. It could be through any of the reasons I mentioned above when speaking about Clay Jones. For each circumstance, I cannot say that I know. That would be ridiculous on my part. What are you to do in that boat?

It’s okay actually to get angry with God about this. Go to Him with your hurts. At least you’re trying then. Peter Kreeft has said that’s faith trying to reconcile itself with reasons. If God was dead to you truly, you wouldn’t care. Frankly, there’s no apologetic answer I could give that would soothe a breaking heart, and there shouldn’t be. Intellectualism won’t answer that dilemma.

This is where the church needs to step up and be the church and love like Jesus did. Odds are I don’t know you personally and I can’t do that. I can tell you that if you love God, this will work for your good. I can also tell you that any child you have lost like that is in the arms of Jesus now. God does not neglect any little one that dies in such a way.

Feel free to hurt and you should. Be angry and grieve and ask the why questions. If you know someone going through this, please be there for them. I have a saying that I give to would-be apologists and that’s that if you’re ever in a position such as the pastor of a church and a mother comes to you crying because her teenage son died in a car accident, if you put on your apologetics or theologian or philosopher hat at that point, I will come over and smack you. At that moment, she needs a minister, a counselor, a friend. Perhaps after some time she can have a rational discussion about the problem of evil, but that is not the time and answering that question won’t soothe her heart.

So in the end, I find this meme highly ineffective and just trying to pull emotional strings. Not only that, if God exists and we have arguments for that and Jesus rose from the dead and we have arguments for it, then Christianity is true. We could simply say we don’t understand everything, but we will go by what we do understand. We have to do that in many other areas.

And yes, if your atheist friend is pro-abortion, press on that point.

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

You Are Not Safe

Can you avoid suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many of us have been shocked recently to hear about the news of the death of Mike Adams. It gets even more saddening when the reports indicate that it looks like a suicide. When I first heard he had died, I was suspecting foul play. After all, Adams is a warrior type and he really enjoys being in the heat of controversy.

If there was ever a time I would have hoped that I was right….

As I thought about that, I thought about what my friend Clay Jones says about evil and suffering. You are not safe. This morning, I remembered what he has said before that in your life, you will see everyone around you die of murder, accident, or disease. There is one thing aside from the return of Christ that can prevent you from seeing this. That is your own death from murder, accident, or disease.

Years ago, we also saw Nabeel Qureshi pass away. He was just 34 and had stomach cancer strike him. Many of us around the world were praying for him and were confident God would not let this one pass away. This would be a miracle for the world. It was not to be.

You are not safe.

We have this strange idea that we are to avoid suffering and evil. When it hits us in our lives, we act like we have been dealt an unfair hand. Why should we be the ones who receive this? The real question to ask is why should we receive anything different?

We often want to act like life is great for us. Most of us on Facebook want to put on a happy face and act like everything is okay. Many of us thought the same thing about Mike Adams, and yet apparently underneath that warrior spirit, there was a deeply hurting individual and it really hadn’t been seen.

I have seen people I respect greatly go through sudden crises in their personal lives that come out of nowhere. I then wonder “Why didn’t they ask for help?” Then I think, “The same reason I normally don’t.” I want to be a man in part and say “I can handle this.” There’s also great pride in admitting many struggles one has.

I’m not saying be an open book entirely on a place like Facebook and share everything, but I am saying to be willing to be open to a certain group of people and tell them what’s going on. I have a personal mentor I email every night who knows a lot about what’s going on in my own world. I am sure if many of you saw the correspondences over the years, you would be stunned.

Churches sadly are not the best place because many churches have it that you show up and put on your Christian face that life is great. My wife and I were at a small group years ago at a church we definitely no longer attend when Allie talked about how she was struggling with doubt in prayer request time. She was actually told that they don’t talk about that there. Yep, church. That’s how you help the wounded.

You all know I’m not going to back down on Christian morals, but we can hold to Christian morals in the right attitude such that someone living a lifestyle they know we see as sin will not be afraid to come to us. How is that possible? Well, they weren’t afraid to come to Jesus. If they are afraid to come to us and not to Jesus, we are doing something wrong.

