Archive for the 'Theology' Category

A discussion of the Christological hymn of Philippians 2

October 13, 2008

Continuing my habit of posting whatever I have to write for my New Testament as literature class.

The prompt:

One of the most important features of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is the christological hymn, located in Philippians 2:5-11. Raymond Brown dedicates a sizable section of his chapter on this hymn, underscoring its genre, features, and importance in early Christianity.

One of the logical conclusions to make about the hymn is that it acts as a major blow to the argument that Paul is literally the first Christian, or that he invented christology wholesale out of thin air.  In your conversation paper, consider Paul’s letter in the context of early Christianity and what we’ve already read of the gospels.

How do we know that this is a hymn? What do we know about its authorship?
What is the significance of this hymn? What doctrines are contained within it?
What does Paul’s inclusion of this hymn possibly tell us about early Christian doctrine?
Is it possible that Paul wrote this hymn? If he did write it, what could that mean?

The response:

The Christological hymn found in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (2:6-11) plays an important role in placing the high Christological views found therein- i.e. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name..”- into a historical context that is difficult to establish elsewhere. In considering this matter it would be instructive to investigate the hymn’s possible connections with the account of the establishment of the Philippian church found in Acts, and we will see that much can be learned about the significance of the hymn and the doctrines within.

The Acts narrative indicates that the Philippian Church began with the conversion of Lydia in chapter 16. Sometime after this conversion of her and her family, Paul and Silas are arrested for disruption of the peace because they cast out a demon from a slave girl who “had a spirit of divination”. In the next scene, perhaps one of the most famous of Acts, Paul and Silas are “singing hymns to God” while the other prisoners listen. Suddenly there is an earthquake, their chains fall off, and the jailer is converted along with his entire family.

Although the genre of the Acts narrative as a recounting of history for the purpose of advancing a theological agenda implies it should not be considered historically unassailable, it is clear from the unified attestations of Acts and Philippians that there was a church established by Paul in Philippi, and that the timeline regarding the progression of Paul’s journey is at least accurate to some unknown degree of detail; for example, Paul seems to have gone on to Thessalonica directly after his release from prison (Acts 17:1, Phil 4:15-16). For this reason, it is not wholly ludicrous to give some degree of credence to the details surrounding the Philippian Church’s establishment. There were, then, at least two pieces to the Philippian church: the Lydia group, and the jailer group. We know that Paul and Silas spent a moderate amount of time among Lydia and her family, but the jailer’s wing was established in quite a hurry over the course of an evening; the very next morning, we are told that Paul and Silas are released, after which they drop in to say their farewells to Lydia, and then depart. It is interesting to note that, although the jailer was asleep when the earthquake occurred, Paul and Silas were singing hymns. This is the only mention of an opportunity for the jailer to have heard the word of the gospel, and presumably, they were singing hymns about Christ which they had just taught to the Lydian wing. Could they have been singing the very hymn that we find in Philppians 2:6-11? We cannot know that for certain, but it is clear that hymn singing was at least part of the establishment of the Philippian congregation. It would make no sense for Paul to quote a hymn in his letter that the Philippians would not recognize; we can imagine it to be one with which they are familiar. Since Paul seems to have spent only a moderate amount of time in Philippi, and specifically with the jailer wing, this hymn must have been one of the tools with which Paul taught to them the high Christological truths; after all, at this early date there was little in the way of New Testament scripture (with the possible exception of Mark and a Q gospel). Hymns would have played an important part in establishing good doctrine among the churches.

This has interesting implications for the history of Christological doctrine; assuming the ideas above are reasonably construed, there is therefore good reason to think that the truth-claims found within the hymn are at least as old as the Philippian church. The hymn teaches that Christ was “in very form God”; some translations render the Greek word morphe to mean “nature” instead of “form”. This is important to note, since it has large bearing on the meaning of the hymn: is it saying that Christ was in God’s image in the same way that man was created in God’s image, or is it establishing a high Christology where Jesus is, like God, uncreated? A New Testament critic cannot say for sure without more information about the Greek meaning. However, if it is teaching a high Christology, an even more interesting question becomes whether or not Paul wrote the hymn himself, but unfortunately I cannot see how one can confidently know the answer one way or the other apart from the tenuous practice of stylistic analysis. It is difficult- perhaps impossible- to ascertain authorship of musical verse when we do not even have any other concrete examples to which we can compare it. As much as I’d like to aver that this hymn provides compelling evidence that the ideas of high Christological prominence were not distinctly Pauline inventions, I cannot make a compelling case for either eventuality. However, it is clear that if a good case can be made that Paul did not write the hymn himself, combined with the knowledge that the hymn comes probably earlier than almost anything else we have surrounding the doctrinal development of the first century church, this would then effectively obviate what Raymond Brown refers to as the “crude” ideas of modern critics who assert that Paul- not Jesus (or Peter or anyone else) - is literally the founder of the Christian religion.

