Making Sense of Christianity 8 - Grace Through Faith

What I have presented in this series can be summed up in one simple phrase: “God is good!” This is the foundational truth of orthodox Christian theology, though we must be careful to ground our understanding of goodness in what God has revealed to us through the created world, Scripture, and most of all through Jesus Christ Himself. He has demonstrated what it means to do the will of the Father, loving God and others self-sacrificially. He has shown us what is good, and it is our responsibility to abide by His will. That being said, none of us have been able to do so perfectly. Our failure to live up to His perfect standard has left us in a seemingly hopeless state. Yet God has graciously provided a way for us to be righteous. If we are “in Christ,” we become like Him, just as He became like us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He graces us with His goodness when we place our faith in Him. This is the Good News. This is the Gospel of salvation.

The Paradox of Salvation

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” These words from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus sum up the basics of salvation. By expressing our faith in Christ, we are given the free gift of eternal life. We do not obtain it through our efforts to live perfect lives because none of us are capable of doing so. The paradox at the heart of Christianity is that God’s goodness is so great that none of us are worthy to be in its presence. Yet because He is so good, His compassion towards us compels Him to graciously offer a way that is obtainable for us to become worthy. This way is by simply laying aside our own delusions of self-righteousness to place our trust in Jesus Christ as the one who is good, and who is able to save us from sin and death.

Pride vs. Humility

Saving faith is not mere intellectual belief in the facts of who Jesus is and that He rose from the dead (James 2:19). True faith requires humility. The opposite of humility is pride, which is the fundamental sin of self-righteousness that lies at the heart of rebellion. Satan and his demons were prideful, and those who have joined the rebellion, refusing to bow their knees to God, are likewise defined by their self-righteousness.

In Luke 18:10-14, Jesus gives us a parable to illustrate the importance of humility before God: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

James 4:6-10 confirms this: “But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” 

God’s grace is received through humility, which is an essential aspect of faith. When we recognize that we have sinned and need the mercy of God, He lifts us up with His grace. 

Faith that Pleases God

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” A purely intellectual “faith” is no faith at all. We must seek after God, which requires the humility to admit that He is Lord of all, including our lives. Seeking Him necessarily involves the desire to please Him, which brings us to another paradox: Those of us who are Christians want to please God. We continually fail to do so in our thoughts and actions. Yet we do please Him through faith in Christ. God is gracious and compassionate toward us. Remember, because He became one of us, He can sympathize with us in our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). His perfect love compels Him to provide a way for us to be with Him. 

This is the depths of His goodness, that He would self-sacrificially love those who are suffering in sin, but wanting to be healed. He does not leave us without hope. He became our salvation by taking on our flesh, bearing the curse on the cross, and conquering death in His resurrection. Through faith in Him, we identify with His victory. We want that for ourselves, and He has promised to do it. John 6:40 says, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Seeking Him

Some Christians have argued on the basis of Romans 3:10-18 that “there is none who seeks after God,” implying that those who believe in Him only do so through a supernatural act of God overcoming the will of the sinner. In this view, those who reject salvation are not genuinely offered it to begin with. God has never intended to save them. While this is a stumbling block for many, I have found that other passages show that God has not left helpless any individual created in His image. 

Acts 17:26-27 says, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” I like to refer to this as the “meaning of life” passage, as Paul is explaining to the people of Athens why God has created us, and what He is calling us to do in response. What we learn here is that God hopes for each and every individual He has ever created to seek Him and find Him. The fact that “He is not far from each one of us” tells us that He can be sought and found by any and every human being. God has placed us where we are in time and space for this very reason. He wants us to be reconciled to Him, and through the atonement of Christ, has provided that gift for all who will receive it. 

What Scripture teaches is not that we can’t seek Him, but that He has sought us first. God has extended His hand of grace, but we must reach out and take hold of it. Titus 2:11-14 says: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” This is God’s teleological purpose for the human race, and His Church will ultimately fulfill it.

A Better End

In an earlier post, I introduced the idea that a world that includes the incarnation and atonement is better than a world that didn’t have those goods (“Felix Culpa”). The end will be far greater than the beginning. While we have experienced a great deal of physical and emotional suffering as the consequence of sin, God has taught us what it means to forgive. He has taught us what it means to show compassion to the hurting. He has demonstrated the greatest kind of love through His sacrificial death on the cross. He has taught us what it means to be restored. He has shown us grace. In so doing, we can likewise learn to forgive those who have wronged us. We can show compassion to those who suffer. We can lay aside our own interests to love others. We can lead others to reconciliation with God. We can show grace to those who, like us, do not deserve it. 

