Sean Carroll’s Sleight-of-Hand Evasion of the Creator Part I

“See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy or empty deceit…” (Colossians 2:8)

Christian philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig recently went head-to-head with theoretical physicist, Dr. Sean Carroll of Cal Tech in a public debate over the question, “Is God’s Existence More Probable Given Cosmology Data?”  This data broadly pertains to the expansion of the universe from its very first moment of time.  The 2 1/2 hour contest can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-H6hdjpRRw.  Craig, of course argued the affirmative position while Carroll correspondingly challenged it.  However a more surprising and, I will argue dubious, aspect of Carroll’s presentation was his bolder contention that the “evidence” employed by Christians is worse than false or weak; it is, as he says, entirely irrelevant to the scientific data because religion uses the wrong vocabulary and naively seeks to address the wrong questions.

This posting does not challenge Carroll’s level of knowledge within his own field (though I hasten to add that the question at hand required his crossover from science into the other intellectual fields of philosophy and theology).  He posed a vigorous and thought-provoking challenge to Craig.  My atheist friend, Jim (we two, too, have dueled each other twice in a similar debate) recently goaded me over coffee by suggesting this video would be painful for me to watch because, as he cautioned, “Carroll demolishes your favorite apologist!”  The contest is anonymously labelled, “Sean Carroll Completely Dominates Billionaire William Lane Craig in Lopsided Debate.” Let us first of all dispose as garbage the poster’s ludicrous assertion that Craig is wealthy.  Now, turning to serious matters, over the course of my having watched the debate several times I have noticed that the list of related videos featured along the right hand border on my screen all parade the same propagandistic theme in their titles, as though Craig routinely gets beat up every time he debates.  Oh, to the contrary!  I wonder what lies behind such a pathetic level of insecurity that compels people to post such nonsense.  I advise every reader (on either side) who is interested in this topic to witness this exchange and critically analyze the arguments yourself.  In undertaking this assessment it is important to consider two matters:  First it is necessary to distinguish between the three fields of inquiry (referenced above) in the context of this exchange.  Second, it is crucial to ask whether each contestant’s treatment of these respective fields was managed correctly according to the rules of logic (e.g. scientific assertions supported by scientifically-valid evidence, with the expectation that philosophical and theological issues will be cogently framed).

By what authority, readers may ask, do I as a non-scientist pastor presume to challenge a Cal Tec scientist on these matters?  I do so by noting discrepancies between the scientific claims Carroll alleged against creation, and the faulty logical status of that battery of “evidence” that he offered in support of them (a philosophical matter).  I also highlight incidents where his theological objections (a religious matter) against the claim that the God of the Bible made the heavens and the earth fail to achieve their intended goal of dethroning God as the creative agent.  To cite here one example in service of that aim, Carroll spent considerable time (1:15) hypothesizing on how a truly reasonable god, if such were to actually exist, would have created a more “successful” product than what scientists find in the natural order.  His consequent pitting of the actuality of nature against the witness of the God of the Bible, in a manner similar to Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species, 1^st ed. (Harvard, 1859), p.435)), leaves the field of scientific discourse behind by entering into realm of religious matters.  Hence the necessity of a pastor/theologian competently applying religious insight in a critique of Carroll’s anti-theological case.

My entire article can be accessed at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles   

We Weren't There. And it Matters Not Part II

Some people judge this delimiting reality (of only being able to see into the past) to be either a hindrance to overcome, or a nuisance that must be explained away.  There are those for example who believe the 13.7 billion year age of the universe that is implied by these light-travel times conflicts with the teaching of Genesis 1.  In order to maintain their conviction that the cosmos is really just a few thousand years old, they believe that God must have created the very beams of light in passage from all the galaxies that are radiating across the cosmos.  This proposal by certain Christians (in contradiction to Romans 1:18-20) suggests that God is deceptive with nature’s testimony as to the actual age of His creation.  Yet in fact such an ad hoc interpretation is utterly unnecessary.  In my essay, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look” (found at www.christianityontheoffense.com) I make the case that Genesis makes no such demand on readers to believe that the universe is 6,000 +/- years young.

