Making Sense of Christianity 5: Atonement Through Incarnation

As I have demonstrated through this series, our world is in a seemingly hopeless condition resulting from each individual’s choices to sin. This is made all the more difficult through the profound rebellious influence of the demonic realm. Sinful choices have resulted in much pain and suffering, and ultimately in death. We experience the effects of sin within our own bodies, and as we obey the desires of the flesh, our souls are drawn away from the desire to live our lives in accordance with God’s purposes for us. Once God’s perfect creation was corrupted in part, the whole of creation was inevitably corrupted. Why would an all-knowing, all-powerful, all benevolent God design a world that could so easily go wrong? The answer lies in “Felix Culpa.”

The Fortunate Fall

Felix Culpa, which translates to “the fortunate fall,” explains that a fallen world which experiences the incarnation of Jesus Christ and His atonement for sin is better than a world that never experiences the Fall and lacks those goods. His incarnation and atonement are far greater than the sum of all the evils of this world, and they are so good because of the existence of those evils (this video explains). I hope to show in the remainder of this series how this difficult claim is true. 

Definitions

First, let’s define our terms. “Incarnation” is the taking on of flesh. In Christianity, this is the belief that Jesus Christ is the eternal Word of God who became a human being, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. As it says in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

‭‭“Atonement” is the reconciliation of sinful human beings to God, which is accomplished through Jesus Christ. While the meaning of the incarnation is not particularly controversial among orthodox Christians, a proper understanding of the atonement has been much debated throughout the history of the Christian Church. Most popular in America has been “penal substitutionary theory,” though historically Christians have also held to views under such names as “Christus Victor,” “ransom theory,” “satisfaction theory,” and “moral influence theory.” 

While each of these models fits the basic definition of the atonement, there are substantial differences in the mechanics of just how Jesus has reconciled believers to God. Penal substitution and satisfaction theories emphasize how Jesus’ death on the cross satisfied God’s wrath towards guilty sinners, while Christus Victor and ransom theory put the emphasis on God’s rescuing of sinners from enslavement to the Devil. Therefore we see a tension between God’s anger and the compassion of Christ. I would like to share how I have come to make sense of the atonement, and how I tie these two aspects together by also connecting the incarnation to the atonement. 

A Nagging Question

As someone who has grown up in the American Church, there’s been a question that has not been answered to my satisfaction: If Jesus “took away” the punishment for my sin on the cross, why would my punishment for rejecting Christ not also be to die by crucifixion? It seems that the punishment He endured on the cross was far greater than what most (if not all) of us will suffer in this life, but what followed was not the same as what we would suffer in the next. Most Christians believe that those who die apart from His atonement will live eternally in a conscious state of separation from God. A minority believe that both body and soul will be annihilated in hell. Jesus did not suffer an eternity in hell, nor was He annihilated. As Jesus says in Matthew 25:46, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” So if the cross is seen as the punishment due for our sins, then it is not the punishment described in this verse. (I will offer an explanation for eternal punishment in part 7.) While the way in which He died is significant, what is most important is that He died. 

A Genuine Incarnation

As Romans 6:23 tells us, “the wages of sin is death.” Going back to Adam: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” (Genesis‬ ‭2:16-17‬) The consequence of sin is death, and though Jesus did not sin, He took on its consequences in the flesh. Through the incarnation, Jesus lived a genuine human experience, and that experience needed to include death and suffering. It is truly mind-blowing to think that the eternally existent Creator God of the universe would Himself experience death as a consequence of sin. And to think that He did this by His own free choice!

Much of my view of the atonement is shaped by my study into the book of Hebrews. The author makes a number of points that are relevant here. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews‬ ‭2:9‬) The emphasis on Jesus “tasting” death for everyone is illuminating. 

“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” ‭‭(2:14-15‬) Here we see the connection to the incarnation, with the emphasis on Jesus sharing in our flesh and blood. 

This is an act of God’s compassion and love for us, that He condescended to our level of experience so that we could be freed from the power of death and the Devil would be defeated. Score a point for Christus Victor. But there’s something more fundamental than victory over Satan.