Because of what Christ has done for us, we, as His ambassadors, can demonstrate the love of Christ to a world that needs Him. As 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 says: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

Grace and Love

The Good News is that the Creator of the universe loves each and every one of us, and through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus, He has provided a way for us to be restored to relationship with Him. As we receive Him, we become like Him. God is love, and those in Him will learn to truly love as He loves, as we become one with Christ as He is one with the Father (John 17:20-23). This love will pour out of us as we receive the grace of God through faith in Him. 

I would like to close with this passage from Luke 7:36-50, as it really captures the heart of the Christian message:

“Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, ‘This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.’

And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’

So he said, ‘Teacher, say it.’

‘There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?’

Simon answered and said, ‘I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’

And He said to him, ‘You have rightly judged.’ Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.’ Then He said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’

And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’

Then He said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.’”

Review 

Thank you for reading!

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

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith

Making Sense of Christianity 4: The Spiritual War

As I explained last time, the world is tainted by the effects of sin, but each of us are personally guilty of contributing to the mess. Human responsibility lies at the core of what is wrong with the world and why we see so much evil. However, the problem runs much deeper than the physical realm in which we choose to satisfy our skewed physical appetites. Underneath it all, there is a spiritual war for the souls of each and every human being.

Souls with Bodies

Orthodox Christians believe that human beings are not merely physical machines. While we have bodies, we are souls. This dual nature involves the interaction between the two, where the soul affects the body and the body affects the soul. They are not one and the same, but are both needed to live according to God’s design for our lives here on the earth. This dual nature is also reflected in the relationship between the brain and the mind. The two are not the same, but work in concert with each other. How we think and what information we choose to take in impacts the brain, and the condition of the brain impacts our ability to think (ie. brain trauma, Alzheimer’s). The immaterial part of ourselves, which we associate with our “hearts” and minds, is where our core identity resides. I can imagine my soul inhabiting a different body and still being the same person, but if I imagine a different soul inhabiting my body, I intuitively know that such a person would not be “me.” So it is self-evident that I am most essentially a spiritual being. Going back to what we said about the “image of God,” it only makes sense that we are most essentially spiritual in nature because God Himself is an immaterial, spiritual being. As Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John‬ ‭4:24‬) Therefore worship of God is not rooted in physical action, but spiritual submission to Him. 

Spiritual Beings

God has created us as spiritual beings who inhabit physical bodies, and God Himself is an immaterial, spiritual being who is not bound by any physical limitations. But are there any other beings that are spiritual in nature? There is some debate among Christians as to whether animals have souls, and I believe they do, though they are not created in the image of God (Ecclesiastes 3:21). If they have souls, then human beings are above them in a hierarchy of beings with God at the top. Yet Scripture teaches us that there are other created beings who are spiritual in nature, but are in at least some ways, superior to human beings (Hebrews 2:9). These are what we call “angels.”

Angels and Demons

Like human beings, it seems that angels possess all the qualities we attribute to the image of God. They are rational, moral beings, possessing the ability to choose to submit to or reject God’s purposes for them. Unlike human beings, they do not possess physical bodies, but seem to have some kind of “spiritual body” which allows them to interact with the physical world, but also inhabit the heavenly realm. Regardless of their relationship with God, their spiritual bodies are not under the curse of death, so it seems that they will go on living forever unless God willfully extinguishes their lives. This is not to say that they have existed for all eternity (only God has), but they were created at some point in the past to dwell in the presence of God. 

Like human beings, all angels were created good, but some of them turned against God in an act of rebellion. It is believed by many Christians that as many as 1/3 of all the angels rebelled against God and were cast out of His presence. The leader of this rebellion is called “Satan” or “the Devil.” Those angels, which we call “demons,” are in a continual state of rebellion, and they are actively working in our world to thwart God’s plans for His creation. When it comes to human beings, that means appealing to fellow moral agents to join their rebellion against our Creator. (See addendum below for my theory on why they rebelled.)

Hope for Humanity 

While the fate of Satan and the host of demons is set, ours is open-ended. We will die a physical death, but the destiny of our souls is a matter to be decided. For the angels, their sin is purely an act of the will. Being in the presence of a perfectly good, holy God and choosing to war against Him is something you don’t return from. There is nothing God can do to show Himself more worthy of their worship and devotion, so their decision is made. However, human beings have not known the fullness of the glory of God, therefore we are capable of seeing Him more clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12). It is possible that those of us in a current state of sinful rebellion could come to know more about who God is, and learn that He is worthy of our love and devotion.