Posted in Bible, Christ, Christian, Christianity, Jesus, Religion, Theology, faith | No Comments »

Gnosticism and the Gospel of John

September 29, 2008

As I have said, I am posting anything I happen to write for my New Testament literature class, so here’s another short essay.  I expect this to be the last one on the gospels as we will soon be diving into the Pauline writings.

Enjoy the break from political and economic rants.

The Gospel of John is called the “spiritual gospel”, and a difference is maintained among scholars between it and the synoptic writings. The spiritual nature of the book lends itself to a variety of interpretation, and one of these historical interpretations has been from the standpoint of Gnostic thought and theology. There are many aspects in which John can be seen as a Gnostic book, however at the same time John is very hostile to Gnosticism in some ways as well.

The fundamentals of Gnostic thought rest on the basis that the material world inhabited by humanity is, by definition, a dark place, and the spiritual world is a place of light. Knowledge of this spiritual light through the overcoming of the material world- an idea from which the word Gnosticism derives- becomes the goal of existence. This understanding of the nature of reality can be stipulated from the mainstream of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other monotheistic theologies; whereas in these traditions the material world was at some point “very good”- or at the very least, amoral- a Gnostic understanding of the world avers that the material world is either a product of error or evil in itself, not created directly by the light or “God”. The world was either crafted by the light force non-ex nihilo, i.e. out of materialistic parts that happened to be lying about, or the monadic deity had no involvement in the material creation whatsoever. Instead, the world is a product of a second, lesser deity known as the demiurge.

The opening of the Gospel of John perhaps provides the seminal example of the ability for both a Gnostic and a non- Gnostic (such unfortunate alliteration) interpretation of a segment. The passage discusses an understanding of God as the light, and of Jesus as the Word having its origination from the light, and “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not overcome it.” What clearer picture of spiritualized knowledge- the very basis Gnostic thought- could be painted than to describe Jesus as “the Word”, or logos (in Greek thought, that which links the human mind to the mind of God)? Not only this, but the darkness of the world is separate from the light, and in various translations is capable of neither overcoming nor understanding the light. Indeed, John continues to tell that the mission of the light itself is to “enlighten the world”, and here we find the Gnostic idea of knowledge coming only from an experience with the source of the light. The light was coming specifically to interact with the world and impart knowledge. At the same time however, in this same passage there are explicit contradictions to Gnostic rumination, beginning with the statement that “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being,” and continuing with “the Word became flesh.” This is clearly an assault on one of the tenants of Gnostic theology, and there may be no more effective way to state for the reader, “the material world was not created by a demiurge; the material world has the logos at the impetus of its existence. Even the Word itself did not find material existence so abhorrent as to abstain from coming to live as part of it.” Continuing on, John the Baptist is sent to “testify to the light, so that all men might believe through him.” Indeed, this statement constitutes another shot across the bow of Gnosticism in that knowledge of the light is specifically delineated to be based not on experiential knowledge, but propositional knowledge. The only way to learn about truth, from a Gnostic perspective, is not to be told about it from another party- as John himself is doing, and as his character John the Baptizer is doing- but through experiential, participatory knowledge. Indeed, if John were a character of Gnostic provenance, he would not have said- TWICE- “I myself did not know him” (1:31, 33), and “testified that this is the Son of God”. He would have invited others to come experience the Son of God for themselves.

