Truth About Christianity

Why I Reject the Traditional View of Hell - Part 2: The Case Against Eternal Punishing

2009-03-24T20:30:00.025-04:00

Introduction: A while back i remember sitting in my chair and leaning back and thinking to myself "after all my years of studying the Bible, my theology is finally set in stone." Little did i realize was about to get taken for a ride, a ride that is far from over, as of this day i don't see how my theology is going to be set in stone anytime soon. For anyone who is not a Christian having one part of your theology might change, changes the way you read some, most, or even all of the bible, certain passages you read under one paradigm must be read under another paradigm. The experience i am going through has taught me not to take preachers, theologians, and apologist words at face value and to search things for myself and to question assumptions.

That's what philosophers do they question your assumptions and that is something i never did i read passages assuming they taught certain things which means other interpretations were dismissed a priori. In part 1 i think i addressed some assumptions made by traditionalist i hope to do some of that in part 2 while also tackling verses which seem to teach their view of eternal punishing, and point out philosophical and biblical problems of the traditional view. Basically i made a positive case for my view and in this post i am going to point out the problems of the counter view.

“There is no doctrine I would more willingly remove from Christianity than [hell], if it lay in my power…” - C.S. Lewis

Adding to the scriptures

Since traditionalist take certain assumptions to the scriptures they accidentally add onto the plain teaching of the bible and make it into something it is not. When the bible says sinners will perish, be destroyed, die after they receive their judgment on judgment day to them it actually means separation from God or spiritual death (not having a relationship with God because of sin). But sinners are already separated from God, and on top of that there are no verses in the Bible where the fate of the wicked is described as a separation from God for all eternity. How can a sinner be anymore separated from God now than in eternity? The only way for sinners not to perish on the day of judgment is to be born again. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

It was until i openly searched for the truth that i realized i read John 3:16 with the assumption that perish means eternally separated from God, but this is an odd warning if people are already separated from God spiritually. Same with the wages of sin is death passage in the Bible, what gives traditionalist the right to interpret perish and destroy as preserve and die and second death as live forever in hell? Well i think there are a couple of verses they would go to for support of that view, and now i'm going to take on those verses, which i admit are tough to debunk.

Verses That Support Eternal Punishing

DANIEL 12:2-3
Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

- First of all notice only the "good" are raised to everlasting life and will shine like the brightness of heaven forever while the wicked existing forever in some sort of puny existence is never mentioned. The bad who are raised are only raised to be condemned (John 5:28-29), they surely won't see everlasting life which is what Jesus says in (John 3:36). People who are condemned their punishment is the lake of fire (Rev 20). But what about this shame and everlasting contempt? Well the Hebrew word for contempt there is 'darone' this word is used elsewhere in the OT.

"For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD. "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence (darone) to all flesh." (Isa 66:22-24)

The ones who have 'darone' here are the ones looking upon the dead bodies (not living ones), so the one having 'darone' are the believers not the unbelievers who perished. I think Evangelical author William Robert West put it best when he said, "Strong says both contempt (Daniel12:2) and abhorrence (Isa 64:24) are from the same Hebrew word. Strong's word #1860, "To repulse, an object of aversion, abhorring contempt." Contempt and abhorrence are the way others think about them. It does not say they will forever be conscious or in torture, but that others will forever have shame and contempt for them. It is contempt that is said to be everlasting, not persons. How does "everlasting contempt" become "everlasting torture?"(1) I would like to add to the list how does everlasting contempt become "everlasting low quality of life" which some apologist believe (i.e. Habermas, Moreland and Miller).

The unbeliever is to be forever held in contempt by those who trust the gospel, it's almost the same as looking at the corpse of a Hitler, Stalin, or Lennin and having the utmost contempt for him, and there will be plenty more of those when all evil humans will be judged and sentenced to the lake of fire. This is the ultimate shame, to have one’s life judged so worthless and defiled that it must be blotted out of existence and memory.

"In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out." (Luke, 13:28)

- This phrase "gnashing of teeth" is used numerous times in the Bible. The weeping is easy to explain under both the eternal torment and eternal destruction paradigm, the weeping comes from those who realize they're missing out on immortality, those being judged as unfit to enter the kingdom, and from those who see what their ultimate fate is, annihilation.

But what about the weeping and gnashing of teeth? Clearly that's talking about eternal torment right? Well actually, no it is not. The gnashing of teeth is an idiom and describes one who is angry. Let's look at some examples.

"He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me" (Job 16:9). Obviously, the angry person is the one gnashing their teeth right?

"The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him." (Psalms 37:12)

All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: "We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!"(Lam 2:16). Here the enemies of Israel are angry and attack her and apparently they succeed.

"Now hearing these things, they were cut through to their hearts, and they began gnashing their teeth at him" (Acts 7:54). Stephens attackers were obviously angry at him.

Now go back to the verse i posted from Luke, it makes more sense that this sequence of events will happen.

1. There will be sad people who will weep at the sight of what they're missing out on and the thought they're going to perish, be destoryed, etc.

2. People will be angry at themselves, believers, and probably God himself, some may even curse him all the way until they're finally blotted out of existence.

For these passages to make sense in modern times we should probably translate the weeping "gnashing of teeth" passages as "weeping and anger." It should be noted that in the verses that mention the outer darkness, never does it say those who go there live forever. Secondly, this is a good name for hell because it is a spiritual realm prepared for the devil and his angels. Lastly the Bible is full of fire/darkness images like Heb 12:18 and Due 4:11 no need to take them literally, although i believe the hotter and more pure the fire is the less light it emits, i'm not sure i remember that correctly though.

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41,46)

- The word for punishment here is the Greek word 'kolasis' which means penal infliction. Since Jesus doesn’t specify here what exactly the penal sentence is, we must therefore turn to the rest of scripture for answers. But proponents of eternal punishing will snort and say but the phrase eternal punishment are used here, it must mean an unending conscious punishment in hell. Well no it doesn't, you see it just means destruction that last forever (i.e. no reversing it).

Just check out Jude 1:7 which states,"just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire." Sodom and Gomorrah are not still on fire today with people in the city being kept alive by the power of God while he rains fire and brimstone down on the people, the sister cities have been destroyed with no hope of coming back, that's all it means.

The rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)

- This one is a bad passage to use because this story for one isn't describing the second death in the lake of fire, but the intermediate state in hades. Two, if this is a parable it might not exactly be describing the afterlife at all it's a story about role reversals. It could be a story about wealth vs poverty, who knows but since it isn't talking about the ultimate fate of the sinner then this is nothing more than a red herring and goes outside the scope of this blog.

And a third angel came after them, saying with a loud voice, If any man gives worship to the beast and his image, and has his mark on his brow or on his hand, To him will be given of the wine of God's wrath which is ready unmixed in the cup of his wrath and he will have cruel pain, burning with fire before the holy angels and before the Lamb: And the smoke of their pain goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, who give worship to the beast and his image, and have on them the mark of his name (Rev 14:9-11)

- Now we get to the biggie, this is probably the hardest one to debunk because a casual reading of this text gives the impression that these people will suffer eternal conscious torment. But does it really teach what traditionalist think it does? A casual reader may see eternal torment in this passage but there are a few problems with seeing that in these verses because notice it's the smoke of their torment, smoke indicates something burned up. This matches up with what is written in the book of psalms 37:20 which says, "But the wrongdoers will come to destruction, and the haters of the Lord will be like the fat of lambs, they will be burned up; they will go up in smoke, and never again be seen."

The writer of revelation seems to use phrases found in other OT passages for example; "For it is the day of the Lord's punishment, when he gives payment for the wrongs done to Zion. And its streams will be turned into boiling oil, and its dust into burning stone, and all the land will be on fire. It will not be put out day or night; its smoke will go up for ever: it will be waste from generation to generation; no one will go through it for ever. But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land. The jackals will be there, and her great ones will be gone; they will say, There is no longer a kingdom there, and all her chiefs will have come to an end (Isa 34:8-12). Clearly, the birds, jackals and other creatures wouldn't be there if the fire actually never went out, it would still be burning. So the wicked people spoken of in Revelation 14:10-11 will have no rest from their torment “day or night” until the burning sulfur totally destroys them. (if this verse is indeed talking about hell which it is not)

If you're a preterist like me you know Revelation 18 and part of chapter 19 is about the destruction of Jerusalem which came upon the great city via the Romans around AD 70. Well in 19:3 it says, Once more they cried out, "Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever." Jerusalem isn't smoking today is it? Passages like these coincide with God’s total destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah by eternal fire. Lastly, notice this punishment takes place in the presence of the holy angels and the lamb, so this couldn't possibly be describing hell, especially for those who think hell is a place to be separated from Christ and not a place where you are in his very presence suffering forever. If you read revelation 14 carefully this judgment is taking place on Earth and not a spiritual realm like hell so this couldn't be the great white thrown judgment when punishment is dished out to everyone who has ever lived.

All of the verses mentioned do not support the eternal torment view in fact they refute them.

Biblical & Philosophical problems with eternal punishing

Eternal torment doesn't fit with the biblical system of reaping what you sow, eye for eye, life for life, etc. It's more like eye for everlasting punishment, they aren't even equal. Finite sins do not equal everlasting punishing; Christian Apologist JP Holding tries to get out of this by basically saying, "sins are insults to God's honor and need to be repaid with shame, therefore what we're dealing with is a matter or quality not quantity."(2) His argument is biblical but he assumes an afterlife for sinners, JP believes God will never annihilate human beings which is why he came up with such an argument, which i do admit is sound. The fact is people in the OT weren't kept alive and was tortured or lived a lower quality of life, when you sinned you died, and that was it.

