A Christian Worldview: How Did We Get Here? Part I

Earth is a very friendly environment for life, even in places that seem completely inhospitable. Virtually anywhere one goes on or near the surface of the planet, life is teeming. In the biosphere of this planet the chemical processes of life find a safe haven for their action and interaction. And yet, whereas biogenesis is rampant on the planet, abiogenesis is non-existent, not even in experiments designed in its favor. Is that a problem?

It isn't for me, but then I'm a believer in biblical creationism. For the atheistic evolutionist, however,  it is an insurmountable wall. If the evolutionist does not have a plausible, credible, demonstrable theory for how chemicals progressed from soup to life, they have nothing but a realization that species adapt because of breeding and mutation. They do not have an explanation for the origin of life, therefore no explanation for the origin of species, nowhere near an explanation of where we came from, and certainly no reason to pitch concerns about a Creator over us out the window.

There are really only two possibilities to explain the origin of life on earth: it arose by chance chemical reactions or it arose as the result of purpose. Those who favor atheistic or naturalistic explanations favor chance, folks of a more spiritual bent prefer purpose. The promoters of chance must embrace an existential nightmare springing from the meaninglessness of life, the promoters of purpose are faced with the weighty matter of whose or what purpose brought life into being. It seems to me the chance promoters have a bigger challenge that requires a greater faith!

The basic building block of life as we know it is protein, a polymer made up of varying units of some 22 different amino acids. Nucleic acids, enzymes, sugars, lipids, as well as liquid water, are essential, but everything truly alive is made of protein. The precursor molecules of these organic materials have been shown to self-assemble in both natural environments and experimentally, so it seems a simple matter to serendipitously get the right zap, and presto chango, life sparks into existence. But that didn't happen, it couldn't have happened, it will never happen because it's impossible. Why?

Probabilities for one thing. Life, even in its simplest forms, is actually very complex. It's not just the order of elements in biochemical compounds that matters, it's also the shape of the molecule. Chirality, as much as anything else, is what allows the proper shape to be possible: in living things amino acids are left-handed, sugars right-handed. To function in the processes of life, compounds must be made of the right stuff in the right order and in the right shape. If not, processes go wrong or don't function at all.

That said, what of the probabilities I mentioned? Given a rich chemical soup containing an infinite supply of amino acid residues, the odds of a single, specific, small (150 residues long) functioning protein self-assembling is more than astronomical--1 in 10 to the 1064th power (my thanks to Dr. Meyer). To get a sense of that magnitude, there may be no more than 10 to 86th atoms in the entire universe! Even if there were natural, chemical ways in which these odds could be lessened they still would not become anywhere near probable, and we're only talking about one, small protein. Life requires multiple proteins, generally much longer.

The likelihood of one small, specific, functioning protein self-assembling in a chemical soup is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

RNA-world theories hardly fare any better. Order in sequence is still necessary for function, particularly since protein synthesis is ultimately required to produce life as we know it. Even if the can is kicked down the ally a way, it still has to be picked up to clean up the situation. From my layman's perspective, the specificity of functioning proteins is still the hurdle (biologically and probabilistically) that a naturalistic origin of life must get over, even if starting with RNA. Self-assembling the thing that could code the assembling of a functioning protein is, if anything, more improbable than a functioning protein assembling itself.

I cannot see where experiments that demonstrate RNA's capacity for "natural selection" demonstrate anything other than RNA's replicative capacity. Has that not been understood since we've known about RNA? Those capabilities do not mitigate the probabilities involved. They certainly don't address the twin peaks of specificity and function. The truth is that the only thing we know for sure about the generation of life is that it takes life to make life. 

Given the extreme complexity in the chemistry of the cell and the time available for random sampling in any chemical soup (whether for proteins or RNA) the odds of useful, functioning, biochemicals self-assembling by chance are so insignificant as to be impossible. If all the universe were nothing but the chemicals needed, put into the most advantageous environment imaginable, the odds for self-assembly by chance would not be reduced significantly enough to change the impossibility. Life was undoubtedly created on purpose.

And even if one does not buy into purpose, the fact that life isn't coming into existence naturalistically on Earth now still has to be dealt with. The environment is very friendly now given the ubiquity of life now, and yet new life isn't spontaneously developing so far as anyone can tell. Whatever was happening to start life on Earth isn't happening now, despite how life-welcoming Earth is. We only see the unbending rule that life arises from life.

Naturalistic explanations for life's likely singular origin reach for scenarios that properly belong in the realm of imagination. The Bible, on the other hand, sets forth the scenario we see in reality--life was started at some point in the past and then ceased coming into existence--and it did so long before anyone ever did a scientifically sound abiogenesis experiment or knew just how ubiquitous life was. According Genesis 1:31-2:3, God exerted creative force in putting all creation into place, with all of its life, and then he ceased from his creative work. No more energy or mass and no more life was created afterwards.

Truth comports with reality.