We need to be there because after all, no one is safe. Years ago a book was written about Jim Morrison called “No One Here Gets Out Alive.” That’s a description of us too. We don’t like to think about that, but unless Christ returns first, it’s true.

That event could happen for you even today, even if you’re in perfect health. You could die in a crime or a car accident. Remember the story of Ghost Rider where the main character’s Dad has a disease and he makes a deal with the devil to heal him? The deal is set so the Dad will live a long life. Right? No. He is healed, but the next day he dies in an accident.

It could happen at any time.

Suffering is inevitable for all of us and that’s why as Christians, we need the message of hope, but not just the message of hope, but the living of hope. We need to come alongside and help one another out as best we can. It means so much to still get a kind message from someone out of the blue offering prayers or encouragement or to get a gift in the regular mail or email from someone just because.

I remember years ago after Allie and I were married, we were in financial straits, which we are still in. I remember praying and asking God to please send a little bit to help us. Shortly after I went to the mail and a friend from California had mailed us $100 saying she had just been thinking about us.

Friends. You have no idea how much hope something like that gives. It’s a way of getting the message of “You matter to us.” That’s something we all need to hear. We all want to matter. We all want to know we’re important to someone.

There are too many people in this world who have gone the way of Mike Adams and will go that same way. It is a tragedy every single time. Please get help. Don’t be ashamed to see a therapist. For many of my own struggles, I also see a therapist. There is no shame in it. Please also reach out to the suicide prevent hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

Something I enjoy doing is watching YouTube videos about gaming. One video I watched recently was something along the lines of dumb ways to die in video games. The video was humorous and out of the blue, at the end the speaker says “While we’ve all wasted our lives this way in games, there’s no need to waste your own life.” He then goes to give a positive message about the dangers of suicide and about the good in the world and to please get help if you’re struggling.

It was great to see that message. We need to hear it more often. Maybe you should tell it to someone today.

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

Job and Personal Experience

Do we really know what God is doing in our lives? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Lately my wife has been reading Job and when she does, it’s an interesting experience. She doesn’t just read the book to herself. She reads it quietly, but in an audible voice. I can hear what she is saying which gives a new way to really interact with the book. Many of us might not understand reading out loud today for private reading, but in the past it was the norm. Augustine was surprised when he walked in on his teacher, Ambrose of Milan, reading silently.

Something that occurs to me hearing the accounts is that in the first two chapters, we are told what is going on behind the scenes and we have no indication Job was ever told it nor his friends. If they were, they certainly didn’t know about it during the discussion in the book of Job. Yet what happens when we get to this discussion?

Everyone apparently “knows” what is going on. They all know what God is doing. This includes Job. Job knows that God has turned on Him and is ignoring Him and is not being just with Him. Job wants to have his day in court. Job wants to speak to God about what has happened.

Meanwhile, his friends have the wisdom of the ages. Eliphaz tells Job that men with gray hair older than his father are on his side. These people also “know” that Job has sinned. They “know” that he just needs to repent and get right with God and then everything will be right for him.

These people all sound too much like modern-day Christians in the West.

Many times when I go to a church service, I hear the speaker talking about everything that God is doing in the life of the church. I always want to ask how they know that. How do you know that what is happening is because of the activity of God? I am not ruling out that they could be right. It could be the hand of God. I want to know how do they know.

We are all too quick to speak what God is doing into someone else’s life. This is especially so when disaster strikes. Christians at funerals can say some of the worst things ever. Their intentions can be noble to provide comfort, but they are not. Imagine telling small children that God took their mother away because He needed another angel. Bad theology aside that human beings become angels, what view does that give the children of God?

When a disaster strikes, it’s too easy for Christian leaders to stand up and say that it’s judgment. Consider when AIDS showed up and it was a divine judgment on the homosexual community. Of course, I do not support homosexual activity, but what are we to say if a cure shows up? God wanted to judge the community, but He couldn’t overcome science? What kind of God is that?

When an earthquake or a hurricane hits anywhere, I don’t bother listening to people who claim that this is the judgment of God. Again, it could be, but I want to see some real evidence of that first. I want to know why I should accept this person as a prophet speaking with divine authority.