Yet the point of this posting is to make a very different point from the attempt to reconcile astronomical realities with Genesis 1.  I argue to the contrary that light-travel distances and the history that that reality implies, provide us with a privileged and exciting opportunity for confidently observing the unfolding wonders of God’s creation in a manner that is entirely compatible with a very high view of the opening verse (and chapter) of the Holy Bible.

I love fireworks (except after 11 pm when I’m struggling to sleep)!  I prefer experiencing them live as opposed to looking at still photographs of them.  I enjoy feeling and hearing the booming and, for a few days, the lingering smell of the gunpowder.  But what I enjoy most is the visual experience of the entire process from the initial launch all the way to its ultimate expansive display of light against the dark sky.
 

The implications following from paragraphs 2 and 3, above, are tremendous with respect to the reality of humanity’s non-presence at creation’s beginning.  Precisely because light photons take time to cross distances, radiation from objects much farther away from us (the HEDF above) take much longer to reach the lenses of our telescopes than did nearby objects such as Polaris (the North Star) or Jupiter.  This means that as modern scientific instruments detect the range of celestial objects in between the oldest objects visible (HEDF) and our own moon, we are observing the history of the universe all the way back to its beginning.  “Observing” is the key word to this posting.  Unlike the Darwinian claim alleging to tell the history of the development of life (which demands surmising on the basis of very imperfect evidence), when we look out across the entire universe we are able to document its entire history.  We are like historians who chronicle the development of the cosmos from its birth (a very imperfect term) and infancy all the way to the present moment.  So agrees the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) publication of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, The Natural Knowledge of God in Christian Confession and Christian Witness­, (April 2013): “Advances in astronomy during the twentieth century…led to the discovery that the universe is not static, but is expanding.  This and related discoveries thus suggest (by projecting backwards) the now generally accepted conclusion that the universe of space and time had a beginning in the finite past” (p.59, note 215).

God could freely have chosen to create the universe any way He wished.  He has the power to have brought it into being in an instant if He so desired.  Yet even young-earth (6,000 years old) Christians understand Genesis to state that creation involved time (6 days).  But following the Apostle Paul’s injunction that we read nature for what it tells us (Romans 1:18-20) we encounter the kind of data that tells us that following its absolute beginning out of nothing in the Big Bang, it has taken 13.7 +/- billion years to reach its present stage.  By the way, nothing in this data affirms Darwinism and its atheistic agenda.  Christians, in my studied opinion, make a serious mistake by resisting the time frame high-lighted by cosmology.  We ought instead to thank God deeply for such a powerful “visual” demonstration of His creative handiwork that has its analogy in the beauty we observe from the display of a firework.  Though we weren’t present for His “launching,” we can still see the entire unfolding of His artistry from our present vantage point.  Indeed, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1f).    

We Weren’t There. And it Matters Not.

“[God] stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.” (Isaiah 40:22, and ten other similar passages)

In his article, “What About Atheism & Agnosticism?” (The Lutheran Layman, (July-August 2014), p.3), Rev. Peter Kirby wrote with respect to the details of God’s creation, “No one was around at the beginning of the universe…to report on what happened.”  Kirby’s entire article can be read online at http://www.lhm.org/ layman/default.asp.  The implication of his statement is that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod interpretation of Genesis need not be reconsidered because science has nothing to say about beginnings.  Yet for not only biblical reasons, but also scientific ones, he is wrong.  Although his statement is obviously true, that fact is utterly irrelevant to his assertion that modern science is ignorant about the history of the cosmos.  As we shall see, God has so constructed the laws of His universe (specifically light-travel speed) that we have the capacity to view virtually the entire history of the cosmos from the vantage point of our time.  Consequently, we don’t need to have been present at its very beginning in order to observe what happened then.  For example, although I have never actually crossed the border from Israel into Syria, a few decades ago I had a broad unrestricted view across miles of its territory as I looked out from its boundary with Israel at the Golan Heights.  Similarly, the finite aspect of the speed of light makes it possible for us to look beyond the boundary of the present time, out into the past.  I invite your initial skepticism on this matter provided you follow me on these things.  I assure you that this is no trick.