Therefore, a Christian worldview perceives everything, including life, as arising from the hand of God on purpose. That is how here got here and that is how we got here. We all are creations purposefully made by God and our existence is lived in the light of our Creator who is over us. Are you ready to live life knowing there is a God who purposefully made you and to whom you must answer? Are you ready for truth?

Part II...

Israel Proves Who God Is

I find Israel absolutely amazing: not the geographical location (I've never been there and have never wanted to go), but the people. It's not that their customs or their cooking are interesting to me in the least, but I find the bare fact of their existence just astonishing! Just by surviving, thriving, and eventually arriving back in their homeland, Israel has proved itself the most unusual of nations. That they are not relegated to the realm of myth and fable is mindboggling.

Let's review what they've been through: there has been seven attempts by world powers to annihilate, dispossess or exterminate this people throughout human history. These were not attempts by nasty tribal neighbors (as in the book of Judges or as in pogroms in the Diaspora), but by cream-of-the-crop, world-class empires, amongst the mightiest of their day. Yet, despite slavery, murder, pillage, rape, deportation, dispersion, and attempts at assimilation by the strongest in the heavy weight division, Israel survived as a people. A notable feat on its own, certainly, but Israel transcended mere survival and returned to their homeland as a nation after thousands of years away.

Imagine the U.S. or any nation surviving such a history. Despite Paul Revere and the Raiders' sentiment in song, there's no way I could see the Cherokee Nation returning even after one such brush with genocide and ethnic cleansing. Why did Israel come back from the dead seven times? Well apart from numerological concerns, the answer, the only answer is divine intervention.

Nature points, it seems to me, to the existence of a Creator. Given its remarkable history, Israel has to be a sign of who that Creator is. If we're at all perceptive, we'd have to see that the Creator is not the god(s) of the Hindus, the Buddhists, the animists, the pagans, and certainly not the Muslims, but the God of Israel. For Israel itself is a sign from God that proves that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is God, and that he is God alone.

The Parable of Creation

And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull,
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.
Matthew 13:10-16 NASB

par·a·ble [par-uh-buhl]: a short fictitious story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.

Origin: 1275–1325; Middle English parabil  < Late Latin parabola  comparison, parable, word < Greek parabolḗ  comparison, equivalent to para- side by side + bolḗ  a throwing

Synonyms: allegory, homily, apologue.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.

When Jesus explained to his disciples the reason he taught in parables, he was not giving them instructions to follow in order to achieve effective pedagogy. Just the opposite, in fact: parables, as used by Jesus, were meant to be equivocal in order to give an out to those not willing to learn. Some would consider that deceptive, I consider that brilliant, and far more to the point--effective to the purpose Jesus was aiming to achieve.

Two classes of audience would hear the parable and both would perceive it differently. The same words, the same syntax, the same context, and yet those in one part of the audience were meant to understand one thing, and those in the other part something else. This was not due to flaws in communication, nor glitches in reception, it was by design and it worked perfectly.

Jesus' use of parables was meant to filter out those with faith. Those listeners with the faith perspective Jesus desired, would hear the parable, and with some added elucidation, understand the divine truth contained therein. Those without the faith perspective Jesus desired would hear the parable and not see divine truth at all. Advertisers today attempt to do something similar in public media by using their craft to target a more specific audience within a broader one.

I see the creation as a parable spoken by God. One not communicated in words capable of being reduced to ink on a page, but one assembled in subatomic particles and fields and perceived as reality. Like the parables of Jesus, it is not produced so as to garner the same perception in one group that sees it as it does in another. Either group looks at the same phenomena, the same facts, sees the same interactions, and uses the same mathematical language to describe it, but they see a different underlying message.

For those with the faith perspective God desires, it's divine message is all too clear. For those without that perspective, they see no divine message at all. Someone might protest that that is deceptive. If it is (and I don't think that is the case), it is no more deceptive than Jesus teaching by parables. God knows what makes for everlasting life and is well within his rights to filter for that amongst the creatures he's made in his image. The problem involved is with the hearers and seers, not with the communicator.

And let's be clear here: this phenomenon is not a mere accident, the foibles of communication, nor simply a trick. There is an "otherwise" at play in this that the unhearing consciously act according to. There are consequences to seeing or hearing with a faith perspective, repercussions that are just too repulsive to abide in their judgment. So they close their eyes, and stop their ears, and guard their hearts against the parable of creation.

Never Be Ashamed of God's Testimony

Christianity is predicated upon the belief that a dead guy rose, unaided, from the dead on the third day after buying the farm. That is the most ridiculous, patently absurd, demonstrably false (the dead have never risen unaided, before or since) event ever to have supposedly occurred in history. And yet myself, and every other true Christian who has ever lived believe it to be absolute truth--historically, physically, bodily. I cannot wrap my mind around people buying into this basic fundamental of Christianity, but then balking at some of the surrounding issues or other repercussions of the faith.

