When I tell Christians that I believe that it is it is wrong and foolish to believe any truth claim “by faith”, they complain. “You obviously don’t understand the word ‘faith’. We all use faith in many areas of our lives.”
A typical evangelical Christian’s definition of faith: Faith is trust based on past performance. It is faith in a person, not so much the claims about that person. It is based on personal knowledge of that person gained by personal experience.
Skeptic: But don’t you believe that faith is a gift from God as the Apostle Paul claims in his Epistle to the Ephesians?
Christian: Yes. The faith that leads us to personally grasp hold of the promises God made to us in Christ Jesus is something that is given to us.
Skeptic: So if we combine these two statements we have this: Faith is trust based on personal knowledge about someone (or some thing); a personal knowledge that is given to us as a gift from God.
Isn’t this statement saying that it is impossible to believe in Jesus as one’s god unless Jesus has gifted you the knowledge (about him) to believe? If that is true, what is the point of Christian apologetics? If only God can flip the switch in the human heart (brain) to believe, why do Christian apologists go to such lengths to debate evidence in an effort to convert skeptical non-believers? And why do Christian apologists accuse skeptics of being biased against “good” evidence, when what they really believe is that no amount of good evidence will ever convince the skeptic to believe in Jesus as his or her Savior? If faith is truly a gift from God, debating evidence is pointless.
So why do Christian apologists persist in doing it?
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
Odd isn’t it? There is a bloke, Bruce, who occasionally pops by my blog, says something pithy, such as: ”I’m still praying for you guys,” then he buggers off. Never follows up a comment, but has always insisted that an individual cannot become a proper Christian unless God(sic)Holy Spirit decides/chooses/enters.
Go figure?
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It’s all about magic. Until the good fairy sprinkles magic dust over your head, you will never see the real “truth”.
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Many claim one has to ”invite” Jesus in.
Yet I have read numerous accounts of people doing just this but to no avail and they are simply left frustrated and angry.
Of course, True Believers, will claim they were not sincere enough.
Remember in Life of Brian?
”Only the True Messiah denies his divinity.”
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Gary,
Yes, you really did believe that too. I emphasize the preterite form “did”.
So I feel obligated to ask you that when you were a Lutheran, did you really believe in monergism? What were your thoughts on that soteriology then?
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Calvinists believe that God has already determined, at some point in eternity past, who would go to heaven and who would go to hell; humans have no role in the determination of their salvation or damnation. This is Monergism.
Arminians (Methodists, for example) believe that God has offered salvation to all and it is up to humans to choose heaven or hell. God plays no determinative role. This is Synergism.
The problem is: There are passages in the Bible which clearly teach monergism and there are others which clearly teach synergism. How do Calvinists and Arminians explain this? Answer: They each use the old “Scripture interprets Scripture” argument! If as a Calvinist (Reformed) you believe that the Bible overall teaches monergism, you will reinterpret passages that sound synergistic to make them compatible with the overall monergistic message of the Bible. And the Arminians will do the same with passages that sound monergistic. They will reinterpret all these monergistic-sounding passages to make them compatible with the (perceived) overall synergistic message of the Bible
How do Lutherans deal with this “tension” between different passages of the Bible?
Answer: They call these alleged discrepancies between two groups of Bible passages, “mysteries”. They refer to these (completely contradictory) passages as being “in tension”. Lutherans believe that good Christians should not try to reconcile seemingly contradictory Bible passages. Lutherans believe that Christians should accept each passage or group of passages as true at face value. Therefore the resulting Lutheran doctrine of Free Will and Predestination goes like this:
1. It is God’s will that all men (and women) be saved.
2. God has predetermined, at some point in eternity past, who will go to heaven. Sinners can never choose or decide to believe. God chooses who will believe and when they will believe.
3. However, Lutherans are emphatically opposed to the other side of Calvinist Predestination: God does not predestine anyone to Hell, unlike that evil Calvinist version of God.
So: God predestines the elect to salvation and heaven. Sinners damn themselves to hell.
Contradictory? Nope! It’s a divine mystery!
Gary’s interpretation: It’s magic! Magic does not have to make sense.
As an LCMS Lutheran, I agreed with every sentence of the Lutheran Confessions and the two doctrinal statements of the LCMS. Declaring contradictory Bible passages as supernatural “mysteries”, understandable only to an omniscient God, made much more sense to me than the “Scripture interprets Scripture” argument of Calvinists and Arminians.
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One bright morning in the middle of the night
two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
A deaf policeman heard the noise
and ran to save the two dead boys
If you don’t believe this lie is true
ask the blind man, he saw it, too.
Palmer Proffitt, Preston Proffitt, dec., Junior Norris, dec.
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Gary: I saw this as a reply to my comment at Mama Bear Apologetics. After a fair amount of back and forth with Dan, it’s clear IMO that he’s an unpleasant, closed-minded person who prefers rhetorical tricks to an honest exploring of ideas. His dishonest debate has driven me away from that site. Your mileage may vary, but I just had to vent for a moment.
My take on faith is below:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2016/07/faith-the-other-f-word-christianity-atheism/
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I just read the thread. Hilarious.
You have a Smugness Meter, Bob?
Can you get them online? I want one too!
🙂
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I read your article. Excellent! I especially liked this statement:
“Christians, to help you make your own arguments more clearly and honestly, let me suggest some word hygiene. Use trust to mean evidence-based belief, belief in accord with the evidence and which will change as the evidence changes. Use faith to mean belief not primarily supported by evidence and which is not shaken by contrary evidence. Each word has its place. Be consistent. Sloppy usage only confuses your message and yourself.”
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2016/07/faith-the-other-f-word-christianity-atheism/#jsAGC1C8Cc4GsSQB.99
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Hi Gary
What do you think counts as acceptable evidence for God’s existence and who gets to say? How would you know? Who is the one determining what God should or should not do/be?
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*A clarification*
The WordPress site made me sign in to a long-forgotten account in order to comment. And in that old account I did not identify myself personally. Rather than change all of it, I will self-identify here. My name is Daniel Ray, and I recently e-mailed you regarding your comments on the Mama Bears website. I followed the link you provided. And here I am. But I did not want to post that reply here, in the event you already read it. Anyhow, just wanted to clarify. All the best.
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Thanks for the comments, Daniel. Feel free to repost your comments here on the blog. I prefer conversing on the blog rather than in emails.
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Right-O Gary, thanks!
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Well, I would say that each individual would have to make his or her own criteria for what they believe is sufficient/acceptable evidence for the existence of a god. I cannot tell you that my criteria is better than yours, I can only appeal to the track record of the methodology which I use to make my personal determination on this issue.
I use the Scientific Method combined with majority/consensus expert opinion as the basis for my evaluation of all truth claims. I cannot claim that this method is the one and only correct method of determining truth, I can only point to its superior track record.
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Thank you again for responding about this Gary. That’s the honest answer that I have heard from other skeptics/atheists. My thoughts below are in reply to what you’ve shared, it isn’t the post on the Mama Bears.
Well, I would say that each individual would have to make his or her own criteria for what they believe is sufficient/acceptable evidence for the existence of a god.
Would you concede that this is problematic for trying to objectively determine if God or gods exist? I personally think it is problematic, I am not trying to hide my assumptions here by any means. While it does gives each individual a reason to say “I see no evidence for God’s existence” in the end, that can only be personal opinion.
I might say, “Well, I’ve never seen an up quark inside a proton. I personally think up quarks look like green M&M’s and move about like a fidget spinner. And until I can see a subatomic green M&M-like object whirring about in such fashion, I will continue to insist there is no evidence for up quarks, despite the consensus of a multitude of physicists.” And even if physicists could physical show me one (they cannot), or the surrounding mathematical evidence for one, my “own criteria” (green M&M, fidget spinner-ish thing) stands in the way of me actually understanding what it is I’m looking at.
Enter 2,000 years of theological tradition now, where countless Christians believe in a God in whom they cannot physically see but find evidence for His existence compelling. Here the non-believing skeptic will enter in with his own personal standards and suggest there is little or no evidence for the Christian God (or any god). But the objections here turn out to be something equivalent to my M&M-fidget spinner criteria for an up quark, despite the consensus of physicists.
