"Quantum of Solace" & Quantum Physics

The good news is that "Quantum of Solace" is not the worst movie ever made. That distinction goes to "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

But QS is bad. Precisely because Daniel Craig has not one quantum of solace. Not one tiny indivisible entity of inner peace. And his face shows it. Craig's is the most monodimensional face in any movie I've ever seen, except for the robot Gort in the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still." I'm not expecting James Bond to break out in Jim Carrey-type grins but Sean Connery's Bond had more than an occasional twinkle in his eye. Craig's eye is as mischievous as a quark (but even quarks have six flavors).

I had trouble following the story line for the same reason I have trouble understanding quantum physics. The theatre I was in had poor sound. Linda and talked about this and then agreed that even though we had trouble hearing the words we didn't miss anything anyway.

Chuck Norris's Voice and Mine

Last week Linda and I went to Subway. "What would you like?" asked the young man behind the counter?

"A tuna sub on honey oat bread."

"What would you like on it?"

"Swiss cheese, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, extra hot peppers, oil and vinegar."

He then asked me, "Do you know who you sound like?"

"No."

"Chuck Norris."

I thought, to this kid I sound like Chuck Norris. I felt a warm feeling inside. I felt bigger, taller, stronger, more dangerous, more capable. And the only words I said were the ingredients of a sandwich.

Since then I've talked out loud while driving alone, just listening to the sound of my voice. A few times I've thought, "I do sound like Chuck Norris." I speak, and my enemies tremble.

Today's Toledo Blade on Darren Wilson's "Finger of God" and SSE at Our Church

Today's Toledo Blade has a nice article on Darren Wilson's "Finger of God" and promotes Chris Overstreet's School of Supernatural Evangelism at Redeemer.

3 Meditations on Thankfulness

(Monroe County Community College)

BE THANKFUL FOR A KINGDOM THAT CANNOT BE SHAKEN

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”

- Hebrews 2:18

We’re not in control. Agreed? Things we don’t control include: the global economy, what’s happening in India today, what’s happening in Bangkok today, other people, our own addictions, the weather, the common cold, gas prices, nations, the past, the future, most of what’s happening now, and death. Because these things are fundamentally out of our control or anyone’s control, attempts to control them sometimes get ugly, such as when we try to control other people.

All these uncontrollable things shift and move beneath our feet and before our eyes and make life uncertain. Sometimes the very foundations of our life get shaken and we get fearful. This has happened to me and will happen again, I am certain.

Many years ago my life was shaken. “I” was out of control. My choices and their results left me in a fearful condition. It was then that I looked to Christ. And something inside me shifted. The shift was from a heart that trusted in fundamentally uncontrollable things to life in a “kingdom that cannot be shaken.” This shift has been, for me, THE event of my entire life. Now I spend most of my time seeking the kingdom of God, and studying the things of the kingdom, and looking to God for strength to live these things out. I’m not the perfect kingdom citizen. But, like others I know, I’m the recipient of God’s kingdom. The result is that I am thankful. And it causes me to “worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”

PRAY, WATCH, BE THANKFUL

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.”

- Colossians 4:2-3

I think there are a lot more people who call themselves “Christians” who are not devoted to prayer then there are those who are devoted to prayer. I don’t mean to judge people re. this, but for years I’ve led conferences and taught on prayer throughout the United States and around the world. “Devotion to prayer” is lower in America and Europe than in Third World countries. I have found that the more one enters into the Third World the more devotion to prayer there is. Why?

Because the more stuff one has creates the illusion of un-neediness. And, a person has to be very, very busy to acquire all the stuff, so “there’s no time to pray.” In reality we’re all very needy. In America, mostly, we just don’t realize it.

The same, I think, is true for “watchfulness.” The American way of watching is passive, unengaged media-gazing. Media-deprived people know what it is to be watchful, like the farmer standing in his field gazing deep into the horizon searching for rain. True watchfulness follows from true neediness.

Paul instructs us to be devoted to prayer and to watchfulness. Real watchfulness contains an element of mystery. The media-illusion casts a spell of “knowledge” on people, masking the truth that this world we live in, to include our own selves, remains fundamentally a great mystery. The more mystery, the less we know we’re not in control, the more watchfulness emerges.

I find it interesting that Paul next instructs us to devote ourselves to being thankful. Thankfulness follows from prayerfulness and watchfulness. This is because a person who is devoted to prayer and watching has a great sense of need and dependency. When one is needy, then provision is not so taken for granted. Hence, thankfulness emerges. Gratitude happens.

Give your life to being thankful. Focus on thankfulness. Love being thankful. Make thankfulness a priority. Dedicate to thankfulness. Get a prayer life. Get a watchful life. Get a thankful life.