A Sympathetic High Priest

Continuing in Hebrews: “For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (2:16-17‬) Here, the author makes the connection specifically to his Jewish audience. Jesus was in every way a fellow Jew, and therefore qualified to minister as High Priest and make atonement for their sins. 

“For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” ‭‭(2:18‬) And further on, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (4:15‬) The heavy emphasis on Christ being able to sympathize with us in our experiences, whether that be in temptation, or suffering, or even death, is significant, and opens a door to a fuller understanding of the atonement: one that sees its primary purpose in the healing of the human condition.

Healing a Sin-Sick World

Consider the analogy Jesus prophetically uses to describe His death on the cross: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (‭‭John‬ ‭3:14-15‬) Jesus likens Himself to a symbol of healing from Israel’s past: “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.” (Numbers 21:8-9) Therefore we have a healing aspect of the atonement that is sufficient for all who will look upon it to be healed. 

This also brings continuity to Jesus’ healing ministry. As He healed those who were sick, disabled, or even had passed away, He gave a glimpse of what the future holds for those who are in His Kingdom. Revelation 21:4-5a says: “‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’”

Someday the restoration will be complete. This restoration will not only be for us, but for the created world, which also suffers from disorder as a consequence of sin. As Paul writes to the Romans: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (Romans‬ ‭8:18-23‬) The end result of the atonement is a world and a people restored to their good teleological purposes, free from the effects of sin and the influence of the Devil, flourishing in the perfect will of God.

Looking Ahead

This is a beautiful picture, but how is it better than a world that never fell into sin in the first place? Couldn’t God have spared us (and Himself) a lot of trouble? We haven’t really proved Felix Culpa to be true, have we? In order to do so, there must be something more to the atonement that brings about a better end than where we started. The answer is multi-faceted, but can be summed up in the concept of self-sacrificial love. I will discuss this next time as we look at “Atonement Through Sacrifice.” 

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 

Steve's Five Logical Arguments for a Creator

Well, I thought with my first official blog post here, I'd go for broke and deal with "The Big Question." Having recently read C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, I was impressed with the opening section of the book which dealt with his rational argument for a Creator. He described in great detail how an inborn sense of basic morality that is common to all mankind points to a morality giver, or "God," if you will. It's a very nicely laid out argument, and one I'd recommend for all to check out on your own. I'm not going to go any further with that, as it makes a strong case, but the five concepts I'm going to attempt to describe are ones that I've contemplated in my own mind throughout the years, and are the most compelling to me. These arguments are not tied to the creationism vs. evolutionism debate, but specifically dealing with the beginning of all things in this universe and how life was able to continue from that point forward. The point of this is to lay out a positive case for a created universe. More often than not, it seems that believers in God are asked to debunk those questions of atheists that supposedly disprove God's existence. We're asked to negate the negative. Well, the five arguments I'm presenting are positive proofs of a Creator. I use the word "proof" loosely since it's impossible to scientifically prove the existence of God, but these arguments are based purely on my own logic, and I find it would take incredible faith to believe in a godless world when taking all of these together. And just to note, I don't expect this to change anyone's mind on this subject but I hope it will at least be a thought-provoking read.

1. Life from Life Alone

Flies do not come from meat. That was the result of a famous science experiment in the 17th century, which I remember replicating in my high school biology class. This experiment, and many others that followed, concluding with Louis Pasteur's similar test for microscopic organisms in the 19th century, proved that life does not arrive spontaneously, but is always born from life. This is what is called the "law of biogenesis." Regardless of how big or small a life form is, it has parents (well, at least one). Most modern scientists believe very strongly in evolution, yet they also believe that life was born of random processes from lifeless matter. Could that very first cell have been given life from what was never living? Somehow that seems like a giant leap of faith, especially for those who live and die by the belief in the scientific method. Besides, the same people mock the idea of the resurrection of Jesus Christ based on the view that it is impossible for one who was dead to come back to life. I would rather suggest that the first life in our universe was born from a life outside of it. That creator of life is, by definition, God. Now I know how the atheist will respond to this. "Well, if all life comes from life, then who/what created God?" For that, I'll move on to argument #2.