In our own lives when suffering comes, there’s nothing wrong with looking at yourself and seeing if you need to repent in some way. After all, we all always do. None of us lives a life that we ought to be living. Still, it is false to always think it must be because of a sin and once we repent, God will restore us. That is actually the very way of thinking being challenged in Job and yet we still hold to it today.

If someone you know is suffering, one of the best things you can do is what Job’s friends did originally. Be there. At the start of the book, the friends show up and they just sit there. No one says anything. The gift of presence was enough.

Most of us have a hard enough time figuring out why we ourselves do things. It is quite arrogant to struggle with that and still think that we know why God is doing what He is doing. Of course, He is active in the world, but we need to be careful when we try to say what He is and isn’t doing. Speaking for God and about Him should never be taken lightly.

Remember, in the end, everyone was wrong even though everyone was convinced they were right. None of them saw properly what was really happening to Job and all of them got humbled. Let’s not make the same mistake lest we also have to get humbled for speaking out of turn.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

On Ravi And His Cancer

What are my thoughts on Ravi’s health right now? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Years ago when my apologetics journey began, The Case for Christ was the book that lit my fire. Shortly after, I commented about seeing The Case for Faith while in a bookstore with a friend and he surprised me by buying it for me. In that book, I learned about a man named Ravi Zacharias and something about him just stuck out with me. It might have been his gripping story of overcoming suicide. I don’t know. From that point on, I proceeded to buy everything I could by Ravi. His style of writing just intrigued me. I never missed an episode of his podcast, Let My People Think.

One Christmas, my Dad asked me what I would like for Christmas. It was an unusual request, but I said I would like to get to meet Ravi. Any Dad out there that’s a good one knows when a kid asks something like that, you go and do everything you can to make it happen, and that April my Dad and I drove to Atlanta together. (Interestingly, that’s where I live now and I have tried getting employed at RZIM as well)

When we got there, I also got to meet Paul Copan who I think was just starting out his major career at the time. Before too long, Ravi came and I got to go into his office. He was going to give me all of his books, but I already had them. Instead, he gave me several CDs of his show. They are still here in our apartment.

Whenever I got the chance to meet Ravi, I often took it. The last time was a real surprise. My wife and I went to a church he was speaking at. Allie had insisted I grow a beard since the last time I had seen him and when we went up to meet him with everyone else in a line, when my turn came up I greeted him and he didn’t seem to know me. Then I realized it was the beard and after awhile he looked up with a sudden shock, “Nick? Is that you?”

It’s good to be remembered.

My wife showed me the picture of him this past week with him and his wife on their 48th anniversary. This time, it was me who didn’t recognize him at first. It required a second look from me. The silver-haired apologist I had known for years looked radically different. I could hardly believe my eyes.

Ravi’s daughter has put out a statement concerning Ravi’s health. It looks like unless a miracle occurs then Ravi’s not going to beat the cancer and time is very limited and we’ll have to see what the future holds for RZIM. It’s really something to think that a man who has spoken so often on college campuses about suffering and evil is now before the world going through a great trial of suffering and evil.

So what can you say at such a time? Nothing really. No words of mine can make the cancer go away. Nothing I say can make Ravi’s family have immediate joy. They have great sorrow now and they should. Scripture doesn’t tell us to bring immediate joy to those who mourn. It tells us to mourn with those who mourn. We often treat sadness and sorrow like they’re diseases here. They’re really just part of the human spectrum of experiences.

Should we pray for healing? Yes. God can still do what He wants to do, but if He chooses to not heal, that is what He does and that is what is best ultimately. If He decides that now is the time, then now is the time and we will be grateful for the time we were given.

The greatest joy I think we could do for Ravi is to remember that he was part of a wave of apologists that are now passing away, the next generation rising up needs to be ready to face the challenge. The great honor we could do then is to continue his ministry.

As I close this blog then, I think about this item I have on the wall here. It was a gift given to me on my wedding day. My seminary president had emailed Ravi to tell him the news. The president had the email redone in a style of calligraphy and presented it to me. It is framed and hanging on my wall. I apologize for the glare in the picture, but it was a wonderful wedding gift from Ravi.

