Picking What to Believe

Picking What to Believe

A friend of mine asked me a question.

"What if you don't know what to believe?  Where do you go from there? I need to know if there really is a god and that we're not just here by chance. How do you know you're in the right religion or does it matter?"

These questions condense down to three profound questions

1. Is there a god?

2. If so, does it matter what we believe?

3. If so, what is the right 'religion'

Why?

1. If there is no god, it really doesn't matter what you believe.  
2. If there is a god, but that God cares less about what we believe, then any or all religion is good enough.
3. If there is a god, and that God cares, it would seem to me that choosing the correct faith is a critical matter of eternal significance.

The Existence of God.

This is a true/false answer (or a boolean in computer-speak). So let's state the two possibilities frankly.

1. There is a God

2. There is no God

Each position has some implicit assumptions.

• If there is a God, God has to have always existed.  If not, something else would have had to create God, and that would be God.
• If there is no God then matter, space and time had to always exist.  If mater, space, and time were created, something else would have had to create it, and that would be God.

• If there is a God, then God created the universe in some manner.
• If there is no God the universe just happened.

• If there is a God, it may or may not be the case that religion is meaningless, depending on what that God thought.
• If there is no God, then religion is meaningless, and any or none is as good any other. Then again, if there is no God then life is meaningless and without purpose, and we are just rearranged pond scum.  We are nothing more than bags of chemicals.

In future posts, I'll broach each of those assumptions.  The first of which will be the Existent of God

Getting saved young

I was saved young. My mom tells me that she led me to the Lord when I was six.  I don't remember that event, I was baptized shortly after, which I do remember.

I have mixed feelings about being saved really young. Sure, you're in a better place to serve the Lord, but there is another side.

I have several friends who lived a reprobate lives.  When they were saved, the transformation was extensive, immediate, and profound.  For them, they have a bright line of delineation. On one side, they were lost, on the other, they are saved.

As for me, I was saved young.  I have no bright line of demarcation.   For years, each night I prayed, "And God, if I'm not saved, will you please save me?"

When I was around ten, doubts about my salvation lead my mom to call my uncle and he had me pray the sinner's prayer in the back of one of mom's Chick tracks.  I remember tears falling down as I did so as God touched me.

When I was a sophomore in High School, God dealt with my heart, convicted me of the sinful life I was living, and I repented and committed my life, again,  to the Lord.  From that moment on, my life was different.

So, when did I become a Christian?  When was I saved?  At six?  At ten?  At fourteen?  I don't know for sure.

My formerly reprobate friends don't have that problem.  They can tell you the hour, minute and second that the Holy Spirit changed their lives.  Many times, I've envied their certainty, especially when the seeds of doubt grow.

I often cringe when I hear many of these formerly reprobate friends testify "I wish I hadn't thrown so many years away in the world!" knowing that neither side of the fence has greener grass.  Many of those years I didn't "throw away" I spent with doubts they've never entertained.

But, in the end, it doesn't matter.  I know that I am saved.  I know the Holy Spirit lives inside of me.  I know that I am bought by the Blood of the Lamb of God.  I know this because God's presence has made a difference in me, in my life, in my thinking, and my family.

So, dear friend, entertain your child's doubts.  Let them seek the Lord as often as they feel is needed.  When Satan assails them with doubts of their salvation, they will have something to point to.

Believing in Christianity is Becoming More Difficult

I read crosswalk.com often.  One feature is an article where folks write into a pastor about their hard faith and practice questions.

Recently, a fellow wrote into Roger stating

Dear Roger,

I’m finding that believing in the validity of Christianity is becoming more difficult. 

How could a loving God allow so much suffering? With thousands of religions spanning the globe who are we to say, or for Jesus to say, that he is the only one who can help us find God? It just doesn’t make sense.

How could God send people to hell who’ve never had a chance to hear about Christ?

How can we believe that the six-day creation as recorded in Genesis One could ever be literally true? How are we supposed to trust in the Bible when it has demonstrable conflicts and errors?

I see some reasons why the fight surrounding gay marriage is worth the struggle. But what bothers me is that gays and lesbians actually have anatomic, structural brain differences from heterosexuals.