 

We can only see the moon as it was; never as it actually is.  That is how our perceptions must always be except when we are viewing local objects.  For example, when we see either a friend sitting across the table or Mount Rainier on the horizon, we effectively observe these two objects in the present moment for the reason that they are nearby.  On the other hand, when we look upwards into the heavens we are always looking into the past.  The reason for this is that light does not travel at infinite speed.  Instead, it races away at 186,000 miles per second (which seems like infinite speed compared to a Corvette)!  Indeed such a velocity is the equivalent of 7 times around the world every second.  But, again, that journey is not instantaneous.  With respect to our view of planets, stars, and galaxies, light-travel realities mean we are only able to see these individual celestial objects after light from their surfaces has traveled the entire distance between us in order to finally reach our eyes.  Except from within our solar system, astronomical distances in “light years” are the measured lapse of TIME in years taken for the light to complete the respective journeys because, again, light travel takes time.

 

According to the above considerations, in round figures (pun intended) we see our moon as it was 1.25 seconds back in time, the Sun is likewise 8 minutes so, Jupiter 40 minutes, and our image of every star in the Big Dipper involves seeing them between 80 and 100 years back in the past (before most of us were born).  Peering out to the edge of our own galaxy (we are half-way out from the center) entails looking back to 25 thousand years ago, while the view of our nearest neighboring galaxy (Andromeda) involves seeing it as it was 2.3 million years ago, and so forth and so on.  Indeed the Hubble Extreme Deep Field photo (henceforth HEDF) reveals the primitive state of those galaxies at a much, much, younger universe 13.2 billion years back into the past (take a gaze at the image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_ Extreme_Deep_Field).
 

To be continued...    

How Noah's Flood Covered the "Whole World" Part III

When we today encounter terms such as, “all the world” in Scripture, it is easy to interpret that language through our contemporary experiences of the same on the basis not only of intercontinental transportation but of satellite photography of both of our own globe (google “Earthrise”) and across the expanse of the heavens (google “Hubble Deep Field”).  By contrast, the relevant (therefore “real”) world of ancient peoples was far smaller than our own, though equally difficult to cross.  The question of properly interpreting the Genesis Flood story therefore calls for our stepping into modes of perspective and expression used in the course of daily business in biblical times.  It is crucial here to remember that the manners of speaking we are here considering are not directly related to degrees of scientific understanding.  We often today speak in the same kind of terms as they.  When for example Boston (packed as it is with prestigious universities) relished in the most recent “World Series” title, not one Red Sox fan expected Parisians across the Atlantic to care one whit about that milestone (“World,” Whose’ kidding whom?”).  John Frame (who embraces both biblical inerrancy while happening to disagree with views I espouse here) argues in his book, The Doctrine of the Word of God (P&R Publishing, 2010), chapter 26, that the God-breathed words of Holy Scripture consistently employ modes of expression and common standards of imprecision that were universally used in daily speech (e.g. “How far is it from Galilee to Jerusalem?  A three day walk.”—“How far is it from here to Spokane?  An hour by plane.”) as opposed to the kind of phraseology found in academic textbook (E=mc2).  In Moses’ day, images of a globe as we understand it today would have been irrelevant to all then concerned.  On the other hand, “the term, “all of humanity,” would have driven the point of that flood event all the way to their doorstep.

