My Own Submission to the Test

“But test everything; hold fast to what is good, abstain from every evil.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:21,22)

The same standards that apply to others apply also to me.  Commitment to the truth obligates me to submit my opinions to authorities in the fields in which I choose to write.  It is my habit to read from people whose position on the particular issue at hand differs from mine because I think it valuable to view issues from points of view that lie outside of my own bias frame of mind.  Indeed I have a bias…just like everyone else.  I want to test my point of view against the best thinking of others, and so adjust my own position when the facts dictate because I want to be assured that I am not leading others astray.  Engagement with other people helps me understand them, even as it also helps me sharpen my own thinking.  Consequently in 2001, I posted a position paper titled, “Hoax? Myth? Or Literally True?,” which argued for the historical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

A number of years ago, in response to my article, I received an e-mail from a Professor of psychiatry at Stockholm [Sweden] University who was also a self-professed atheist.  In order to whet your appetite, I will below provide the first several e-mail exchanges of what turns out to be a rather extensive back and forth on this very question.  One of my biggest regrets is that, over time, I lost the last third of our interchange.  But for now I invite you to visit my website at www.christianityontheoffense.com (notice the reverse in word order from my blog address) where you can read the entire exchange (well, the first two thirds) for yourself.  It is titled, “Kalle Spolander.”  With the exception of joining sentences into a single paragraph for each date, I have not edited the contents of the “debate.”  I also strongly encourage looking at my entire essay, "Hoax? Myth? or Literally True?: The Evidence For Jesus' Bodily Resurrection," at the same website.

April 28, 2001

Good evening,  I stumbled across one of your articles on www.christiananswers.net, called, “How do we know that Jesus really rose from the dead?”  Never have I seen such stupidity and twisting and picking and mixing of facts.  Would you care to debate me about the contents of the articles?  Tell me if you have the time and energy to do it.

Regards, Kalle, Stockholm University

April 28, 2001, 11:00 AM

Yes, Kalle, I am interested in debating you.  I must say at the outset, that I am not slightly impressed with your charges.  Wherever people come down on this question, even if, in the end, they remain unpersuaded, it is silly to make the kind of attacks represented by your e-mail.  I am expecting the level of discussion for your side will rise.  What you read on Christiananswers.net is a rather heavily edited version of an essay I have prepared.  My paper edition I distribute on street corners here in Seattle, including the University of Washington, and several other colleges.  I am, however, sending you, as an attachment, a somewhat longer edition that can go over the internet so that you both can read my argument in context and consider my notes and sources.  I am eager for substantive response from you that rises above mere name-calling.  Sincerely, Gary Jensen

April 29

Good morning,  How interesting.  I must admit that this came as quite a shock for me.  I wasn’t prepared to rebut a 125kb text.  But I will take the time, of course.  But it will of course take longer than I intended.  I hope you understand that.  I must also ask for your permission to present this debate in full on a website for others to read.  I think I have to take back my stupidity claim, since I didn’t read your text in full.  I apologize for that.  Now I will begin to deal with your essay.  Though I am a working man, I hope to be able to finish it this week at least.

April 29, 2001

Good morning Kalle,  I hope I have your name correct.  Not only am I interested in debating you, but I give you full permission to make the debate public on your website.  Do you intend to post my essay so that people can read my position in context?  Sincerely, Gary Jensen

April 30…...