Thank you for your ministry my friend. Here’s to your health. May a generation of apologists rise up to defend the faith that you love so much.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Worldviews and the Problem of Evil

What do I think of Ronnie Campbell’s book published by Lexham Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If there is any objection normally raised up against theism, it is the problem of evil. How can a good God allow so much evil in the world or any evil even? The argument from my perspective is not the most rational or logical, but it does have a strong emotional appeal. As I write this, our society is on lockdown from fear of a virus and even before this point, atheists were already making memes about God allowing or not doing anything concerning this virus.

In this book, Campbell looks at how different worldviews answer the problem of evil. He deals with naturalism, pantheism, panentheism, and theism itself. Each topic is dealt with the same way. In the end, there is more examination of theism since this is where Campbell lies and he spends more time on defenses of it. In each chapter, he also looks at the best defenders of each position.

Each worldview has to deal with the following questions: Life, human consciousness, the metaphysics of good and evil, and human responsibility. At this, I would have preferred the first two be left out. Let’s suppose we grant the positions of life and consciousness as questions to be set aside for the moment. If we look at just evil itself, how well does each worldview explain it?

Campbell does treat each view fairly and then looks at theism. Here, I would have also liked to have seen more distinction. He focuses naturally on Christian theism, but I was hoping in the book to see a comparison between Islam and Judaism and perhaps even deism as well. Campbell makes the Trinity a necessary part of his defense, so Islam would definitely have some problems, but couldn’t Judaism possibly work still since it would be open to incarnation, resurrection, and Trinity? After all, the first Christians were open to all of these and were Jews.

I was pleased to see the engagement with New Testament scholarship when talking about the Trinity. Campbell looked at some of the best research on this and if you’re not familiar with it, you will gain enough to be basically cognizant of the issues. This is explained in a way that is easy to understand as well.

Campbell also has some questions about classical theism. I really did not find them convincing as a classical theist myself. Still, it is not necessary to Campbell’s book that you embrace his view. I did appreciate his critique of open theism, however.

The final chapter also deals with the defeat of evil and looks at questions such as the nature of Heaven and Hell. While I am not a proponent of conditional immortality, I don’t think many of them would find his arguments in this case tenable. There was some said on Heaven, but I think more needed to be said.

If there was something else I would add, it would be a brief chapter on those who are dealing with suffering right now. What advice does Campbell have for us when we are in the midst of the pain? At that time, the intellectual arguments don’t really help out that much. I realize this book is not meant to be a pastoral book, but that would be something good still to have.

Overall still, this is a very thorough work on the problem of evil and atheists who want to use it as an argument need to deal with it. It’s also a rare book that deals with pantheism and panentheism on the problem of evil as well. Now maybe someone who studies this more will go forward and look at Judaism, deism, and Islam more on evil.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Case Against Miracles Chapter 2

What do I think of Matthew McCormick’s article? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The only work of Matthew McCormick I had ever previously reviewed here was his work “Atheism and the Case Against Christ.” The great delight of that was getting to catch him in a major gaffe. This one was about the fake god Jar’Edo Wens.

Now after reading this chapter, I am even more sure of the kind of researcher McCormick is. His whole chapter is about God would not perform miracles. Nowhere in this chapter did I see interaction with people like Alvin Plantinga or Craig Keener or anyone like that. Plantinga would have been an important one since McCormick’s whole article is really the problem from evil and saying “Well, if God wanted to do a miracle of healing, He would heal everyone wouldn’t He?”

It’s really amazing that McCormick’s whole argument is all about what an omniscient and omnipotent and omnibenevolent being would do, because, you know, McCormick certainly has a lot of experience with beings like that to make proper judgments. I went through this whole chapter wondering “How do you know that?” It certainly doesn’t make any sense to me to say, “If I was this being, I would do that.” It’s like it’s never considered that maybe if you were omniscient you would know some things that you don’t know now.

McCormick says

Even if a full-blown violation of the laws of nature occurs, we have compelling reasons to reject the hypothesis that the all-powerful, omniscient creator of the universe was responsible for it. A being of infinite power and knowledge wouldn’t act by means of miracles.