In both cases, obviously a consensus of physicists or a consensus of theologians does not make an unseen entity truly existent and neither does one’s own personal criteria.
Epistemically, then, what is the proper course of action when it comes to the unseen realm do you think Gary, especially when the “physical” evidence is elusive? I mean Murray Gel Mann made up the name “quark” and one then wonders just what exactly he was theorizing about. Is a quark a “real” thing or just a descriptive place-holder entity for something else entirely? After all the equations are just describing something, they aren’t the thing itself, if it’s a thing at all. And this is “physical” science. Kepler never once believed that his laws were actually the thing pushing planets around. Sixes and sevens don’t make Jupiter move about, in other words. They might help describe the motions of planets, but numbers finally are not causal agents.
So what do you think, Gary?
Thank you for replying, again. If you have questions for me, I would be happy to answer them as well. I love these discussions. Had you read what I wrote to you on the Mama Bears site, btw? If you didn’t want to get into the above, I’ll be happy to repost what I posed on the MB site here instead and we could go from there.
DR
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Good question, Daniel.
Is it wrong to believe in the existence of something we cannot see? Of course not. I believe in the existence of oxygen even though I cannot see it. So belief based only on what can be seen is silly. Once again, my belief is that all truth claims should be evaluated by experts in the appropriate field evaluating that evidence with the Scientific Method. I believe that people should trust the consensus opinion of experts in all fields unless one is an expert in that field him or herself.
I believe that it would be best if everyone in the world adopted this same worldview.
So what if someone says, “The overwhelming majority of theologians believe in God therefore everyone should believe in God.”
There is a problem with this statement. It is equivalent to the following: “All plumbers believe in God therefore everyone should believe in God.”
The existence of God is not within the expertise of plumbers or theologians! Plumbers are experts in plumbing. Theologians are experts in the BELIEFS about gods, they are not experts in the existence of gods (invisible beings with supernatural powers). No such expert exists!
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Hi Gary. Thanks again.
My apologies for making assumptions about your position on evidences regarding what we cannot see. I made an assumption there and I was wrong. My bad. Most skeptics tend to dismiss out of hand metaphysics and unseen realities. I just assumed you did too. My apologies.
But you offer an interesting take on theologians. Who determines the distinction you make about them though? You say they are experts in their beliefs about gods, not the actual existence of God or gods. Is that objectively true or an example of one of your own personal standards?
If I have read you correctly, it seems that within your claim are certain beliefs about God/gods, no? A handful of theologians may actually be spot-on when it comes to God’s existence. How would you know when a belief is actually true? I hear what you’re saying, I do, but in the end, your claim here gets us back to the personal evaluative standards of the individuals who remain unconvinced in their own minds that God likely does not exist.
In this case, your tacit standard seems to be “All theological discourse is merely a belief in God or gods, not actual evidence for the existence of a divine being or beings.” It is merely a different way of saying “I see no evidence for God’s existence.” You have prescribed what you believe theologians and theology are all about, but you have done so on the basis of your own subjective criteria, i.e. theologians just “believe” but they don’t really “know”. Is that a fair assessment of your position?
Maybe it is simply better to say, “In my opinion, theologians are only experts in their beliefs about gods, not about any actual existing divine being or beings.” Or do you think your claim can be objectively established?
Thanks again, Gary. Respond as you have the time/desire!
DR 🙂
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Good question, Daniel. Let me rephrase it: What group of experts, what field of study, would best determine the existence of invisible beings?
I would have to say, scientists. If we accept the expert opinion of physicists, cosmologists, chemists, and other experts of the physical sciences on the existence of other non-visible entities, such as quarks and oxygen, why not trust them on the existence of invisible beings? Why turn to these experts on every other alleged invisible entity but turn to theologians on the question of invisible beings? I suggest we remain consistent and stick with the scientists.
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Hi Gary
So then scientists would have to have some sort of theological standard for determining God’s existence? Agnostic physicist Paul Davies in his 2006 book The Goldilocks Enigma points out, however, that scientists may not be the best candidates for determining the existence of God.
Again, we get back to that problem of everyone having their own individual criteria. Not all scientists would agree.
I have an acquaintance who has worked with the Hubble Space Telescope for over 20 years. I’m arranging him to come to speak here in DFW in March. He is a Christian and sees no conflict between his astrophysics and Scripture. He is often asked after his presentations “How can a Christian be an astrophysicist?”
You said earlier that theologians only talk of belief in gods but I think that is another way of saying, “Theology does not count as evidence for the existence of a God or gods.” Of course the issue of a multitude of different theological claims comes up, but the atheist, in denying all of them, is tacitly saying he or she would know what God or gods would look like if they did exist.
Would you say your statement about theology and theologians is your own opinion about the nature of evidence or do you think what you have said could be objectively established somehow?
DR
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“So then scientists would have to have some sort of theological standard for determining God’s existence?”
Do scientists need to have “some sort of theological standard” for determining the existence of quarks, electrons, and oxygen molecules?
Of course not. Why are you using the Scientific Method to determine the existence of some invisible entities but insisting on using another methodology, theology, to determine the existence of another? You are not being consistent. I am being consistent: use the scientific method to determine the existence of all invisible entities.
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What is “theology”? Is theology the systematic study of the universe, using the Scientific Method, in an effort to determine the existence or non-existence of invisible beings (gods)? If it is, then I accept qualified theologists to be experts on the existence of God.
But before we accept that definition of “theology”, let’s see how Christians define this term. I will post quotes from several prominent Christian websites:
“The word “theology” comes from two Greek words that combined mean “the study of God.” Christian theology is simply an attempt to understand God as He is revealed in the Bible. No theology will ever fully explain God and His ways because God is infinitely and eternally higher than we are. Therefore, any attempt to describe Him will fall short (Romans 11:33-36). However, God does want us to know Him insofar as we are able, and theology is the art and science of knowing what we can know and understand about God in an organized and understandable manner. Some people try to avoid theology because they believe it is divisive. Properly understood, though, theology is uniting. Proper, biblical theology is a good thing; it is the teaching of God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The study of theology, then, is nothing more than digging into God’s Word to discover what He has revealed about Himself. When we do this, we come to know Him as Creator of all things, Sustainer of all things, and Judge of all things.
Gary: No mention of using the Scientific Method there!
Here is another:
“In short, theology is a set of intellectual and emotional commitments, justified or not, about God and man which dictate ones beliefs and actions. Neither the word itself is irrelevant, nor the concepts which it seeks to articulate. It is the first pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.”
Gary: “Emotional commitments”??? Wow. That does not sound very scientific or very rational.
Here is another from apologist Matt Slick:
“The word theology comes from two Greek words, theos (God) and logos (word). From them we can see that theology is the study of God which, of course, includes his attributes. God is the single supreme being in all the universe. He has such attributes as omniscience (all-knowing, 1 John 3:20), omnipresence (existing everywhere, Psalm 139:7-12), and omnipotence (He accomplishes whatever He desires, Jer. 32:17,27). He is eternal (Psalm 90:2), holy (Isaiah 6:3), merciful (Psalm 67:1), and gracious (1 Pet. 2:3). All these things we discover about God from the Bible.”
Gary: Again, does not sound like a very scientific study. It is essentially the study of an ancient text, with the assumption that that ancient text is correct in its statements regarding the existence of this invisible being. Again, not rational.
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“You said earlier that theologians only talk of belief in gods but I think that is another way of saying, “Theology does not count as evidence for the existence of a God or gods.” Of course the issue of a multitude of different theological claims comes up, but the atheist, in denying all of them, is tacitly saying he or she would know what God or gods would look like if they did exist. Would you say your statement about theology and theologians is your own opinion about the nature of evidence or do you think what you have said could be objectively established somehow?”
Emotional commitments and faith in the accuracy of an ancient book does not count as evidence for the existence of invisible beings for me, but that is my standard of determining truth. I believe that the Scientific Method is the best method of determining the existence of invisible beings. You are welcome to disagree, of course, and I cannot prove your opinion wrong.