For instance: why would someone actually believe in Christ, but then balk at the infallibility and inerrancy of the scriptures? Jesus, the one whom they believe rose from the dead and then ascended to the height of all power, believed the Old Testament lock, stock and barrel. If one is basing their confidence in life and in life hereafter on the more than unlikely occurrence of this credulous guy rising from the dead, why so much as blink at inerrancy? To believe in the former while not believing the latter seems, minimally, inconsistent.

The same can be said concerning creation and evolution. Jesus believed in Adam and Eve and Noah's flood (and for that matter, Jonah's fish)--he cited their occurrences as factual back-up in his public disputations and teachings. How can one embrace the outrageousness of the gospel, but then hedge when it comes to instantaneous creation of kinds and Noah's flood (or any of the supernatural interventions of the Old Testament)? I truly cannot apprehend someone believing in Christ for salvation and simultaneously believing in evolution. It's a case of trying to have one's cake and eat it too.

What motivates those who believe in Christ but hesitate at believing in what Christ believed? Perhaps they bow down at the altar of their own intellects, all too willing to cede authority to human reasoning rather than Jesus' testimony. Maybe they would be embarrassed to believe such things and are unwilling to be thought a fool for Christ. It could be that they are merely ashamed of Christ before men. Regardless, what they need to remember is that Christ's resurrection is true or false with no shades of color in between, and if you're in it for a penny, you're in for a pound.

Come on, pick a side, make up your mind. It's not rocket science that gets anyone to eternal bliss in the hereafter with God, but Christ. You who believe in Christ, stop catering to the unbelieving and to your natural mind. The only good side that anyone needs to be on is the good side of Christ! He who is not with him is against him, so go "all in" for Jesus and stop hedging your bets. Never be ashamed of God's testimony.

What Must One Believe to Be a Christian?

First, we need to understand the kind of belief that's relevant to the question. When the New Testament speaks of belief of the sort that's in view here (Koine: pistis), it's referring to a persuasion. In other words, belief (i.e. faith) is quality of certainty regarding a proposition: for instance, "God exists." Hebrews 11:1 (ESV) describes it as such, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." So belief is a state of certainty about things that can't be seen.

When we add the parameter of belief according to the standard of the Bible, a rather clear picture emerges. 

Let me lay out on a scale which builds this standard from the most fundamental and necessary to the least. Only one who believes according to the entire scale could truly be called a Bible-believing Christian, anything less would call into question the genuineness, according to the biblical measure, of such a person's faith. Will people who believe less than the whole scale be saved? Yes, I think that is possible, but they will be weak in faith and limited in their growth into Christ.

1. Jesus rose from bodily from the dead
2. Jesus is the Son of God, that is, God with us
3. Jesus is our leader, unquestioned, as is everything he taught and said
4. The Old Testament is true, every jot and tittle
5. Moses was an actual deliverer, the Exodus an actual migration
6. Noah was an actual person, the Flood an actual event
7. Adam and Eve were actual persons, the Creation Week an actual occurrence

What is generally concentrated on in discussions of Christian doctrine is the why's and how's (e.g. penal substitution, grace vs. works, etc.), but often at the cost of ignoring what is actually the foundation underlying everything. Christianity starts with an event-- Jesus rising from the dead. If you buy the top of the list, the next three are logically consequent, leading to the last three. One repercussion of this approach: a theistic evolutionist is not in any way, shape or form, a biblical Christian. Are you?

How Old Is Stuff?

How old is stuff? I don't know, but I don't think it's necessary that it's billions upon billions of years--not even million upon millions. It's not that I do not understand radiometric dating, the geologic record, or the concept of a light year. I think there is ample evidence to posit that the universe is something over 13 billion years, and that our solar system is well over 4. Folks who can do that kind of thing say the math works out--I don't doubt that it does.

The fact is, however, I have a credible witness who says the biblical account of creation is true, and that would make stuff orders of magnitude younger. He spoke of Adam and Eve as real people at the beginning, and spoke of Noah and the great flood as real history rather than a metaphor. Perhaps he should be written off as just a crazy rube, an ignorant man of his times, but he proved his trustworthiness by doing that which no one has ever done. Without a PhD, calculus, or a computer he, Antonio Cromartie like, announced his intents, and then went ahead and backed up his words up by dying and rising from the dead (and without any assistance!).

No cosmologist, paleogeologist, evolutionary biologist or any other scientist has ever willingly offered themselves to death so they could prove their mastery by raising themselves back to life on the third day. When they do, maybe I'll listen to them instead of Jesus when they talk about our genesis. It is not that they are dumb, or even mistaken about their evidence, its their forensics I take issue with. Like folk trying to definitively settle the Ripper case, the best they can do is spin a tale that fits the facts, but they'll never decisively prove their case after the fact.