Well, this is quite a claim. Let’s see how good he does at backing it. At least on one level, McCormick puts forward the appearance of being open. As he says later in his essay:

It would be a mistake, I believe, to rule such a claim out a priori or virtually so with Hume’s global standards. Surely the all-powerful creator of all of reality would have sufficient power at its disposal to generate evidence that would be compelling; and I’d rather be prepared to revise all of my beliefs and the convictions I attach to them proportionally to the evidence.

As we go through, McCormick says

The Christian God is, by all accounts, an omni-god. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing, singular, personal and infinitely good creator of the universe. Jesus is alleged to have been his son, who was divine, but he was also a man, by Christian doctrine. The extent to which he was a man and lacked the status of a fully omni-being is a point of some controversy, even between believers.

Not among believers. Maybe between believers and heretics, but believers have always included in our creedal statements that Jesus is fully God and fully man. This is yet another point that makes me doubt McCormick really understands the Christianity he criticizes.

He also says that walking on water would require less power than stopping fusion reactions in stars. Sure, but also pointless. After all, God has infinite power so it’s not like He has a storehouse He has to reach into and then recharge. I wonder why McCormick keeps bringing up things like this.

He also says some statements about what a being who is omnipotent could do. One is reverse time, but even this one is debated. Aquinas said that God could not change the past and yet Aquinas never once questioned that God is omnipotent.

McCormick argues that for some miracles, a being would not have to be omnipotent. This is true, but I don’t know of academic philosophers arguing that God is omnipotent on purely miraculous grounds alone. There is always some metaphysics involved.

This is part of the problem for McCormick. He never looks at arguments for theism. If theism is true, and this can be demonstrated by the Thomistic arguments I believe that are inductive, and then we have evidence of miracles taking place, such as from Keener, then it’s reasonable to conclude miracles are the work of the omnibeing that has been shown to exist. McCormick wants to go after miracles still more so he says later that

The problem is that at any given moment on the planet, now and when these miracles are alleged to have happened, there are millions or even billions of other people who are not being cured, healed, or benefitted by a miracle. A miracle that we attribute to an infinitely good God is problematic because of what it omits; it is alleged that it indicates that God is there, and under some circumstances, he will intervene in the course of nature to achieve some good end. But there are all of these other cases, many of which appear to be perfectly parallel, or even more desperately in need of divine intervention, yet none occurs. While Jesus turns water into wine at one party, thousands or millions of other parties go dry. Even worse, millions of people suffer horribly from disease, famine, cruelty, torture, genocide, and death. The occurrence of a finite miracle, in the midst of so many instances of unabated suffering, suggests that the being who is responsible doesn’t know about, doesn’t care about, or doesn’t have the power to address the others. If a doctor travels to a village with enough polio vaccine to inoculate 1,000 children, but only gives it to ten of them, and withholds it from the rest, and then watches the rest get sick, be crippled, or die, we would conclude that doctor was a monster, not a saint. That doctor had the power, the knowledge, the wherewithal to alleviate more suffering, but did not. That doctor must be lacking in some regard.

The problem is McCormick is making this argument so he has to back it. His argument is there is no good reason for God to not heal everyone else if He heals one. Okay. Maybe there isn’t, but He needs to convince me of it. It’s not just enough to assert it.

Let’s go with the doctor example he gives of the doctor with a polio vaccine. Let’s suppose he knew that one child he would give the vaccine to somehow would grow up and become a dictator in that country and murder most of the population. He chooses to withhold the vaccine. We could debate if that was right or wrong, but we can all understand why he did it.

He goes on to cite Christine Overall asking why Jesus is turning water into wine at a party when He could have been healing lepers. McCormick also says if God can heal everyone, why hasn’t He done so already? Why not yesterday?

The water into wine was done because Jesus was invited to the party and He wasn’t trying to make the party go longer, but rather to help the host of the party avoid shame. It was a good act to do to help out. As for why not heal, McCormick wants God to be a Johnny on the Spot fixing all of our problems. Is that really God’s goal? What if God has something far greater and nobler in mind than making sure we all have perfect lives here on Earth?

McCormick also cites William Rowe about situations in the inductive problem of evil. Note that I am sure Rowe would reject the argument McCormick puts forward as McCormick seems to be going with just the logical problem of evil. Now saying evil exists is no longer enough to refute theism as the majority of atheist philosophers on the subject concede. So what does Rowe say about certain instances of evil?