FYI: I do believe that there is evidence for the possible existence of a Creator using the Scientific Method, I just don’t see any evidence for the existence of invisible creators.
I believe that it is certainly possible for scientists to be biased, but I would bet that scientists are less biased than theologians. Here is the proof: There are many scientists who would freely admit that there is evidence for the existence of a possible Creator/Intelligent Designer. I don’t know of many theologians who would admit that there is evidence that the universe may have come into existence without a Designer/Creator. I’ll go with the least biased group of experts: scientists.
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Hi again, Gary –
There is nothing in my responses which advocates using one particular method for discovering quarks and another particular method for looking for evidence of God. Not at all.
My comments were in response to what appears to be your belief that the existence of God be confined to the rigors of scientific methodology. You have shared you believe that because science has found evidence for certain unseen entities that they should be the ones, with their methods, who look for evidence for God.
If they do, then of course they must have some criteria in mind regarding what they expect to find. Yes, they certainly will have some theological standards if they attempt this.
So the Hubble can see way out in the far reaches of the early universe. Hasn’t seen any celestial castles or radiant angelic beings. Does that then mean God and angels and His heavenly throne do not exist?
I am not making the categorical separation by any means. As I say above, as a simple example, my friend who works with Hubble sees no conflict between theology and his astrophysics.
“Theology” gave the early scientist solid reasons for proceeding with a detailed investigation of the cosmos.
And what has modern physics uncovered about the universe? Spooky precision down to the smallest degree. Is that evidence for God or not? This gets down to my original question to you. What constitutes acceptable evidence for God’s existence? If you wish to answer that question using the scientific method, you should certainly have some divine attributes and qualities in mind before conducting research. Otherwise, a scientist has no way of knowing what he’s looking for. What kind of detectors do you build? Does God emit gamma rays or infrared rays? Does He emit any light at all?
Theology certainly does reveal characteristics about God and the universe. So do the sciences, though much of what constitutes contemporary secular science dismisses the God hypothesis out of hand, as I mentioned by quoting Paul Davies.
So when anyone makes claims about God, a scientist, a blogger, a mom shopping at COSTCO, they’re doing theology. And when we study theology, beginning in the beginning, the very first thing the theologian encounters is that God has created the heavens and the earth. Scientists of all backgrounds and beliefs study them intently because they strike everyone as having intelligibility and indeed they do! Even the world-famous 18th-century skeptic David Hume conceded this.
And how does John’s prologue describe Jesus Christ? As the Logos. The very source of logic and reason and order in the cosmos.
Astrophysicists who study the stars will routinely say that there is “information” in the stars.
Leon Golub and Jay M. Pasachoff:
Kenneth R. Lang, professor of astronomy at Tufts: The study of the stars
One of the potential co-authors to a book project on which I am working is an expert in the field of cosmology, Bayes theorem, and physics. Another contributor to the project is an expert in black holes. She came to Christ through her formal studies in astronomy and physics. I will be interviewing her in March for my podcast. Then there’s my Hubble acquaintance. Over twenty years with Hubble at the STScI. Another contributor is an expert in binary stars, we have a planetary astrobiologist, an asteroid and meteorite specialist, plus a top-tier philosopher talking about creation ex nihilo. All of the contributing essays will demonstrate the interconnectedness of theology and science and how they as Christians see the two beautifully dovetail into a compelling and inspiring narrative.
And then there is Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Therein is the most wondrously interwoven narrative of “science and theology”. The heavens, the earth and God as their creator.
Physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne says this about the very things we are discussing, Gary. “I am entirely convinced of the existence of quarks and gluons, but that belief, illuminating though it is in the limited sphere of elementary particle physics, does not affect my life in any significant way outside the pursuit of intellectual satisfaction in the study or the laboratory. In contrast, my belief that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God has consequences for all aspects of my life, as much as in relation to conduct as to understanding. Religious belief is much more demanding than scientific belief – more costly and more ‘dangerous’, one might say. This means that existential factors play a significant role in the way in which people approach the possibility of religious belief.”
Polkinghorne goes on to describe the complimentary similarities between light being both a wave and a particle and Christ being both God and man. Regarding both, he rhetorically asks, “How could this possibly make sense?…Experience and understanding seemed as much at odds [with Jesus being God and man] as they did in the case of physicists’ thinking about light.”
Within the larger framework of the doctrine of God is the doctrine of Creation. Exactly how did God create the world? Studying the theological implications of God creating the heavens led to what we know today as “science” only today, most secular scientists do not believe God has anything to do with the physical world.
But that brings us back once more Gary, to my original question to you. What constitutes acceptable evidence for God’s existence and His handiwork? How do scientists know the answer to this?
Your initial reply to me indicates you believe everyone has their own individual standards. Your rejection of theological claims implies you do not believe “theology” offers any kind of evidence for God’s existence. But that is a claim, implicit or explicit, based on what you personally believe would count as evidence, correct? You seem to say so yourself.
You say here, I don’t know of many theologians who would admit that there is evidence that the universe may have come into existence without a Designer/Creator
I assume you mean “believing” theologians? For there are many liberal theologians who do not believe in the deity of Christ or in literal Creator. But again, your thoughts here center us back on the nature of evidence itself. To what kind of evidence would they necessarily be submitting themselves?
Emotional commitments and faith in the accuracy of an ancient book does not count as evidence for the existence of invisible beings for me, but that is my standard of determining truth.
I appreciate your willingness to admit the subjective nature of your criteria, Gary. Absolutely respect that. But it is logically inconsistent with any attempt at making objective, factual claims about God or theology.
I too could hold to my green M&M’s standard of evidence for quarks, but that doesn’t disprove them, that’s just my [hypothetical] standard of evidence.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, Gary, and I hope I have not misrepresented your arguments in any way. If I have, I apologize.
Daniel
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“So the Hubble can see way out in the far reaches of the early universe. Hasn’t seen any celestial castles or radiant angelic beings. Does that then mean God and angels and His heavenly throne do not exist?”
Of course not. It just means (for me) that pondering the existence of your god, Yahweh/Lord Jesus, does not warrant my attention. If and when scientists encounter evidence of invisible beings, I will definitely be willing to re-evaluate this position.
And what has modern physics uncovered about the universe? Spooky precision down to the smallest degree. Is that evidence for God or not? This gets down to my original question to you. What constitutes acceptable evidence for God’s existence? If you wish to answer that question using the scientific method, you should certainly have some divine attributes and qualities in mind before conducting research. Otherwise, a scientist has no way of knowing what he’s looking for. What kind of detectors do you build? Does God emit gamma rays or infrared rays? Does He emit any light at all?
I already told you that I believe that evidence exists which could be interpreted to be evidence for a Creator. The orderliness of the universe certainly suggests a Designer. That is why I do not reject the possibility of a Creator. I am not an atheist (I am an agnostic). The problem with many Christians, however, is that they conflate evidence for a Creator automatically with evidence for Yahweh/Lord Jesus. This is simply an assumption until proven otherwise.
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Here’s the MB post, slightly edited ’cause the original post had some grammar issues and I signed off in the middle of the reply by mistake! FYI.
Hi Gary
The central point of your comment [i.e. this blog post] seems to be based up the idea that Christian apologetics is pointless if God can just “flip a switch”, as you say, and give us the gift of belief.
But think of the metaphor you use – switch flipping. That’s a relatively modern concept. That we can toggle a switch and send electrical currents flowing through a circuit is a wondrous thing indeed. I’m sure you’ve heard the story recently about the poor chap in Hawaii that pushed the wrong buttons and made everyone on the island believe a North Korean missile was on its way! It was a little too easy and tens of thousands of Hawaiians were rather upset by the whole thing. So here is an instance where instantaneous nature of button pushing really didn’t work out too well. Officials in Hawaii now realize there should have been more of a “process” behind and leading up to how the missile warning buttons are finally pushed.
Button-pushing. We send e-mails, texts, turn on appliances, cars, machines, often with just the touch of a button or two and we don’t even think about it. This is the zeitgeist of modernity – effortless, instant, immediate. But it doesn’t stick in the heart, mind and soul too well does it? We quickly tend to forget those things that come thorugh such effortlessness.