Another problem i see with the traditional view of hell is that under their view the Bible makes no sense. Death means you'll live forever, perish means you're preserved in hell, second death means not dying at all but being separated from God forever. Passages in the bible should read, the wages of sin is being kept alive and put in hell instead the bible says the wages of sin is death, (Romans 6:23). The words the Bible uses like perish, destroy, and death are some of the strongest words in the Greek language and clearly have the meaning of totally annihilated yet these words get spiritualized when it uses those words to describe the fate of the wicked. It's so inconsistent that you're actually adding onto the plain teachings of scripture.

Where are they getting this from?

In the book "Immortality: The other side of death" Gary Habermas and JP Moreland state that, "Since God cannot force his love on people and coerce them to choose him, and since he cannot annihilate creatures with such high intrinsic value, then the only option avalible is quarantine. And that is what hell is."(3) Where did they get that from? That's not stated anywhere in the bible because if it was it surely would have been in their book as proof someone cannot be annihilated because they have intrinsic value in the eyes of God. So basically they pulled it out of thin air then tackled the subject of hell with that assumption and forced every bible verse to fit their model of 'hell as a quarantine.' This is not only irresponsible but a teaching not based on scripture which makes it a false teaching.

Glenn Miller in his essay on hell makes a good observation but then tries to explain it away with silly reinterpretations of a simple and easy to understand passage. But since he assumes God cannot annihilate anyone he's forced to make these desperate moves. For example in his essay he says in point 2 of his interpretation of Revelation 20:14 that, " 'In verse 14 "death" and "hades" are said to be thrown into the lake of fire. I can find no other reasonable explanation of these images other than their 'annihilation' ("death shall be no more", the "last enemy to be destroyed is death)". Notice traditionalist take it literally when the Bible says, death will be destroyed, death shall be no more, but when destroyed is used for sinners all the sudden it means something else, because they're assuming either God won't annihilate humans for some reason like their intrinsic value or that human souls already possess immortality, which is wrong because we already saw God gives immortality as a gift to those who receive Christ.

This is when Miller starts looking for ways to harmonize this clear teaching with silly reinterpretations because of this assumption, Miller says, "Were these the death and hades horse riders from chapter 6 verse 7. If so, what is the content of the immediately preceding verse (Revelation 20:13) "and death and hades gave up their dead which were in them?" Although he does question the traditional view he seems to take the position that people have a lower quality of life and walk around like zombies and suffer mental anguish in hell because they're missing out on such a party in the kingdom, this gets us back to Habermas and Moreland.

Habermas, Moreland in their book and even Miller in his essay talk about what is called a "lower quality of life" but isn't this assuming sinners have a life after the second death? I challenge anyone to find one passage that describes the afterlife of the wicked in the Bible, there is no description whatsoever. We're clearly told those who believe in Christ will get eternal life we're never told that for the wicked, in fact we're told they will never see life (John 3:36).

Moving on let's look at the logic of Dr. Geisler, he once wrote that, "Annihilation would demean both the love of God and the nature of human beings as free moral creatures. It would be as if God said to them, “I will allow you to be free only if you do what I say. If you don’t, then I will snuff out your very freedom and existence!” This would be like a father telling his son he wanted him to be a doctor, but when the son chose to be a park ranger the father shot him. Eternal suffering is eternal testimony to the freedom and dignity of humans, even unrepentant humans."(4)

Under annihilation God puts sinners out of their misery, but let me guess locking people in a fire chamber is freedom, does he really believe that? Secondly, the analogy is horrendous, since when was picking a legal occupation an immoral action worthy of death? The next problem is, in the illustration the son doesn't respresent a sinner worthy of death. I wonder why he didn't give the parable of what his theology says about God? Maybe because it might look a little something like this;

"If the doctrine of eternal suffering were true it would be like a father telling his son he
wanted him to be a doctor, but when the son chose to be a park ranger the father locked him in a large oven and subjected him to ceaseless torture day and night. The father was sure to never allow his son to sleep or mercifully die, he made sure to keep him alive and awake enough to always feel the painful torment and cry out in agony, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, on and on and on and on."

Geisler goes on to state, 'One of the reasons there’s a hell is because God is so loving that He won’t force people to do anything against their will… He loves people so much that He will say to them, “You don’t want to worship me? You don’t want to praise me? You don’t want to come to my place? Do your own thing.” In other words, hell is a place where people can do their own thing forever.'

Where exactly is the phrase or the concept of 'sinners doing their own thing in hell' found in the Bible? I don't think you'll find it because just like Habermas and Moreland in their book, he takes statements out of his backside and parades it around like it's biblical truth. What more would a sinner want more than going to a place where life is kinda like it is here on Earth, the only difference is you'll never die, you'll never age, you don't have to worry about God, the only rule is you get to do whatever you want. That sounds more like heaven to pagans than the heaven God offers in the Bible. What would a pagan want more than to go to a place like this? If this is a judgement i'm sure they'll welcome it Dr. Geisler. Unfortunately for them that's not the hell the Bible describes.

The Last Desperate Objection From Traditionalist

One objection heard from traditionalist is that the view of annihilation is held by cults such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Christadelphians and the Armstrongite sects. Then they say things like, 'if these cults hold to these doctrines it just doesn't look good,' but isn't this guilt by association? These groups may be wrong when it comes to certain doctrines but it doesn't follow that they're wrong on all the doctrines they hold. These groups would agree that adultery is a sin, that wouldn't make us say "hey these cults think adultery is a sin also, this just doesn't look right." Maybe these cults believe in annihilation because it is clearly taught in scripture. I bet these same people wouldn't reject eternal torture because muslims hold onto this view also. In the end it matters what the Bible clearly teaches, bringing up other groups who believe a certain doctrine is a red herring because that has nothing to do with what the bible does indeed teach.

Conclusion

In conclusion i think it's pretty clear that for a while now the majority of Christians throughout it's history have had the wrong view when it comes to the immortality of the soul/spirit and annhilation of sinners. Traditionalist reject the plain reading of scripture where death doesn't in fact mean death, perish doesn't mean perish and so on. They also have no biblical reason to use revelation 14, the weeping and gnashing of teeth passages, and other biblical passages as evidence God will send sinners to hell for eternity and punish them for finite sins. Believe it or not a lot of people who you would think of as conservative are starting to jump on the annihilation bandwagon some are already on the bandwagon like William Robert West, Clark Pinnock, Dr. David Regan, and even N.T. Wright is open to the issue. I'm optimistic that this view will be widely held in the future but extreme fundamentalist will fight this to the bitter end. I think this issue is important because God's just nature is at stake.

Is God so unjust that he will torture people for eternity? God forbid! Eternal torment is inconsistent with the reciprocity concept taught in the old testament and new testament which says, you reap what you sow, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, not eye for life, tooth for two legs and an eye. Eternal torment has turned many people off and they therefore reject Christianity, while yes they're sinners and therefore enemies of God, this doesn't mean they don't have a concept or understanding of justice and fairness because of that.

In conclusion, all i ask is that you be open and search this topic out for yourself don't look to preachers, theologians, apologist, and bible commentaries to fully guide your biblical studies. Don't get me wrong it is good to consult with others, i'm not knocking the notion of taking other peoples advice, opinions, and ideas and taking them into account or i wouldn't have typed this blog. The point i am getting across is, don't assume the presupposition of a learned man is gospel truth, question assumptions, ask questions, and never forget that the Bible alone is the last authority not popes, councils, creeds, or tradition.

EndNotes

(1) The Resurrection and Immortality, William West, Xulon Press, 2006

(2) http://www.tektonics.org/uz/2muchshame.html

(3) Immortality: The Other Side of Death, Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Nelson:1992. (pg 164)

(4) From, Christian Apologetics

Why I Reject the Traditional View of Hell - Part 1: The Case for Annihlation

2009-03-22T23:41:00.019-04:00

Introduction: Almost a month ago i came across an interview done on the things that matter most radio program. The hosts of the show interviewed Howard Storm, a former atheist who came to Christianity because of a near death experience he had in Paris around June of 1985. To make a long story short he went to the gates of Hades and got a little beat up by the people who populated this hellish place and was saved by Jesus when he called out to him. He asked Jesus questions and when he finally came to this man had a full theology which would be proof something happen to him, this is remarkable because he knew nothing of Christianity except things he learned as a child. So if Howard after his alleged experience said okay i am a christian now so i am going to believe whatever Christians believe, he would hold to views that the majority of modern Christians hold today, but he was supposedly told things which some modern fundamentalist Christians would consider heresy. (Don't worry it's not theological doctrines like the divinity of Christ, the trinity, etc.)

Howard Storm appeared on the show a while after that to discuss his experience with the friendly atheist who sold his soul on e-bay. It was then that i learned one of the things Jesus supposedly told this man was that the lake of fire represented annihilation. Being the eternal torment guy i was i scoffed and said this man didn't see Jesus maybe it was made up after all. It was then i remembered it was because i was open enough to study other doctrines, that i discovered some modern day false teachings that are popular within Christianity today. So i thought if this guy really saw Jesus then annihilation should clearly be taught in the scriptures so i searched the scriptures putting away my biases and came to the conclusion annihilation is indeed correct. Now i will take you on my journey on how i came to believe in the doctrine of conditional immortality, all it takes is being sound hermetically and being open and honest about finding out what the scriptures really do teach.

“Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God… Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.” - Martin Luther

What Does the Bible Say?

In the book Immortality: The other side of death, Gary Habermas and JP Moreland make the case that everlasting torture is the only option available to us since God won't annihilate creatures with high intrinsic value.(1) In another portion of the book they say to annihilate someone with high intrinsic value as us human beings is indeed immoral.(2) Since i will clearly show the bible does indeed teach conditional immortality i think to say that God would be immoral to extinguish sinners at the end of history is pushing it. It's almost at the point of saying God will do something immoral which is an attack on God's goodness whether it was intended or not. Glenn Miller based his essay on hell (3) around this book by Habermas and Moreland, and he tackled the subject of hell with the presupposition that God would never annihilate his greatest creation even those who rebelled against him and lived life as though he was nothing to them, but is this true? Does the bible in fact teach that all humans will live forever it's just up to where you will spend eternity? Or is this based on a teaching that infiltrated the church when ancient Greeks started to convert to the Christian faith early in church history.

Before we answer that let's dig into certain passages of scripture to see what the bible says about life and death.

ROMANS 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord"

- Is the wages of sin death or not? Is death a code word for eternal torment, or are we forcing the Bible to agree with our tradition?

Mat 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

- Of course if you're a traditionalist you cannot take the word destruction literally.

JOHN 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

- Only those who believe in Jesus receive everlasting life. Btw, how could perish ever mean eternal torment?

GALATIONS 6:8 "The one who sows to please the sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life."

- Being a traditionalist of course you take the everlasting life part literally then come up with code words for words like destruction, perish, second death, etc.

JOHN 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

- Without your presuppositions who gets eternal life in this passage and who does not see eternal life?

MATTHEW 10:28 “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One (God) who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

- Traditionalist must say, destroy here means to preserve your body and soul in hell.

JAMES 4:12 "There is only one lawgiver and judge, the One (God) who is able to save and destroy. "

- Of course save literally means save while destroy means abide forever in torment, go figure.

This is just a sampling of what the bible teaches about what will happen to the saved and unsaved after death. There is not one place in scripture that teaches that sinners will live forever, now there are passages that seem to say that when you come to the bible with your mind made up that it teaches eternal torment and dismiss annihilation a priori but we'll get to those scriptures in part 2.

Apollumi

The greek word for perish in John 3:16 and in other obvious annihilation passages is the word apollumi. It means to destroy, to kill, to declare one must be put to death, etc. It can was used to refer to natural death and the second death. The word is translated as 'drown' in Mark 4:38 some versions have perishing. This word is also used in 1st Cor 1:18, 2Thess 2:10b, and 2nd Peter 3:9b.

Apollumi can mean lose also, for example ACTS 27:34b - “Not one of you will lose (apollumi) a single hair from your head.” It was also used to refer to losing one's own soul; LUKE 9:23-25 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose (apollumi) it, but whoever loses (apollumi) his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose (apollumi) or forfeit his very self.” See what Jesus is saying, anyone who loses his life for his sake will save his very own soul. So lose in these passages mean something you can't get back, and if lose in these obvious judgement verses mean not being in the kingdom or not being in a relationship with God then how could they lose something they never had it to begin with? Obviously it is their life they cannot get back after they're annihilated.

Jesus repeats this a couple more times in the gospels's. LUKE 17:33 “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose (apollumi) it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” And in John 12:25 “The man who loves his life will lose (apollumi) it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” The thing sinners are in danger of losing is their very own life. Also notice in John one man will keep his life for eternity while the other will lose his, not be consciously tortured for eternity.

Thanatos

The next word is the word death which in the greek is thanatos. This is used in John 8:51, James 5:20, and Revelation 2:11 when it refers to the second death.

Apoleia

The third word used in the NT to talk about the fate of the ungodly is the greek word apoleia which is translated as destruction. This word is used in passages such as 2nd Peter 3:7, Phil 3:18-19a, john 17:12b, and Romans 9:22.

Apothnesko

The next word to look at is apothnesko which is translated as die in the new testament. This simply means to cease to live. This word is used in Romans 8:13; "For if you live according to the sinful nature you will die (apothnesko); but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." This seems to refer to the second death because those who live by the spirit will die one day too. This same word is used twice in two verses in John which makes it clear it's talking about the second death.

John 11:25-26 - Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die (apothnesko), yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die (apothnesko). Do you believe this?"

It seems like Jesus just repeated himself in verse 26, but what Jesus is saying is, those who die shall live if they believe in him, yet those same people who live after they die shall never die. (i.e. they have eternal life). This is consistent with the annihilation view that only believers get everlasting life. It is important at times to point out what in fact the bible does not say. No NT passage says sinners get everlasting life, an afterlife for the ungodly is always assumed, but this verse is consistent with John 3:36 a verse which i posted above which says those who reject the Son won't even see life. Yet Jesus says here those who believe in him shall never die even though they die (i.e. natural death). If i posted all the verses in the bible which clearly say this it would be called snowballing; this is the consistent teaching throughout the Bible in both the old and new testament.

My point for posting the meaning of the words used to describe the fate of the wicked was to show that, if the writers of the new testament wanted to express that sinners will be tormented for all eternity they could have used better words than what they did in fact use. You see traditionalist automatically translate anything that has the words perish, death, destroy, and second death as separated from God for all eternity when in fact there were Hebrew and Greek words for that 'badal' and 'chorizo'. So for example Ezekiel 18:4 would read, “The soul who sins will separate (badal)” and Romans 6:23 would read, “For the wages of sin is separation (chorizo).” It is indeed true that sin separates one from God (Isa 59:2) but there is a counterbalance to that and it is not being separated from God in hell, but being born again (John 3:3-6). The sinner is already separated from God and cannot be anymore separated from him in hell but once you're born again you can have a relationship with God, but if you die still separated from God due to sin then you'll die, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

I'll encourage you to look these things up and study these matters for yourself and to not take my word for it but i would ask that you think twice about interpreting these words in a way that they are never used in the Bible.

Gehenna

Gehenna is of Hebrew origins and literally means Valley of Hinnom. It's a place located on the south side of the old Jerusalem. It's this place where we get our concept of hell from, you can look up the history on this place somewhere on the internet. But in the days of Jesus the Valley of Hinnom was the local trash dump. Anything thrown in the dump was burned up or became food for the maggots, it was this place that Jesus compared the valley to the fate of those who didn't put their trust in him. Of course Gehenna is translated as hell in the New Testament, and the reason i don't like that is because hell today is stuck in the minds of many as the place people go to get tortured for not believing in Christ. Where ever gehenna is used in the new testament it should be translated as Valley of Hinnom. For example Matthew 10:28 should literally read: “ ‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in the Valley of Hinnom.’ ”

When this is done you get a more clearer picture of hell as not a place of torture for eternity but a place where sinners go to get their punishment, death by incineration. Comparing the fate of the wicked to trash and dead bodies that thrown in the Valley of Hinnom fits the annihilation interpretation better than the eternal torment view.

Does the Bible Teach An Immortal Soul?

From the verses we've seen so far it seems the Bible teaches that immortality is a gift that you receive when you receive Christ as Lord, so that means it's not a trait human beings are born with. Paul in 2nd Timothy 1:10 said, "and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Jesus statement in John seems to be in agreement with what Paul said in 2nd Timothy when the Lord stated, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:34-36)." Notice that believers who partake in this resurrection can no longer die because they are equal to angels, but if humans are going to live forever it just depends on where you're going to spend eternity this was a rather odd thing for Jesus to say. This seems to be in line with conditional immortality which says only believers get everlasting life.

Let's go back to the Apostle Paul and see what else he has to say about "immortal humans." Romans 2:6-7 says "He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life." How can we get eternal life if humans already possess it? John 12:25 states, "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." Notice the person who loses their life here are the unbelievers while the person who believes in Jesus gets eternal life. Also in this verse whenever you see the phrase his life, the Greek word for life their is psuche which refers to the very person himself, his soul, his very being. This is the same word used in Matthew 10:28 when Jesus said, "...fear him who can destroy both body and soul (psuche) in hell." The Greek word for life in eternal life is zoe which simply means life, a common possession of all animals and men.

How this teaching crept in the church

In my opinion the immortal soul concept came from early church fathers and apologist who converted to Christianity from pagan beliefs. Tertullian supported plato's immortal soul belief and brought it to his Christian faith, he wrote “I may use, therefore, the opinion of a Plato when he declares,
‘Every soul is immortal.’(4) Athenagorus the apologist was a platonic philosopher who converted to Christianity and rejected the idea of the ungodly being annihilated. The one who made the biggest impact and single handedly made the eternal torment view of hell stick with Christianity was St. Augustine, his influence made this view the official doctrine of the Roman catholic church in the 5th century.(5) Ever since, this view has been the "traditional" view of hell even after the reformation, and it has gotten to a point where if you hold to any other view you're liberal or a heretic. At least St. Augustine could admit he wasnt infallible: “Do not follow my writings as Holy Scripture. When you find in Holy Scripture anything you did not believe before, believe it without doubt; but in my writings, you should hold nothing for certain.”(6) Scripture speaks for itself the majority view and creeds mean nothing if it isn't based on the Bible.