William Rowe has called these, “instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.”

So again I have the same question. How does he know? How does he know that this evil could have been stopped without losing a greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse? How could this possibly be established? Note that the atheist has the burden of proof. They are making the claim that needs to be backed.

McCormick later says:

If God has the goal of instilling belief, inspiring faith, fortifying resolve, discouraging misbehavior, or enforcing commandments, it takes very little imagination to conceive of more direct, effective, and sustained means of achieving those ends.

Notice it’s “If God has the goal.” We wait to hear how McCormick has discovered the goals of the Almighty, but that is not coming. He goes on to cite Ted Drange saying:

if these were God’s goals, then it would have been a simple matter to directly implant belief into all people’s minds, or perform more spectacular miracles that would convince more people. What would be more personal than if Jesus had reappeared to everyone, not just a handful of easily discredited zealots? Millions of angels, disguised as humans, could have spread out and preach the word behind the scenes. Or God could have protected the Bible from defects in writing, copying, and translation.

If those were the goals. What if they’re not? After all, Biblically, it’s been when miracles have been at a high that faith has often been at a low. Jesus was doing miracles and got crucified. The Israelites in the wilderness got several miracles and still rebelled. Maybe God’s goal is not just getting people to know He exists. Maybe He wants people to really seek Him on their own and want Him on their own. Maybe He doesn’t want to compel, but simply to woo. Of course, McCormick’s essay would not be complete without a version of Ancient People Were Stupid:

Consider the problem this way. For all of the alleged miracles in history, facsimiles that are undetectable to anyone but an expert can be performed naturally by even mediocre magicians and illusionists. David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear on television. Penn and Teller catch bullets in their teeth. A Las Vegas magician appears to walk on water in a swimming pool and float in the air over the Luxor hotel. Imagine the social and religious impact these ingenious illusionists could have had amongst the superstitious, poor, and uneducated masses of New Testament Palestine. Religious leaders such as Billy Graham, Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell use cruder and more transparent trickery and deception to win the hearts of millions of people and acquire vast wealth from more educated, modern people.

To begin with, I don’t know anyone who would think that Billy Graham was out there trying to get vast wealth from people. However, does McCormick not realize ancient people knew some basic facts? They built ships because they knew people don’t walk on water. They made wine because they knew it didn’t just happen. They grew food because they knew food doesn’t multiply. They knew blind eyes don’t suddenly open and paralytics don’t get up and walk and dead people stay dead. This was not news to them. If we want to talk about things modern people fall for that is unbelievable, it’s that they still fall for this line of reasoning McCormick gives.

In conclusion, I am once again seeing why it is that McCormick could fall for something like Jar’Edo Wens. He really just thinks he’s asking astute questions, but he’s not. There is no interaction with any number of Christian experts on the problem of evil whatsoever. There are just blanket assertions. Anyone can raise questions. It’s a shame he doesn’t try to find answers.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Walking This Walk

What do I think of Brad Erlandson’s book published by Xulon Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Upfront, Brad is a friend of mine. He gave me his book free of charge as a gift and I wish to provide a fair review. I am going to try to avoid bias as best I can.

I have long had the opinion that if you had a good writer and director behind it, you could take the life of any person you meet on the street and turn it into a major motion picture and it would be a box office hit. People are fascinating and their stories are interesting.

Erlandson’s story is a common story about growing up in a family and actually being rebellious. Eventually, he finds his way to Jesus and from then on, his story is about his zeal to spread the gospel. Something about the book is that he goes regularly from autobiography to exhortation about how he thinks people ought to live.

In the last third of the book, he gets to the main part where he talks about being hit by a drunk driver and how he is now in a wheelchair as a result. He talks about his attitude toward the lady who hit him and how to view the disabled. He talks about his opinion on faith healing and how some pastors do go too far with this.

There are times I found myself disagreeing with some positions Erlandson gave in his book, but these are rightfully on secondary issues and Erlandson says he is fine with people having different opinions, which he knows from our personal discussions. He doesn’t deny that these issues should be discussed, but they should not be a point of disagreement. With this, I fully agree.

