Fear and Trembling

Certainty is a noun describing what is “established as true or sure” ( The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary ). Large segments of our society see this freedom from doubt as the height of arrogance. We are constantly told, especially with respect to religion, that we cannot know the truth, communicate the truth, or expect others to follow the truth we know. It is refreshing to find a book like The Truth War by John MacArthur (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2007). This book is really a short commentary on the book of Jude. MacArthur is an able polemicist, and his writing is at its best when he forcefully conveys a point. He begins by expounding on the ground of truth, how we can know anything at all: Of course, God and truth are inseparable. Every thought about the essence of truth – what makes it “true,” and how we can possibly know anything for sure, quickly moves us back to God … it is not particularly surprising when someone who repudiates God rejects truth as well. ...

I have been reading Christopher Hitchens’ new book: God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve, 2007). Hitchens skillfully builds a wall of rhetoric around his firmly entrenched atheism. He walls himself off from Christianity with subtile and effective insult. Unlike Richard Dawkin’s recent book, it is more difficult to pin down an actual argument against the Christian faith in God is not Great , but I would like to answer a few points. ... there would be no ... churches in the first place if humanity had not been afraid of the weather, that dark, the plague, the eclipse, and all manner of other things now easily explicable. And also if humanity had not been compelled, on pain of extremely agonizing consequences, to pay the exorbitant tithes and taxes that raised the imposing edifices of religion. (p. 65) In this short passage, he refers to two ad hominem arguments. Men like Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Feuerbach developed the first in the past. It has been calle...

My Father-in-law was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia a few weeks ago. He had been a pastor for an English-speaking church on an airbase in Japan. The doctors did not give him good odds of leaving the hospital in Japan. After several blood transfusions and a round of chemotherapy, he has left the hospital and traveled back home to America. He will transfer medical treatment to his new doctors today. It is good to have him back. Please continue your prayers. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Ro 11:33a, ESV).

I am studying systematic theology for a blog post. I am particularly concerned with theology proper (attributes of God). I am reviewing the following: A Summary of Christian Doctrine – Louis Berkhof Abstract of Systematic Theology – James P. Boice Systematic Theology – Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology – Charles Hodge One Holy Passion – R. C. Sproul Christian Dogmatics – John Mueller Thanks to LP Cruz for the recommendation on the last one. Does anyone have any more suggestions? Any comments would be appreciated.

I heard some testimonies the other day that really stressed me out. Several people shared that Christianity implies the need for a “leap of faith,” or that “God’s existence cannot be proved because then faith would not be faith.” These ideas will not strengthen faith when Christians are confronted by worldly philosophy. God's existence is as plain as the nose on our faces ( Romans 1:18-19 ). Many, from The Apostle Paul to St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas to John Gerstner to Greg Bahnsen , have proven the faith beyond doubt. The problem is not the lack of evidence, but the suppression of it. The unbeliever does not want to submit to God, so he or she refuses to acknowledge the truth that is plain ( Romans 1:21-23 ). There is no need to fall back on a position that says God's existence is to be taken on faith, as if faith is something that goes beyond reason. The Christian faith is the wisdom of God that makes foolish the wisdom of this world ( 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 ). The C...

John Piper is finishing a book: The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. Expected publish date is in November. The last chapter of the book is posted here . I look forward with interest.

It may be a few days before my next big post. I’m working on a series of posts that will outline why I am a Christian. This is my response to discussions on several other blogs that have accused me of not communicating a full-on worldview for discussion. The basic outline is given below. 1. God is who He is. 2. God has done what He has done. 3. It explains logic and rational thought. 4. It makes science possible. 5. Jesus is the best example. 6. It explains the presence of evil. 7. It answers the problem of evil. 8. It gives a certain promise of heaven. 9. It changes the world for the better. 10. It leads to joy. 11. It has changed my life. I reserve the right to make minor changes to the outline, combine certain points, and expand others. I welcome your comments on the outline and your suggestions for improvement throughout.

I still follow with trepidation the discussions of penal substitutionary atonement coming from the emergent church conversation. This is my attempt to establish a working theory after my last bit of polemics . For a theory to be valid, it must take into account all of the particular facts the Bible gives us. It gives us facts, arranged in prepositional sentences. It uses words to communicate. Everyone who has ever told me that words were inadequate because of my own particular biases and culture has used words to tell me that. Their argument seems difficult for a small town boy from West Tennessee to follow. Now that we have established logic in a back-handed fashion, let’s move on to the traditional understandings of a penal substitutionary atonement. Most of the theologians I have ever read talk of the active and passive obedience of Christ. His active obedience, detailed in the gospels, involved following all of the particular requirements of the law. It enables Christ to expiate o...