Conclusion

I could have made more points but i think it's clear from what i have presented that the only way you get eternal torture out of the scriptures is if you have the presupposition that souls are eternal and that annihilation isn't taught in the Bible. In part 2 i'm going to tackle the verses that seem to teach eternal torture, and i will also show the philosophical problems with eternal torture. Hopefully this will open someone's eyes to search the truth of this matter, stay tuned for the next blog.

End Notes

(1) Immortality: The Other Side of Death, Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Nelson:1992. (pg 164)

(2) Immortality: The Other Side of Death, Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Nelson:1992. (pg 173-4)

(3) http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gr5part2.html

(4) Tertullian, 3.

(5) (Buis, 61)

(6) From Augustine's Preface to the Treatise on the trinity as quoted by Boice

Death of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

2009-03-12T20:21:00.007-04:00

Introduction: Have you ever tried having a discussion with a non theist and no matter what you say they always seem to bring up pink unicorns, Santa, and the notorious flying spaghetti monster? Want a way to bypass all of the shenanigans? Well hopefully this blog will help you quiet whatever atheist you debate with. If you're familiar with the classical theist definition of God just ask the unbeliever what's the difference between what you're calling the FSM and God? Then when the person describes the FSM as God just say you agree. I also hope to clearly show that the only way the atheist can make the FSM equal with God is to strip away the characteristics of what makes the FSM spaghetti and add God-like attributes to this made up being.

Call From A Friend

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine who told me something so strange that once he was done telling me the story it made perfect sense. One day i got a call from an old pal of mine let's just call him "John." Well John calls me up one day to tell me about some new teapot that's taking the world by storm, i was perplexed and thought to myself why would he call me up and tell me about a new teapot, but since i haven't been keeping up the news lately i thought i was missing out on some new technology. So i asked him to tell me about this new teapot, he proceeds to tell me that this new teapot is a machine that can get on the internet , it has a keyboard so you can type, it downloads and uploads media files and you can add also add software to this teapot, by the way it's got the fastest connection in the world, but it cost like ten-thousand dollars. After describing the teapot to me i told him John you know you just described a computer right. He goes no I didn't, it's a teapot.

I respond by saying look a teapot holds liquid in it, he goes "no not this teapot this one is different." I say only computers can get on the internet, he responds almost the same way "not anymore" he laughed. I was starting to feeling like my intelligence was being insulted so i thought i would throw out the trump card to end this ridiculous discussion, so i asked John, "what is the difference between the teapot and a computer?" Why call one a teapot and the other a computer if they share the same descriptions and can do basically the same thing? All i could hear was silence for about 10 seconds so i called out to John to see if he was still there, but he responded quickly with "i'm thinking." I said, there's nothing to think about they're both the same thing i don't know if this is a sick joke or anything but i'm starting to feel like you're insulting my intelligence. John says no this is no joke, but i think you're right, i gotta go now and he hung up.

Death of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

The story is to illustrate what i see in my discussions with atheist who want to mock God by coming up with something as silly as the flying spaghetti monster. When you point out the flaws in the FSM they arbitrarily give this deity attributes that can only be given to a metaphysical necessary being, who is immaterial, and personal. The discussion might go something like the story above but just a little different watch;

Theist: So that's why i think these arguments show us why God exist and was the cause of the cosmos.

Atheist: I reject your argument but if true why not assert the FSM is that being who created the universe.

Theist: Well for one the argument from contingency i gave shows that God if he exist is uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and personal. This alone shows that the FSM isn't anything like the being i am describing.

Atheist: Oh no, that's where you're wrong because the FSM is uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and personal also. Now prove me wrong that the FSM didn't create the universe.

Theist: But wait you're not describing flying spaghetti anymore because spaghetti isn't anything like the things i described.

Atheist: No the FSM is just like your God and has the same amount of evidence to back up it's existence.

Theist: Now you're just describing God by giving this FSM the same attributes as God. So when you bring up the FSM as a parody of God, you're basically arguing that God has the same amount of evidence to back up it's existence as God. You're the same as the person who calls a teapot a computer but strips the characteristics of what makes a teapot a teapot and replaces it with characteristics that describe a computer, then the person erroneously calls the teapot a computer. It makes no sense at all.

Atheist: This is making my head hurt

Theist: Well maybe your brain is made up of noodles, but your sad attempt to make a parody of God based on a pasta dish is seriously flawed, time to go back to the drawing board and think of other ways to mock God instead of coming up with serious argumentation.

Let's Get Serious

This is where the atheist will come in and say i don't get that the FSM was originally intended to mock the Intelligent design movement. Well maybe if they understood what the ID movement was all about Bobby Henderson would have never come up with such a dumb character. At best the FSM shows that you shouldn't try to identify the designer based on design alone, or you cannot know the attributes of the designer based on design alone, but this is what ID advocates have been saying since the beginning. The same parody meant to mock ID reinforces the point ID advocates have been trying to make and this shows that ID isn't creationism in a cheap tuxedo.

Conclusion

If the traditional arguments for God's existence are correct then the FSM can hardly be an explanation for the cause of the cosmos so therefore he couldn't be the metaphysical neccasary being those arguments need him to be. Unless you strip the FSM of what makes the FSM spaghetti and give him God-like attributes then you're not talking about the FSM anymore you're talking about God which brings you back to square one. The flying spaghetti monster is dead, he is only alive in the minds of lay persons who simply are out of touch with natural theology.

The Shame Of It All

2009-01-20T16:09:00.010-05:00

The Meaning of the Cross

Crucifixion was one of the taboo subjects in ancient times, it stuck fear into the hearts of everyone in Rome and nations under Roman control (although the Romans didn't invent crucifixion.) Crucifixion was seen as so bad in ancient times that Josephus reported that a Jewish garrison stationed at Machaerus surrendered to the Romans when a fellow Jewish prisoner was threatened with crucifixion.{1} But one thing i have always noticed from preachers when learning about the crucifixion of Jesus was the pain and suffering that he endured.

While it is true that Christ endured a lot of physical pain on the cross this doesn't seem to be the main focus of the scriptures or the culture Jesus lived in. Maybe the best way to begin to explain this is by looking at scripture first. Hebrew 12:2 tells us, "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

In his writings to the Corinthians Paul tells them he is not ashamed of the cross. Quintilian when writing about crucifixion he wrote that people who were crucified were hung on busy roads.{2} This had two purposes in my opinion, one was to put fear in the hearts of those who went to and fro on the roads, and the second was to shame the person who was being crucified. Not only was crucifixion painful it was also shameful and being shamed was probably more painful than the physical pain itself in ancient honor and shame cultures.

Just think about being hung naked on a cross, the nailing or tying of your hands and feet symbolized a loss of power, and you were insulted and ridiculed while being crucified. Again i would like to stress this point; not only was crucifixion to bring you physical pain and sometimes the Romans did things to prolong the pain, but crucifixion was to humiliate you and bring any honor you did have in your community to zero at the moment you were on the cross, because in ancient times only the worst of the worst got crucified.

Be Ashamed Be Very Ashamed

More could be said about crucifixions and how bad it was to be crucified in the eyes on the ancients. I didn't even scratch the surface on this, hopefully if you're interested you'll do more studying on how crucifixions were looked at in ancient times. Now i want to move onto something else, with this knowledge that we have of what crucifixions were suppose to do to you (cause pain and embarrassment/shame) let's look at this information and apply it to the new testament text.

I have already mentioned how Paul said he was unashamed of the cross of Christ. You see this might not seem like much today in our western 21st century culture but back then it had to be very tempting to be ashamed of preaching about a crucified savior. Now you can see why Christians were mocked and ridiculed for centuries when crucifixion was seen as a "honor snatcher." Now maybe we can understand why under this honor/shame concept why Jesus would warn his disciples about not denying him and putting him before yourself, not only because he is Lord but maybe also because of the humiliation of crucifixion and how it was looked at at the time.

Hell

Looking at the honor/shame concept changes our view of hell also especially when you think of the atheist arguments like "Jesus didn't suffer enough to pay for all sins." Skeptics just like most Christians focus on the pain or how long he was on the cross enduring physical pain, but the question isn't about quantity (of pain) but quality (of being shamed). This totally destroys the atheist argument under the honor/shame concept because you don't need to argue about an infinite offense or deal with any mathematical-value.

Concluding Thoughts

While i could have went more into detail this blog was meant to get you interested into studying the crucifixion in the ways the ancients saw it and more importantly, scripture. Hopefully you'll look at scripture and see that Jesus bore our shame, don't get me wrong pain is apart of that but not the main thing. Sermons on Easter go more into detail about the Roman cat of nine tails than it does the shame Jesus endured on the cross which is what the scriptures seem to focus on. By next blog will be on hell, a topic/subject i never really liked talking about but i found out some interesting things that challenged my thoughts on hell, and they all came from scripture.

Edit - I will get to the subject of hell later as i've discovered some new things which challenges the traditional view of hell.

Endnotes

{1} Josephus Jewish War (6:4)

{2} Quintilian (Decl 274)

Some Info on Crucifixion & Jesus Bearing Our Shame

{1} http://www.joezias.com/CrucifixionAntiquity.html

{2} http://www.bible.com/bibleanswers_result.php?id=126

{3} http://www.dpmuk.org/Mobile/default.aspx?article_id=109271

Reliability of the New Testament Text

2008-11-26T01:54:00.003-05:00

Dr. James White gives a presentation on the reliability of the New Testament Text.