It is one thing, however, to claim that limiting the geographical extent of the flood of Noah to the parameters of the inhabited world can be reconciled with both the text of Genesis and also the geological evidence.  Are there actual positive indications of a more localized flood (as opposed to total global)?  First of all, it is important to understand that the text of Genesis does not say that the Ark of Noah came to rest on Mount Ararat itself, but instead on the mountains (note the plural) of Ararat.  This would imply a much lower elevation as opposed to the 17,000 foot elevation of the upper slopes of the “Big One.”  Furthermore, the waters that some argue once covered the highest mountains would have had to return to somewhere, yet there is no place for that substantial amount of water to be hiding today.  As for the text itself, though this is an argument from silence, the amount of upheaval that would have resulted from such an enormous volume of water as is alleged to account for the formation of sedimentary rock found today as high as the upper slopes of Mount Everest in the Himalayan Mountains, would wave been utterly fatal to Noah and his family by orders of magnitude.  Some will reply that God could have made provisions for these people to survive under such conditions.  The answer to that challenge is “Yes…but!”  Because God can do whatever He wishes, He could have kept his people through such conditions as I just described.  Had He chosen to do so, the Flood would have been an act of providence that interwove numerous independent miracles.  However, the challenge facing this assertion is that God’s revealed Word is utterly silent on the kinds of conditions I just described.   On the one hand it speaks of a catastrophe of a such a magnitude as would destroy an entire race of sinful human beings, excepting Noah and his family.  But it gives no indication of events within the time frame of a single year that would account for the topography of our entire planet!  By means of satellite images, Dr. Hugh Ross indicates the potential location of the Flood of Noah as the Bible describes the event.  In Navigating Genesis, p.158, (see part 2 of this series), he convincingly shows how the Ark of Noah may well have floated beyond the sight of land in what is now called “The Fertile crescent.”  The remainder of the “earthling” population, yet to disperse until the Tower of Babel incident (see Genesis 11), perished in the floodwaters beneath them.  When the waters subsided, Noah and his three sons and their wives stepped off the ark and began to repopulate a world that would continue to resist dispersing until “the LORD confused the languages of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over all the face of the earth” (Genesis 11:9).

How Noah’s Flood Covered the “Whole World.” Part II

Yet the text of Genesis specifies that God’s ultimate goal was to destroy all of humanity in a manner that would include the natural order along with it.  Since it was the extent of human sin and wickedness which moved God to destroy the entire human race (Genesis 6:5-8) excepting Noah and his family, and since humanity had yet to spread out across the entire world (Genesis 11:1-9), it was not necessary to God’s purpose that the flood should extend farther than the limit of human habitation at that time.  These insights do not, of course, prove that Noah’s flood was limited in extent.  But they do provide context for our reflection on the reality of the over forty instances where the Bible specifies the extent of the flood with the words “all,” “every”, and everything,” as in “all the earth” (Hugh Ross. “Global or Worldwide Flood: The Scientific Evidence.” Navigating Genesis. (Reasons to Believe, 2014) p.145).  What did these statements mean in terms of the frame of reference of Moses the writer?

Hugh Ross identifies six examples of world-wide events as described by that vocabulary in both Testaments of the Bible.  First, Genesis 42:5,6 states that “all of the earth” (meaning peoples subject to Egypt’s sovereignty or its influence) came to Egypt to buy bread.  Second, 1 Kings 4:34 says, “Men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom from Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth” (that is, from surrounding lands, and as far south as Ethiopia).  Third, in Luke 2:1 Caesar Augustus decreed that “all the world should be enrolled” in a census (that means the geographical extent of the Roman Empire).  Fourth, Acts 2:5 states that “there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven” (which would have been limited to the Roman and Parthian empires).  Fifth, in Romans 1:8 the Apostle Paul celebrated that the “faith” of the inhabitants of Rome “was proclaimed in all the world” (meaning within much of the Roman Empire).  And sixth, In Colossians 1:6 Paul celebrated that the Gospel was bearing fruit in the whole world (which, again, means a portion of the Roman Empire (p.146).