Continuing on from the introduction, there is no shortage of other places for Gnostics to find fertile ground for their beliefs to take root. Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, in which Jesus instructs him to become born of the spirit as opposed to being born of the flesh, is an example. Jesus likes to say about himself that he is not of this world, but is “from above”, and the “light of the world”- leading the reader to surmise that he is drawing an unfavorable comparison between material and spiritual existence. In addition, the wording of remaining in him, and Jesus prayer that all of his followers be one together (17:22) indicates a very spiritualized understanding of the mechanics of Christian practice. However, there is one glaringly obvious point with which the Gnostic reader of John much struggle; the bodily resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John seemingly throws a wrench into the idea that the goal of religious life ought to be to overcome and eventually leave behind the material, which is by definition a dirty and undesirable state for the light to debase itself. Already mentioned before was the untenable notion (from a Gnostic perspective) that the eternal logos may debase itself to a fleshly existence, yet this might be forgivable if the story culminated in a throwing off of that existence as an example to humanity; but the Gospel concludes with the exact opposite event. The tomb, we are told, is empty; to underscore the fact that Jesus’ resurrected body is fleshly in nature, Thomas is told “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side”, and again we find the evangelist actively engaged in fending off the roots of Gnostic thought.

Posted in Bible, Christian, Philosophy, Religion, Theology, faith | No Comments »

Ah, that’s the question isn’t it?

April 22, 2008

Or rather, these are the questions:

People have been wrestling with these same questions for centuries, and I of course don’t claim to have all the answers. There are volumes of books written about them, and I suppose all explanations would be called “rationalizations” by the maker of the video. After watching it, I suddenly realized that I only had a vague idea of what, exactly, a rationalization is. So I did what all “college educated professionals” (yuk yuk yuk) would do. I looked it up:

ra·tion·al·ize

v. ra·tion·al·ized, ra·tion·al·iz·ing, ra·tion·al·iz·es
v.tr.

1. To make rational.
2. To interpret from a rational standpoint.
3. To devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for (one’s behavior): “Many shoppers still rationalize luxury purchases as investments” Janice Castro.

Now it is obvious which definition of rationalize is meant by the video (#3), however let me point out something here which has some bearing on the whole affair: a rationalization is in the eye of the beholder. What is rational to one person may be complete nonsense to another, and the only way to determine whether an argument is a rationalization is to base this determination on the things one already knows to be true, or one’s presuppositions. By labeling all arguments contrary to his assertion that “God is imaginary” as absurd, the video creator is involved in circular reasoning of the following variety: essentially he is saying it is absurd to give an answer to the question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” because all such explanations are rationalizations. He is presupposing that God is imaginary before announcing his conclusion- something a “college educated professional” (translation: if you don’t agree with me you’re stupid) ought to know will lead to error. Observe the following syllogism:

  1. All arguments based on rationalizations lead to invalid conclusions.
  2. Any answer to the question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” other than “God is imaginary” is a rationalization.
  3. Therefore, “God is imaginary” is the only valid conclusion.
This is the logical fallacy of Begging the Question, or assuming your conclusion is true (statement 2) before reaching it (statement 3). In addition, statement #1 is not even true on its face: an argument’s validity is dependent on its truth value, not on from where it came.
Now gentle reader, please humor me and have another look at definition #1 for rationalization. Since we have established that the video maker’s reasoning is decidedly IRRATIONAL, shall we proceed with some rationalization (definition 1!)?
I stated before that rationalization is in the eye of the beholder, and based on presuppositions. I am more than willing to admit my relevant presuppositions before I begin an argument. They are:
  1. There was a man who lived in 1st century Israel called Yeshua (Jesus) who was unjustly executed by the Roman authorities.
  2. There is overwhelming historical evidence that the gospels of the NT ought to be considered as accurate depictions of his life and words.
  3. There is overwhelming evidence even independent of these gospels that he rose from the dead.
I’m not going to bother addressing each of the 10 questions raised in the video. I have my answers of course, I mean every “college educated professional” (blah!) must think about these things. I will point out again that the video maker is not being honest. This is not because he has presuppositions, but because he is pretending that his reasoning is completely independent of these presuppositions.

No, instead I would simply like to ask in regard to those presuppositions: what does the maker of the video do with Jesus? How does a man rising from the dead after 3 days in a grave square with the statement “God is imaginary?” If you can answer me that, then I will tell you why God does not heal amputees (even though he did- lepers and so forth, with fingers missing, etc. In front of people. It was written down. By 4 men, all 4 of whom were tortured over and over because they wouldn’t admit they made it all up).