Jesus Was Right

2008-10-31T11:18:00.035-04:00

Matthew 16:28 - Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

Introduction: I came across a real treat today on You Tube, there is a video which tries to prove Jesus prophecy in the olivet discourse wrong, in the end it became a trick, a real bad one at that. His name is ProfMTH he claims to be a college professor & administrator on his page, but the poorly researched 5 part series makes him look like your average unbelieving teenager who believes everything he reads when it disproves Christianity. In a long list of books he supposedly likes, there is not one Christian author. (this knowledge will come in handy later)

If you read my blog on "Can Christians Just Follow the Evidence" I stated that atheist and other unbelievers believe anything as long as it disproves the Bible, it doesn't matter if the argument is good or not. This is the perfect case of that, my purpose is not to take a shot at his rep, but to show you that most unbelievers take what other unbelievers say as gospel truth but anything a Christian says is critically examined, which it should be. Just be unbiased and critically examine what your fellow unbelievers say or you'll look like the unbeliever who said the Bible says there is no God while misquoting Psalms 14:1.

My job is not to go through the olivet discourse verse by verse but to point out the flaws in the video, especially part 4 which wrongly dealt with preterism. This should be a pretty quick refutation of the video.

Ignorant

ProfMTH dismisses hyperbole and exaggeration as silly while he says, Christians say, "Jesus is just talking" in a mocking type voice. His knowledge of the biblical text is shocking low for someone who is, well read on his liberal scholars, a college professors, and one of his favorite things to discuss is religion. With most of his videos being against the Christian religion you would think he would be well versed in biblical knowledge like the liberal scholars he studies so much. ProfMTH says "I wonder why Christians who make these silly claims take seriously anything Jesus said, if this, the mini apocalypse in Mark 13 can be chalked up to mere exaggeration and hyperbole." I don't want to jump ahead of myself but he wrongly equates A "coming" of Christ with THE coming of Christ.

Secondly, ProfMTH doesn't seem to know that hyperbole and exaggeration is used throughout Jesus' ministry and scripture, old and new testament. When speaking about judging others Jesus says in Matthew 7:3-4:

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?"

Obviously Jesus isn't literally saying people have logs and specks in their eye. Here Jesus is speaking of hypocritical judgment not grooming your fellow man. Jesus also speaks of camels going through the eye of needles, chopping off your arm, and plucking out your eyes. These are clearly exaggerations to get across a point.

"Coming" on the clouds

ProfMTH gives preterism a thumbs up for not trying to explain away the plain reading of the olivet discourse. Of course there is a down side, he claims that we preterist spiritualize the coming on the clouds who his 1st century audience was suppose to see. He claims that preterist have disagreements in itself like this is relevant as to the meaning of the olivet discourse. His biggest argument in the video exposes his lack of knowledge when it comes to preterism. He points out that in Mark 13:26 the word see in the Greek means "to look at" & "to behold." A quick study of preterism and ProfMTH would have known the argument is about the type of "coming" of Jesus not actually the seeing of his coming.

So what type of coming was Jesus talking about. We need to look at the Greek to find this out. One word translated as 'coming' used in the Greek in the gospels is 'parouisa.' This is used in Matthew 24 verses 3 & 27, in fact Matthew is the only gospel writer to use this word. The word simply means presence or arrival. Here are a few examples of how it is used:

2 Cor. 10:10 For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence(parousia) is weak, and his speech contemptible.

1 Cor. 16:17 I am glad of the coming (parousia) of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for that which was lacking on your part they have supplied.

In pre-new testament literature through the second century 'parousia' was used to refer to the coming or arrival of a king, ruler or emperor. In some hellenistic contexts it was used to refer to a theophany, or a manifestation of deity.

The other Greek word is erchomai. I'll show a few examples of how this word was used in he gospel:

Matt. 2:2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come (erchomai) to worship him.

John 5:59 says, "Then they took up stones to throw at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by."

"Going through" in this last verse is the word 'dierchomai.' As Christian scholar JP Holding would put it, the point of the last two examples were to show that the words, "say nothing about the means or process or "arrival" or of the direction, the destination, or whether from the sky or however." With the word parousia the nature of the "coming" is to be determined by further context since it had many meanings around this time.

Something ProfMTH didn't point out was Jesus refering to himself as the Son of Man. The Son of Man was someone in the book of Daniel who was taken to the ancient of days and given a kingdom that would last forever. Daniel 7:13-14 says,

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

In Daniel the Son of Man came on the clouds of heaven and was heading in which direction? He was headed towards the ancient of days.

The trial

Matthew 26:64 - Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven

"Coming" in this verse is the word 'erchomai.' Knowing what we now about "coming" and knowing about the Son of Man heading on the clouds of heaven to the ancient of days. This verse makes more sense now that we know what the coming is referring to. With reference to this verse Christian scholar N.T. Wright stated, Jesus is not saying that Caiaphas would one day walk by a window, look outside, and see Jesus popping a wheelie on a cumulus. Rather Jesus is saying, "you will see me vindicated; you will see my prediction come true." Jesus' prophecy became a scary reality when the Romans in 70 A.D. marched down to Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and left carnage in their wake.

What ProfMTH wouldn't touch

In his mad dash to discredit Jesus and therefore Christianity ProfMTH left out a whole lot of verses which would prove his whole video series wrong on a number of points. After Jesus mentions the destruction of the temple, later on the mount of olives his disciples asked him some pretty interesting question.

Matthew 24:3 - And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

In the parellel passages the verses say this,

Mark 13:4 - Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?

Luke 21:7 - Then they asked him, "Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?"

ProfMTH and Christians who hold unto the left behind and futurist interpretation of this need to realize the end of the world is not in view here. First off only Matthew mentions this question about the end of the world. Secondly, the word in that verse that is translated as world isn't even referring to the physical world. The word translated as world in this verse comes from the Greek word 'aion' which simply means age. To make a long story short the end of the age refers to the destruction of the temple and the end of the old covenant. If this was refering to the physical world, the Greek word 'kosmos' would have been used instead of 'aion.'

Apocalyptic imagery

ProfMTH himself probably thinks that even if he is wrong in some places, that he is right in the end because even if some of the signs Jesus mentioned happened in the first century the stars, falling the from heaven, the sun going dark, and the moon not giving her light never happened in the first century, so Jesus was wrong on that part. As with the exaggerations and hyperbole he seems ignorant of the literary devices used in ancient Israel, probably because he think of them as ancient dummies who didn't know anything, and as a modern man he's above these peasants.

The sun, moon, and stars are used throughout the old Bible to represent nations and people. The book of Revelation known for it's symbolism uses the object in the heavens to represent whatever the author wanted to get across, it's up to the person reading to uncode the message, like the famous 666 verse. In Psalms 96:13 God says he will come in judgment, does that equate to him being physically on Earth to judge the people on it? Not at all. Let's look at three verses to see some apoctolytic imagery.

Isaiah 13:10 - The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

Isaiah 34:3-5 - Their slain shall be cast out, their corpses shall send up a stench; The mountains shall run with their blood,and all the hills shall rot; The heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll, and all their host shall wither away, As the leaf wilts on the vine, or as the fig withers on the tree. When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, lo, it shall come down in judgment upon Edom, a people I have doomed.

Ezekiel 32:6-8 -I will drench the land with your flowing blood all the way to the mountains, and the ravines will be filled with your flesh. When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you; I will bring darkness over your land, declares the Sovereign LORD.

These are all examples of apocalyptic imagery, they are not meant to be taken literally, like God sitting on a physical throne. God is judging Babylon, Edom, and Egypt in these verses, of course those things didn't happen because that wasn't the intent. We don't interpret the Bible using our 21st century way of thinking, we must interpret the Bible within it's own time and culture.

Conclusion

This turned out longer than what i planned on typing out. I hope people like ProfMTH would listen more to the Christian side, all he had to do was do a little research, but when you're filled with pride and hate a religion so much and don't do the research you end up looking ignorant in the end. Things like this make me study both sides before I come to a conclusion on something; he admitted to not reading Christian responses to the olivet discourse, so how do you come to the conclusion that Jesus was wrong without looking at both sides first? This is what i am talking about when i say unbelievers swallow anything as long as it doesn't prove wrong their current beliefs or is a positive argument for a belief they do not have. I hated to take someone older than me to the woodshed but it had to be done.

Preterism by the way is becoming more popular in Christian eschatology, hopefully more Christians will learn about it, and drop the left behind propaganda in the garbage where it belongs. In the end Jesus was proven right, the only one proven wrong was ProfMTH and his band of unbelieving misfits.

(11/1/08) - After contacting ProfMTH about this blog he says he won't look at it because he doesn't want to go "fishing through a blog" even though i gave him a direct link to the blog. Seems to me he doesn't want to let his fans know that he has been debunked. I even asked him to put the link to this blog in the information box on his video. He responded with a "not gonna happen." So there you have it, another unbeliever who wants to believe his garbage because it proves Jesus wrong and therefore Christianity.

Can Christians Just Follow the Evidence?

2008-10-28T17:02:00.015-04:00

Introduction: I want to address this statement that i am hearing Christians use. The statement goes something like this: Christians can just follow the evidence where ever it leads, while atheist are forcefully married to evolution theory or naturalism.