So why is there so much heavy duty evidence for billions upon billions of years? I would think it would be a given that creation would reflect the properties of its Creator. God is infinite and timeless: he is from everlasting to everlasting and is everywhere. What would one expect a universe created by such a being to look like? It seems evident to me, it should look really, really big and appear really, really old. Otherwise, it would give a false representation of its maker.

Some old-earthers say that amounts to deception, but I honestly don't know how it would. It's perfectly reflective of God's attributes and it speaks parabolically to the pride of man. There has always been an issue with humankind as to whether we will depend upon God's word or our own reasoning. As it was for Adam and Eve in the Garden, so it is with us generation after generation. God says one thing, our reasoning says another--faith goes with God, pride goes with us, and soon thereafter comes the splat.

It's not that there are not reasonable clues out there that stuff hasn't been around all that long. We could see it if we were willing, some do, most do not. When we look at stuff, it should reveal the majesty of our infinite, eternal maker, without necessarily providing any clues as to how we've gotten here (that is what Genesis is for after all). I don't have any problem saying that stuff does so without the necessity of billion upon billion years of age, nor for that matter, that unbiblical formation concept called evolution.

Can Human Beings Actually Perceive God?

Do we actually, can we actually, mere humans, truly know anything about God?

Although it is usually helpful to define terms at the start of a discussion about knowing a thing, when it comes to the subject of God, I believe even starting with defining terms is fraught with difficulty. Hopefully, the reason will be apparent in the next few paragraphs. Since I would, nonetheless, like to start exploring the subject, a tentative definition for "God" is in order. And so, let me fly this one: God is the ultimate.

Ultimate what? The ultimate source for all that is, the ultimate power that energizes and sustains all that is, the ultimate intellect that designed and directs all that is. That being so, I would think it would be impossible for all that is to not betray some intelligence concerning the nature of what is ultimately behind it. That is the sentiment behind the Apostle's words to the church at Rome. Creation has fingerprints all over it which betray the hidden perpetrator who created it. Paul said, in fact, that the evidence is so clear that ignorance or unawareness of God is inexcusable.

That should portend an excellent potential for a worldwide, common understanding of God amongst mankind, but alas, that is not what we find. The downfall of that potential is that such knowledge is still dependent upon the eyes of the beholder. People see what they want to, what they're willing to. Different assumptions will be brought to the task, different presumptions premised from the evidence. If one doesn't like the conclusion being led to, adjustments can be made.

The evidence may be plain enough in hindsight, it certainly is in divine sight, but the perception of the viewer makes all the difference between "message sent=message received" or error. Human perception does not exist in a vacuum detached from influences from other human faculties of mind and heart. How then is it even possible for a mere mortal to know anything reliable about a God who's not speaking to everyone for himself-- even with perfect circumstantial evidence? 

What more can we say about mankind, the imperfect perceiver of the God behind it all? A bit more, at least. Humans are error prone in virtually every way. We are limited in virtually every way. We are blind in so many ways, for how often do we experience eureka moments upon looking at the same thing we've seen obliviously a thousand time before. What is the likelihood that such a creature could accurately plumb the greater depths beneath the surface of things? 

People themselves are merely the surface in a matter a speaking. Though we are part of the creation itself, we don't even understand ourselves. Getting to the truth behind ourselves would entail a dizzying loop, like staring down the endless hall of images in mirrors facing one another. Infinite regress sure doesn't stop us from trying. We might be better off trying to bottle the wind or tilting at windmills.

It seems to me, what we need is an active witness from the One behind it all-- a personal commentary on the evidence he left behind. That would be more like watching the director's cut with explanatory notes straight from the horse's mouth. We'd have a definitive statement on the subject that dispelled all the flowery tripe of the artsy-fartsy pundits, or the confounding switchbacks in our own thinking. What we need is a confession from God, a self-disclosure that laid out on the table what we could never get to ourselves. We need a word.

We stand no chance whatsoever of knowing anything about God with any certainty apart from that. And even with that, it won't be enough.

Man Gave Names to All the Animals

"Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field."   Genesis 2:19-20 NIV

In the midst of extending his creation of man from just male to male and female, God brought Eden's menagerie before Adam, sat back so to speak, and let man take the lead in something creative. Some might find fault with my characterization of this event this way, but I don't think it's all that far off.

This occurred before God's sabbath, so his "work" week wasn't quite finished when this happened. He was, in fact, not even done with the model called man, for female he had not made them yet. He tapped his son Adam to help his Dad finish his work, much the same way my dad used to "take me to work" with him on Saturday mornings to "help" him. Day 6 was the very first Take-Your-Son-to-Work Day in history!

The work wasn't hard (neither was mine with my dad). The Father could easily have done it himself, but he didn't want to. In fact, it seems to me, the Father got a kick out of having Adam do it. I know it doesn't come right out and say that, but it does say God went on to finish his creative work (including the part Adam "helped" with), and when done, pronounced it good. A perfect God produced perfect quality work with which he was perfectly satisfied--including the component added by Adam!