Routinely I push 4 or 5 buttons and have a microwave dinner in less than 5 minutes [I am a bachelor!].
Easy, convenient, not exactly nutritious or filling.
But I also love to make crock-pot soup. I put the ingredients together and let it simmer and stew for up to twelve hours, depending on what kind of soup I’m making.
Five minutes or twelve hours. Dramatic difference, is it not? Which do you think tastes better?
So in my estimation, “switch-flipping” is simply not the right metaphor for understanding Christian faith, Gary. From Genesis to Revelation, it is not button-pushing-microwave meals that we see, but slow-crockpot-simmering. God seems to be peculiarly interested in communicating Himself through a rather odd assortment of broken, bruised, balderdash-prone belligerents and He does not seem to be in any kind of terrible hurry either.
Why? I finally don’t know, Gary. Why would God chose people like that to share His message? It is rather contrary, from the vantage point of human wisdom, admittedly. But God does not seem to be too terribly concerned about what we might think about His overriding our human wisdom.
Sure there are times where we have what appears to be an “instantaneous” revelation of God in Scripture, such as Moses at the bush in Exodus 3, but even in that exchange, Moses doesn’t immediately become a Christian superhero with all the answers. He’s like (and I paraphrase), “Hey, I’m, uh, talking to a bush on fire that’s telling me to go to Pharaoh. Really? Who are you again? Don’t you know I stutter? I’m not so sure about this. How can I trust you? Who should I say has sent me?”
So even in what we might think as an instantaneous manifestation of God’s luminous, holy presence, Moses is not instantly obedient by any means. He stammers, doubts, is reluctant and wonders why God would have chosen him. He even misses out on the Promised Land.
But what would the Occident be without the story of Moses? Hard to imagine. The Exodus, whether you believe it or not, has had and continues to have a profound impact on our culture. If God uses Moses, He can use me too, despite my sins and failures. It is a narrative of hope, Gary, over a lifetime. Over many lifetimes. A story told over and over again through different people. Like Frodo and Sam Gamgee realizing they are part of the ongoing tale of the Light of Earendil. Tolkien nails it there. This is the way God patiently works with recalcitrant, sinful man. We are more than a mere electrical circuit with an on/off switch of faith, we are divine image bearers, fearfully and wonderfully made by God’s own fingers, woven together in the likeness of our Maker, complete with our own stories written by God Himself, stories He Himself, as the Author and Finisher of our faith, enters into.
God could have just “flipped a switch” and released the Hebrews. God could have just “flipped a switch” and never even involved Moses in bringing Israel out of Egypt.
But how inspirational is switch flipping, Gary? If that were the case, that the Scriptures were all about God instantaneously accomplishing His will like switch-flipping, we would be having a conversation about how awful it is we are nothing more than robots, divine automations, overridden at the flip of a switch.
No, rather God gives us a say, includes us in the drama, gives us the ability to be a kind of co-creator, has good works for us to do, has chapters for us to live out. It is a story. Each of us are a story. And stories take time and care to develop.
God could have flipped a switch and avoided coming down to us in the person of His Son. But He chose the crock-pot method – a narrative of a long, slow obedience in one direction. Choosing to be born? Why not just step out of the heavens as God and flip a switch and make everyone instantaneously believe?
Switch-flipping, not so much. It’s easy. There is no happily ever after in a circuit. Characters in fairy tale or circuits on a motherboard, which would you prefer to be?
The gift of faith is not finally instantaneous, but slow, gradual and long-suffering. Surely there is a “moment” in time when people articulate having received the gift of faith, but often is the case that people can look back and see God’s leading and guiding them up to that point.
Paul’s Damascus Road experience looks like a switch-flip, but it was more like the end of a long process. Paul went through extensive training and schooling to become a teacher of the law. He understood the Jewish religion and tradition like no other. That was part of the preparation behind the Lord finally leading him along the road to Damascus. Paul’s background was also a gift, for now as a believer, Paul could, like almost no one else, articulate the Gospel in a way that showed its intimate connections to the OT Law.
Apologetics goes on Gary because it is one way that God develops and prepares people to receive the gift of faith.
Love to hear back from you.
Daniel Ray
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“So in my estimation, “switch-flipping” is simply not the right metaphor for understanding Christian faith, Gary.”
I received many emails from evangelicals regarding this post (including an email from an evangelical evangelist) all telling me the same as you: that I did not understand true Christian faith nor the true process of how one comes to believing in Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior. They tried to explain to me that faith comes from examining the evidence and then making a decision to believe.
Well, that certainly sounds very rational, doesn’t it? The idea that God wiggles his nose, clicks his heels, or waves a magic wand creating instantaneous belief is something that belongs in fairy tales. But that is not what Christians thought for the first 1,500 years of Christianity, prior to their exposure to the principles of the European Enlightenment. This is why Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans believed and still believe that God instantaneously creates belief in human beings, completely independent of their intelligence and decision making abilities. That is why these Christians believe that a day old infant can believe in Jesus as his Lord and Savior as a result of Holy Baptism.
So my suggestion that Christianity teaches that God can flip a switch and create belief is well within the teachings of the majority of Christians on the planet. I am fully aware that evangelicals and other Arminian Protestants do not share this view.
“Apologetics goes on Gary because it is one way that God develops and prepares people to receive the gift of faith.”
Apologetics as a means of evangelization is primarily an evangelical and Arminian Protestant concern. Yes, Catholics, the Orthodox, and in particular, Lutherans, engage in apologetics but more from the perspective of “Christian education”. The idea that one can argue/debate an unbeliever into belief in Jesus is antithetical to orthodox, and in particular, Lutheran, teaching. And I personally believe that the Lutheran definition of faith is the most accurate when it comes to Paul’s teaching regarding this word. If faith is truly a gift, it does not require you to accept it, receive it, or even understand what is going on. It is simply yours. Your definition (and that of all evangelicals) of faith is contrary to the very definition of the word “gift”.
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Gary,
I was in the LCMS tradition for several years, even went to Concordia for a year. Am now a member of a conservative Presbyterian church (PCA). Studied Luther quite extensively.
We agree that faith is a gift. And I also certainly do not deny that for many Christians, they can point to an exact moment when they first believed in Christ. For myself, though I know it was sometime between 1992-1993, I cannot recall a day-hour-moment conversion experience, though I know that around that time I was able to confess Jesus as Lord and believe in my heart God raised Him from the dead. I still believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
But I take comfort in the fact that Jesus often uses agrarian analogies about the kingdom, one of the most well-known of course is the parable of the sower. In Luke’s version, Jesus says that in the parable, the “seed is the word of God.” Paul tells us in Romans 10:17 that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”
The “instantaneous” reception in the parable, those who “receive the word with joy” at first eventually wither and fall away. But the seeds that fall in good soil take time to grow and mature and bear fruit. But where did the “good soil” come from Gary? Was that not a gift as well? Was not the “ground” then prepared to receive the seed? There is preparation leading up to the gift of faith. There is nothing “instant” about the process of planting and harvesting, a metaphor you see throughout Scripture.
We might say, “Well, look at what Mark’s Gospel says about Jesus calling the disciples. They “immediately” followed Jesus.” Yes. But as we know from their adventures, from the storms on the Sea of Galilee to the resurrection (they thought it foolish at first) to the Emmaus road, after all they had been through, they still did not understand a lot of what Jesus taught them about Himself. Peter denies him, too, even after He confesses Jesus as the Christ. Jesus upbraided them “O you of little faith…” So when exactly did the disciples receive the gift of faith? Where was the exact moment their switch was flipped?
When did Moses have faith? He failed to enter the Promised Land for his lack of faith.
When did Abraham, Isaac or Jacob have faith?
I would argue Gary, though we agree faith is a gift, we differ on exactly how that works. I know the reformers emphasize the gift of faith, citing Ephesians 2:8, but we differ on how that gift is given.