While listening to Christian Philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig's defenders podcast doctrine on creation part 5 i heard a statement similar to that. Unlike Dr. Craig i am a young Earth creationist, but ironically i like Dr. Craig am not fixed on my view; and we as curious laymen are interested and look forward to looking into the theory of origins and diversity of life more deeply. I'm not dogmatic anymore, in the past i was a zealot claiming the literal interpretation of Genesis was the only acceptable view a true Christian could accept. Though i stopped being dogmatic long ago the defender's podcast put the nail in the coffin for me.

Dr. Craig: Christians can just follow the evidence

I waited to hear the rest of the podcast before i commented but it seems Dr. Craig has moved on pass the Biblical narrative of creation so i think it is right to comment on what i heard on the podcast. Is it true that Christians can just follow the evidence no matter where it leads? Yes, i think so, and it's time Christians start proclaiming this, even if they hold to a particular view. A Christian that has an open mind and looks at the evidence for and against their view shows that they're sincere in their quest for truth and they can just follow the evidence. I'll explain why later.

The question now should be when does evidence conflict with the Biblical narrative of creation; or better yet, would evidence ever conflict with the Bible. So a Christian can be a theistic evolutionist although i don't agree with some of what they say, i'll get to that later though. I want to try and tackle some of Dr. Craig's arguments against a literal interpretation of Genesis. Although i will state, theistic evolution is as close as you can get before the 'evidence' starts pushing you away from the God of the Bible.

Dr. Craig's beef with a literal interpretation

The big argument from Dr. Craig seemed to be that once you get out of the literal interpretation of Genesis you really don't know how God created the plants & animals. I don't know what Dr. Craig means by "once you get out of the literal interpretation of Genesis." Even within the literal interpretation of Genesis we know that God created and that is all that matters. His problem with this view is that when God creates the trees for example it would be like watching a movie on fast forward so obviously these are long periods of time in the Genesis narrative.

While on the surface that does seem reasonable when you think more about it, is the Biblical record of creation dogmatic that God created five story redwood tree's every 10 sq inches all over the Earth in 24 hours or does the biblical narrative simply say God created trees on the Earth. Maybe i'm wrong but i think Dr. Craig is looking at today's world and tries to compare it to God's original creation of the trees God created on/in a certain day or age which we have no idea what it may have looked like. This argument begs the question in my opinion because it assumes a long period of time is needed. It looks something like this:

A. God couldn't create trees on the Earth in 24 hours

B. If God created trees on Earth then obviously it took a long period of time.

So even if God needed to use some sort of fast forward time warp to create trees and plants, this isn't impossible, just because this explanation doesn't sit well with one doesn't mean it should be rejected on that basis. After all God didn't create a baby Adam, did he? Although it should be noted that this isn't the only reason Dr. Craig rejects a literal interpretation of Genesis, secondly he even admits that it is one of many legitimate interpretations of Genesis although he thinks that it is wrong. I have tried to show that this fast forward creation theory is not necessarily needed in the literal interpretation of Genesis. In short what i am proposing is that God could have created enough trees so that overtime we get our rain forest and Redwood forest.

My beef with theistic evolution

I do believe Christians can just follow the evidence, but i do have my problems with theistic evolution. Dr. Craig is right though when he says that we don't know the mechanism's God used to created the animals because God said "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after their kind" (Gen -1:24). It is also stated in Genesis that God said let the water bring forth the fowls on the air and the marine creatures. (Gen - 1:20). Maybe in time my views will change once i study this subject more but it seem to me that in reading Genesis that the animals, plants, and humans do not have a common ancestor.

No where through the 66 books of the Bible does it even hint that humans and animals are related. That may be an argument from silence but when I read the Genesis narrative God is naming and creating different kind of animals, even in the same day/age. Dr. Craig or a theistic evolutionist may say that the author of Genesis is not trying to give us a police report of what God did over those long ages. The author of Genesis doesn't have to give a police report to hint at everything he created are related, in fact stating that plants, animals, and humans evolved from some lower life form(s) is the quickest way to make the point. Going through the six days/ages of creation seems like a police report compared to that. What was the point of going through the six days/ages of creation then, besides showing God is the creator of all.

Some in the theistic evolution camp claim that Adam was not a historical person. That is just off the wall to me. This is just a case of eisegesis, shoving your interpretation onto the text and claiming Adam to be myth. The Bible clearly treats Adam as a real historical person. In the gospel of Luke Jesus' genealogy is traced back through King David, Abraham, Noah, and some guy named Adam. In the book of Genesis itself Noah is traced to Adam. So when does the Bible start to get historical? How can anyone tell? So when it gets to Jesus or the patriarchs all of the sudden the Bible is speaking history now? This type of theistic evolution belief surely has no biblical basis, yet this says nothing about evolution it just says this hermeneutic should be rejected. Darwinism though is a slippery slope that Christians who believe in it need to watch out for.

The old ball and chain

Right after mentioning "once you get out of the literal interpretation of Genesis you really don't know how God created the plants & animals" and how "Christians can just follow the evidence where ever it leads," he brings up how atheist are forcefully married to the evolution theory. To this i say I am again going to agree with Dr. Craig, but then on the other hand I'm going to disagree also. It is true that evolution is the only game in town for atheist but i think atheist are more susceptible to believing nonsense.

In my experience with atheist i have noticed that they will generally believe anything as long as it disproves God, especially the God of the Bible or the supernatural. Even if the explanation or argument isn't even sound or right out bogus, that's better than God to them. Everything though else is fair game even if there is zero evidence for it. Most atheist i know talk about life evolving on other planets and parallel universes like this is the #1 fact in the whole world. Again this is my experience, though the most "rational" atheist only accept evolution as fact.

Conclusion

Surprisingly i agree with Dr. Craig, for those that know me know that i was once a fierce proponent of young earth creationism. But hey you live and learn, although i am still a young earth creationist, i don't hold onto it at all cost. Christians can actually follow the evidence even though Christianity is constantly equated with young earth creationism in pop culture. Although I believe God ultimately is responsible for life being here on Earth, i really can't say how he did it.

Atheist on the other hand are forced to accept neo-Darwinism, basically because it's the only game in town, although they seem to believe things that have no evidence behind it, as long as the conclusion doesn't point to a supernatural being everything is fair game.

The Kingdom of Heaven

2008-09-26T21:47:00.002-04:00

Introduction: The point of this article is to deal with my personal pet peeves and the inconsistencies that i see within the church, and one of these inconsistencies include the nature & coming of the kingdom of heaven (KOH from now on). This is part 1 of an unknown number of parts.

Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand

The preaching of the KOH is one of the first things that is taught according to the Synoptic Gospels. Even the infamous Jesus seminar believes that Jesus taught about a soon coming kingdom in which Jesus himself would be the head of. If it is true that the historical Jesus taught about a coming kingdom that he will be the head of then that begs the question, what type of kingdom will it be? Is it a heavenly military style invasion of Earth by Jesus and his saints where he sits on a literal throne and rules for a literal one-thousand years? Or is the KOH liken unto a "...mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches." (Matt. 13:31-33)

I think this verse clearly teaches that over time the KOH will start small and then grow into something huge. Yet some Christians believe that the KOH will come in full force at the supposed "second coming" of Christ. But it's apparent to me that scripture doesn't teach this. Not once in scripture does Jesus in his many parables liken the KOH unto a literal political or military movement where us human beings by our actions whether believers or not can bring about or help usher in the KOH. Yet we see that Jesus says in John 18:36 that: "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." (John 18:36)

We also see in Luke chapter 17 verses 20 & 21, "And when the Pharisees put questions to him about when the kingdom of God would come, he gave them an answer and said, The kingdom of God will not come through observation: And men will not say, See, it is here! or, There! for the kingdom of God is among you." Yet according to the dispensationalist every eye(the whole Earth) will see Jesus when he comes on a cloud to set up his kingdom. Seems to me that the kingdom was already at hand. Oops!

Did the Kingdom of Heaven Come?

Well did the KOH come? If you say that the KOH hasn't come yet what do you do with Mark 1:14-15 which says, Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." Why would Jesus preach that the kingdom was at hand to his 1st century audience if the kingdom wouldn't come until centuries later? If you say Jesus preached to the people of his day to get ready to participate in the KOH, this doesn't help you out because it still doesn't explain why Jesus would preach to the people of his day to get ready to participate in the KOH when after being dead and in heaven for 2,000 years they're still waiting to participate in the kingdom. It just doesn't add up to me.

Moreover if you read about the image in Nebuchadnezzars dream(a story futurist love) in Daniel chapter 2, if you read that in context you'll see that in the midst of the 4th kingdom another kingdom will be set up. Even in some futurist circles the 4th kingdom is definitely Rome. So it's clear to me that according to Daniel 2:44 that a kingdom will be set up and will stand forever. For my dispensationalist brothers and sisters just read the sermon on the mount and look at how many times Jesus talked about the KOH and tell me how that makes sense in a futurist sense.

Dan 2:44 "And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will put up a kingdom which will never come to destruction, and its power will never be given into the hands of another people, and all these kingdoms will be broken and overcome by it, but it will keep its place for ever."

The Jesus of Dispensationalism

Since dispensationalist claim to believe the bible (i have no reason to doubt this) how do they harmonize a verse like Matthew 18:28 in which Jesus says, "... All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." Take that and add it in with these other things: the kingdom of God is at hand, the prophecy in Daniel 2, Jesus saying the kingdom of God is among you. Now look at dispensationalist who say Jesus cannot set up his kingdom until he comes back out of the sky and engages in combat with black cobra helicopters and defeat a world dictator known as anti-christ. I don't mean to be insulting but the Jesus in this eschatological view is a thumb twiddling deity waiting on the actions of man to bring about his kingdom. This Jesus is not being the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that the Bible says he is.