2. Time and Infinity

Now this is the hardest concept to grasp, but I'll try my best to explain. The universe is built on a timeline. In order to get to where we are today, there had to be a past, and a chain of events starting from one definable point. That point would be the moment when the very first "thing" existed. The only way around this is to believe that the universe has always existed, and everything within it is born from what has always been here from eternity past. That, by definition, makes the universe "God." The problem with this idea is that you would then have to accept the idea that we've gotten to the present state through an indeterminable number of events in history past that have no set parameters of when they happened. The past would go as far as you can imagine it. And then when you've imagined that, you could just as well imagine a past 10,000 years before that. As you keep going further back, the present gets further from reality. OK, my brain hurts just thinking about this. So it seems the only logical explanation is to believe that there had to be a concrete starting point of history, the birth of the universe. But how could the universe be born if nothing was here before it? That's where God comes in. God is infinite. He has no beginning and no end. He exists at all times in all places at once. He knows the future just the same as He knows the past because He exists in the eternal state. This is why the question of "who created God?" is irrelevant. God, by definition is the Eternal One, responsible for the existence of all things. Time itself is an invention of His, and we exist in a sort of "alternate dimension" from the reality of eternity. How does that work? I have no idea. If I did, I'd be God. That might seem like a cop-out on a difficult question, but there are concepts which the human brain is incapable of grasping, just as there are human concepts that a rabbit's brain could never imagine. But this is for sure, infinity is not an imaginary concept. Just try to imagine the edge of the universe. Does it exist? If you imagine that, then imagine what must lie 10 feet to the other side of that edge. There must be something there (even if it's empty space), therefore there is no edge at all. Space is limitless. Whether or not there are planets or stars stretching out infinitely I don't know, but I do imagine that you could theoretically travel endlessly through space and never reach the end. So to wrap this one up, I believe in God because I believe in infinity, but I also believe in time. Time is not infinite, but is born of the infinite.

3. Intelligence

Supposing this world came about accidentally, and life somehow came to exist at a microscopic level. At what point in the chain of evolution required to get from there to where we are now did the first thought come about? Intelligence is something you either have or you don't. Life can exist without it, as it does in plants or bacteria, but all animals have it to some degree. So how did we make the jump from non-intelligent life to intelligent life? Intelligence itself is an intangible thing. Obviously it requires a brain. But the brain itself is not intelligence. It is the house in which all thoughts reside, but those thoughts can't be seen or touched. The concept of natural selection implies that living things make choices on who/what to procreate with, which requires some level of comprehension. Remove that comprehension and the decision would then have to be made for them. So in that scenario, a guiding intelligence source would be required to make the selection for them. The whole basis for evolution seems to depend on either the decision-making of a species, or some kind of guiding force that controls what actions it takes to exist and carry on the chain of life. Either you have intelligence in the species which cannot have evolved from non-intelligence (what would half-formed intelligence be?), or the outside force of intelligence. Either scenario seems impossible without an intelligence-giver. Isn't it ironic that some of the most intelligent people in this world are atheists? It reminds me of the movie "9," where the robots that humans created turned against them and annihilated them. Atheists take credit for their own intelligence and seek to destroy God, the one who gave them the brilliant minds they have.

4. Provision

Imagine a world in which the universe came about and a single life form was born. What would that life need to survive beyond that moment? What if conditions changed and as soon as the life was born, it was snuffed out? Fortunately for us, we have everything we need to live here on Earth. Our climate is moderate and we are at a safe distance from the sun, gravity holds us to the ground so we don't float away, we have air to breathe, water, plants and animals that provide us the nutrients we need to keep our bodies sustained, the means to move our bodies, and among other things, the ability to create new life to carry on after we die (more on that later). I'm sure I could list thousands of other examples of the provision for life that we have. Now hypothetically, imagine we humans had everything we needed to survive except for food. We could eat plants or animals, but they did nothing to provide nourishment for us. Though every other condition is right, the failure in that one area would mean the death of us all. These provisions we have are not accidental. To believe so is to believe in something so incalculably improbable that it goes so far beyond reason to a point of faith that I simply do not have. I find it much more logical to believe that such things are as they are for a purpose. Of course, having a purpose requires a purpose-giver. I like to call him "God."