I’m asking questions that I’ve never asked before and the answers and non-answers are really bothering me. I’m not even sure exactly what I’m asking from you except that I’m really struggling with my doubts and miserable in the process. My anchor is slipping and the boat is drifting, do you see what I mean?

Please help me, Randy

While Roger's Response was well-reasoned and helpful, I felt he ducked all of Randy's questions. It's true that addressing the paradox of doubts within Christian faith may be of more help than answering a laundry list of questions since there are always new questions.  But it bothered me that Roger didn't speak to any of the doubts.

I consider my faith to be properly basic¹, meaning that I am justified in holding it apart from external evidence.  However, my faith is not a blind delicate egg-shell faith, lacking evidence and existing only in ignorant of the wider world.  Roger's answer reminds of the scene from the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy is told to ignore the man behind the curtain.  Since I've studied apologetics, I decided to answer Randy's questions myself.

I’m finding that believing in the validity of Christianity is becoming more difficult. 
What has changed recently that would affect your ability to have faith?   That's a good question to ask yourself.  If the God of the Bible is true, and since Jesus died 2,000, the answer is nothing.

We have a real adversary, who is seeking to kill, steal and destroy.  The truth isn't important to Satan, after all, he is the father of lies.  What is important to him is keeping as many people as he can away from God.  

He will use every technique available to accomplish this goal.  One of his  favorites is to flood your mind with doubts of every size, shape, and color.  There is always a chorus of voices telling you why every aspect of the Christian faith is just plain wrong if you are willing to listen.  If you listen too closely, you'll doubt you exist.

So, Randy, let's talk about your specific questions.

How could a loving God allow so much suffering? 
The most vexing problem the Christian apologist has is called the problem of evil, This is a great place to start since everything else is easier.  We can state it as follows:

• An all-knowing god would know that something bad was going to happen.
• An all-powerful god could prevent it something bad from happening.
• An all-good and loving God would want to stop the bad thing from happening.
• Since bad things happen, we can conclude that one or more of these statements are true 
• God is not all-good
• God is not all knowing 
• God is not all-powerful
• God doesn't exist

Since the evil exists and the God of the Bible is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, atheists say this proves that there is no god.

This problem has two aspects.

1.  Moral Problem of Evil - This evil is a direct consequence of God granting us moral free will.  If we are free to choose, there will be consequences.  Yes, we can choose to do right, be we also can choose to do evil.  While this freedom is limited by God's sovereignty, atrocities such as rape, murder, theft, abuse, oppression, industrial accidents, and suicide are the results of sinful human choices.  Most of the bad things that happen, most of the suffering that humans endure, are the direct result of a sinful choice of another human.  But, as bad as humans are, our evil is limited by God, and He always will use the evil for good (Romans 8:28)

2.  Calamities - But what about the other "evil?"  What about the tsunamis, earthquakes, non-human caused forest fires, mudslides, floods, bear attacks, droughts, disease, and other catastrophes?  

Did you ever hear the phrase "that's above my pay grade?"  Well, that's the case here.  We, as temporal, weak, limited beings cannot fully see the consequences of these calamities.  

If God has a sufficiently good, moral reason for these things to occur, then the weight of this argument evaporates. If we can look at a calamity and say "the good results of this event far outweighed the bad" then we can see how the good God could allow such an event.

"But wait!  How can anything good come from this!", we wail as we point out some horrible event. You see, we have a problem of perspective.  Humanity sees things differently than God does.  God is eternal, we are temporal.  God knows all, we know very little.  God sees each possible repercussion of each decision, we can't.  Considering how inferior we are to God, I can say with confidence that we are not in the position to judge if God.

"But people died!"  you may cry.  Yes, they do.  In fact, all humanity is appointed to death.   If an earthquake kills 1,000 people, nothing really changed.  If the earthquake happens, people die.  If it didn't, people die.  Only the timing and nature of their deaths are in question.  Some people on the Tintanic died in the fidged waters of the North Atlantic.  Some died, years later, in their own beds.  But 100% died.

 Let me give you an example.  Let's say that you can go back in time and eliminate Hilter as a child. The death of a single innocent child would prevent one of the bloodiest wars in human history, savings of tens of millions of lives and avoiding an unspeakable amount of pain and suffering.  But as a child, Hitler was innocent.  The child Hitler had not killed anyone nor had he started any wars, but you know he will. Would it be moral for you to allow Hitler to develop a fatal case of a whooping cough, thereby preventing the unspeakable suffering and horrors of WWII?  