The book is also easy to read. There is not really difficult theology in there that people will not understand. There is a touch of apologetics involved. This is not just about the problem of evil, but other areas. Erlandson himself spent some time teaching apologetics at a church.

Sometimes, I did wish Erlandson would focus more on the crash. As I said, this showed up in the last third of the book. Perhaps it would have been good to have done it like it can be done in a TV show where you will get shown a scene of a later event and then the episode goes to show you how you got to that event.

I also did think sometimes Erlandson seemed to get distracted and spend more time with a story than I thought necessary. These stories could be interesting at the time, but then you’d move on and wonder what it has to do with the main story. Of course, the problem could lie with me.

Still, Erlandson’s story is a sad story and a happy one both. It is sad to think about the evil that he has gone through, but there is joy in seeing that he handles it and perseveres. Does he want to be healed? Of course, but he at the same time still lives and enjoys his life in the meanwhile. It is one thing for evil to happen to you in the past. It is one thing to stay in that and let it keep happening to you. As he says, you can get bitter or better. Erlandson has chosen better, and may it not be taken from him.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

If Cats Were Philosophers…

What would happen if felines held a symposium? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many of you who are friends of my wife and I on Facebook might have seen us posting last week about our cat Shiro. I noticed recently that he wasn’t eating like he should be. He was normal in all other respects, but not really touching his food. We took him to the vet one day who tried to do some work but, well, Shiro isn’t that cooperative at the vet. (Fun fact. Playing a Catholic chant a friend sent us on the way calms him down which means I’m Protestant, my wife leans Orthodox, and our cat is apparently Catholic, or is that CATholic?)

The vet suspected it was a dental issue and we scheduled to bring him back the next day. Both days we had to catch him and put him in his kitty carrier which he was not happy about at all. The second day, they kept him for most of the day including some anesthesia so they could look at his teeth.

For the next couple of days, I was concerned. I noticed he wasn’t eating and he was sometimes vomiting and his litter box stunk more than usual. Through an app, I contacted a clinic that told me that it was at this point normal. Shiro had had some anesthesia and this can be a side-effect and now was not the time to worry. He was right. This morning, Shiro was right there when I woke up and wanting his breakfast.

Whenever this happens, I wonder what it would be like if cats were philosophers. What if Shiro is sitting at the vet while we’re away and pondering what is going on around him? What would he be saying?

“I could have sworn these people said they loved me, but this sure doesn’t seem like love to me! Why would these people put me in this enclosure where I cannot roam free and take me to this place? All these people I don’t know want to prod me and stick these sharp objects in me. I don’t know what they want. How can I trust them? These people who claim they love me meanwhile just sit by the side and watch and do nothing.”

I can easily picture a symposium of cats getting together talking about the evils of those put over them. All of them writing papers on how the evil overlords do not really love them and care for them. After all, why would they allow them to go through with something like this? (Especially getting fixed. Ouch!)

Every time we have to take Shiro to the vet, I ponder this. When we got him home, we had to give him some medicine from a syringe. My wife would hold him and I would try to squirt it in his mouth when she tried to open it. It certainly wasn’t easy. It’s not easy either when we have to give him his monthly flea medicine, but that at least doesn’t require forcing his mouth open.

I often ponder that I wish there was a way I could explain it to him, but the knowledge level between a cat and a human being is vast. It cannot really be bridged. We think in categories that cats cannot.

Yet at the same time, the questions I think Shiro could ask are often the questions we, including myself, can ask of God when evil takes place? The cat could say “If I was a human, I would not do this,” but we as humans know better. This is for Shiro’s good.

The difference between us and God is far greater than cats and ourselves. This is one reason evil really can get me emotionally, but doesn’t really persuade me as a problem for theism. If I have strong arguments that God exists and Jesus was raised from the dead, then I just have to accept evil as it is. I don’t understand the reality of it and I should fight against it, but it doesn’t really count against God for me.

And when we get set to take Shiro to the vet, I wish he would just be calm and trust us and when he’s there, I wish he’d do the same.

Maybe I should do the same with someone who knows better too.

In Christ,
Nick Peters