I believe there is ample evidence in Scripture that faith is has far more of an “agrarian” nature. And in the modern world, as I mentioned originally, we are steeped in a technological culture of instantaneousness. We hardly know anything about the patient cultivation of an agrarian way of life any more. We don’t have to wait for apple season to have an apple. We have been taught to expect we can go to the store any day of the week any hour of the day and buy an apple. We have completely lost the experience of planting apple seeds and waiting for the tree to bloom and mature. I think the gift of faith is like the gift of apples from a seed planted many seasons prior. It is much more of a “gift” when their is a process behind it.
DR
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I never claimed that the entire Bible taught that salvation is a “gift”. I never claimed that this is what Jesus taught. What I claimed is that this has been the traditional, orthodox/catholic Christian teaching ever since Paul preached it. Salvation as a gift is PAULINE Christianity. I do not believe that it is taught in the Old Testament. I do not believe that Jesus taught this. I do not believe that the author of the Epistle of James believed or taught this. But PAUL did. Paul taught that salvation is a gift, received freely from God when one is exposed to the Gospel, whether by hearing it preached or by reading it; this free gift is not dependent on man’s ability to reason and make a decision to believe.
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Agree!!!
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Hi Gary
“Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated” – From Malachi in the Old Testament. No Paul in Malachi. But Paul was as OT as anyone could be, “faultless” in all things pertaining to the “Law”. He quotes Malachi in Romans 9, demonstrating that “though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls…”
Jesus’ teachings were very much in line with Malachi, the OT, and the “gift” of which Paul speaks in Ephesians.
John 15:16, like Jacob, “”You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”
After the Emmaus walk, Luke 24:45, Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”
Did the disciples “earn” the right to understand the Scriptures? Not at all. Was this the flick of a switch? By no means. The disciples spent some three years with Jesus, learning at His feet. Jesus was preparing the soil to receive the seed, His word.
But the core of our discussion is your metaphor of instantaneous reception of the gift, as though it were a switch that God could flip in an instant. Jesus’ very ministry is counter to the instantaneous nature of faith you are claiming. I would say certainly faith/salvation is a gift, but I would say it is a gift for which patient preparation beforehand seems the norm.
That’s where are differences are I believe.
DR
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That is why you are Reformed, and I was Lutheran.
The bigger point is this: BOTH these world views are based on the belief in the historicity of the claim that a first century corpse came back to life, walked out of its sealed tomb, ate a broiled fish lunch with his former fishing buddies, and forty days later flew off into outer space. The probability that such a fantastical, supernatural event really occurred is so small that debating whether your view or my (former) view of the Doctrine of Salvation is correct is a silly waste of time.
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Thank you for the discussion, Gary, and allowing me to post comments on your blog. Of course I do not want to waste any more of your time, but I do sincerely appreciate the time you have taken to reply.
All the best to you.
DR
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Edit.
My apologies for assuming you were an atheist as well. I just saw your comment about being agnostic. Sorry about that. I also admittedly overlooked you mentioning you thought there might be evidence of intelligence behind the universe and I apologize for not seeing that and responding to it properly.
DR
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No worries, Daniel. I have enjoyed the conversation.
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@ Daniel
Out of curiosity, I would like to ask what exactly were the circumstances behind your conversion and what was the evidence that your god revealed to you which convinced you to become a Christian?
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Hello Arkenaten
Good questions and thank you for asking. Don’t mind answering as best I can.
I was 25, baptized in March of 1993 in California. Between the fall of 1992 and my baptism, circumstantially, there was no crisis or circumstance that “caused” it, and I cannot for the life of me tell you “when” I actually, officially believed that Jesus was the Christ and that God raised Him from the dead. I had visited a church maybe two or three times with my girlfriend at the time, but was not “looking” or “searching” for God or passing through any kind of existential crisis. My going to church was merely to make my girlfriend happy, my subsequent belief in Christ was not (and actually did not make her happy at all, I broke up with her after I was baptized).
During that time between the fall of 1992 and the spring of 1993, Three things began to weigh heavily on my heart – one was that Jesus was a real person. Two, the Bible was His word and three, I needed to read it. Prior to this time, I had no knowledge of the Bible, apologetic arguments, nothing. Was not raised in church.
I can only describe those three convictions as having come out of “nowhere”, as I was not at all interested in Jesus or the Bible. I thought people who believed in Jesus took their religion a little too seriously. I do recall having condescending and belittling thoughts about religious people who believed in Jesus and I really did not want to be a part of that. God in a generic sense? Sure, ok. Maybe. But Jesus? No. Please no.
I never personally had no evidentiary criteria for God’s existence that I can recall except I do remember often telling my girlfriend a few times, “If God is real, then why can’t we see Him?” stuff like that, more to annoy her really, though I was probably marginally deistic at the time, I thought that God might exist, but I never worried about it much. I certainly didn’t care much for becoming a follower of Jesus.
But during that time period I spent reading the Bible and asking a few people I knew who were Christians all kinds of questions about the Bible. Jesus seemed to be beckoning me, drawing me, though I quite resisted.
So I kept a journal of what I was reading, what was happening in my life, and the questions I had (I still keep a journal). I started writing down how the Bible seemed to read me. I didn’t like much of it and I didn’t understand much of what I was reading. But there were other parts I did like and I did seem to understand. I clung to Proverbs 3:5-6, they were the first verses that stuck with me. It made sense to me that if God was God, I should trust Him and not myself. I kind of built the rest of my faith on that verse for awhile.
I started to see Jesus was indeed real. Exactly how that happened, I can only say it was a long, gradual process over the course of five or six months and then another year or two so after I was baptized before I could honestly, solidly confess Jesus as Lord and believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead.
The four or five months leading up to my being baptized were kind of like going from the darkness of pre-dawn hours to a sunrise. There was light before the sun and then gradually, slowly, the sun appears. Even after I was baptized, I remained ignorant of a lot of what Scripture and the Christian faith were all about. It took a few difficult years to understand sin, salvation and grace, a lot of working through my preconceptions of who I should be, what I should do, if I claimed to believe in Christ.
My discipleship in the faith as new Christian was like trying to walk through a briar patch in a wool suit. Snags, setbacks, no visible path, no visible way out of a lot of things I didn’t understand, and yet, somehow, I held on, or, rather God held on to me and kept me going.
People talk about making a decision to become a believer, and can recall the day, hour, minute when they first believed. Me on the other hand (and this troubled me for a good while), I could never remember that exact “moment” I was “saved” and I had a fairly unemotional, boring testimony. I felt like I was “made” a believer against my own will or desires. And so when I would hear how people “wanted” to become Christians or I would hear of these powerful conversion stories about other people became believers, I would look at myself and my own experience and think, “Well that certainly wasn’t how it happened for me!” and I would often doubt my salvation because, well, I resisted it and I didn’t have some dramatic testimony. Didn’t seem like other believers. Mine wasn’t instantaneous black-to-white, light-to-darkness on a specific date at a specific time. I never “invited Jesus into my heart”. He rather seemed to have kicked down the door and made Himself at home, a lot like when Gandalf and the Dwarves first come to Bag End.
The strange thing about that time period too, was that I do remember having a lot of peace, mentally and emotionally. I struggle with depression (still) but during that time, there was an extended lull in my swings. in other words, my coming to Christ was not because I was depressed or in a low mood or anything.
So I didn’t have any standard of evidence in mind, nor was I looking for God, nor where there any terrible or traumatic circumstances going on at the time. I went to church two or three times with my girlfriend in 1992-93 just to make her happy and God seemed to have gained a foothold somehow, unbeknownst to me. So I was baptized in 1993 and by 1995 I would say I was a genuine follower of Christ. So some two years God really worked on me, sometimes imperceptibly so.
So after the Army, I started really digging into the intellectual defenses of the Christian faith. I subscribed to the Mars Hill Audio Journal (they were on cassettes). It was a series of interviews on each volume with authors of books, most of them thoughtful Christians – writing about poetry, art, music, theology and the sciences. It blew me away. I was hooked. It changed my life and showed me a side of the Christian faith I never knew existed. That led me into apologetics and inspired me to get my college degrees – undergrad and a master’s.
I learned about the “evidences” for the Christian faith long after I actually became a Christian!