One might ask, "Why?" I think it speaks profoundly about the glory of God and what brings him satisfication and joy. The news flash is that it isn't doing a puppet show with the marionettes he made out of clay. God let man name the animals, and whatever man named them, that was their name.

God wanted mankind to be creatively free. He made them to be. That is what they must be, in order for the Son to incarnate as one of them and fellowship with them, Creator with the created. God has never shown any interest in dealing with mankind as robots so far as I can tell: it is a complete misapprehension of his purposes and plans to ever think that he would.

I Think Therefore I AM Is

Just a little thought exercise about things that ultimately matter...

We exist, self-aware, but chance is not even close to being a sufficient cause to explain our existence.
Therefore, something other than blind chance is responsible for our existence.

Whatever we can do, think, envision, discover, or know, the something responsible for our existence must be able to do better.
Therefore that something must be personal and intelligent.

Since we can reason, explore and discover, especially things like those above, that something must have wanted us to be aware of his existence.
Therefore that something must be communicative.

Everything that exists is highly ordered, symbiotic and incredibly efficient within its environment.
Therefore, that something should not be expected to be inscrutible, indifferent, or uncertain, and especially not so in his communication to us.

Therefore, it should be expected that something would have spoken to us clearly, in an engaging, inviting, and understandable way, and there is neither reason nor excuse not to know of him.

Only Christianity can swim in these waters. Or in other, somewhat Cartesian words: I think, therefore "I AM" is.

Perhaps you have some thoughts that would fit into the exercise.

Freewill and the Nature of God

When Adam and Eve were created in the garden, they were specially made by God. They alone are said to be formed by his action rather than his word, and alone were "in-spirited" by his breath. He got his hands dirty making man and preparing a place for them--for everything else mere words were sufficient. Only they were made in the image of God and became living souls. When God was finished creating them, his response elevated from the merely good to the very good.

It seems obvious to me, that God was creating companions for himself in Adam and Eve--folk who could relate to him on his level. Lest you think I'm wandering off into Mormonism, go to the source (Jesus) and see his actual vision for redeemed mankind. God may have built a park for us to live in, but he wasn't opening a zoo. He was building a pleasant place to fellowship with people.

So to understand the nature of man one must look to the nature of God. I think it impossible to view God as shackled, bound, conscripted in any way. He's nobody's puppet! He is the picture of freedom and freedom of will. This is the image in which he's built mankind. He called it good. God's desire as reflected in pristine creation, pronounced good by him who would know, is mankind not coerced, or oppressed, or forced to do, or to act, or to think in any certain way. God's not like that and he did not build man to be like that.

In the best condition that humans could be in God allowed them have free reign. It was what separated them from all else and made them true companions to God. They had to have such freedom, or they wouldn't be God-like, and could not fellowship with God at the level he wanted. However, being God, in all his perfections, they also could not hope to exert will in opposition to God. That is untenable, unsustainable and, well, just plain evil. Nonetheless, even at the best they would ever be, God did not coerce or make his will irresistable to them. Why would anyone expect him to change his mind now?

The Ultimate Mind Game

I found this very interesting, and thought you might as well. Did you?

Another Sneeze in the Evolutionary Flu

It was as if I heard an "achew!" When I saw this article's heading my interest was piqued, so I read it and this, this, and this (incomplete). My conclusion: more hype over theory that 1) hasn't withstood scrutiny yet, and 2) misses the point-- it's not so much the chemical compounds that are the issue (they are a very big issue), but the massive information coded by them and the apparatus for replicating it.

Of course, this says nothing about why such processes are not observed to be happening in the life friendly environment of nature today. Having to have a controlled environment, prepared and maintained by intelligent people in white coats, to demonstrate a possibility always puts the proponents of chance in a quandary.

I'm sure bright, informed minds familiar with prebiotic chemistry will weigh in with further study and analysis in the coming weeks, but in the mean time, I wouldn't let the headline get me either too nervous or giddy. I suspect that soon, scientists will develop the antiprebiotic for this particular strain of evolutionary flu. Guzunheit!

The Ark of Safety

We like to cite widely occurring flood myths, complete with fortunate families escaping destruction in a boat, as evidence for Noah's flood. A common thread spread broadly across culture and race says something, after all. According to this article by Jonathan Cheng in the Wall Street Journal [HT: The Drudge Report], the idea is not confined to the ancient past. Is God still giving folk a vision to build an ark, or can it act as a bastion of safety, a charm, in troubled times like these? No, I don't think so, the only ark of safety any of us need today is the Lord, Jesus Christ.

What Makes Us Sinners?

That mankind has a sin nature is clearly taught in scripture. Romans 7 gives an adequate description of how it displays itself, even in those who are "good," but what, exactly, is the sin nature? I think it could be described in terms of the bondage of the will accurately enough, but where exactly did that bondage come from and how does it work?