To be continued…

How Noah’s Flood Covered the “Whole World.”

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled”  (Luke 2:1)

                Hundreds of widely-scattered cultures across our world have made reference to a gigantic flood in their distant past (see a list compiled by Mark Isaak at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html).  The fact that these stories, apart from their central point of the flood, disagree with each other in many other details, does not weaken the case for granting as true the main unifying kernel of truth behind these accounts.  There are good reasons for believing that there was indeed a catastrophic flood that covered the “whole world” of Noah’s time.  Yet these good reasons are not grounded on popular interpretations of the flood, but on an understanding of both the Hebrew text and the context of the Book of Genesis.  Please do not be put off by this reality.  The challenge of interpreting Genesis correctly has far less to do with our possession of more scientific facts than could have been known in Moses’ time, than it does that we live in two widely-different cultures, with widely-different modes of verbal expression, and viewed through widely-different perspectives.    

I have several pieces of fossil-bearing shale (sedimentary) rock from high in the southern Alberta Rocky Mountains.  Indeed fossils have been found all across the world at high elevations, including the Himalayan Mountains all the way to the summit of Mount Everest (http://mathisencorollary.blogspot. com/ 2012/03/crinoids-on-mount-everest.html).  At the same time, it must be noted that there are also vast regions of land across our planet that lack both fossils and the sedimentary rock which fossils by definition require (Hugh Ross. “Global or Worldwide Flood: The Scientific Evidence.” Navigating Genesis. (Reasons to Believe, 2014), p.157.  ** See also an extended discussion of these matters at http://www. reasons.org/theflood).  Unless these fossil-less regions were geologically formed at a later time after the Genesis flood, their existence counts utterly against the notion of a flood on a global scale.

Other factors standing in the way of a truly global flood include the impossibility of accounting for the enormous amount of water required to cover the entire world, even if the highest mountains were only 500 feet above recent sea levels (Ross, p.152).  Furthermore, the movement of the earth’s crust (plate tectonics) required for the uplifting of the current mountainous landforms would have been so cataclysmic that even Noah and his family could not have survived the waves that would have been thereby produced.  The Genesis account gives not even a hint of such an upheaval of land and waves.

To be continued…

Why the Meteor Hit the Moon Part II

What science had yet to discover in Galileo’s time, was that the depressions he observed through his scope were in fact craters that were caused by the impact of explosions from meteors hitting the Moon’s surface, utterly un-impeded by an atmosphere (the Moon has none).  Earth’s far stronger gravity attracts many more times the number of meteors than does the Moon.  That doesn’t mean that the Moon never gets hit at all.  But the atmosphere on Earth burns up the vast majority of them before they could ever reach its surface.  Consequently Earth has few such depressions (“Meteor Crater” in Arizona is one example) to show for its entire bombardment history. 

So the real question of how the meteors aimed at the Moon make it all the way to its surface, has a simple and obvious answer: it has no atmosphere in place that will cause them to burn up and disinte-grate.  Nevertheless, from our vantage point as Earthlings this answer ought to amaze and fill us with gratitude for our own living arrangements.  The entire range of benefits that result from the possession of an atmosphere of the kind that we happen to enjoy on Earth, is too lengthy to describe in this essay.  But this exhaustive list of benefits must surely include the protective aspect of our atmosphere which prevents such harmful objects from otherwise making their way to the surface, thereby bringing damage to such a degree that life here on Earth would be impossible.       

Why the Meteor Hit the Moon

“Come, behold the works of the LORD” (Psalm 46:8)

On September 11, 2013, an approximately 1 meter meteor hit the Moon at close to 40,000 mph, creating a crater 50 meters wide.  The glow from its impact explosion lasted 8 seconds and was the brightest flash of light ever recorded on the Moon.  Humans looking in that direction could have seen it with the naked eye.  The event was caught on camera, and can be seen at http://www.slate.com/blogs/ bad_ astronomy/ 2014/02/24/lunar_impact_video_of_an_asteroid_hitting_the_Moon.html.

