Fear and Trembling

I hope that you have found this series of posts helpful. I have outlined the reasons that I have chosen to be a Christian and to remain in the faith. I have shared much of my own personal intellectual and emotional journey. The reasons given are not persuasive arguments for everyone. I pray that if you are a person who does not find them convincing that you will at least be motivated to explore other arguments and approaches . The ultimate aim has been to point others to Christ as the great Lord and Savior. He is the one Person who has walked the earth who is worthy of worship and praise . May His glory be over all the earth .

I was raised in a Baptist church in a small, West Tennessee town. Many times, I have heard the “wonderful testimony” of a person who has been radically and completely delivered from the awful, evil sins they once committed. I have often questioned the miraculous deliverances purported in these testimonies, especially when the speaker implies that my life must assuredly be changed in the same way if I truly repent of my sins and come to Christ. I do not intend to post a long, rambling account of my personal sins and the way I have set them aside. I have found in my own experience that my besetting sins have persisted, or even begun, after I became a Christian. The difference in my life is not a dramatic reversal of my behavior. The Holy Spirit has helped me to get better over time, but no power has been available to make me perfect or to radically and instantly deliver me from particular sins. Perfection and/ or instant deliverance are not promised in the Bible. The change in my l...

Psychology, the way people think, has always been a fascination of mine. I took enough psychology classes in college to have been awarded a minor, but the engineering department did not want to award it (some things hard-core engineers will not “sink” to do). Great care must be used by a Christian in this area (especially if we are tempted to supplant the gospel ), but the concepts can often be redeemed . Temperament theory has roots in the psychology of Carl Jung , but can be traced back to Hippocrates . It is undeniably imperfect, and some have even rejected the theories altogether. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has probably been the most successful application of these theories. (Note: be wary of some of the information on web sites that talk about Myers-Briggs. Good guidelines are located here .) I am an INJT (see here and here ). I am not unique in this . By type, I keep my feelings “close to my vest.” One INTJ put it like this, “I have deep feelings; they are just none of y...

I was very ill as a young child. I had a lung disease that left me breathless after walking a few feet, much more out of breath when trying to run, climb, or jump. I was thirteen before I began to grow out of it, but I had been through a lot before then. My illness always hit me hard when it came time for PE, physical education, class. That was when we divided up into teams to play sports. I was never the first one chosen for the team. I was usually chosen last. Everyone knew I would have little to contribute. My best contribution would be just to stay out of the way. Little League Baseball was more than a sport in my hometown. It was more like a religion. Parents had a lot to say about the make-up of the teams, and they organized try-outs. I tried hard, but I was never picked to be part of the best team. I always wanted to be part of the winning team. Christianity offered me the chance to be a part of the winning team , to be part of the group that will make a real difference ...

I have mentioned before that the ideas Christianity holds make intuitive sense to me. This is true, in a backward way, of the central message of the Christian faith: what most call “the gospel,” or the good news. The gospel is intuitive in that, once I was made aware of it; I knew “in my gut” that it explained much of my experience. It is not intuitive in that I would never have thought this up without someone telling me. The gospel is the fact that God offers eternal life as a free gift. 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 earned or deserved. I will return to this idea latter. The law requires perfection. Jesus Himself said, “Be ye perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect.” I cannot avoid the knowledge that I have fallen short of this obviously true ideal. This leaves us all under condemnation. No one obeys the law perfectly or obeys the law with perfect motives: ...

A bridge in Minneapolis collapses. Nuclear weapons experimentation makes Kazakhstan home to people with awful disfigurement. A train wreck in Brazil kills eight and injures over 100. Civil war tears apart the hopes and dreams of children. Seemingly countless murders tear apart families. Evil, defined for this post as sin or injustice against another human being, is all around us. I am not about to try to give a comprehensive explanation for how evil came to be. I do not claim to be the kind of person who can mount a theodicy of any consequence. God created men with the ability to sin and the ability not to sin , but I cannot reason beyond that. I do not know the “how”; I just know the “is.” I know that evil exists. I know evil is present. I know evil is real. What must exist in order for evil and suffering to be truly wrong? Does not the existence of evil itself require a standard of good? Should I just accept evil as a part of the way the universe works? Should I accept a view o...