A quick note about the “college educated professional” stuff: I am convinced nowadays, having spent time among the college educated and the non college educated, that a college education by and large actually has a deleterious effect on one’s center of reasoning.

Posted in Atheism, Bible, Christian, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Theology, faith | No Comments »

You believe what you sing

April 13, 2008

After returning home victoriously from a rather diverting game of Puerto Rico followed by an unsuccessful go at Settlers of Catan this evening, I found myself pondering (completely randomly) how much (little?) thought seems to go into the lyrics of modern worship songs sung in churches. I discovered a rather entertaining (to me) blog with lots of good links critiquing such things:

http://badlyricsmakebadtheology.blogspot.com/

I just did a cursory perusal of this one and it doesn’t seem to be done out of a self-important attitude, just a simple desire for music to be grounded in solid theology. However, I will say a couple of the posts seem a little nit-picky even for me:

Why do we “need” Jesus?

We believe in God / and we all need Jesus
‘Cause life is hard / and it might not get easier

I guess I might have trouble meriting heaven by myself, so I need help of some sort from Jesus. In this song, is he my savior, or my example or friend or therapist or life coach or what??

Overly obsessive attention to nuance notwithstanding, I do agree with the author’s general sentiment: that bad lyrics make for bad theology. Another way of putting it might be, similar to “you are what you eat”, you believe what you sing.

Rabbit Trail: Peruse is one of a small list of words in English which has two definitions, one being the opposite of the other. Peruse may mean a detailed investigation, or it can also mean a quick overview. Another word which has two opposite meanings is cleave; two things may cleave together, e.g. a man will cleave to his wife, or you can cleave a melon in half; interestingly enough, one cannot “uncleave” or “decleave” a melon. I’m sure there are other ones but I can’t think of any right now. Anyway.

Regarding bad theology of worship music, one song that has always bugged me to death is this one by Shane Barnard:

You said “Ask and you will receive”
Whatever you need
You Said “Pray and I’ll hear from heaven and I’ll heal your land”

You said, Your glory will fill the earth like water to seas
You said “Lift up your eyes the harvest is here the kingdom is near”

You said ask and I’ll give the nations to you
Oh Lord, thats the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see your light
as it rises on us

You said “Ask and you will receive”
Whatever you need
You Said “Pray and I’ll hear from heaven and I’ll heal your land”

You said, Your glory will fill the earth
like water to seas
You said “Lift up your eyes the harvest is here the kingdom is near”

You said ask and I’ll give the nations to you
Oh Lord, thats the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see your light
as it rises on us

Ask and I’ll give the nations to you
Oh Lord, thats the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see your light
as it rises on earth

This song is a smattering of different scriptures from all over the Bible- some of which aren’t even translated right, being paraphrases- which when put together paint a really distorted picture of God’s work on Earth through the Church, the prospects of success and failure of that work, topped off by a rosy, puppy dogs and ice cream view of the end result of it all. And to make things worse, it completely disregards the intended meaning behind the scriptures it seemingly elucidates.. it is riddle with exegetical error.

For one thing, Habbakuk 2:14 (a notoriously misconstrued verse which in my experience has been purported to mean anything from universalism to predestination to premillenial-dispensationalism) does not have anything to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ going out to all the nations. It’s about a specific incident of God’s wrath poured out on idol worshipers causing the nations around them to repent. Read the context, people:

Hab 2:12 “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed And founds a town with violence!
Hab 2:13 “Is it not indeed from the LORD of hosts That peoples toil for fire, And nations grow weary for nothing?
Hab 2:14 “For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea.
Hab 2:15 “Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make {them} drunk So as to look on their nakedness!
Hab 2:16 “You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your {own} nakedness. The cup in the LORD’S right hand will come around to you, And utter disgrace {will come} upon your glory.
Hab 2:17 “For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, And the devastation of {its} beasts by which you terrified them, Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, To the town and all its inhabitants.
Hab 2:18 “What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, {Or} an image, a teacher of falsehood? For {its} maker trusts in his {own} handiwork When he fashions speechless idols.
Hab 2:19 “Woe to him who says to a {piece of} wood, ‘Awake!’ To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’ {And} that is {your} teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, And there is no breath at all inside it.
Hab 2:20 “But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.”