I have trouble following the conversation in the blogosphere of late regarding “penal substitution.” N. T. Wright especially confuses me. It may well be that some of what I am about to write is due to this inability to understand. I do not attempt to explain my terms here. If you want my attempt to communicate the gospel simply, please see my other posts here and here . Penal substitutionary atonement is the fact that Christ took the credit for our sins, suffered God’s wrath for them, and earned righteousness that can be credited to us. The atonement cannot be described without explaining the idea that Christ died for our sins, and that very idea conveys most of the content of penal substitution. How could anyone possibly think that those of us who hold penal substitution as the proper understanding of the facts of the atonement ignore the gospels, the Old Testament, or any other part of Scripture? Christ told us that He was the theme of the Bible in Luke 24:27 (cf. 24:13-35) . Did H...

There is something profoundly wrong with death. I am not talking in abstract terms here; I am talking about the death of my Mother last year. My Mom was the one who I could always count on to be there for me, even when I had done wrong. She was the one who dried my tears from my eyes with a dishtowel when I cried. She was the one who brought joy to my life as a child. I was very ill when I was a kid. I had a severe case of histoplasmosis of the lungs at age one. This was not as treatable a condition then as it is now. My parents were told at one point that I had only a few months to live. I was fourteen before I really grew out of it. Mom was the one who held me in her arms when I could not get my breath and rocked me back and forth to help me breath. She made my early life special. She took me to see what corn was, how it grew on the stalk, and how it had hair that grew on the end. She showed me many things. She channeled my intelligence into productive things and always seemed to ha...

The folks over at http://www.rzmi.org/ recently helped me find a quote Ravi Zacharias had mentioned in a recent lecture . It was from a conversation that Pres. Ronald Regan had with M. Gorbachev of what he longed to do. “He told Gorbachev he’d always yearned to serve his atheist son “a perfect gourmet dinner, have him enjoy the meal, then ask him if he believed there was a cook.”” Another reason why Regan is one of my heros.

Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox Issue #314, an e-mail publication , contained a link to a reading list recently discussed on his podcast. It includes some great titles. It is a reminder to stay knowledgeable of the world around us so we can be articulate in our conversations. I was especially pleased to see " Freakonomics " listed. This is a great read. I should say “listen” as I heard the book on tape. As an industrial engineer, I have a special affinity for the man that the book follows. He uses statistical techniques to study things considered by some to be off-limits. I have used Six Sigma often professionally. This is an application of many of the same statistical techniques, like regression and chi-squared, to industrial and business problems. Especially interesting to me is the chapter on “Superman vs. the Klu Klux Klan.” I would have never credited a fictional hero with the demise of a terrible evil, but there is a case presented for just that.

God establishes reason, and without Him, we do not have reasons for reasons. We reason by the laws of logic combined with facts we observe. For example, the Law of Non-contradiction, that A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. These abstract, conceptual principles must be accounted for if any discussion on any topic is to take place. Only the Christian God can account for these laws. His thinking upholds ours. If the laws of logic are based on human thinking, then we have to realize that people are different and the laws may differ from person to person. They are no longer absolute. Some particular examples follow. If the laws of logic are just social conventions, then they are not absolute, and they can be ignored at will. My social network is, after all, different from yours. How do we avoid the conclusion that all of our thinking is not the result of mere instinctive reactions to our environment? Since our environments are all different, we would...

A parable that has great impact on this relatively new father of a three-year-old daughter.

Often in debates with atheists, Christians are accused of doing good (being moral) merely to escape the judgment of God. Twice I have had an atheist tell me that they would fair okay if they were to face God’s judgment because, after all, their good works were done merely because they were good and not out of fear of punishment. Fear of judgment is to some an impure motive for morality. At the heart of an accusation like this is a misunderstanding of the gospel itself. I want to show that the gospel frees us from having to search our motives, which are often impure, and live our lives for the God who made us. Along the way, I will express the main message of the Bible: the gospel. Expressed simply, the gospel is the fact that God offers eternal life as a free gift. Eternal life is a right relationship with God, enjoyed now and in eternity. Paul wrote, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As a gift, eternal life is not earne...

Most people who discuss the moral argument for God’s existence make a basic mistake: they form the argument based in part on the idea that everyone has a consistent idea of what morality is. That is not necessary. I don’t think the standard form of the argument, that everyone's morality is the same when they express it, makes sense. That form ignores the reality of original sin or total depravity. Briefly, total depravity is not that all people are as bad as they possibly could be. It’s the idea that all people have a nature that is prone to disobey God, and that nature effects every part of their lives. No one’s conscience is immune from this, so no one’s conscience is perfectly conformed to God’s law. But the argument doesn’t have to show that everyone’s morality is the same as they express it. The form of the moral argument I use comes from the Apostle Paul: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself...

I have been reading books written by several Christians lately that criticize ways of communicating the gospel that other Christians use. Examples are here , here , here , here , and here . (I commend these efforts in principle, although I do not agree with all the conclusions. I cannot because some of them contradict each other.) If we do not feel that other people’s way of communicating the gospel is inadequate, then it may be that we do not value the gospel as we should. We see things we value as precious. Precious things must be protected. Precious doctrine must be communicated well. Not challenging other’s interpretations is often a function of intellectual laziness, not willing to mentally engage the great mysteries of the gospel as they relate to your context. I pray that Christ’s church will continue to refine the ways we talk of Christ’s sacrifice for us.