Assume there is a  mudslide that causes the death of 20 people.  The news reports on the tragedy inspire hundreds of people around the world to realize their mortality and commit their hearts to Christ. What if several of those people become evangelists who bring the gospel to tens of thousands, who then take it to hundreds of thousands more.  Would you count the premature ending of 20 lives to be moral if it would bring 100 million to Christ?  Would that be justified?  Yea, so would I.

With thousands of religions spanning the globe who are we to say, or for Jesus to say, that he is the only one who can help us find God? It just doesn’t make sense.

Who is Jesus? That, I believe, is your problem. The Jesus of the Bible is the all-power, infinite God.  The Jesus of the Bible is the creator and sustainer of everyone on the globe, the globe, and the entire universe the globe floats in. If  anyone has the right to say that something is right or wrong, it is the Jesus of the Bible, the one who created everything that exists!

And Jesus didn't come to 'help us find God.'  Jesus is God.  God, himself, became a man to pay for our sins.  He came to redeem us.  God's nature is both loving and just.  As a just God, He cannot ignore violations of his law, but as a loving God, he doesn't want us to go to Hell.  Therefore, God died in our place.

There is an enemy who desires to see people, who God loves, go to hell.  Of course, he would spawn as many counterfeits as possible, to lead as many away as possible.  If the Bible is true, then there is only one God, all the others are only the creation of human minds and the works of the dark forces.

How could God send people to hell who’ve never had a chance to hear about Christ?

Since God is transcendent, anything we know about God is what God has revealed to us, There are two types of revelation from God to man. First, called "General Revelation", talks about the natural world and all its wonders, including our own makeup.  The second, called "Special Revelation", is the Bible, inspired by God.

General Revelation shows us the existence of God, from just observing the natural world.  Ray Comfort says "when we see a painting, we know there's a painter."  When we look at the natural world, humans naturally know that there is a god.  

Besides the natural world around us, God's fingerprints are in the clay in our moral code, and we fail that code.  Even without the Bible to show their sin, most honest people would admit that we humans don't live up to our own moral codes, much less God's.  If we are judged just on our own, innate sense of right and wrong, we are guilty.  We know we fail. We know we fall short.

I believe that God will judge people based on the light available them.   I am not saying that there is salvation apart from Christ, only that the law from which we are judged differs based on our revelations.  They won't be judged on not accepting Christ, but on their own personal sin.  Romans 5:12 tells us we have inherited our sin nature from Adam, but will be judged "for all have sinned" When they stand before a perfect and holy God, they will admit that God's decree is just. 

God has moved in many ways that would blow your mind, such as Muslims getting visions about Jesus, despite never hearing the gospel and God working in the hearts of native peoples through dreams and visions before missionaries arrive.  There are several examples of this in Scripture, such as Cornelius, Philip, and the Ethiopian Eunuch, and Paul's Macedonian vision.

How can we believe that the six-day creation as recorded in Genesis One could ever be literally true? 

Why shouldn't we believe in a six-day creation?  Does your concept of God make Him so small and weak that it would require billions of years?  I don't mean to sound condescending, but you misunderstand the relationship between God and creation.

God is transcendent.  That means He is apart from and above creation.  God exists necessarily.  He created everything including all matter, space, time, and energy.  Apart from God, nothing else exists He is the sculptor of the universe and the author of every natural law.

I personally believe in a literal six-day creation.  Furthermore, I believe that most Christians who
believe something contrary are doing so in an accommodationist mentality.  Pure Biblical Exegesis
seems to support a literal six-day creation.  In addition, historic Christian Biblical interpretation also credited a literal six-day creation.

That being said, a literal reading of the Bible does not explicitly require a six-day creation.  Read Genesis chapter one again.  There are many interpretations which allow for billions of years, such as the Gap and Day-Age interpretations.  If science saying "Billions of years" is causing you to doubt, read Genesis 1:1-2, and ask yourself if any time frame is demanded by those verses?  Go ahead and hang your faith on billions of years.  God can take it. Just don't be suprised when the Holy Spirit of God changes that heart in a few years of study.