I stated before that mankind was made in the image of God, but in ignorance (innocence). That condition was called good by God, despite the claim I've made that it was not his ultimate aim, nor will it be our condition in eternity. Our higher abilities (like will, choice and creativity) were made complementary to God's because he wanted mankind to live on his level as his family and friends. Though he is the omnipotent God, scary on so many levels, his aim is to have us be one with him.

What does all this have to do with the sin nature? Well, God alone is good: only he has what it takes to express Godlike attributes in harmony with his perfect will. Only he can manage those things which make up his image. The sin nature arose in mankind when Adam and Eve, despite having the breath of God (a living Spirit), exercised Godlike capacities in opposition to God. Sin is the exertion of will contrary to the will of God.

As a consequence, the breath that God imparted lost its connection with the God who breathed it (spiritual death), mankind was thereby separated from God, cursed, and whatever capacity pristine man had to walk in the will of God was lost irretrievably. Since then, we walk in dying flesh apart from God, godlike to some degree, but anything but like God. We possess some godlike capacities, but without the ability to harness them to "good." We do what we have an urge to do regardless of what God wants: some more, some less. 

That is the essence of our sinful natures. Adam and Eve had their life degraded to that level, and at that level they reproduced what would become all the rest of us. They passed on their broken nature as sinners, because it was all they had to pass on. The machinery of our soul cannot function without God being in us, and us being in agreement with him. That disagreement, and the disability that results in being without God is what makes us sinners.

Why Did God Make Man?

Upon finishing the work of creating, God's evaluation of all he had made, including mankind, was that everything was good, in fact, very good. Of all that he had created, humans alone were described as made in his image. Apart from all else, they could relate to God correspondingly, akin to Adam relating correspondingly to Eve after she was created. Those two were persons in a way analogous to God being a person and so were relational with God at a level akin to his.

If we understand Paul's description of completion in a well-known passage, we begin to understand God's ultimate aim in making mankind in the way that he did. Mankind was not intended to be a pet in a menagerie, but a friend and family member to God. God made man in his image, because man was intended to share life with God on his level. If that sounds like a reach, note the soaring language of Christ's high priestly prayer.

I don't think it was ever God's intention to sustain Adam, Eve and their offspring in blissful, everlasting state of innocence (really, ignorance). Failure from such a state is possible, even probable, and it is not what we are raised to at the end of time. In order to accomplish his ultimate aims, mankind would have to be let in on everything at some time. It seems that tree wasn't put in the garden just for show.

At the right moment, mankind would had to have been brought into the fullness of knowledge and into the realm of sight to fulfill God's aims. On the journey to that end, the essential quality that God was attempting to distill within the human race was faith. Faith does not germinate in the realm of sight, but only in the state of ignorance and in the experience of the not yet. In that state, it is the faith of the created in their Creator, their absolute trust in him, that allows God to ultimately share all that he is and has with them without the potential of failure afterwards.

When one trusts in God, God in turn can trust him or her. It's like the old Hollywood storyline of someone fabulously wealthy hiding his or her identity and then seeking true love and friendship in the ignorance and innocence of other people. Life on God's level can only truly be led by God, but for those who have true faith in him, such life can be shared with them without the inevitability of betrayal. And everlasting life with God at that level is what Jesus actually modelled and exactly what we've been made for.

To Hell With It

I said in an earlier post that we do not have anything to prove to God, nor can we measure up to his (or anyone else's) standard. All that we can prove by such vain efforts is that in our own Adamic natures, we are sinners. Does that mean we should live willy nilly, that anything goes? No, sin will always be sin, and God will always hate it. Ultimately, he must completely disable it!

Philosophically, sin is an impossibility. How can that which is against the will of God (sin) exist in objective reality when God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and righteous? God could not be said to have the last two attributes if he allowed or could not stop sin. So, sin can only exist in this temporary framework of spacetime, which is constricted, cursed and scheduled for termination.

The grace of God allows the illusion of ongoing sinful life for, really, just a moment, because of the possibility of repentance and redemption among the denizens therein. A time is coming, and shortly, when reality will come a-knocking, and then, nothing that stands in opposition to the will of God will stand any longer. That coming, ultimate reality check is called hell.

Some folk wonder how a loving God could put living human beings into a fiery lake forever, but I don't know what other possibility could exist. They usually think that, even if the lake is real, it cannot possibly be forever. Sometime, the flame has to go out, and the worm metamorphose and fly away to different quarry. All of us who are parents, or who had parents, realize that punishment ends sometime, right? No, such thoughts arise from a misunderstanding of human and angelic nature, sin and independent wills.

Ultimately, how can any will exist but that which is omnipotent, particularly if the omnipotent one was righteous too? For any opposing will to exist contemporaneously and/or permanently would undermine the nature of the supposedly omnipotent, righteous one. That one would then, in fact, not be omnipotent and righteous, but impotent and indifferent-- merely capable of conceiving but not of delivering.

Why does that make hell necessary?