The Earth is much larger than the Moon, and so its gravitational pull is much stronger.  For that reason we get hit by several meter-sized meteors several times a year even while no one ever notices a thing.  The major explosion over Chelyabinsk, Russia the same year, from which a thousand people were injured, was, by contrast, caused by a meteor estimated to be 19 meters across (and therefore nearly 20 times the diameter of the “Moon-bomb”).  So to the question why the Moon got hit on September 11 (ironically), the short answer is as simple as the answer to why a chicken might not in the end succeed in crossing the road.  That meteor hit the Moon because the Moon was right in the way of its journey to the other side of the solar system!

The longer answer to the question, however, is much more interesting.  To get there, I want to share a recent discovery of mine as the result of a reading assignment for the class, “Historical Perspectives in Science and Religion,” for my Science and Religion MA degree program.  It was my delight to read Galileo’s account of the first time he ever looked at the Moon through a telescope (which, of course, was the very first time ever that anyone in history had seen the Moon magnified at all!).   Portions of his 1610 pamphlet, “The Starry Messenger,” can be read in the article, “Neither Known Nor Observed by Anyone Before,” from Dennis Danielson, ed., The Book of the Cosmos­, (Perseus, 2000), p.145f.  The magnitude (no pun intended) of his discoveries are better understood by first clarifying the hindering role that Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) cosmology played in the apprehension of the heavens many centuries later in Galileo’s time (1564-1642 AD).  Aristotle believed, and the Western world for 2,000 years largely accepted, that the heavenly bodies above, including the Moon, belong to a realm altogether separate from the natural laws and conditions on Earth.  These bodies were characterized as unchanging, perfectly smooth, and perfectly round spheres (corresponding to the Greek notion of ideal shapes and forms).

Galileo, by contrast, wrote after his lunar observations, “[I do not] perceive the surface of the Moon to be perfectly smooth, free from inequalities and exactly spherical (as a large school of philosophers believes concerning the Moon and other heavenly bodies), but to the contrary to be full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances.  It is like the surface of the Earth itself, which is everywhere varied with lofty mountains and deep valleys…The grandeur, however, of such prominences and depress-ions in the Moon seems to surpass both in magnitude and extent the ruggedness of the Earth’s surface” (p.147,8, boldface mine).

to be continued...

Genesis 1 and Mainstream Science Converge

Dear readers,

Please bear with me for my long absence from my post.  I have recently begun a Master of Arts degree in “Science and Religion” from Biola University.  At the same time that I am adjusting to disciplined homework and the writing of papers (I love the material!) I have dealt with serious on-going problems with my computer that has included a hindered access to the internet.  Now that I am settled in with a highly functioning computer, I intend to post once a week.  I am very grateful for all who have visited my blog in the past.  I hope you will continue.

Most sincerely, Gary Jensen 

The following is my recent response to an editorial in the Seattle Times.  I was limited here to just a few of a longer list of arguments I might have offered in rebuttal of the writer's’ essay, but the paper limits letter writers to 200 words.

  

Re: “Where There is No Conflict Between Religion and Science,” by Michael Zimmermann, Feb. 9, 2014

http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2022861463_michaelzimmermanopedreligionscience09xml.html

Dear Editor,

                Dr.  Zimmerman’s faulty line of argument is grounded on the “black or white” logical fallacy.  With qualification I agree with the title of his essay in that science and religion are not necessarily at war with each other.  But his suggestion that affirming the harmony of these categories must lead logically to Darwinism ignores the reality of other viable (indeed superior) options.  As one convinced by main-stream empirical science that the cosmos had an absolute beginning out of nothing (the Big Bang), I consider that recent discoveries from cosmology converge with the opening declaration of the Bible in Genesis 1:1.

