That's What Steve Said!

Addendum

The following is my own speculation about why Satan and the demons rebelled against God. Scripture doesn’t give us an answer, so this is my best guess. Take it for what it’s worth.

I think it could be that Satan resented that God created this world, and particularly that He created human beings in His image. As angels, they had a unique relationship to God as “sons of God” prior to our creation. God’s choice to create lower beings that also bore His image was something Satan found to be beneath Him and defiling to His holiness. As the first to object to God’s plan, Satan found other angels to join him in voicing their disapproval. Lacking trust in His wisdom, and thinking they knew better than the all-knowing, perfectly benevolent God, they sought to turn all of the heavenly host of angelic beings against Him. In response, God banished them from His presence, yet gave them the freedom to influence His created world. God would prove to him that He would succeed in His plan to bring human beings into a loving relationship with Him, and that Satan could try his hardest, but he would still lose. This plan would not only succeed in bringing in many human beings who willfully chose to worship God, but would also succeed in exposing those angels who had enjoyed His presence and worshiped Him in practice, yet did not truly submit to Him as their Lord.

Now that the demons have been expelled, and certain judgment awaits them, their goal is to make a fool of God and show that His plan failed. They are committed to the task of destroying human flesh by deceiving us into trusting our physical desires above God’s intended design for our lives. Satan desires to annihilate the human race and prove that he was right and God was wrong. But God will win in the end!

Monday, October 25, 2021

Making Sense of Christianity 3: Sin and Death

If there’s one thing everyone can agree upon it is this: the world is not as it should be. While we all see significant problems, we offer vastly different and contradicting solutions to them. Much of our disagreement arises from where we believe the problems originate. The secular world often assigns the blame to external circumstances and accidents of nature, believing that human beings are victims of chance. Those who inflict harm on others do so because others inflicted harm on them, with the blame continually pushed back in an endless chain of prior causes. Christianity offers a different view. Evil exists in our world because we all sin. While each individual cannot change their circumstances, we always have a choice to do what is right or wrong. Therefore, the world is tainted by the effects of sin, but each of us are personally guilty of contributing to the mess.

What is Sinful about Sin?

While the Christian belief in personal responsibility and the universal sinfulness of the human race is well known, what is not clearly understood by most, including those within the Church, is what makes a sin a sin. Many understand it in terms of “divine command theory.” That is to say, a sin is a sin because God declares it so. The Bible states that such and such behavior, thought, or belief is wrong, therefore it is sin. While God’s commands make it clear to us that such things are sinful, they don’t encompass all of what is sin, especially since Scripture is silent in many areas. While we can apply principles from certain commands to other situations, we cannot always arrive at a clear answer. Perhaps there is a better way to understand sin. I believe that better way is teleology.

Teleology

Teleology is the idea that there is purpose and design in nature. Many of us may be familiar with teleological arguments for a Creator God that show how “fine-tuned” the universe and our planet are to make life possible. We might consider the distance from the earth to the sun, or the strength of the gravitational force, or how we happen to have the water and food we need to survive, as well as the abiltity to reproduce to keep life going. These are a minuscule sampling of the various factors of what is required for us to live and sustain life, and they collectively make a powerful case for the conclusion that this world is not an accident, but the result of an intentional Creator. However, we often fail to make the connection to how we ought to live. If God has fine-tuned the universe for our existence, couldn’t He also have created us with functional purposes in mind? For many, the discussion of teleology stops short at what has been done for us. Doesn’t it also imply what WE should be doing?

Recall what I said in the previous post: “If He (God) IS love, then love is in accordance with what is good, which is in accordance with what is rational, which is in accordance with the will of God. And if this is so, the perfect expression of our love is to be in submission to His will for our lives, and to encourage others to do the same.” From this we can logically infer that sin is that which is not in submission to God’s will, which is ultimately irrational, not good, and unloving. From a teleological perspective, sin is the willful rejection of God’s design for human beings to flourish. Having this framework for our definition of sin helps to bring clarity to the issue. On divine command theory, God’s rules may be arbitrary. Theoretically, He can command us to do things that we know intuitively to be morally wrong. From a teleological perspective, He only commands us to do what is good for us collectively and helps us to function properly in this world. This proper function is based on God’s knowledge of His creation and how it is designed to work. Instead of merely “because God says so,” we want to obey Him because it is good for us to do so. Living according to the purpose for which we are created is the way that we flourish. When we disobey, there are negative consequences for us and for others.