Inconsistencies within dispensationalism

Dispensationalist love the fact that they take the Bible literally when it comes to the end times and they claim that Preterist just spiritualize everything especially the book of revelation. When Jesus says that the sun will go dark and the moon will not give it's light, we need to take this literally. Yet when this same Jesus says the kingdom of God is at hand or when the book of revelation says God showed his servants things that which must shortly take place, (Rev 1:1) dispensationalist don't take this literally they just futurize it. Well I want to pose a challenge to my disposationist brethern, how exactly do you deal with these verses?

Act 1:11- "O men of Galilee, why are you looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come again, in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

Rev 19:11-13 - "Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God."

As a former dispensationalist i believe i am using these verses correctly, both verses supposedly refer to Jesus' literal "second coming." Yet if you hold to this, a number of inconsistencies pop up. You may call this picky but i would have to disagree if you call yourself a literalist. Notice in Acts Jesus leaves in a cloud, not on a horse and is suppose to "come" back in like manner, in the book of Revelation he returns not on a cloud but on a horse. In Acts Jesus ascended to heaven alone and is to return in like manner, but in the book of revelation Jesus comes back with the armies of heaven.

In Rev 19:18(the same chapter that describes Jesus' literal second coming a few verses earlier) it says that at the great supper of God the birds of the air will eat the "flesh of horses and their riders." For a group of people who think Jesus will engage humans with modern warfare at his second "coming" who on Earth today fights wars on horses, not even the poorest nation would dare go to war on horses. Which nation will come to the battle of all battles 'Armageddon' on horses. I digress. Someone please help me out with that, but please don't futurize the word horse to make it mean tank. That would be just silly. I think you get the point now, these verses crumbles the "left behind" worldview, so to my dispensationalist friends, do you take these verses literally or not. How do you explain them away?

Conclusion

I think it is rather silly to insert modern idea's into the Bible, let's allow the Bible to interpret the Bible. As I look back to my days of listening to the John Hagee's of the world with his big boards with graphs and charts showing planes crashing because the pilots were "raptured," i think of how much of a sheep I was even though I knew in my heart it was rather weird to look at the olivet discourse as a future event, i kept suppressing the truth. I was introduced to preterism via JP Holding's site tektonics.org. Even though this view seemed heretical to me on the surface, as i studied it some more it just made more sense out of the Bible when it talked about the end of the "world."

I would encourage anyone interested to study Preterism and see if it doesn't make more sense than the left behind garbage. I'll post links to certain sites so you can look into preterism, because there are some heretics out there claiming to be preterist but they just simply aren't. So let me reiterate my concluding message: Let the Bible interpret the Bible.

Preterist sites (For learning purposes)

http://www.tektonics.org/esch/eschatology.html

http://www.preteristsite.com/

http://www.preteristsite.com/plain/warrenend.html (Commentary on the Olivet Discourse)

http://www.forerunner.com/daniel/daniel.html (The Prophecy of Daniel in Preterist Perspective)

http://www.preteristblog.com/

Ancient Tablet, Messiah, & Resurrection

2008-07-07T14:30:00.000-04:00

Uh Oh!

The other day I read an article about an ancient tablet that dates to a few decades before Christ which supposedly speaks of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. For the sake of argument let's assume both of these claims are true. This rocks modern scholarship which says Christianity arose in a vacuum. It was said the Jews weren't expecting a messiah who would die more less expect a messiah to die and rise again. I may be wrong but this kind of thinking came from non-Christian scholars and Christian apologist ran with it to bolster the argument that the disciples of Jesus believed he rose from the dead, even to the contrary of Jewish belief about a kingly messiah who will overthrow the Romans.

I agree with Mr. Boyarin of the University of California at Berkley when he said, "Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism." I believe the majority of Christians will find this exciting and I am apart of this group. Although the debate continues about whether Simon was to messiah referred to on the stone or not, and on the stone a lot of text are missing but if it turns out the tablet is authentic and it speaks of a messiah who will rise after 3 days this should shake our perception of the rise of Christianity and not in a negative way either. I will update this section later if anything important comes out later.

Update -7/10/2008 - When i first wrote this blog i looked at it in a way that assumed it talked about a messiah who would rise after 3 days. But after thinking about it for a few days there is no reason to see the text talking about a messiah or even someone coming back to life after 3 days. I think the argument still stands today that the Jews had no belief that a man would rise from the dead in the middle of human history.

Biologists and Philosophers Declare War on Neo-Darwinism

2008-03-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

Evolution Civil War

This July the first shots of a brutal civil war will be waged in Altenburg, Austria. Am I over exaggerating? I don't think so. You see a group dubbed "the Altenburg 16" will meet in Altenburg to discuss a new theory of evolution. This group of 16 biologist and philosophers are aware that the theory of evolution taught in college universities are inadequate in explaining why we are here. They also question how large of a role natural selection plays in evolution over a long period of time. If this isn't an assault on the current evolution theory then i don't know what is neo-Darwinists will not take this lying down I assume. There are plenty of practicing biologist and laymen who accept evolution as absolute truth and to attack their belief will not come without a bloody civil war. My prediction is that the Altenburg 16 will be defeated with ease because the neo-Darwinist are great at using the media to sway the population into believing "lying mantra's" about any one who disagrees with the theory of evolution.

I have a feeling these men and one woman will be painted as right wing, bible banging, fundamentalist baptist for having a meeting to discuss other mechanism's that drive evolution.(forget the fact most of them loathe Christianity) It's not that alone, Stanley Stalthe a member of the infamous Altenburg 16 put it best when he said, "Oh sure natural selection's been demonstrated. . . the interesting point, however, is that it has rarely if ever been demonstrated to have anything to do with evolution in the sense of long-term changes in populations. . . . Summing up we can see that the import of the Darwinian theory of evolution is just unexplainable caprice from top to bottom. What evolves is just what happened to happen."{1} This is exactly what Creationist have been saying all along yet we get called anti-science and narrow minded just for stating the obvious, while the evolutionist just say "give it enough time." Well sorry I don't have that kind of faith.

Natural Selection & Evolution

Have you ever had a conversation with a believer in evolution? Don't they always seem to give you examples of natural selection and think they're proving to you that evolution is true. For example in a conversation one evolutionist might say to a creationist;

Evolutionist: Have you heard about the research findings regarding mouse evolution?

Creationist: Are you referring to the finding of coat color change in beach mice?

Evolutionist: Yes, isn’t it a wonderful example of evolution in action?

Creationist: No, I think it’s a good example of natural selection in action, which is merely selecting information that already exists.

Evolutionist: Well, what about antibiotic resistance in bacteria? Don’t you think that’s a good example of evolution occurring right before our eyes?

Creationist: No, you seem to be confusing the terms “evolution” and “natural selection.”

Evolutionist: But natural selection is the primary mechanism that drives evolution.

Creationist: Natural selection doesn’t drive molecules-to-man evolution; you are giving natural selection a power that it does not have—one that can supposedly add new information to the genome, as molecules-to-man evolution requires. But natural selection simply can’t do that because it works with information that already exists.{2}

As you can see natural selection is not a threat to Creation at all in fact it is best explained by Creation. Natural selection according to pbs.org is described as: the process by which genetic traits are passed on to each successive generation. Over time, natural selection helps species become better adapted to their environment. Also known as "survival of the fittest," natural selection is the driving force behind the process of evolution."{3} Natural selection is best explained by a creator who knew his creation would be dealing with changing environments, not some blind force that somehow tries to keep the strongest species alive.

Possible Outcome

If it is indeed true that the 16 will be trying to come up with a new synthesis for the evolution theory then I truly believe evolution is crumbling. Darwin didn't come up with natural selection but he did make it popular to those who want to deny a creator at all cost. The only way evolution can survive in the future is to find another mechanism, Massimo Pigliucci one of the fab 16 thinks that epigenetic inheritance can be one of those mechanism's. Any who i believe biologist particularly are scared to speak up that the evolution taught today in school cannot be true or at least isn't the full story. There is no doubt evolutionist will try to find another mechanism to drive evolution, the problem is what they have today isn't sufficient enough to warrant a belief in evolution, but if you want to deny God then almost anything seems plausible when faced with belief in God.

It doesn't matter whether or not "the Altenburg 16" want to destroy neo-Darwinism (they don't) or make it better, the fact that what we have today doesn't add up to molecule to man evolution is a big blow to the theory in my opinion. Therefore with this meeting in Altenburg the evolution civil war will begin and it might end the theory of evolution as we know it.

Reference

{1} http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00051.htm

{2} http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/is-natural-selection-evolution

{3} http://www.pbs.org/strangedays/glossary/N.html

Physical Constants, Arbitrary Quantities, and God

2008-03-02T13:35:00.000-05:00

In my last entry I showed how it is reasonable to believe in God. In this blog I hope to make the fine tuning part make a little more sense. I talked a lot about the fine tuning of the big bang and other things, now i want to define some terms. What does it mean to be fined tuned? Well before we define this word it is important to point out, when it comes to fine tuning there are two sorts of quantities of the initial conditions of the universe. (i.e. the big bang)

1. Constants of nature a.k.a. Fundamental physical constants.

When the laws of nature are expressed as an mathematical equation you find appearing in them certain constants that are the same across the board. For example take Newtons law of gravity. F is equaled to a certain gravitational constant. Let's say you wanted to find out the gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth, M1 is the mass of the Sun and M2 is the mass of the Earth. Once you find that out you multiple them then divide it by R2 which is the distance between them. To put it another way, just take (G) times the mass of one object times the mass of another object divided by the square of the distance between them. G can have any of a wide range of values and the law will still hold. It will still be true that the force (F) is equal to that constant (G) times the product of the masses divided by the distance between them squared. There is no natural law that determines why these constants have the value that they do. This is what is meant by physical constants.