There is no other religious leader like Jesus Christ. I do not have a respect for authority in and of itself. In general, I don’t care what a person’s position is, I will respect them only if they are worthy of respect. Just because his title is “boss” doesn’t mean that I will blindly follow his directives or do what he says. I do not care how many titles a person has, I will only listen to their teaching if I am convinced they are intelligent and trustworthy. That’s why Christ’s credentials as a teacher are so important to me. What makes a good teacher? I submit the following: His teachings are true, and he can prove it. He follows his own teaching. He cares for those he teaches. His teachings make a difference in the world. (Please note that I do not think a person must be male to be a good teacher. I use the masculine pronoun out of convention.) We have an accurate set of historical documents that describe the events of Christ’s life . Christ showed up on earth claiming to be God , ...

Logic and Thought Have you ever spent an afternoon thinking about thinking? Most people I know would quickly answer with a resounding “no.” Some would throw in an expletive. I am afraid I am the type of person who thinks about thinking, and I am grateful to know I am not alone . One aspect of thinking is our ability to determine the internal consistency of ideas. We need to be able to know whether our thinking method itself is accurate. This is the realm of formal logic. Formal logic has always fascinated me. The laws of logic shape the way we think. They are an open window to the Christian God’s world. Take one for instance: the law of non-contradiction. It says that something can not be both A and Non-A at the same time, in the same relationship, and in the same sense. This law cannot be denied. To deny it is to affirm it. If you say, “The law of non-contradiction does not apply,” you could mean, “The law of non-contradiction does indeed apply.” The meanings would be the s...

God is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. This is foundational for a popular argument for God’s existence. Reason demonstrates that something in the past must have always existed. It is not possible to count to the end of the series of real numbers. You can always count one more. It is, in one sense, an infinite series of discrete things. You can’t move to the end of a string like that. It has no end. It is similarly impossible to through an infinite series of moments of time, if time is in fact a discrete series of real moments. For example, if time extends forward out to infinity then it is obvious it will never end. Reversing the process, if time extends infinitely into the past, time would never have arrived at this moment. (See note below on time.) Similarly, we cannot expect that an infinite regress of finite causes exists either. That is, if we move backward from ourselves to the things that caused the things we perceive in our world now, then backward to the things that c...

There are some problems that can be solved intuitively. As an engineering major I was often faced with complex problems in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other engineering disciplines that required much thought to solve. I was often guided by my intuition, a kind of problem-solving method best describe by the phrase “AH-HA, now I see it.” I was often able to see the answer without consciously thinking through the problem. Of course, I had to go back to the beginning, reason through my answer and provide that line of reasoning to get credit for the problem on an exam. The “AH-HA method” guided me through many problems and exercises. It guides me through many decisions I make today as a manager and consultant. Of course, I have to go back to data and facts derived from observation to make my case. I must still justify my actions to others. Does this mean the “AH-HA method” is inferior? Yes, it does. Decisions should be made based on facts. We must explain the real world as we f...

I had promised a series of posts on this subject earlier . I have modified the outline somewhat. This is the first of a series of posts outlining the reasons I have chosen to remain within the faith of my childhood. I was raised in a Christian home, by Christian parents. With the exception of several years in college, I have attended church my entire life. Does this mean I am biased? Yes, but that does not mean I am wrong . The strength or weakness of an argument should be evaluated independent of the circumstances of the person giving the argument. I am an intelligent, independent adult. I am not now a “product of my raising.” I am a Christian by choice, and my religion is my own. I have come to believe that God has changed my heart to allow me to believe in Him against my natural inclinations . I like the way Cornelius Van Till addresses those concerns here . Here is a revised outline: 1. God is who He is. 2. He has done what He has done. 3. He makes possible logic, rationa...