Demonic Strategy

Now we can begin to see the war raging all around us. Demons, though they are motivated by pure hatred of God and not physical desires for sin, know that we have those desires, and can influence us to obey them, knowing that doing so will begin to reshape our affections to be in opposition to God’s will for our lives. Hebrews 3:12-13 says, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” 

Sin’s Deception

How can sin be deceitful? Going back to what I said earlier, the body and soul are interconnected. What we do with our bodies has an impact on our souls. We can become hardened in unbelief by embracing the desires of our flesh. The demons know that if we indulge ourselves, we will become willing to join their rebellion against God. And this is what we see in Romans 1. “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” ‭‭(Romans‬ ‭1:24-25‬). 

Continuing in this thought from verse 28 onward: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;” (Romans‬ ‭1:28-31‬). 

What we see is a progression from physical disobedience to spiritual hostility. The culmination is in verse 32: “who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” At this stage, the individual has joined forces with Satan and the demonic host in waging war against God by encouraging others to join the rebellion. This is why no Christian can be in the business of calling sin “good.” To do so is “Satanic.”

Like Satan

People often get confused by Christians talking about things being Satanic. The assumption is that we are ascribing an intention in those who practice such things to worship Satan. Some Christians might believe this, but most of us do not. The truth is that what is Satanic (or “demonic”) has nothing to do with any conscious acknowledgment of Satan. An accurate definition would be to say that whatever is like Satan in its willful rebellion against God is Satanic. To live in opposition to God’s stated or teleological purposes is to do as Satan and his demons did. This is Satanic rebellion, and those who are “religious” can be be guilty of it, as Jesus makes clear in John 8:44: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

The Great Deceiver

Satan is called “the father of lies,” and sin accompanies those lies. Just as the practice of sin can affect our thinking so that we believe lies to justify our sin, we may also first believe lies and proceed to sin in our flesh on the basis of those false beliefs. Remember, the body is dependent on the mind, and the mind is dependent on the body. This is why it is important to be grounded in the truth and to understand what we believe as Christians and why we believe it. 

How does Satan go about achieving his plan? As Jesus said, he is a liar. Through demonic influence, we are deceived into believing that rejection of God’s will is what is best for us. Consider how this played out in the Garden of Eden: “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” ‭‭(Genesis‬ ‭3:4-6‬) 

Just as Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 tells us that the serpent who deceived Adam and Even in the garden was Satan, we are also led on the path of sin through the deception of spiritual beings whose influence in the world can lead us to join their rebellion. 1 Peter 5:8 says: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

Looking Ahead / Catching Up 

Putting all of this together, it would seem that we are in a hopeless situation. We have sinful appetites in our bodies working against us, and we have a whole host of beings more powerful than ourselves who are actively working to deceive and lead us to sin, which itself deceives us into believing the lies that they tell us. It’s a vicious cycle. Yet God has provided a way for us that leads to freedom from sin and death. This way is not dependent on our perfect obedience, for He knows what we are dealing with. This will be made evident next time, as we discuss “Atonement Through Incarnation.” 

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

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith 

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!

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

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith 

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

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith 

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

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith 

Top 10 Resources for Making Sense of the Christian Worldview

 

Having previously discussed the reasons why people leave the Church, as well as sharing my own philosophy on how to raise my own children to avoid those pitfalls, I now would like to share some specific resources that have been helpful to me in developing a Christian worldview that is able to withstand the attacks raised against it. Training up our children in a world that is hostile to Christianity is a heavy task, and we may not have all the answers to the various questions we receive. However, we need not lay such a heavy burden on ourselves. We have a wealth of resources we can lean into for help when those hard questions come. Sometimes our role will not to be the one with the answers, but to be the one who knows where to find them. The following are 10 of the most helpful extra-biblical resources I have found for building and defending a comprehensive Christian worldview. (click on each title to visit)

 

Media

Reasonable Faith (website, YouTube, podcast, etc.)

Anyone interested in building an intellectual defense of the Christian faith needs to be familiar with William Lane Craig and his ministry, Reasonable Faith. Craig is the world’s greatest living Christian apologist and philosopher. He is well known for his version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God’s existence, and is widely recognized as the most formidable Christian debater. For those unfamiliar with his work, I recommend starting with his debate against the late Christopher Hitchens, who was one of the leading voices in the new atheist movement before passing away in 2011. Craig is incredibly prolific, as he has written numerous books, publishes a weekly podcast, and teaches a Sunday school class that covers the finer points of Christian theology. This “Defenders” class is also made available to the public through podcast and YouTube. Of all that Craig has done, it is perhaps my favorite resource. There aren’t many Sunday school classes out there that delve into such topics as God’s necessary existence, His relationship to time, or how we can make sense of the Trinity, but Craig tackles all of these and much more in great detail. As for those issues that are non-essential for the Christian, he presents all sides clearly and does his best to explain why he takes one view over the others. I don’t always agree with him, but I appreciate how he models this approach. 