People might argue that this incident did not cause the knowledge of God’s glory to fill the Earth, but this is obviously prophetic/ apocalyptic language, examples of which are used throughout the Bible all the time. This is just one example the ridiculousness of this song. I could go on and on about it. And the sad thing is, I like the song- it’s really not bad as worship music goes- it’s just too bad the lyrics are so odiously distracting.

Is it too much to ask for theologically-sound Christian music to be sung in churches and para-church organizations? Am I being too demanding of our creative sisters and brothers? I don’t want to be a jerk or a party pooper.. really I don’t. I just think that putting what seems like zero effort into the meaning behind music lyrics ought to left to people who have nothing important to sing about.

What really worries me is that this casual attitude seems indicative of the general mode in much of the church toward theology and the study of scripture today- and it doesn’t seem isolated to one generation either. Maybe this has been the case for most of the last 2000 years and I shouldn’t get too hung up on it. But then again a relaxed adherence toward scriptural truth by even small groups of people contributed to the existence of such things as slavery, Nazism, the beginnings of Islam and Mormonism, and gnosticism.

I wouldn’t lay the responsibility of these unfortunate occurrences at the feet of Shane Barnard, Chris Tomlin or Amy Grant though. That’s just over the top. But it’s worth paying attention to such things.

Posted in Bible, Christian, Evangelical, Music, Personal, Theology, faith | 3 Comments »
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Big Bang Badda Boom

February 20, 2008

Be warned that this post gets a little heady. If you skip to the end, there’s a really interesting, general-population oriented video explaining what is meant (at least by one scientist) by ‘10 dimensional string theory’. It’s a fun, short video. Skip to the end and watch it if you want.

If I may be allowed to put on my nerd hat (which begs the question: do I ever remove it?), it may surprise some that this idea actually makes sense to me (I’ve butchered the article text into a smaller form):

For decades, physicists have accepted the notion that the universe started with the Big Bang.. (but) physicist Neil Turok is challenging that model… Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end… According to Turok, …the Big Bang represents just one stage in an infinitely repeated cycle of universal expansion and contraction…

Within a school of string theory known as m-theory, Turok said, “the seventh extra dimension of space is the gap between two parallel objects called branes. It’s like the gap between two parallel mirrors. We thought, What happens if these two mirrors collide? Maybe that was the Big Bang.”

And now the most interesting part:

Turok’s proposition has drawn condemnation from string theory’s many critics and even opposition from the Catholic Church.

Ah, nothing like crack-pot physics theorizing to bring together string theorists and the Catholic Church.

Now, I say that it may surprise some that I, a religious Christian theist, find this to be an acceptable idea because it seems to fly in the face of the traditional Christian view of creation; a view which dictates that God created the world ex nihilo. I’m sure this is precisely the reason the Catholic Church is upset. Yet it is short sighted, oh my dear fellow religious devotees, to react to this sort of theory with animosity and distrust toward science and scientists.

I have my problems with string theory and much of modern physics, but I do not run from it. Indeed I consider it a healthy, Biblically sound attitude to lend equal weight to faith/scripture and science, and Turok’s theorizing is a case in point. If he is correct, then it must be admitted that instead of the Stephen Hawking position where the world suddenly comes into existence, the universe has always been and always will be. And this is where the Christian theist gets the last laugh.