In Light of Recent Supreme Court Decisions

In light of two Supreme Court decisions on “homosexual marriage,” My friend Robin Dugall has posted a blog that calls for our attention. You will notice that my reply, below, expresses strong disagreement with his proposal.  The address is: http://yliapu.typepad.com/spiritualregurgitations/2013/06/i-believe-it-is-time-division-of-state-licensing-of-marriage-civil-ceremony-and-a-spiritual-blessing.html   

Dear Robin,

While I agree with you that Christianity must by its very nature live in tension with “secular” culture, and that it is not our calling to “govern” our culture, neither are we obligated to cast off our rights as participants and indeed as fellow citizens within our constitutional and democratic republic.  What is happening in the current fad pertaining to the redefinition of marriage is not merely a spiritual matter.  It also involves matters of rationality (and irrationality) at the core, and politically, the betrayal of the democratic process that ought to include every citizen all along the journey.  We who are conservative ought not to run from the charge of bigotry, but to the contrary hold up the mirror of bigotry to the faces of every voice that insists, in the name of “tolerance” that only redefinition advocates possess a sound and moral mind.   On matters of rationality alone, according to the very standards they herald, I charge that advocates of the redefinition of marriage deserve no credit at all.  By standards of rationality they deserve a solid “F.” 

“Religion” is consistently denigrated by the secular movers of our culture in favor of “enlightened science.”  Anyone who knows me knows I lift up science as a laudable field of study that deserves protection from the encroachment of religion.  Advocates of science, on the other hand, ought to in turn highlight and clarify their own parameters according to the rules of science.  And it ought to demand that wherever claims to “scientific enlightenment” are made, that the promises that fall under that banner are kept.  In matters of “pure” science, the scientific method insists on proposing every hypothesis that can conceivably address a given range of facts.  And then it insists on the weighty task of seeking to disprove each one of these hypotheses until only one remains standing.  The scientific method does NOT fixate on gathering friendly and confirmatory evidence alone (ignoring the counter-evidence), but, to the contrary, goes out of its way to the expose its proposals to the most intense challenges.  In matters of “applied” science, for example the building of a bridge across an environmentally sensitive area, it is demanded (and rightly so) that the ramifications to the environment be studied with serious deliberation.  Only after it is determined that there will be no negative effects, will the building of that bridge be allowed.

The obvious question with respect to the redefinition of marriage is, what single serious question (under the standards just described) concerning the ramifications of this move, especially to children, are ever seriously considered?  I say not one.  Self-centered ambition without concern to the damage to the environment is driven by the herd-mentality known as political correctness.  This current trend fails to represent enlightenment at all.  It is utterly shameful.  It fulfills to a “T” the Apostle Paul’s warnings of a downward spiral in the disintegration of rationality laid bare in Romans 1:18f.

I am a Christian who stands under the authority of the Bible.  I am also a citizen.  I am also a human being.  And I have been granted the same thinking capacity that God has granted to every human being, should we all determine to use it.  The Bible indeed states that one standard of judgment against which humans will be held accountable will be the refusal to think by the deliberate suppression of the facts (Rom. 1:18f).  For these reasons I care about the grave fallout from a contemporary fad that is so poorly thought through.  What I care about myself in this matter is that I don’t care enough.  God help me to care more.         

Materialism Cannot Keep Its Cake and Eat it Too!

“There are those who believe in dogma and know it and those who believe in dogma and don’t know it.”   -- G.K. Chesterton

“Materialism” is defined as a worldview that holds that the material world (matter, energy, time, and space) is all that exists.  Consequently materialism holds that there is absolutely no such thing as God, Mind (or “mind”), Spirit, demons or spirits, or binding standards of any form.  Stated succinctly, “materialism” believes in the dogma, “matter only.”  Materialists are of course free to believe as they wish (as we shall see, freedom is a concept they themselves deny).  But since this is the dogma they wish to believe, certain logical consequences follow from that belief system.

Materialism so defined rules out the philosophical validity of a host of themes that materialists habitually use.  In my blog series that is to follow, I will lay out in turn five ideas that materialism conceptually has no place for.  This list includes the concepts of 1) truth, 2) intelligence, 3) human free-will, 4) morality, and 5) value.  Now I am not naïve about the materialist mind-set.  Each item on this list I just recited is indeed overtly rejected by the materialist community.  The problem for their side, however, is that in spite of their protests, in order to advance their agenda they invariably end up employing these very concepts in their conversation.  For example, they implicitly 1) argue their position is 2) true in order to 3) persuade people 4) with a sense of urgency for 5) the betterment of the world.