Hope that answers your question, if not feel free to ask me more. I will do my best to answer them.
Thanks for asking!
DR
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Thanks for the reply.
If I may …
When I required some background info on Moses for a novel I was writing I delved into the history and , once I had covered the Moses issue, like you read the bible cover to cover.
I was brought up a cultural Christian, but nothing ,more.
How religious were your immediate family?
Historically and archaeologically I found out that Moses and the Exodus are simply a work of geopolitical fiction, not only is there no evidence for the tale but archaeological evidence demonstrates that the settlement of Canaan was largely internal.In fact the entire Pentateuch is basically geopolitical fiction.
For me , this immediately cast aspersions on the biblical character Jesus the Nazarene and was the launch pad for more serious study.
However, unlike you, I had absolutely no emotional motivation, there was no ”calling me” and I have never felt anything but sheer boredom whenever I have attended church for baptisms or weddings. Although if the architecture is nice I have tended to focus on this.
Over the years I have discovered evidence that demonstrates the bible is merely a collection of specifically and deliberately chosen text, edited redacted, to fit a doctrine laid out by the early church. The texts are replete with interpolation fraud geographical historical biological error and in certain cases blatant lies.
That you only went to church to please your girlfriend is also telling and suggests a christian connection/influence.
When you mention about Jesus being a real person why do you think you paid little or no attention to the historical and archaeological details?
So, it is interesting that you and I came to vastly different conclusions and yet you state your depression had nothing to do with your eventual conversion?
Taking everything else into consideration how can you be sure your depression and the obvious cultural influence and possible subtle peer pressure were not the primary motivating factors in your being ”born again”?
Also, now that you have been made aware that the entire Pentateuch is historical fiction (please, I encourage you to read up on this rather than come back with some ”So you say!” type of rejoinder) and the implications this holds for Christianity, could you see yourself re-looking at the circumstances surrounding your conversion and maybe re-consider the experience as nothing but an emotional slip up?
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Hello again –
Am presently in the midst of a book project/proposal and am working furiously on getting the chapter summaries and formal proposal ready to submit to the publishers this week. So I will reply here later about this, or you may e-mail me at psalm1968@gmail.com and we can further discuss it. Either way. It’ll just be a day or two before I can give you a thoughtful response.
Briefly, as I said above originally, I broke up with my girlfriend after I was baptized (we had only gone to church together a few times) and I clearly recall actually having something of a prolonged respite from depression during that time period I could not finally explain. I had no knowledge of biblical archaeology or history before my conversion, either. I slowly started to learn about all of that several years after my conversion. My “boring” testimony and my reluctance/unwillingness to become a believer in Jesus was precisely the problem I had for a long time, as my conversion did not seem to be the “norm” as I started to hear about other people’s stories. My being “born again”, oddly, did not match the majority of stories I began to hear and read about.
Over the years, though, I have come to liken my experience to what Jesus tells Peter in Matthew 16. When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus tells him, “Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but My Father who is in the heavens.”
That’s kinda the way I think it happened with me God seemed to tell me who Jesus was over the course of about two, two-and-a-half years. By 1995, I would say I was a genuine follower of Christ.
So, no, I do not believe there were any circumstantial events that “made” me believe or heavily “influenced” my belief. I can only best describe the convictions as having “come out of nowhere”, as I mentioned before. That’s what was really odd about it and made me pursue reading the Bible.
Could I be wrong about what influenced me to believe? Sure. That was 25 years ago. But I have kept journals, I have a recorded history of what was happening. But even if there were other circumstances that influenced me of which I have long since forgotten, I am still able to confess Jesus as Lord. After everything I have been through, if my baptism and later confession of Christ was a mere emotional slip up, I would have stopped believing a long time ago.
And I have since done a great deal of careful examination of the arguments, the history and all the “evidences” and defenses offered for the Christian faith. I am still learning of course, which makes it enjoyable, challenging and interesting. And part of that learning has been trying to better understand atheism and atheists and the best arguments made against the Christian faith.
So I will get back to you on Moses when I have a bit more time!
Thanks!
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Quick question before you dash off …
Do you consider Moses to be a real historical character and the Exodus as described in the bible to be a genuine historical event?
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Oh, I almost forgot. Thanks for the email invite but I don’t ”do” such correspondence with religious people. I prefer to keep such dialogue out in the open.
Thanks all the same.
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God seemed to tell me who Jesus was …
Exactly HOW did God tell you? A whisper in your ear? A dream? How did you know it was “God”?
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So quickly, yes, I believe Moses a genuine historical person and the Exodus as a real historical event. No worries on the e-mail. I understand.
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So you reject all the historical and archaeological evidence showing he is a work of fiction and the Exodus and conquest are simply geopolitical historical fiction.
Fair enough.
On what grounds/basis/evidence do you dismiss the work of almost the entire relevant scholarly and archaeological field?
And while we are at it. Do you accept evolution?
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Not all. What I have come to understand as an important issue in discussions about history, especially ancient history, is the necessity of examining the evidentiary criteria held by people who make historical claims, on both sides, which I have done and continue to do. Does contemporary historical consensus determine what happened three to four thousand years ago, for example? What counts as “evidence”? What can we reasonably expect to find if the Exodus were true? Who makes that determination? etc.
The history of archaeology itself demonstrates that our understanding of the past is constantly changing. For quite some time, there was no historical evidence for the kind of Greek found in the NT, until archaeologists in the late 19th, early 20th century found a plethora of koine Greek littered throughout the ruins of a small Christian community in Egypt, Oxyrhynchus. Grocery lists, notes, letters, etc.
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Evolution, quickly.
Short answer. No. Simply because the implications/connotations of the theory regarding human beings. Though I understand formally speaking, evolution does not discuss abiogenesis questions, the issue always often comes up. Darwin’s theory takes over after life began and describes how life develops. But if there is no telos in evolution, then there really is no telos for human life, and to tell a person their life has no ultimate purpose or meaning seems to fly contrary to human experience.
Natural selection cannot explain consciousness or reasoning. Natural selection cannot likewise explain moral development. People who accept evolution certainly do have theories about these things, but they have not been empirically demonstrably proven true. My convictions on these and other matters were reinforced rather surprisingly in 2013 by an atheist philosopher’s objection to the theory of natural selection. Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos.
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BTW, no religious upbringing in my immediate family. I have three brothers (I am the oldest). My youngest brother also became a Christian as an adult and is currently an LCMS pastor in the Sacramento area. But growing up, there was no church-going in our family at all.
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So, besides your one brother, your other family members are non-believers?
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Correct.
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You may have missed my other comment up thread re: Moses and also evolution?
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Not all. What I have come to understand as an important issue in discussions about history, especially ancient history, is the necessity of examining the evidentiary criteria held by people who make historical claims, on both sides, which I have done and continue to do. Does contemporary historical consensus determine what happened three to four thousand years ago, for example? What counts as “evidence”? What can we reasonably expect to find if the Exodus were true? Who makes that determination? etc.
The history of archaeology itself demonstrates that our understanding of the past is constantly changing. For quite some time, there was no historical evidence for the kind of Greek found in the NT, until archaeologists in the late 19th, early 20th century found a plethora of koine Greek littered throughout the ruins of a small Christian community in Egypt, Oxyrhynchus. Grocery lists, notes, letters, etc.
Your ”Not all”? Is this in reference to not all of evolution or not all of the geopolitical fiction of the bible tale of Exodus and Conquest?
Could you please provide links/examples of/ to scientific evidence that swayed you to consider evolution not to be fact and also the evidence that swayed you to believe the Exodus and Conquest as described in the bible to be historical fact.
And on the subject of Exodus are you aware of the Internal Settlement Pattern that shows how Canaan was settled?
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The details of which you are asking me I cannot presently devote the time to giving to you, but I will as I have the time. My “not at all” was in reference to your comment about what I reject.
Yes, I am familiar with the internal settlement theory. So by asking me this, though, you are assuming some historicity about “Israel” then? Is that fair to say?
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Historicity about the Israelites, yes, of course. They arose from within the Canaanite population.