                Everyone interested in scientific inquiry ought to be offended by Zimmerman’s suggestion that the posing of alternate theories to Darwinism is to “deliberately embrace scientific ignorance.”  The truly scientific spirit gives priority to submitting given hypotheses to rigorous testing.  Zimmerman suggests that advocates of Intelligent Design resort to the “god of the gaps” argument.  This raises questions about his own awareness of the facts and his commitment to truth.  A simple investigation of their writings will answer that question.  In actual fact I.D. advocates join Darwin in their commitment to inference to the best explanation in light of the data.

Sincerely Gary Jensen, Pastor

My Two Worst Witnessing Blunders Part II

More recently, a little less than a decade ago, as I was driving for Shuttle Express, I was given the assignment of driving a van load of people to a conference at a university campus in our Puget Sound region. As I was driving I asked the group (seated behind me) what the conference was about. One passenger enthusiastically informed me that they were all about to meet, and indeed, be physically embraced by, the “Hugging Prophet” from India whose name was Amma (Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi). Before I knew it, the same person then asked me both how long I had been driving for my company, and what I did before that. I replied, as was my manner, “If you can believe it, I am a Lutheran pastor in my other life” (which as I now think about it, might not have been my best choice of words in light of the fact that people from India tend to believe in reincarnation!). He (obviously the group leader) in turn said to me, “I would like you to explain to everyone on the van what you believe as a Christian.” I was floored at the opportunity laid before me. Such sweeping openings are very rare.

As I drove down the freeway I proceeded to tell the ten or so people on the van that God forgives our sins freely, apart from works, by declaring us righteous and therefore not guilty through Jesus Christ. I prayed then and later too, that such news would penetrate their hearts. After all, what I had said to them was absolutely true. And for me the doctrine of justification is the greatest news of all. Nevertheless, upon further reflection I concluded, and still maintain, that in light of the person they were determined to meet, I might have instead connected the Gospel specifically with the embrace they were seeking from the “Hugging Prophet.” The doctrine of justification I had conveyed is a marvelous teaching. Yet it does not hang in mid-air, but instead flows from the reality of the One who hung on the cross at Calvary for the sins of the whole world. Furthermore, the death of His Son is the expression of the love of God (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, Philippians 2:5-11). The love of the God of the universe does not settle for a mere “hug” (as nice as hugs are!). In the mystery of the Holy Trinity God the Son laid aside His crown and left heaven to come for our rescue by taking our sins upon Himself at the cross. This amazing story of the passion of Christ can (and indeed does) include the doctrine of justification. 

Correct doctrine matters enormously in our witness of the Gospel. But my reflection on the Scriptures reminds me that that doctrine is connected to at least two stories. Its content is connected first to the story of the incarnation, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the communicating of that Good News needs to be connected, in some way, with the stories of the people we are addressing.

My Two Worst Witnessing Blunders Part I

“Give me a drink.”  --  Jesus Christ (John 4:7)

I share these two accounts neither to shame myself, nor to instill such high standards for others that no one can ever achieve them. The old adage, “hindsight is 20-20,” while sometimes painfully true, can instead serve the constructive purpose of inspiring Christians to consider how we may each speak more effectively in future encounters as God may give us, with people of other faiths. I am not suggesting that God cannot use our feeble endeavors. He not only can, He also does! So I am not urging tears of regret, but instead a joyful anticipation of our next opportunity to share with another person a portion of the Good News of Christ. God inspires helpful examples in Scripture, and most especially in His only Son. In the Gospel of John chapter 4, for example, Jesus employed the common human experience of thirst in his “chance” meeting of a single woman beside a well in Samaria, as a platform for lovingly leading her into the kingdom of God. The exciting question is what can we learn from His example?

Years ago when I was returning to America after a study tour of the countries of Israel and Jordan, I was sitting next to a native Jordanian who was also a Muslim, on a “Royal Jordanian” airliner. As a proud native he expressed much interest in my perceptions about his homeland as I recounted my experiences from the bottom to the top of Jordan. Far and away the three most important sites on that tour were Wadi Rum, Petra, and the ruins of the ancient “Decapolis” city of Jerash (Gerasa). Eventually we two travelers, one a Muslim and the other a Christian, then turned our conversation to religious questions.