2. Arbitrary quantities a.k.a. Initial conditions.

These are arbitrary quantities that are put in the beginning of the universe which then the law of nature operate. An example would be the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

According the the 2nd law of thermodynamics entropy is always increasing as energy is defused and as the universe comes to equilibrium . This shows at the beginning of the universe there was an arbitrary quantity at the beginning of the universe. Once this arbitrary quantity was put in at the beginning of the universe the laws of nature operated on this initial condition. These constants and quantities had to be fined tuned to a degree so precise it makes biological evolution blush. Still what is the meaning of fine tuned?

Fine Tuned for Life

One way to figure out if something is fined tuned is by showing if the quantity or constant were to be altered even a little bit the universe would cease to be life permitting. Another way to understand fine tuning is by calculating the life permitting range with the life prohibiting range. When you do this you will find that the life permitting range is so small that the odds of this constant or quantity falling in the life permitting range is next to infinitesimal.

Conclusion: Two meanings of fine tuning:

1. You consider the actual value the constant of quantity have and you show if it were altered slightly one way or another the universe wouldn’t be life permitting.

Consider the life permitting range of a constant or quantity compared to the range of possible values and you show it’s so small that the odds of it happening by chance alone as vanishing small.

Is it Reasonable to Believe in God?

2008-02-13T22:55:00.000-05:00

Einstein was Wrong?

Early last century Albert Einstein held onto a belief called the 'static universe.' Einstein didn't like the idea of an universe with a beginning so this model fit his beliefs perfectly. Later in his life he changed his mind, the evidence that changed his mind about the static model came from astronomers studying the light from distant galaxies, it was then that redshift was observed. Most famous for making this discovery was Edwin Hubble for he showed that the further a galaxy is the faster it is moving away. Therefore the further back in time you go the galaxies themselves come closer together until everything including space, time, matter, and energy itself is jammed pack into something called the singularity from which they have their origin. The singularity is an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense region, and no one knows where it came from. But this is what expanded and created our universe.

Thus Einstein was wrong (blasphemy) the universe did have a beginning. This was a big blow to atheist physicist and astronomers who didn't want God as a possible explanation for the existence of the universe. Einstein later became a deist. My point in telling that story was to show you how evidence lead to the 'conversion' of Einstein the most influential person of the 20th century. Granted, Einstein wasn't a fundamentalist, Bible banging, born again baptist, but he did believe in God as creator. What would it take for you Mr. or Ms. atheist/agnostic to be convinced God indeed does exist?

Intelligent Design or Luck of the Irish?

I'm not talking about the God of any religion just a God who created the universe and nothing more. Is it really unreasonable to think God exist? Instead of listening to the rantings of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, etc let's look at the evidence. The most famous scientist living today Stephen Hawkins wrote, "If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size."{1} Physicist Paul Davies estimated that in order for planets to exist the relevant initial conditions had to be fine tuned to a precision of one part in 10 followed by a thousand billion billion zeroes at least. Also for electromagnetism, he estimated a change of only one part in 10 to the power of 40 would have spelled disaster for stars, like our sun, thereby precluding the existence of planets.

Gravitational force must be what it is, for planets to have stable orbits around the sun. Otherwise if they had a greater force they would fall into the sun and burn up or if weaker, they would escape from their orbit into a very cold, outer darkness. It is estimated that a change in gravity by only one part in 10 to the power of 100 would have prevented a life permitting universe. Let's go for one more, if the electric charge on an electron were only slightly different, stars would be unable to burn hydrogen and helium. and produce the chemical elements such as carbon and oxygen that make up our bodies. Similarly, the orbit of electrons in atoms would not be stable, so matter as we know it would not exist.

More scientific facts could be brought up in this blog but these are enough to show that the odds of a universe like ours mindlessly exploding with no cause and intelligence behind it is absurd. The initial conditions seem to have been set in place by an intelligent designer. It's either that or we're very lucky. There are 3 alternatives for explaining this fine tuning of the universe.

1. Natural Law - First of all something outside of space-time brought "natural law" into existence. Two this explanation is lacking because theoretically the universe could have came into existence without all the initial condition in place to allow intelligent life to come about. For example there could have been a big bang and the gravitational force was slightly weaker and every planet fell off into darkness, which means no intelligent life. Lastly, you need the big bang to be precise so that it won't expand and recollapse which means no life at all.

2. Chance - If you concede that the universe could have came into existence without the properties we see today, that makes the odds of our universe happening by chance just about impossible. The universe COULDN'T HAVE evolved over a long period of time. The universal properties won't allow it. Life prohibiting universes is way more probable than the current one we are living in. If you still believe the universe is just a coincidence know this, Roger Penrose a close friend of Stephen Hawkings calculated the chance of life appearing on a planet like ours, brace yourself the numbers are huge and that's an understatement.

According to Penrose, the odds against such an occurrence were on the order of 10^10¹²³ to 1. This is 1 followed by 10¹²³ zeros. All of this knowledge gathered over the last 40+ years should bury atheism in this present age, but in future blogs I hope to present to you "excuses" some atheist cosmologist and physicist use in rejecting this obvious outcome that there is a creator of the universe. In his best-selling book, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking writes “It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the (fundamental) numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at their beauty." Amen Stephen Hawking.

3. Design - This is the only simple logical conclusion to me. Ockam’s Razor states that the simpler assumption is always to be preferred. You don't need to do mental gymnastics to uphold this view, this is simple and it is consistent with the evidence we see in the universe. This doesn't prove the creator is the God of the Bible, but of course we got other evidence for that. Now take into account, the speed of the Big Bang's explosion, the values of the gravitational force, the electric charge on an electron, design seems to be the obvious explanation for why things are the way they are. It has been estimated that there are about 50 fundamental numbers or physical constants present at the moment of the Big Bang that must be precisely fine-tuned in the way they were for human life to become possible. Obviously intelligence was behind the big bang, or a four leaf clover.

Do Objective Morals prove God Exist?

Objective moral values is evidence of God also. Objective means something that is uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices. In other words X is truth whether one believes in it or not. The argument I am making can be understood as this.

1. If God doesn't exist objective morals do not exist either.

2. Objective morals exist.

3. Therefore God exist.

Mr. Atheist tell me this, is murder wrong? I don't mean protecting your family from a burglar who may harm your family. I mean murdering someone in cold blood. Is Ted Bundy wrong for doing what he did to all of those women he murdered? Hopefully you said yes. If you did, how can you tell me what he did was wrong? The atheist response might be "Look here Christian guy I don't need an ancient book or God himself telling me murder, theft, and lying are wrong, i don't need God in my life to live a good moral life, and I certainly don't need God to recognize what is right and wrong.

Mr. Atheist that's not what I am saying. Of course you can live a moral life without God. The point is you cannot say someone is wrong if they abuse a child and God does not exist. I think professor Michael Ruse put it best when he said, Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . .. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they, are referring above and beyond themselves, . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation, Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory . . . .{2}

If every human inhabitant on planet Earth decided tomorrow murder, lying, and rape is right, then would those things become acceptable? Of course not, that's because whether anyone believes it or not those things are wrong, it's objective truth. Without God how are morals objective? If morals is something evolved biologically or socially then how can you say Joe the tribes man is wrong for raping a fellow female tribeswoman? Heck, he's even helping to keep the species going if he gets her pregnant and she has the baby. Socially, raping a woman may become taboo but how can you say it's wrong without objective truth? If you say raping a woman is wrong and it's not objective then that makes it subjective and that makes it your opinion and everyone has one of those just look at Hitler and Stalin.

Actions like rape, torture, child abuse-aren't just socially unacceptable behavior. They're moral abominations and on the inside you know it. Objective morals is something God instilled in us so that we may know right from wrong, it's called the conscience, and since objective morals exist so does God. Professor Ruse agrees with my conclusion and says, "The man who says it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5,"{3} yes some things are really wrong whether everyone believes in them or not. So since objective morals exist God exist also.

Conclusion

In the same way Edwin Hubble showed Einstein what he thought to be true based on his biases and presuppositions is wrong, hopefully I have shown you that there are good reasons to believe in God. God believers aren't dims we have good reasons to believe what we do and it's not based on faith but facts. I hope this makes you think and come to the knowledge that there is a God, but it's not good enough to know God exist you have to get into a personal relationship with him through his son Jesus Christ. In the future if God wills I will give reasons as to why it is the God of the Christians who is creator and how he has revealed truth to us. He's not the deist god of Einstein and Hawking he is a personal God who cares about the conduct of man, but for now it seems it takes more faith to be atheist than theist.

Reference

{1} Stephen Hawking, A Brief History Of Time, Bantam Press, London: 1988, p. 121-125

{2} Micahael Ruse, "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262-9.

{3} Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended (London: Addison-Wesley, 1982), p. 2715.