The details you are unable to devote much time to at present, would they involve the work of people such as Hoffmeir and Kenneth Kitchen?
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Historicity about the Israelites, yes, of course. They arose from within the Canaanite population.
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Daniel Please see down thread for a reply on your answer to evolution.
Are you an Old Earth or a Young Earth Creationist?
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I do not claim to know how old the universe or the earth is.
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Smile! Me neither, Daniel. I am no geologist, I can assure you.
I am asking if you lean toward Old Earth or Young Earth Creationism.
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How do you know ancient Israel existed in any capacity then? What source or sources do you cite?
And yes, I have read Kitchens and some of Hoffmeier (two “e’s” in his name, btw), even corresponded with him briefly in 2009, when I was actually doing research on the Exodus pharaoh. A brilliant fellow and respected scholar in his field, and a gentlemen.
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When you write Ancient Israel, could you specifty the time frame you are reffering to? And lease bear in mind of course the Pentateuch is considered historical fiction.
Re: Exodisand Conquest.
I am correct in stating then, that, you don’t actually consider genuine evidence or lack thereof ( Kenyon for example) but seem to rather side only with fellow Christians in this field?
As Hoffmeier us a fundamentalists/evangelical do you not consider that he might exhibit a strong a-priori bias?
Also -point to consider – as the supposed fleeing former slaves – 2 million upwards, yes? – stopped at Kadesh Barnea for 38 years how do you account for the total lack of evidence, including zero evidence for any sort of infrastructure required to support such a mass of people. Graves also. Not to mention the total lack of evidence from surrounding nations and communities which such a huge mass of people would by necessity have to have engaged,in some form or another.
And of course, the entire area at the time was under Egyptian control. See the Armana letters ( you are no doubt aware of these of course)
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Sorry about the typos, Daniel.
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I lived in Egypt for six months in 1995, extensively on the east coast (both in the north and south) of the Sinai peninsula. What kind of evidence should we expect from a caravan of people who quickly traversed through an arid desert wilderness frequently buffeted by flash floods, torrential winds, and unrelenting 100+ degree temperatures? They built no permanent structures, carried everything they owned with them and were only in the region for a very short period of time. And this was 3-4,000 years ago. What kind of evidence do you think should be visible and how would you know?
Indeed I am aware of the Amarna letters. Most intriguing to me are the dispatches between what scholars believe to be King Tut’s widow (Ankhesenamun/Ankhesenpaaten) and King Suppiluliuma of the Hittites, her asking him for one of his sons to be her husband. It is not clearly stated in the exchange exactly why she’s doing this except her husband has died.
And why wouldn’t unbelieving scholars not be biased? The best historians will admit their beliefs up front, but in the end, like atheism in cosmology, there is presuppositional unbelief underlying the other side of this debate.
What agnostic physicist Paul Davies says about unbelieving scientists could easily be applied to unbelieving biblical scholars who claim there is no evidence for the Exodus.
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So you conveniently hand wave the 38 years at Kadesh?
What evidence would any reasonable, un-biased and honest person expect to find from the supposed remains of a community of 2 million plus souls(sic)?
If you cannot present an honest scholarly refutation of the total lack of relevant evidence then you are simply hand waving and being blatantly disingenuous.
Admit to faith and I’m fine. But please do not try to wheedle some justification for bullshit simply because you consider you are a sinner and Yahweh has-your-back Jack, and you are some sort of honoury member of the Liars for Jesus Club and its scumbag founder, Eusebius.
That degree of crap I will not accept.
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Not a disingenuous hand-wave ‘t all. I have said a few times I don’t have the time today to give you detailed responses. But your remarks here have indeed concluded the discussion. I haven’t the time or desire or need to offer any more detailed thoughts on the matter to an anonymous commenter who replies such as you have here. It is no longer a discussion. And it is no longer civil.
All the best to you.
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You claim to have no time yet have managed to post half a dozen replies when you could quite easily have offered at the very least one or two genuine links to back your clams. And yet …. you have chosen to side step pertinant issues, as ALL creationist do.
As to anonymous,
A quick visit to my blog should give you an indication of my real name in two seconds flat.
I have used the moniker Arkenaten for years and rather enjoy it, it has become somewhat like a second skin these days.
So yes, your deliberate avoidance of Kadesh for starters indicates your reluctance to face such a blatant fly in the ointment of your Exodus claim.
Civility goes two ways and your visit here was n no way to educate yourself but rather to subtly scorn Gary’s post on the pretext of having a ”discussion.”
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“I lived in Egypt for six months in 1995, extensively on the east coast (both in the north and south) of the Sinai peninsula. What kind of evidence should we expect from a caravan of people who quickly traversed through an arid desert wilderness frequently buffeted by flash floods, torrential winds, and unrelenting 100+ degree temperatures?”
Archeologists say that we should find “a lot” of evidence, even if the claim that two to three million Hebrews left ancient Egypt in a mass Exodus is an exaggeration (only a couple hundred thousand left Egypt, for instance). Archeologists can find traces of ancient small groups of nomads who passed through the area.
The evidence is overwhelming: There is no evidence for the Exodus; not even a smaller version of the “millions of Hebrews” claim.
Anyone who denies this archeological consensus does not have a worldview based on evidence.
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My study of the universe and cosmology has really caused me to be agnostic about the age question. On the one hand, we have the speed of light, Einstein’s relativities, quantum mechanics which seem to hold up rather well (yay, gravity waves!) but on the other hand, there is still much perplexing about the fabric of space-time we are only beginning to understand. Dark matter, dark energy, the uniformity of the CMBR, etc., etc. One of our book contributors is an expert in these areas. He is scary smart. He knows Bayes like the back of his hand, and is a leading expert in the field of fine-tuning and has recently published some research on the parameters of fine tuning that suggest the likelihood of our universe arising by chance is one in 10 to the 80th power. He’s old universe. I have another friend, equally intelligent and well-read on the subject who has published papers on planets in research journals. He has compelling arguments for a young universe when it comes to planetary formation. I’m “torn” between the two. So I don’t worry about it much and like to live in the tension between the two competing ideas! If you put a dialectical shotgun to my head and said, “Pick one” I think I find a younger interpretation more plausible, as the physical world continues to befuddle and amaze physicists, such as Sir Roger Penrose:
Or Mr. Wheeler, who coined the term “black hole.”:
Just like archaeology, cosmology and astrophysics are still uncovering the mysteries of the past. Astronomy is like archaeology in this regard, as it is a kind of study of the past, a study of ancient light that still burns as brightly as it did thousands of years ago. In this regard, I see a kinship between Moses and the Exodus and the way astronomers study the universe. Both the historian and astronomer are quite literally looking at light from the past. Scholars of all stripes today are still caught by the sight of the burning bush. Astronomers likewise are still turning their eyes upward at the sight of stars that have been burning since time immemorial.
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Ah, so bottom line, am I trying to have a discussion with a Young Earth Leaning Creationist who, if push comes to shove. rejects the findings of the Human Genome Project and the work of Collins and all those involved and somewhere in there also suspects/believes that dinosaurs co-existed with ancient humans and were at one time non-carnivorous?
BTW. Your fine-tuning contributor chappie – Luke Barnes by any chance?
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Good questions, Ark. I suggest that all skeptics ask similar questions before engaging in a debate with a theist, Christian or otherwise.
If the theist rejects such well-established scientific facts as evolution and an old earth/universe, there is no point in debating him or her. His (or her) world view is not based on evidence it is based on faith, which is simply another name for superstitious wishful thinking. The debate will simply be a frustrating waste of time.
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I must be honest, Gary, after reading the initial thrust of the back and forth between you and Daniel I was concerned his replies were just a tad too smooth.
As soon as he stated to me he believed Moses was a real historical character …. well, I knew what to expect.
It is unfortunate, but this is what we find ourselves having to deal with.
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I just saw your comments about my belief in the Exodus, the age of the earth and evolution. I did my best with what little time I have had today to respond. Gary admitted earlier in our discussion that evidence was a subjective endeavor.
But now Gary is apparently attempting to use the issue of evidence rather objectively.