I thought it important (at the time) to focus on the Holy Trinity. After all, I thought, that concept would clarify a major theological difference between Islam and Christianity. Well, to make a long story short, even though we parted at the end of the trip on friendly terms, this was not a productive discussion. Neither was it a long one. Indeed, we had early on come to the point where we agreed that it would be best for each of us to find something to read on our own for pleasure instead.

As I have thought back on that engagement I have often considered how I might instead have approached relating Christianity to a Muslim sitting next to me on a plane. I am not suggesting the simple avoiding of our differences. Indeed, the best alternative (as I imagine it) would still have been a controversial matter for a Muslim. But I would have focused directly on Jesus (Muslims do believe in Him in some sense, including the teaching that Jesus was born of a virgin). I would have highlighted the love of God (that God indeed is love) by connecting the heart of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, with His giving Jesus to the world, and further (if circumstances allowed it) tying Jesus with the very heart of God Himself. Muslims think of God as vastly more remote from His human creatures, than we Christians understand God to be in Jesus Christ (think of the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15).

To be continued...

So You Say "The Big Bang Never Happened!" Part III

Dr. Psarris asserts that the Big Bang fails because, as an attempted scientific explanation, it violates the first law of thermodynamics (that matter is neither created nor destroyed).    This is one of the most obvious illustrations of the nature of his confusion.  The six points of observational data listed in the last posting do NOT serve to scientifically explain the beginning of the universe.  Indeed they cannot, for the reason that they are themselves part of the very object of study which demands an explanation.  Rather than providing an explanation, the data instead identifies a problem, or rather the challenge (the existence of the cosmos, complete with a history trail which leads all the way back to its absolute beginning), that is laid bare by the tools of scientific investigation.  So rather than offering an explanation, the Big Bang poses a problem which demands an explanation—an explanation, furthermore, which science can never, and therefore will never, even in principle provide. 

Psarris repeatedly asserts in his lecture that the Big Bang is materialistic (and atheistic) by its very nature.  That is both logically nonsense, and it is historically false.  The Big Bang indeed highlights the question for which only the transcendent God (one who stands completely outside of the natural order) can provide as a possible answer.  In short, the Big Bang absolutely demands the existence of the God of the Holy Bible God as the creative Agent who brought it all into being.  For this reason, it is significant that in truth (contrary to Psarris) the first opponents of the Big Bang were atheists, not Christians.  Albert Einstein, Sir Arthur Eddington, and Sir Fred Hoyle, as atheists, initially resisted the Big Bang precisely because its implications pointed to the notion of a transcendent creator.  It was only with resistance that the first two came to embrace the Big Bang because of the weight of evidence.  It is a controversial matter, as far as I can tell, whether Hoyle ever came to accept the Big Bang.  But what is certain about even him is that his long-standing resistance to it had been based precisely on its theological implications.     

In summary, Dr. Psarris’ repeated attempts to discredit the historicity of the Big Bang on grounds that it violates the laws of science fail.  Not only has he involved his audience, as we earlier noted, in a confusion of categories (description vs. explanation), he has also built his objection to the Big Bang on the “red herring” fallacy.  To state as he has that the Big Bang cannot scientifically explain the origin of the cosmos, accomplishes nothing whatsoever to undermine the status of the actual scientific data that is alleged to support that very beginning.  Raw data cannot be dismissed out of hand simply on the charge that it apparently explains nothing.  Psarris likewise has done nothing to invalidate the data (partially listed in the previous posting) that he philosophically brushes to the side.  The big Bang did indeed happened.  That it did, raises the kinds of questions only the Bible can provide (Genesis 1:1, Hebrews 11:3. Etc).