One critique of Christian theism from a purely materialistic world view, whether it is steeped in a humanistic or Nihilist approach, avers that faith in an infinite God is an untenable position. It has been much more tasteful (and I don’t mean emotionally- for most materialists, the non existence of God is emotionally distasteful) for the materialist’s intellect to be able to say that the universe had a definite beginning in and of itself, and that it will have a definite end. Inexplicably- and I honestly have never entirely understood why- Christians have come to embrace the concept of the Big Bang, on the basis that it establishes that the universe did indeed have a beginning, as scripture teaches; and not only a beginning but a Beginner, since logic implies such things like the Big Bang can’t happen on their own. Christian theists and the Stephen Hawkings of the scientific community have found themselves in a sort of odd agreement about this theory, each for their own reasons. Unfortunately most Christians do not realize that as a result of this unholy alliance, they are victims of a recondite fraud; the entire point of the Big Bang theory is to allow physicists to postulate a framework where the universe could have a beginning on its own, without a Beginner. Philosophical afterthoughts by amateurs are of no import- they are not at all scientific.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating wholesale abandonment of Big Bang theory based on this one Wired article, neither for Christians nor for physicists. For one thing, Wired’s reputation (at least with me) is sketchy at best, and for another, I am suspicious of string theory and think the whole idea is a bunch of metaphysical claptrap anyway. And as I said before, I am very comfortable with the idea of harmony between science and faith: they are not mutually exclusive. However, if Turok is right and the materialist is forced to admit the universe is an infinite entity past and future, it is hard to ignore the scientific implications this would have on belief in God. As things stand, the materialist can ascribe to a finite universe based on credible scientific theory and at least try to make himself appear on a higher intellectual plane than the theist, who must have faith in an infinitely existing God. There are answers to this riddle, though they are complicated. If this situation were to change- if the infinitely existing universe were an established principle of scientific observation- the materialist no longer has a leg on which to stand. He must evaluate a body of evidence that leads him to have faith in an infinitely existing universe, exactly as the Christian theist evaluates a body evidence (some of it the same evidence) which leads him to faith in an infinitely existing God.

The materialist will complain that his idea is based on scientific observation, and that this theory of metaphysics (defined as the mechanics of first cause) does not necessitate an infinite God anymore than the Big Bang necessitates a Big Banger. I have no argument in response except to say that he is correct, but the point is not that it proves the existence of an infinite God. The point is that the classical critique against Christian theism, viz, that Christian theism demands a step of faith which is not insisted on by materialism, is rendered moot. We are now both on the same page.

And now as promised, here is the fun video:

Posted in Atheism, Big Bang, Christian, Philosophy, Physics, Science, String Theory, Theology, faith | 4 Comments »

God the celestial computer geek

August 16, 2007

I was having a discussion about this article over email with some friends of mine. A quick excerpt for those who can’t be arsed to click (don’t worry- Dante says there’s a special place in the afterlife for the lazy):

I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims. But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation. <snippity snip> It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.

This may be an interesting idea to a certain class of people. However as intriguing as it may be, it does nothing with regards to answering any theological questions whatsoever, as I shall show. Yet at the same time, it does serve to illustrate an important theological truth which people often miscalculate; a truth which is fundamental to how God ought to be viewed by those who love and revere Him.

One must admit that it seems very neat and tidy to hypothesize such a picture of God; not only is such a God more palatable to the human psyche, doesn’t it also go a long way in solving many theological conundrums, namely, the problems of evil and first cause? Perhaps God is only eternal with regards to our universe, and there is no need, then, to be dogmatic about His transcendence as it is commonly taught by the Judeo-Christian view of God. He may, in a sense, be but a distant descendant of humanity- what the article calls a “post-human”. And if the world is but a computer program or the equivalent, as the link goes on to point out, it does not necessarily follow that we are any less real or important than we were before. Our universe remains just as real to us, and surely such an advanced level of computing could fulfill the promises of artificial intelligence we have learned to anticipate through science fiction. We need not be dust in the wind.

Yet the speciousness of such an idea is readily apparent when it is fully considered. Laying aside for a moment the Christian theological considerations themselves, there are plenty philosophically damning non sequitars in this exercise to render it completely impotent. It does not begin to solve even one of the Great Questions. Assuming all of it were true, from beginning to end, the question would still arise as to the nature of this creator, whose title I will no longer capitalize for reasons that will become quickly apparent. Is this creator itself a created being? If it is so, as the thesis of this theory seems to teach, we are back where we started! By removing ourselves one extra rung from the top of the existential ladder, we have not answered the question “on what does the ladder rest?” Similarly, the problem of evil is just as confounding as ever. If we are indeed beings who matter- as we must assume since the alternative is not an idea that allows us to continue to have ideas- the Metacreator would be just as responsible for the evil in our world as the sub-creator’s world which He created directly. Why would the creator’s Creator have created a creator with a penchant for World of Warcraft over, say, Left Behind: Eternal Forces? Well other than the fact that Left Behind: Eternal Forces is probably really, really lame.. but then, so is Warcraft.