Primarily, human and angelic being cannot be disposed of nor dissolved. We know the Spirit of God is eternal and indestructible, but what he lends breath or personal spirit to cannot be destroyed either, though it can be established with independence as a being. Humans and angels (I don't have a scripture reference for angels, but it does make sense to me) fall into this category. If everything in nature reveals something about the invisible attributes of God, think about what the conservation of mass and energy reveals to us about the breath from God that makes us a person-- it cannot be destroyed.

Once created, humans and angels cannot be destroyed. However, they can be disabled, they can cease having independent freedom of thought and action. How? Overwhelm their will with incessant fire and they will never entertain a thought, nor devise a scheme, nor hatch a plot in opposition to God's will again. They will never act on such again. Don Piper's experience of a painful recovery after a traffic accident is helpful here:

In the first few weeks of my recovery, I was in such constant physical pain I couldn't hold any thoughts in my mind for more than a second or two (from 90 Minutes in Heaven, p. 102)

One long "arrrrgh!" will be their lot, cosmic pink noise. Coherent thought will be impossible, no conceptions nor communications. Their eternal will is silenced in perpetual flames, whereas God's will continues unabated, unfettered by opposition. It has to be.

God created us with divine-like capacities in order to fellowship with him. Christ reveals in flesh and bone, in spirit and in thought what that looks like. It’s not oppressive nor coercive, but food and life, joy and peace. Our wills are meant to be experienced as the replication and expression of his. Exertion of our will (our works) is not the means to achieve that, inspiration is. As for sin, to hell with it!

There Is an Everlasting Hell!

It is often said by detractors and non-believers that a loving God would never send people to hell for eternity. They do not say that because of their experience of the loving God, but in my view, because of their lack thereof. Perhaps, even more so, because of their indifference to that loving God, and what he reveals readily to all who dwell on planet Earth. The scriptures state:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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."
Romans 1:18-20 (NIV)

In this passage, we are informed that we can know what God is like through the things he has made. Not only can we discover those touchy-feely attributes that give us warm fuzzies: God is a gracious provider, a wondrous artist, and a master engineer, but we also discover those scary attributes: God is not like us, he is willing to keep us at arm's length, his anger brings dire consequences. Some may ask, "how can you learn of those scary things just from the creation?" To which I would answer, "look at life."

What about our existence doesn't reveal that God takes exception to the human race? Disease wracks the rich and poor, the just and the unjust, virtually everyone indiscriminantly. God certainly has the power to do life differently, but it is what it is, and it tells us something. Good people, nice people, even godly people drown in floods, are crushed in landslides, or dragged out to sea, or are tossed like ragdolls in the wind. How could anyone think that a God who allows all of that in life would promise anything better after death? For all anyone knows, it could well be worse!

And then there is death itself. Everything dies, not only the living, but stuff too, it's called entropy. We can remain indifferent to God, never pursuing the knowledge of him, or more importantly, a friendship with him. We can remain at arm's length throughout our lives, such as they are, but what do those lives as we live them portend? The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven, but what is it SCREAMING AT US IN BOLD CAPITALS? I hope it's telling you to flee the fullness of that wrath which is yet to come. I hope it's telling you there is a hell and it needs to be avoided.

It seems to me that the one purporting a lovey-dovey God, not bent out of shape by the human race is the one who has no case. Even pardon for the believing was purchased at the price of incredible cruelty inflicted upon one absolutely innocent. Nothing about God's revelation in nature, or in the nature of the gospel tells us that God is a pushover, or that sin is a trifling thing. Jesus may have been silent or  even enigmatic in much in his teaching, but on one thing he was crystal clear-- there is an everlasting hell!

The Facts Behind Christianity

Everything about Christianity is dependent upon faith. I like to say that it's the currency of heaven. God's love (or grace if one's of the reformed persuasion) is foundational, but God saw fit to make either efficacious only through faith. Unfortunately, every believer seems to have moments when his or her faith is on the bottom of a dogpile, or languishing, or tottering, or under assault. What do you lean on when your faith is out of breath? Is there is spiritual safety net?

I have found such a safety net through experience, really a Dragnet that pulls me back to the safety and clarity of faith. I remember watching Sgt. Friday on TV deadpan, "Just the facts, ma'am," in my childhood and recall the settling affect it had on an excited witness. So when my faith is squishy, I deadpan to myself, "Just the facts, Steve" and with my response resuscitate my trust in God. So, what facts do I answer myself with? Just two, the second actually more important than the first:

1) Nothing makes sense if God isn't behind existence. I know that there is no way to explain, not only the cosmos, not only the presence and complexity of life, but also the abstraction of human thought apart from God's existence and creativity. Call it a Romans 1 moment. Fact one: God is.

2) Jesus rose from the dead. The tomb was empty, no one ever found the body. One of the most brutally pragmatic empires to rise upon the face of earth lost track of a body they truly wanted to keep their hands on. To a ragtag crew of bumpkins? No way! The Jews, who tried to deflect the force of eyewitness testimony by suborning perjury, wanted to confiscate the body more than the Romans. Their money perished with them, because they never got anyone to lead them to the body.