Another advantage teleology provides is that it helps make sense of sin as a universal problem for humankind. For much of humanity prior to Christ, and continuing today, access to Scripture and the stated commands of God is either forbidden or has yet to be obtained. There are corners of the world where the Gospel has yet to be preached and the Scriptures have yet to be delivered to the people. Are those who have not heard accountable for commands they haven’t received?

Breaking From the Design

Romans 1:18-32 details the universal sin problem, and shows how sin is not rooted in arbitrary commands, but is associated with rebellion against God’s design for human nature. Those who have not heard the specific commands we find in Scripture still have knowledge of God as revealed in the natural world. They have enough of this knowledge that verses 19-20 says, “what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” What follows is an explanation of how detachment from God-given design and purpose leads to our affections being for created things, and our behaviors deviating from the form and function for which we exist. Verses 26-27 illustrate the degree to which teleology is rejected. “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” The example Paul uses here may trigger our modern sensibilities, but it is a clear example of sin being defined as a break from God’s intended design for human beings. Following desire over design leads to destruction.

God’s Right to Life

Teleology stands in sharp contrast to our culture’s commitment to autonomy. While we value our own right to do whatever we want with our own bodies, God requires that we submit ourselves to His will. Disobedience is disfunction, and it leads us to destruction. While Christians defend the “right to life,” we often fail to see that it is first and foremost God’s right, and it applies to each and every one of us. Our lives belong to God as our Creator and the one who gives us our purpose. We are accountable to Him. He has the right to give us life and the right to take it away.

The Consequences of Sin

This brings us to the reality of death. As Scripture records in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they brought damage to God’s perfect design. The thing about sin is that it takes root in the body of the sinner and skews its desires, making the sinner prone to keep on sinning. Once that first sin was introduced to the human race, it began a cycle of sin that was then passed on to the children of the first couple as they inherited the fallen flesh of their parents with its sinful appetites. The human body was misaligned with its perfect design, and would be incapable of restoring itself to its original condition.

To be in unity with God is to be in perfect alignment with His will. We have each “fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and have incurred the penalty of death as the “wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). As God warned Adam and Eve, “in the day you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

The Mercy of Death

Through sin, suffering and death were introduced into the world. The “curse” of death is often seen as punishment, but what is often overlooked is the mercy of God. We are told that God set angels at the Gates of Eden to block entry so they would not have access to the tree of life. The lesson here is that it is not God’s will for the human race to exist eternally in a sinful state. Death is required to free us from our fallen condition. But death is not God’s ultimate desire for us. His desire is that we live forever free of sin. We cannot do so in our present state.

Looking Ahead / Catching Up

We love to do things our own way, and to make matters worse, there are powerful forces at work to lead us down that path. I will turn my attention to those next time as we discuss “The Spiritual War.”

1. The Creator God
2. Personhood & the Image of God

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Making Sense of Christianity 2: Personhood and the Image of God

In the previous post, I made the case that there must be something that has always existed and continues to exist that is the cause of everything else that exists. This is what we mean by “God.” However, I haven’t shown that this God must be anything resembling the personal God of Christianity. Couldn’t it be an inanimate, eternally existing physical substance of some sort that blindly birthed all that has ever come to exist? I’d like to explain how this option won’t work, and that the eternal God must be personal. From there, I will show how this personal God aligns with Christianity and the concept of humans being created in the “image of God.”

Created by Choice

To be eternal is to be changeless, since change is a quality of sequential existence. For an eternal physical substance to suddenly birth the universe would require some change in its condition that precedes that moment. To illustrate this point, imagine a deflated basketball. Without the addition of air into the ball, it will remain deflated. Once it is added, the ball begins to change, and with enough air it will be able to bounce on a hard surface. Its own existence isn’t sufficient to inflate itself and bounce. It needs the addition of air and a hard surface to act on its potential, and it is powerless to do so on its own. So it is with all physical things. Nothing purely physical can go from inactivity to action by itself. So this option won’t work.

The only other option is something that exists eternally without change in itself that has the capacity to create change. This capacity is what we might refer to as “will” or “intention.” In simpler terms, this boils down to the freedom to choose. Impersonal forces or substances do not have this ability. Only living beings that think can do so. Therefore, at the very least, for anything to exist at all, there must be a mind that willed other things into existence. God is that mind, and all that exists is the result of His choice to create.