No evidence or no evidence according to Gary’s opinion? From the above two comments, it is unclear.
Your claim to know what I am about simply from my brief responses to your questions (where I told you upfront I hadn’t the time this morning to go into any depth) has brought our exchange to a close. I just don’t have the time or desire to write lengthy replies to someone who responds with such personal and dismissive comments. No hard feelings on my part.
All the best to you both.
DR
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What I said was that neither I nor any expert on the planet can prove to you that the Scientific Method is the one and only correct method of evaluating truth claims. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that reasonably accurate determinations of truth come from the tarot cards of your neighborhood psychic, Madam Mystic! But I assert that the Scientific Method is the most consistent, most reliable, method of discovering truth yet known to humankind. It beats the local tarot card reader and the “prophecies” of the Christian holy book hands down!
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These poor souls have been hood-winked/brain-washed/bam-boozeled by one of the oldest superstitions on the planet. It is hard to get through to those who have been thoroughly immersed in this superstition for years. It has a strangle hold on their brains. My primary goal is the younger theists; the ones who have not yet been so thoroughly indoctrinated. My hope is that by flooding them with so much evidence, readily available on the Internet, they will see the truth and abandon their elders’ superstition (faith) based worldview and will walk to the light of Reason and Science.
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Yes! The young ones will believe anything to do with the flood! Good one, Gary.
Pee Ess. Try not to mention Hambo
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You got me. WHO is Hambo?
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Sheesh! Ken Ham.
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Cannot reveal author contributions at the moment. We are still in proposal phase. Nothing public. There are lots of experts on fine-tuning out there.
Also, sir or ma’am, please, if you would, avoid further attempting to box me into to some straw-man version of who you think I am and what I claim to know and we can proceed to have a civil discussion.
🙂
Wherever did I say I rejected the work of the human genome project, for example? Please keep your replies & comments to things I have actually said, not what you think my comments might imply, and we’ll keep going with this as I am able, no worries.
DR
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‘Ark’ is fine. I haven’t been Knighted by the Queen so Sir is not necessary or appropriate.
Daniel, as you are a Young Earth Leaning Creationist of course you would reject the HGP.
Collins may be a Christian, and there may be details scientists argue about, which they should, but neither he or anyone else can escape the scientific findings of his own work which unequivocally identifies evolution.
If you wish to discuss origins, this is a different matter.
But evolution is a Done Deal, and if you reject it ….well, you simply flush whatever credibility you believe you have right down the crapper, I’m afraid.
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It isn’t necessary I go to great lengths to justify the depth of my understanding and engagement with the ideas and theories of natural selection to a complete stranger on the internet, especially when I don’t have the time. I enjoy “civil” discussions about the subject and would like to have one, but I chose to do so without the personal slights. They are not necessary. Thank you for taking the time to respond as you have and for asking me the questions you did. I’ve gotta focus my attention elsewhere. All the best to you and to Gary, nothing personal and no hard feelings whatsoever.
DR
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No hard feelings at all. As long as you do not try to infect children then you, as an adult, can believe what you like.
As a final parting gesture of good will or perhaps good faith would be more in keeping with the theme, could you please explain how dinosaurs such as Allosaurus and T-Rex went from peaceable plant-eaters to highly mobile flesh eating waste disposable units with sharp pointy teeth solely because Adam sinned?
Thanks.
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You claim to have no time yet have managed to post half a dozen replies when you could quite easily have offered at the very least one or two genuine links to back your clams. And yet …. you have chosen to side step pertinant issues, as ALL creationist do.
“Time” for me to write what I believe in detail in my own words. I don’t just provide links without taking the time to share why I believe them. I wanted to write my own response, in my own words, about Moses and the Exodus, not just copy and paste stuff from a Google search.
As to anonymous, A quick visit to my blog should give you an indication of my real name in two seconds flat.
I was completely unaware you had a blog. If you said to me that you did before this, I apologize for missing it.
So yes, your deliberate avoidance of Kadesh for starters indicates your reluctance to face such a blatant fly in the ointment of your Exodus claim.
My reluctance was because I wanted to post my own thoughts in my own words and I did not and still do not have the time to compose a response like that today. As it turns out I certainly could have. But given the nature of some of your replies today, I have chosen not to. I have given this more time than I should have today.
Civility goes two ways and your visit here was n no way to educate yourself but rather to subtly scorn Gary’s post on the pretext of having a ”discussion.”
Gary made a comment on my friend’s podcast/blog site and provided a link to his site. I contacted Gary privately about discussing the matter and later asked him if I minded posting my response to him from my friend’s website on to his forum here. He invited me to do so, as you can see above.
When Gary suggested further discussion would be a waste of time, I concluded our discussion.
As I am concluding this one. Thanks again.
DR
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You simply hover over the gravitar or click the name. Seriously, in this day and age, are you unaware of how blogging works?
Unless you are a qualified paleontologist, historian or an archaeologist,then with due respect why would your own words in this instance bear any weight?
Learning in this instance is surely to verify the veracity of your claims and not simply enter the fray with an already faith-based a-priori outlook on this issue?
But alas, this is exactly what you have done.
You have not made a single concrete evidence-based statement regarding why the evidence produced by such people as William Dever and Israel Finkelstein is false.
You make no mention of the dating of Jericho by Kathleen Kenyon.
You make no effort to offer even an alternative view of Kadesh Barnea – the tale of which is in the bible and was one of the first recognised sites archaeologists pored over once they had access to the Sinai and beyond.
And now when you find your position challenged for not addressing the issues in a straightforward manner you become somewhat petulant and storm off. Just like so many Creationists do.
That you do not believe in evolution, ( and cite a philosopher over the entire scientific community, which is mind boggling) which, by the way, is also accepted by the vast majority of Christians, ( and morality and ethics can be traced through evolution – go read Michael Shermer for one), that you do not accept the almost unanimous archaeological view based on evidence that the Pentateuch, including Moses,Exodus and Conquest is nothing but geopolitical fiction (only religious fundamentalists disagree with this position) tells the reader that you are not only close-minded, but also thoroughly indoctrinated, and unfortunately will not likely be open to any sort of reason on these issues.
As is said: You weren’t reasoned into faith so you won’t likely be reasoned out of it either.
However, the moment you are able to recognize just how dishonest your position truly is, will be the moment you also begin to recognise just how indoctrinated you truly are.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t take my word for it. Ask any de-convert and then pay very close attention to their reply.
Because many have been in exactly the position you are currently in.
Ark.
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I have enjoyed my discussions with you, Daniel. I would enjoy further discussions with you but as I have said, unless we can agree on a foundational basis of truth, it will be a frustrating experience for both of us and ultimately a waste of both of our time. So I suggest in order for our discussion to be profitable we need to both agree to accept consensus expert opinion on all issues for which we ourselves are not experts. (Caveat: We accept consensus expert opinion from experts related to issues in their fields. We do not accept the opinion of an expert plumber as expert opinion on issues of theology, for example.)
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Dear Gary
I need an expert opinion on a mortise and tenon joint for a wooden bench I am making for our patio. As Jesus was a carpenter, should I consult him? Sorry … I mean Him?
However, as he is no longer here would praying for advice in this regard be advisable?
Yours in Faith.
Ark.
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Just make sure he has a contractor’s license and is bonded.
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@Nan
At the time, I did not know.
DR
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That’s not an answer. Please re-read what I asked.
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Hi Nan –
You asked me, Exactly HOW did God tell you? A whisper in your ear? A dream? How did you know it was “God”?
In the context from which you took my words I was describing what was happening to me at that time. I explained it was a conviction. And at that time I honestly did not know it was God, but thought it certainly could have been. It took a good two years to really work that out. It was not an audible voice, not a whisper, but a conviction, very similar to convictions we commonly experience. These convictions, however, were unusual so I decided to follow up with them and see where they led.
Hope that answers your question!
DR
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If you did not know it was ”God” (sic) then why on earth did you not experience moments of serious alarm at these ”voices” in your head, and at the first opportunity consult your General Practitioner and then either a neurosurgeon and /or psychiatrist?
Surely this is what any normal rational person would do – seek professional medical help.
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