Christianity itself has much with which to inform this debate as well. It is clear from scripture the God whom we worship is the transcendant God, the God who created all, and by Him all things subsist, that in Him we live and move and have our being. We may very well discover that we exist in a computer program, but this would have few- or no- implications for Christian theology. It would just make things odd. Not even more interesting. Just odd.

One might push back, countering that the scriptural ascribtions (is that a word? it is now!) of transcendence to God as it is commonly understood might simply be metaphor. This is mere double talk, though. Metaphor presupposes two things. First, that the one to whom a metaphor is given has it within their cognitive faculty to understand the metaphor. Otherwise, it would not be a metaphor, it would just be gibberish. The second underlying assumption: metaphor is only useful if it points us in a direction of truth. Metaphor is useless if it is simply meant to be enigmatic and teach the opposite of what the metaphor seems to say. If the truth about God is closer to the picture of the post-human computer nerd than to the transcendent Creator and Sustainer of all, the metaphor would point in the direction of the truth, not the opposite direction which it currently points. There are numerous references to god’s uncreated nature in the Bible, both direct and indirect. Could these references be metaphor for something we don’t understand? They almost certainly are. However, they cannot mean the opposite of what they seem to be saying, or they would cease to be metaphor and simply be confusing or worse, completely misleading. And suddenly all Christian belief- the trustworthiness of the Bible along with the nature of God and everything connected to them- are no longer certain. No, we don’t go down that road.

Even more fundamental, though, is the following, which is relevant to even the non religious and the non Christian. We must ask the question here, what makes God God? What characteristic or characteristics are the essential ones, the ones where we must begin if we are to have a throughly constructed picture of His constitution? There is actually one very basic characteristic on which all theology must rest- God is uncreated. He is the Uncreated Creator. Unlike the computer programmer, there is no problem of first cause when it comes to God’s existence. It is the most simple and obvious answer to this Great Question. The very notion of God precludes any possibility of the designer being anything other than the original Undesigned Designer- otherwise, you would have an infinite regression of causes with no first cause at all. Both ideas seem absurd in their own way, but the idea of God the Uncaused Cause has a ring of truth to it that cannot be dismissed.

Here’s the crux of the problem. It is a common misconception that we worship God because He created us. We do not. We worship God because He is intrinsically valuable, and He bestows all value by his choice; not random choice, but according to His character. We as human individuals are only valuable because He has Valued us. Freedom is only valuable because it is consistent with His character, as is Love. Money is only valuable because we take the bit of value He has given us and in turn bestow it upon money. Even more fundamental: a god who is created is not deserving of worship. We ought not worship the great computer nerd in the sky; it would even be binding upon us to resist the urge worship “the created thing rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen.” He is deserving of gratitude, but not worship.

What makes God God is that He is uncreated, in the most literal, metaphysical, and basic sense of the concept. A created god is no God at all.

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Introduction to a Series on Scripture and Theology

July 23, 2007

Now to begin with a sort of an introductory post to what I hope will be the aforementioned series of posts, I would like to say a few things.

First of all, I am in no way claiming to have the final answer or possess special authority on any Biblical question whatsoever. I am a layman, and a young layman at that. I am not a pastor and have never been to seminary, am only an aspiring theologian, and would not even consider myself a learned scholar of passing significance. As a matter of fact, there are many men and women who I respect and love, and from whom I desire reciprocation of those sentiments, yet nevertheless I expect many of those men and women will find my thoughts and opinions to be not only wrong, but perhaps even fatally wrong. In some cases, it may even damage our relationship. For this reason, it’s important to me to note that my intention in this process, above all else, is to maintain a Biblical attitude of humility and a simple desire to communicate things that have edified my walk with the Lord so that others may perhaps be able to have their lives impacted for Him as well. It is not my intent to set anyone straight, or to think so highly of myself that it is my holy task to call attention to the theological missteps of others. I am not rallying anyone to usher in a new Reformation or purporting to initiate a modern day Schism- I do not have delusions of grandeur.