Personhood vs. Instinct

Now, the ability to choose is found in human beings as well as in the animal kingdom, yet we do not consider animals to be persons. So what does it mean to be a person? I would argue that a key distinction is to be found in how choices are made. As humans, we think introspectively and consider the options before us. As philosopher J.P Moreland describes, we have “thoughts about our thoughts.” This distinguishes us from animals that act on instinct and sets us apart from all other living things in the natural world. Animals act purely in response to their environments as their natures dictate. In this sense, their choices are made for them in a system of cause and effect. Humans, by contrast, have the ability to make different choices in the same circumstances. With this comes something significant that animals lack: moral responsibility. We do not think our pet cat is a criminal deserving of punishment if it kills a bird. We do think our neighbor should go to jail if he shoots our cat. This is because he has a choice in how he will respond to it. He could also choose to pet the cat or to simply ignore it. Therefore moral agency is an evident component of personhood. Human beings possess the ability to refrain from doing things that are recognized as morally wrong. We also can do things that are understood to be good.

A Common Objection

Defining personhood in such a way will inevitably lead to the objection that infants, children in the womb, and those with severe mental disability do not qualify as persons. However, this assumes that personhood is something most people develop in time. It would logically follow then that there is one second when a human being is not a person followed by another where he/she is. Much like the basketball analogy, you have to ask: what is added in that moment to roll one over to personhood? Can non-persons make themselves persons? A better solution is to acknowledge that all human beings are persons from the moment they are conceived, but their capability to express their minds and make moral decisions is inhibited by a lack of experience in the world and/or physical development. The fact that most do shows that humans are born with the potential to express the attributes of personhood, and that is only possible if they are persons to begin with. As a result, personhood is not a matter of degrees. Every human being is equally a person who bear’s God’s image. To be able to ground human value in what God assigns it is a distinct advantage of the Christian worldview.

The Image of God

As the Scriptures teach us, God created man and woman “in the image of God.” Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
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Having already shown that God is not a physical entity, we can surmise that the image of God is spiritual in nature. Everything I’ve laid out about personhood meets this description. Therefore, we can conclude that God’s image at the very least includes personhood, which entails a rational mind coupled with moral agency. Another aspect is creativity, which is a way humans “image” the Creator. So we see reflecting back at us that bearing the image of God is linked to His own personhood. Therefore, God is not merely a rational mind, but is also a moral agent.

God as the Source

Another way to look at this is to see God as not merely the Creator of all things, but also as the source of all things. What this implies is that nothing can possess an ability that is greater than its source. Humans cannot possess any ability greater than God possesses in Himself. We can’t receive what can’t be given. Since this is true, the fact that human beings are personal requires that God is personal. We couldn’t have obtained personhood if God didn’t have it first to give us.

Of course, the naturalist will disagree and argue that greater things continually emerge from lesser. From their vantage point, things like consciousness and personhood can and did emerge from physical things that lack them, and the universe (or multiverse) itself at some point was birthed from nothingness. It should be pointed out that if this is true, it is even more miraculous than the intentional act of a supernatural Creator. At least with an eternally existing God, there is always a source that is capable of producing whatever exists in our world. Naturalism logically requires that something (and consequently everything) came from literally nothing.

Why it Matters

The implications of a personal God cannot be overstated. Being personal, we know that He has chosen for this world, and all of us as individuals, to exist. When we consider that God is a rational, moral being, we can conclude that He is the source of rationality and morality. Therefore, all that exists is ordered to His laws of logic, and all persons are subject to His standards of right and wrong. And because God is consistently both rational and moral, we can conclude that His morality is itself rational. As personal beings, we long for connection with others. Therefore, we must have a God who desires connection with other persons. We know that the greatest of all virtues is love, therefore God must highly value love. Perhaps He loves. Perhaps He is love. As 1 John 4:8 says, “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” If He IS love, then love is in accordance with what is good, which is in accordance with what is rational, which is in accordance with the will of God. And if this is so, the perfect expression of our love is to be in submission to His will for our lives, and to encourage others to do the same.