Despite the efforts of Roman and Jew, never was one eyewitness induced to recant, even in the face of torture. So a cabal of twits withstood the mighty and the artful. Why? There was no body, it was in use! It was not a spiritual resurrection, a mythological resurrection, nor a metaphorical resurrection--Jesus was finished being dead so he came back to life, bodily! Fact two: Jesus rose from the dead.

Christianity is not philosophical, it's not theoretical, it's not wishful thinking. It's founded upon a rock solid fact in history (Jesus arose) and an elegant bit of logic (God is). Those two facts inflate the life raft of my faith anytime it springs a leak. With the most salubrious effect, they are my answer back to myself whenever I've fallen into confusion or doubt and have to say to the mirror, "Just the facts, Steve" Perhaps they can do the same for you.

The Incompatibility of the Bible and Evolution

I find it very disturbing that so many folks identify themselves as Bible-believing followers of Christ and yet embrace evolution. The Bible and evolution are incompatible as is betrayed by the labyrinthine exegesis of Genesis those who attempt to syncretize them invariably use to do so. The Bible says that God created life, and death followed afterwards: the evolutionist says that life was created through death. The overarching concepts are clearly at odds with with one another, and the details assure immiscibility.

The syncretic approach to origins, Theistic Evolution, is a result of faithlessness not evidence. There is not now, nor will there ever be a slam-dunk case for a scientific approach to origins that stands in opposition to the Word. Evolution relies upon trust in a godless narrative, Creationism on a God-inspired one, to fill in the speculative gaps that will always be left in either approach. Faith picks a side, whereas unbelief rides the fence. Shaky believers who mesh atheistic and biblical viewpoints attempting to achieve some happy median create nothing but a mess that destroys both.

Foundationally, I believe Jesus Christ, the Son the God, is without error in all he believed and all that he taught. He was, in fact, without error in every possible respect. If Jesus Christ was an evolutionist, he certainly gave no hint of it. Quite the opposite in fact, he believed in the biblical Creation Story and the Noahetic Flood. One can hardly cede authority to Christ as Lord and then take exception to his cosmology.

When it comes to God, it is always put up or shut up. Stand on the Word or confess to being a heathen at heart. Nothing in the scripture should cause anyone to blink if they also believe that Christ rose the dead. If one doesn't believe that, he isn't a Christian and has no basis for the forgiveness of his sins. If one does believe that, why blanch at Jesus' avowal of Creation and the Flood? Is it even possible to trust in the power of the blood of what would have to be an ignorant or duplicitous charlatan if evolution were true?

Every time the evolutionists have laid claim to a smoking gun, we have always found, after the fact, that they spoke too soon and overstated their case. Whether the claim is for missing links in the fossil record, abiogenic experiments, ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, "undesigned" nylonase, fused chimpanzee chromosomes, interchangeable genes for nanomachine parts, or junk DNA, it's always the same. So the arguments endlessly ratchet back and forth while, in the end, the realm of physical and theoretical science can offer nothing but doubt.

God chooses faith, not sight. Those who depend on sight seldom find faith, and those who depend on faith usually do just fine with sight. Why throw your faith in the Word under the bus for something that actually cast aspersions on Christ and which has nothing more as its greatest claim to fame than making a monkey out of you?

Let God Be the Smart One

What's in the heart of God? The simplest answer is also a biblical answer, God is love, but that answer is very difficult for mere mortals to believe. Not only because they die, but also the way they die-- disease, violence, predation, disasters-- love in the heart of God would never be posited by them as a reason for such. How could an all-powerful being, who loved us govern that way?

Then, there's the whole hell thing: everlasting torment, fire and brimstone, bulimic worms, and not so much as a tinge of pity from the God who's love. No matter how graphically (even at Mel Gibson levels) we paint a picture of Christ's vicarious sufferings, the idea of the lake that burns with fire is always going to trump that image and keep anyone from thinking of its imposition as arising from love. Is it any wonder that scoffers look at this subject with such incredulity?

But God either is or he is not. Even if our experience of life makes it difficult for us to believe that he is love if he is, there is no doubt that, if he is, he is incredibly smart! And yet, we who entertain the notion of God, constantly vie our intelligence against his, as if he, somehow, has to bow to our conceptions of sense and fairness. It's nothing new, we've been like that since the beginning of the human race. It's the very foundation of sin.

Christ said God was overjoyed to give us the kingdom, that he shares his secrets with the humble. Yet, we let our pride get in the way and argue with God, thinking ourselves capable of understanding what he alone understands. We glory in our own opinion, and it deafens us to God. We gain neither love or knowledge by it, only darkness. It's in the heart of God to love us and to share all his has and all he knows with us, but to receive it, we're going to have to get over ourselves and let God be the smart one.