Whaddo You Meme?? (YouTube)

For some, Craig’s approach may be too intellectual and thorough, especially for those first stepping into the world of Christian apologetics. Jon McCray’s “Whaddo You Meme” is a great resource for those looking for something more accessible and entertaining. This isn’t to say that it is watered down. Quite the contrary! McCray produces short and direct videos responding to cultural events and influential voices, while presenting how Christianity offers a better alternative. Sometimes he employs humor through parody or satire, but oftentimes he responds directly with heavy doses of biblical truth. Originally developed in response to popular memes (hence the name), McCray will take on any voice that speaks against the truth of Christianity, and he does so with style. This is a great resource for parents and teens alike. You guys ready? “Then let’s goooooooo.....!”

Trinity Radio (YouTube/podcast)

It’s hard to pick a favorite here, but I probably spend more time on Trinity Radio than anywhere else on this list. TR is a YouTube channel (also available on podcast) created by Braxton Hunter, President of Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary. This channel is primarily focused on rebuttals of videos put out by popular internet atheists, or debates featuring other key voices in atheism/agnosticism. Braxton walks through each video step-by-step, explaining where each argument against the Christian God fails. He is remarkably clear in his critiques, and many unbelievers have commented on how fair and gracious he is in his disagreements. His videos are really a wonderful model of how to speak truth in love. Sometimes though, words need to be spoken a little more bluntly. For this, Braxton often invites his seminary partner, Johnathan Pritchett, to balance his gentleness with a good dose of snarkiness. The “good cop, bad cop” interaction between the two is one of the highlights of the show. I highly recommend this channel for anyone who wants to learn how to counter all the popular arguments against Christianity, and how to reflect Christ in the process.

Unbelievable? (YouTube/podcast)

For those turned off by the recent presidential debates, I offer as a stark contrast the long-running UK radio program-turned-podcast and YouTube channel, “Unbelievable?” with Justin Brierley. Every Friday, Brierley brings together the best of both sides of any argument relating to the Christian worldview. More often than not, the show will feature a Christian and a non-believer, but sometimes they are “in-house” theological discussions. What sets Unbelievable? apart is the level of civility in these debates. It is very rare for one of the debaters to be disrespectful or talk over the other side. Much of this is do to the level of control Brierley maintains, combined with the high quality of the guests he invites to participate. One of the best ways to learn what other people believe is to sit down and listen, and this is a great model for doing just that. For those of us who are listening, we are likewise learning how to hear the other side and how to respond to their questions and arguments. I’ve heard Braxton Hunter say that he recommends listening to debates as the best way to quickly learn apologetics. There is no better source for such debates than “Unbelievable?”

Eric Hernandez (YouTube)

Eric Hernandez is a young apologist who is gaining a lot of attention through his YouTube channel and his online debates in defense of the Christian worldview. His ministry has spent a great deal of attention on making a case for the existence of the soul, and showing how the body alone cannot make sense of things like consciousness and free will. His arguments are devastating for the naturalistic worldview that is so strongly pushed on students in secular environments today. I happen to think that making the evidence for the soul is one of the best lines of argument for the Christian worldview, and one that is often neglected among apologists. Eric’s channel features a mixture of his debates with atheists and some entertaining post-debate rebuttals to those same atheists (this one is especially hilarious!), along with interviews and lectures he’s given on serious issues like abortion.

Truth Unites (YouTube/podcast)

Gavin Ortlund is known for his gracious demeanor and thoughtful approach to theological issues, especially those that divide Protestants from Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. As a defender of the truth of Christianity across denominations, Ortlund helps us to understand various issues from different perspectives, always encouraging us to investigate these things for ourselves and come to our own conclusions. He defends the basic principles of Protestantism while rejecting sectarianism. While I don’t always agree with his conclusions, he models how to disagree well. This is how Christians can be light in a dark world!