I am not making the case that every single materialist explicitly denies the above five ideas.  Materialists, after all, are human beings just like the rest of us (and just like the rest of us they fail to think through and live up to our self-acknowledged standards).  Consequently materialists (also made in the image of God) are more profound beings than their philosophy allows.

Neither am I making the case here that materialism is false.  Though I believe it is, that is not today’s point.  I have in previous blogs already made the solid case that on scientific grounds materialism is false on the basis of the absolute beginning of the material universe out of nothing (see my double posting from 11-16-2012, "Massive Upheaval").  The case I am instead making today is that if it were actually correct that materialism is true, then all conversation about matters we (including materialists) deem important, are rendered incoherent to the core. 

I do not wish to give away too much at this beginning of my series.  But when, for example, materialists argue, as they do, that since the laws of physics (matter and energy) cannot allow free will, then humans must not have free will, they have arrived at an absurd conclusion.  We ought to reply that there must therefore be an additional reality (spirit) besides pure physics that gives foundation for the free-will every human being inescapably exercises daily.

Stay tuned for up-coming posts that will continue under the theme of “truth.”   

Default Position on the Days of Creation?

“[They examined] the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”—Acts 17:11

It is popularly declared and believed by many that the “obvious” intention of the writer of Genesis is that readers interpret the creation days of chapter 1 as normal 24-hour-days.  A great deal of weight rests on that very word “obvious” however.  Clarity of thought demands that we distinguish between the words “obvious” and “first-impression.”  In order to determine the legitimacy of the word “obvious” in that context it is necessary to determine what constitutes actual evidence to support that word.

 A few years ago I was racing up the trail at sunset against the increasing darkening of the sky in my hike at Arches National Park.  My goal was to see Landscape Arch.  Fearing it was getting just too late I began running in search of at least a brief glimpse of that geological wonder.  When I finally glanced to my left side, however, I noticed that it had already been in view for a few minutes.  But it was only when I looked at it directly, and the angle became right and the final rays of light appeared through the arch from behind it, that I was actually able to see it.  And what a sight it was!   

 When it comes to the first chapter of Genesis, Martin Luther (himself a specifically 24-hour creationist) conceded that its actual language is “difficult to understand” (Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. Luther’s Works: Genesis. v.1. (Concordia, 1958), p.3).  Although I take a different position from Luther on this matter, I am prepared to concede that the “evening…morning” refrain which follows nearly every creation day gives a first impression of normal ordinary days.  Yet in the spirit of Luther’s reformation, namely that faith is founded on the actual Word of God, honesty demands that we very carefully revisit the text in question.  Every single person, myself included, comes to the Book of Genesis with assumptions of all kinds.  I do not write this to find fault.  This is a natural aspect of our humanity that simply highlights the need for caution so that we avoid mistaking our own “baggage” for what is actually in the text of Genesis.  For this reason, it is fitting that we all go to the text of Genesis with a spirit of eager anticipation in order to find out what is actually there.  The biblical standard, after all, namely the default position, is not our assumptions about the text, but the actual text of the Bible.  I must express my frustration at English translations of this chapter that routinely ignore a number of indications that the text of Genesis 1 is not as it seems at first.  It is important that we greet the text of Genesis head-on.

I argue that the actual text of Genesis does not support the 24-hour creation day position.  You may not agree with my opinion at this time.  But I have undertaken a very serious study on this matter.  I wish to highlight the “indications” I mention above that typically escape casual notice.  To this end I urge you to read my paper, “The Biblical Demand to Reconsider the Days of Genesis 1: Ten ‘Compelling’ Exegetical Reasons the ‘Days’ of Creation Are Non-24-Hour.”  You may find it at my website at www.christianityontheoffense.com.