The alternate view from creation is that the universe, which science says had a beginning, just popped into existence, uncaused by itself.   Does that make more sense than an eternal, self-existent and all-powerful God created the universe?

How are we supposed to trust in the Bible when it has demonstrable conflicts and errors?
Let me state emphatically, there are no errors in the Bible.  None.  Period.
When properly understood, there are no conflicts in the Bible.  None.  Period.

Sometimes people who don't understand Biblical inerrancy see conflicts and errors when none exists because of an inaccurate understanding of inerrancy. Dr. Charles Ryrie says it well when he said 

The inerrancy of the Bible means simply that the Bible tells the truth. Truth can and does include approximations, free quotations, language of appearances, and different accounts of the same event as long as they do not contradict

A few points to consider when accusing the Biblical of having errors:

• There were no quotation marks in the time the Bible was written. Quotes of speech should be considered to be indirect references, not exact quotations.  
• Sometimes, the Biblical narrative is arranged chronologically, sometimes thematically, and sometimes geographically.  For example, it is not a contradiction or error if I tell you about what happened at the mall, then what happened at home, and what work I had to do to my car, even if they happened at different times.
• The Bible should be held the accuracy expected from that kind of speech.  If I say something is five miles away, and it's actually 5.24312341232123455 miles away, is five correct?  Yes.  If I say, in a poem, that her eyes are an ocean, should I put on a life vest?  No, because humans communicate in this manner.  Hyerbole, metephorical statemsnts, similies and overstatements are common figures of human speech that are used for empasis ("I've told you a million times" reallyd doesn't mean million.  More like 376, but we use million to emphasis a great number.)  If you read a poem that says "her eyes were deeper than the ocean" the truth being convend isn't geographic distance.  The author never intended you to pull out a tape measure.  
• Language and classifications change over time.  Today, we know that a whale is not a fish but a mammal.  In Jesus' day, anything that swam in waters was a fish, so calling a Whale a great fish was not wrong, but using their classification system.  Likewise, botanists tell us that the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds.  But what would the definition of "seed" be in a pre-microscope,  agrarian society?  The word seed meant "seed of a food-baring plant" and the mustard seed is the smallest of those.
• Sometimes, writers recorded different parts of the same speech, and it seems as if the speaker said two different things.  It's not wrong.  Both are right.  
• Understand that we don't have a full and complete secular accounting of history.  Over the hundreds of centuries, records of kings and kingdoms can fade away.  Sometimes, arrogant archeologist and historians will point at the silence of the archeological record and say "the Bible got this wrong!"  Usually, they've been proven wrong by new archeological discoveries.  The absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. 
• Finally, some people are looking for a reason not to believe.  Their reasons differ.  Some of them are hurt and bitter, some are willful, some don't want to accept the consequences that an Almight God would bring, and some are just arrogant, unable to accept that they are not the highest intellect in the universe.  They would make any assertions they can to avoid believing in a God to whom they will answer. They will presuppose just about anything, including some of the most ludicrous things you can imagine, in order to avoid believing in God.  It would not be wise to listen to them.

Gays and lesbians actually have anatomic, structural brain differences from heterosexuals.
Assuming that you're correct about the anatomic differences(which is a huge leap), are you suggesting causation or correlation? Those are two very different things.  Correlation only means one thing is related to the other.  This doesn't cause any problems to the Biblical worldview since their behavior could alter their brain's structure.  If you're implying causation, I think you have problems.  If such a proven causal relationship existed, I have no doubt that the homosexual lobby would trump it from every news outlet and on every talk show.  It would be plastered on every billboard and in every magazine.   

Even so, it seems to me that a genetic source of the behavior seems to be contraindicated by twin studies where one is homosexual and one isn't  The mantra "they are born that way" is more of a political push to legalize and seek acceptance of their lifestyle.

1 All knowledge starts with certain assumptions.  The most initial assumptions are called properly basic.  My faith is self-attested.  If someone accused me of robbing a bank, and I knew I didn't rob the bank, no amount of external evidence could prove to me that I did something I know I didn't do.  I have, in my heart, the Holy Spirit.  His presence provides me all the evidence I need that my faith is correct.