God in Relationship

As a final note, I’m not intending to present a philosophical defense of the Trinity in these posts. I believe that case is best made from the Scriptures, and would require more space than I can give here. What I will say is that we can reasonably conclude that if our personal God cares about His creation, He is likely to reach out to them to make His presence known to them. One way He can do this is through creation itself, but sometimes He might want to speak more clearly to those He made in His image. Scripture is the work of a God who loves the people He created and desires for them to be in relationship with Him. Christianity teaches that it is written by human beings moved under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Therefore our conclusion that God Himself exists as one being in a tri-personal relationship is one derived through the special revelation of Scripture, but it is consistent with the natural revelation of one personal God.

Looking Ahead / Catching Up

Having laid out a definition of what is good, next time we will turn our attention to what is not: sin & death.

1. The Creator God
2. Personhood & the Image of God

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

Monday, October 18, 2021

Making Sense of Christianity 1: The Creator God

“Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?” This question, famously posed by 17th-18th century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, is the most foundational of all questions. How we answer it will have radical implications for how we live our lives. With this series, I will be presenting a reasonable defense of orthodox Christian theology. Beginning here, I hope to articulate the Christian worldview in a way that is clear, cohesive, and compelling.

Motivations for this Series

Christian orthodoxy has been under considerable attack in recent years from both within and without the walls of Christian churches, and the faith of many has faltered. What I believe is presently lacking in our churches is a sensible explanation of why Christianity makes sense of the world. Too many people see it as a religious construction of random rules and beliefs that have been assembled through the ages for no good reason other than to keep people in line. The fact of the matter is that Christianity is built upon what is real and good and true. It is the systems of the world that are built on falsehoods and that keep people in bondage. My hope is that this series will provide a sharp contrast between the philosophies of the world and that of orthodox Christianity. Unlike those false worldviews, Christianity is internally consistent, and makes complete sense of our very existence. I have structured this series to show a logical progression from the most basic idea to the full implications of Jesus Christ for every one of us. As C.S. Lewis said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” And so I begin with the Creator God.

Necessary vs. Contingent

There are many ideas about what a “god” is, but Christianity begins by giving the answer to Leibniz’ question above. God is the reason why there is something rather than nothing. He is the Creator. Everything else is the creation. In philosophy, there is a distinction made between that which is “necessary” and that which is “contingent.” All things, with the exception of God, exist contingently, which is to say that their existence is dependent on something or someone else bringing it into existence. It is possible for any contingent thing to not exist. All physical objects are formed from physical materials. All living things are brought into existence through other living things. Every effect is the result of at least one cause. All of this results in a chain of causes that extends backwards in one of two ways: either 1) infinitely, or 2) to a first cause that is not itself an effect. If option 1 is true, then there is an infinite number of past events in the history of the universe (or multiverse, if it were to exist). However, if this is true, it is impossible (even theoretically) to sequentially lay out its history. There cannot be a first event in the sequence, therefore there cannot be a second, nor a third, nor a 4,000th, nor a 7 billionth,... and so on. Whatever the present is, it has to fit somewhere in the sequence, but you could not actually place it anywhere. To do so would require a first event that you can then proceed from to get to the present. This leaves us with option #2.

Christianity (as well as Judaism and Islam) teaches that God “spoke” the universe into existence. Psalm 33:6 says, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” Likewise, Hebrews 11:3 tells us, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” This means that God’s existence is prior to the existence of everything else. God Himself exists necessarily, which is to say that nothing came before God. There has never been a “time” that He didn’t exist. Christian orthodoxy teaches that God transcends time, which itself came into existence through God. Therefore, it can be said that God “is.” His existence is a constant. It is impossible for Him to come into existence or to stop existing. He simply exists. And there can be no other “god” before Him or that would be “God.” So if God exists, He must be the first and only God. He must be (capital G) God. And since it is impossible for anything to exist apart from Him, God must exist.

Why it Matters

The implications of a necessary God are simply stated: God is God, and I am not! As obvious as this may be, we all struggle either consciously or unconsciously to accept this. But if we do, what we believe about Him will inevitably shape how we live our lives. I will lay this out in more detail as we go further in this series.

Looking Ahead

Next time I will explain why the Creator God must be personal, and how our own personhood is connected to His. By the end of this series, my goal is to have brought some clarity to all of these topics:

1. The Creator God
2. Personhood & the Image of God

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War