5. Sexual Reproduction

The simplest forms of life are single-celled organisms which replicate themselves by splitting in half. If life began at such a level and evolved from there, at what point did male and female come into being and why? It seems as though self-replication is the easiest method. Therefore, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? However, at some point in the chain of living things, organisms must have had a reason why it was advantageous to reproduce sexually, which of course required the evolution of male and female versions of their previously asexual selves. One of the ideas that seems prevalent in evolution is that organisms evolve the traits they need to survive. In practice, this implies that there is either a conscious decision to start evolving the necessary trait, or a guiding force insuring that what is needed will result from a series of mutations. If it is a conscious decision, then theoretically humans could all conclude that it would be helpful for us to be able to see in the dark, and in time some of us might succeed in producing children with mutated eyes that improve their night-vision. If it is a conscious decision, you then have a problem at the pre-intelligence level as discussed earlier. They would not be able to evolve because they couldn't choose to. They would be reliant on a guiding force, which must be intelligent. Applying this to reproduction, a species must have then began developing male and female traits simultaneously, which would have been worthless to them during the transitional stages of evolution. Those traits would only have purpose when they finally reached the functional stage, an undefined number of generations later, and possibly far removed from each other in each gender. In the meantime, their metamorphosis would likely have removed their ability to self-replicate. If this weren't so, the ability to reproduce either way would have been advantageous and unlikely to have disappeared. Logically, this just doesn't add up. Male and female must have arrived on Earth simultaneously, fully-formed. The odds that this happened accidentally are way beyond improbable. It must have been by design.

Now looking at humans, regardless of sexual function, men and women are by nature different in numerous other ways. Yet with the exception of a small minority of people, we're physically attracted to the opposite sex. Nobody has to be taught this. My personal belief is that sex education is for the most part unnecessary (at least the "how to" part). Sexual attraction is inborn, and operates outside of pure function. At least from a male point-of-view, the drive for sex has no basis in the need to procreate. But somehow even those who've never experienced sex before know internally that it's pleasurable. And more than that, they understand that just by interacting with those attractive members of the opposite sex. Where does this knowledge come from, and how is this pleasure naturally understood? This kind of knowledge may be what we understand as "instinct" in animals. But instinct is simply implanted instructions within our bodies on how to live as we were designed to live. It's a guiding force, directing us for a purpose. Sexual attraction is God's way of motivating us (well, at least men) to procreate. And through sex, we create individuals who are different from ourselves, unlike those self-duplicating organisms. God designed us each to be unique individuals with unique purposes for our lives. He doesn't want us to be clones of each other, but to be the individuals He created us to be. Sex is a picture of God's design, and that design points us back to God.

Conclusion

Bertrand Russell once made an analogy comparing the belief in God to the belief in a floating teapot in space that is too small to be seen by any telescope. The idea was that to believe in either is equally ridiculous since there is no reason to, other than the fact that we are told by others that it is so. But to reduce belief in God to that level is a poor analogy, since none of the arguments I've presented above could be applied to that teapot. There is no reason to believe in it, and its existence would fail to explain anything about this universe we live in. Belief in God is a logical conclusion when you open up your eyes to see this place for what it is. Romans 1:20 (NIV) says, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Of course, to believe there is a God is only the beginning. We then must decide what that means for us. If God is real, how should that affect my life? And how do I know who He really is when there are so many concepts of God out there? My short answer would be to read the Bible, but to explain why would require more words than I could write here. Perhaps another time I will tackle my arguments for Christianity specifically, but this essay is long enough for now. Good night and thanks for reading.

-Steve F.