The second thing I’d like to make abundantly clear is that, although I am not claiming to have the final answer regarding these things, I have spent many hours researching them, and they are not what one might call flights of fancy. I am not going to make silly and undignified arguments here. This will probably be fairly apparent once I get rolling with the discussion itself. Again, clarity and succinctness- not persuasion and playing at self importance- are my goals here. There is a very big difference between explanation with an eye toward clarity vs. an eye toward persuasion. I will be explaining, from the Bible, why I have reached the conclusions to which I have arrived, but only in the spirit of clear and concise communication.

Lastly, a bit about what I think I intend to do, so as to generate a little anticipation. I will begin with the subject I dubbed number one- eschatology- and instead of spelling out what I believe right away, I will take a number of scriptures and discuss what they mean, and compare that with what they are often assumed to mean. This is a classic inductive approach, and I will hope do nothing more fancy than that. I believe it is important to rely on scripture first and foremost in formulating ones views on what one believes. Hopefully, if all goes as well as it seems to make sense in my mind at the moment, it will be clear what I believe before I even have to spell it out. Finally, I will conclude with summarizing and making it even more clear. I have no idea how long and how many posts this will take, but I expect it to be five on eschatology at the very least. Perhaps many more.

One last note. For those of you who are reading this and future posts on Facebook and have comments, I would request that, instead of making any comments you may have on Facebook itself, click the link at the top of this note that says “view original post” (or something like that), and make those comments on my blog website instead of on Facebook. That will make things a little more tidy I think. And I mean, who doesn’t like tidy??

If anyone has any encouraging words or word of warning regarding what I intend to do here, I’d love to hear them!

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An Insomnia Inspired Endeavor!

July 23, 2007

Another bout with insomnia this evening has lead me to a potentially dangerous- and also potentially rewarding- idea. As I lay in bed, … wait, grammar lesson: lay is the correct word here. NOT laid. Almost no one uses these words correctly and it’s very annoying! Language is a treasure, ladies and gentlemen. Mine is not perfect, but we should all try use it correctly when we are able.

Enough of that.

I lay in bed attempting to dose off, thinking the thoughts of a man attempting not to think at all, and it suddenly became clear to me that I ought to try writing something about what I believe. Anyone who knows me well is aware of my penchant for theological investigation. Indeed, as a lesser number of those who read this may be aware, there are a couple areas (some may even consider them fundamental areas) where what I believe is not representative of what happens to be, shall we say, the commonly held Christian viewpoint, whether you’re talking about America or elsewhere. As a matter of fact, one of those areas in particular is a sticky wicket on which I am not aware of having met even one person in “real life” agreeing with me- “real life” meaning, of course, outside the internet. I wonder how many years the internet will have to be around before it is considered as “real life” as the rest of our lives?

I have enjoyed doing this blog thing for my own edification if nothing else, and have no illusions that it will ever make a big difference in someone else’s life. However, despite such thoughts, I shall endeavor over the next few weeks (months? years? we shall see how long it takes) to spell out my beliefs in three, maybe four particular areas of theology which I am aware of differences between myself and almost everyone else, with an eye toward clarity and succinctness:

1. Eschatology: This is the Biblical study of Last Things- predominantly those things in the Bible having to do with Jesus’ Second Coming. This is the one to which I referred as being an area where I am not aware of any other person I’ve ever met in the flesh agreeing with my viewpoint.

2. Theodicy: The problem of evil in combination with belief in a benevolent God. This one I’ve had much better luck in finding people who share my convictions, and have helped me iron them out more completely.

3. God’s Nature: Intricately linked with the Theodicy discussion is the very nature of God Himself. For this reason, I may combine 2 and 3 together. It would be very difficult to separate them. We’ll see about it.

4. Denominations and church unity.  My on this subject I expect many will probably find harmonious with their own thoughts.

I will begin with an introduction in my next post.

As a side note, this new project will not become the sole reason for the existence of my blog. By the way, although I have expressed my deep seated hatred for the word blog in the past, and have not changed my mind about it, I have made peace with the fact that it is an inevitable evil in our fallen world that at times many and not no under my control, certain words will come to plague mankind that ought not be used, but they must be tolerated for the sake of effective communication. So, as I was saying, I will continue to intermittently post on things which I can interesting, funny, or neither. The series will itself be a subset of those.

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