Books

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

There’s a running joke about how Christians always quote Chesterton, but they’ve never read any of his books. This is a shame! The best way to fix this injustice is to start by reading “Orthodoxy.” While the title might suggest a boring read, those fears are quickly put to rest in the opening lines of the introduction. Perhaps a more accurate title of this oft-overlooked classic would be found in in these words from the introduction; “The man who… discovered what had been discovered before.” Here, GKC chronicles how as an unbeliever he tried to develop a revolutionary worldview through his observations, but found that Christianity had been saying the same things from its beginning. In the quest to make sense of the world, Christianity is the key that fits all the locks. “Orthodoxy” is not a typical apologetics book of specific evidences surrounding the resurrection and other biblical events, and it doesn’t lay out the classic philosophical arguments for God’s existence. What it does is simply present a case that Christianity makes sense of the world while all other worldviews fail. And it does so with all the humor and brilliance you can expect from one of the most quoted Christian thinkers of all time.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi

The person of Jesus Christ is the central issue of Christianity, and Nabeel Qureshi’s story is a prime example of what a difference our beliefs about who He is can make. Raised in a minority sect of Islam, Qureshi was skilled at poking holes in the faith of the Christians he encountered in high school and college. He was sure they had no intellectual legs to stand on until he ran into David Wood, a fellow student who knew what he believed, how to defend it, and how to shake Nabeel’s confidence in his own beliefs. “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus” chronicles his journey to discovering the truth about Jesus Christ, and how that pursuit of truth is worth more than anything this world has to offer. Following Jesus can cost you everything, and Nabeel’s life was a testimony to this fact. While this book tells the story of how he sacrificed the comforts of his family and Islamic upbringing, his life would take an unexpected turn in the years after its publishing. In 2016, he would be diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer, and a year later would die at the age of 34. Throughout his battle, he broadcast his thoughts on a video log uploaded to YouTube. In one of his final videos, he shared how in the midst of all his struggles to understand why God hadn’t healed him, he still could not turn his back on Jesus knowing what he now knew about Him. He had discovered the truth, which brings to mind what it says in John 6:66-69: “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.””

The Case For Miracles by Lee Strobel

Many of us, like Nabeel Qureshi, have prayed for healing that has never come. We can become discouraged and either lose faith or begin to adopt a more naturalistic approach to it. We may find ourselves praying that God would simply use the skilled hands of doctors or that He would bring about some kind of gradual improvement of our condition that, if we were to be honest, would not show any sign of God’s intervention if we were able to put it under a microscope. Such was my approach to prayer for most of my life, but that began to change with Lee Strobel’s recent book on miracles, as he shows that such events as what you might find in the Gospels or the book of Acts are still happening around the world today. Looking at the subject from a journalist’s perspective, Lee interviews individuals on various sides of the issue, and highlights a number of modern cases of miracles. This book brought me to tears of joy on numerous occasions as I began to see that the God of the Bible is still the same God we worship today. Strobel’s book serves as a fatal blow to the philosophy of naturalism. One can reasonably continue to dismiss televangelist “faith healers” as charlatans while also being open to the supernatural work of God in the world we live in. There are legitimate miracles today, and being aware of them can be an encouragement to our faith, regardless of whether we are the recipients. Strobel is best known for his first book, “The Case For Christ.” While I have a copy, I must confess that I haven’t yet read it (though I have seen the excellent movie adaptation). That being said, I am confident that I can recommend any of his work, especially for those new to apologetics.

Counterpoints (Series) by Zondervan Publishing

This is an on-going project of mine, as there are numerous volumes in this series, and I have only read a handful of them. While much remains for me to explore, I have found these written back-and-forths from various scholars on a wide range of secondary issues of the faith to be incredibly helpful in building a flexible and informed Christian worldview. Each book features a representative theologian for each prominent position on the topic at hand. After each presents his own view, the others provide their rebuttals. In this way, each position is presented as it is best explained by its supporters, and each is put to the test by its critics. I’m currently reading “Three Views On the Millennium and Beyond,” which is a subject that I know that I’m needing to be educated in. The main lesson that I’ve taken from these is that there is a wide range of acceptable disagreement among Christians. Many things that we might assume are undisputed among Bible-believers are actually hotly debated, and those who disagree can build strong cases from the same Bible we use to support our own views. We cannot always assume “the Bible clearly says” when there are many today and throughout Christian history who have interpreted things differently. We must approach Scripture with an understanding that it is the authority, not our own interpretations. Once we do so, we can be open to being moved to a new and better understanding of what it has to say. Coupling this series with the work of Alisa Childers can help us to discern between what is acceptable Christian doctrine and what is not. Striking a balance isn’t always easy, but it is worth the effort. Having a properly balanced approach to Scripture is especially useful for teaching our children how to study the Bible. Giving them the freedom to decide what makes sense within the boundaries of orthodox Christianity will help them to develop a faith that endures.

These 10 resources are just scratching the surface of what is out there, but they will be a great start for anyone looking to dive into the thoughtful side of Christianity. As I said on a previous post, anyone who really seeks the truth will find that Christianity holds up to the test. Their faith will be made stronger for having asked the difficult questions and for seeking the answers. I hope you find these helpful, and that they may encourage your faith, and the faith of others through you.