OVERFLOW WITH THANKFULNESS

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

- Colossians 2:6-7

At age 21 I received Christ Jesus as Lord. I welcomed Jesus. The result is that for the past 38 ½ years I have lived in him. Not perfectly. Jesus is God, I am not. But my receptiveness to Jesus has so changed my life that I wonder if I’d even be alive today were it not for him. I have sunk my roots into the deep, rich, life-giving soil of God’s kingdom and never left. If anything good has come into me and through me to others it’s Jesus, flowing through me.

And I am thankful. I feel thankful today. I don’t always feel that way, and when that happens I’ve lost the forest for the trees. I see the darkness and miss the light. I rarely feel ungrateful. Sometimes, I’m just in neutral – not ungrateful, but definitely not overflowing with thankfulness.

To “overflow,” literally, means to have more than a full cup. When a cup of water is full it overflows. Overflowing is the indicator of fullness. Therefore to be filled with God’s Spirit is to necessarily overflow. Part of this overflow is a thanks-shaped heart. It’s a wonderful way to live this life. It’s life sans bitterness. It’s for every day, every week. It’s even for Thanksgiving week.

Receive Christ Jesus as Lord.

Continue to live in him.

Sink your roots deep into life in his Kingdom.

Be built up in him. Construct your life in him.

Find yourself being strengthened in faith.

Let the overflow of thankfulness pour forth.

A Synopsis of Michael Brown's Case for Jesus as the Messiah

(This is especially for those who heard my message last Sunday out of Luke 18.)

In Luke 18:31 we read: Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.

This is high Christology; viz., the claim that Jesus makes regarding himself being the fulfillment of the ancient Jewish Messianic promises. There are things that are going to unfold and happen in Jerusalem when Jesus gets there. It’s like Jesus us saying to his disciples, “You’ve heard of these things before. You’ve longed for these things to happen. Now’s the time.”

So what did the prophets write about? I’m going to present the reasoning of Dr. Michael Brown , using his synopsis found in Lee Strobel’s The Case for the Real Jesus. I find his analysis compelling. He’s a great scholar, having done his Ph.D in Near Eastern Languages and Literature from NYU. And, he’s a Jew who has found Jesus to be the Messiah. Here are Brown’s bullet points. (Many of these are simply direct quotes from Brown’s interview.)

1. Long ago, as recorded in the book of Genesis, God gave specific promises to the tribe of Judah regarding the covenant God made between himself and Israel. For example, Genesis 49:10 says “The scepter will not depart from Judah.” There was a man named Jesse who was of the tribe of Judah. Jesse had a son named David.

2. Isaiah 11:1 says “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” The word “Branch” is commonly used to refer to the Messiah. The idea is that from Jesse, who is from the tribe of Judah, there’s going to come a “Messiah” who will bear fruit. There’s going to be a lasting kingship through David.

3. In Jeremiah 23:5 God said that he will raise from David’s line “a righteous Branch, a king who will reign wisely.”

4. In the book of Isaiah we see references to someone called “the servant of the Lord.” Which means, “Messiah.” “Anointed One.” (The Greek words for “the Messiah” are “the Christ.”

5. Isaiah 42:1-4 say that the Messiah will not stop [falter] until he brings justice to the earth.

6. Isaiah 49 says that the “servant of the Lord” has the mission of re-gathering the tribes of Israel to bring them back to God.

7. In Isaiah 49:6 God says he will not only re-gather Israel. We read: “I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

8. Isaiah 50:6 speaks of the Messiah’s voluntary suffering.

9. In Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 we read that the Messiah will be highly exalted but first will suffer terribly. He will actually be disfigured in his suffering. The words here say the people of Israel didn’t get it. They thought he was suffering for his own sins and wickedness. They didn’t realize he was bearing their sins, suffering for them, and by his wounds there was healing for them. Then these verses speak of his death and his continued life after that.
a. Lee Strobel asked Michael Brown the question – “How important is this passage?”
b. Brown said: “It’s almost as if God said, ‘I want to make it so absolutely clear Yeshua is the Messiah that it’s undeniable.” I almost feel as if God would have to apologize to the human race and to the Jewish people for putting this passage into the scriptures when it so clearly points to Yeshua if he didn’t really mean it.”

10. Now we narrow things even more. In 2 Chronicles 7 God says if Israel’s sin reaches a certain level he will destroy the temple [Solomon’s], exile the people, and leave them in a state of judgment.
a. God says to the people of Israel – “Forsake me… and I will destroy the temple in Jerusalem.”
b. And, sure enough, all of this happens in history.

11. The prophet Daniel prays in Daniel 9 that God would have mercy.
a. God gives Daniel a revelation about the temple being rebuilt.
b. Before this new temple is destroyed, Daniel is told that several things are going to happen.
c. This includes the bringing of everlasting atonement – the final dealing with sin.

12. The Second Temple is built.
a. The prophet Haggai lives to see this second temple built.
b. But it’s nothing like the first temple, Solomon’s temple. Solomon’s temple was a stunning physical structure, far more imposing than the second temple. It also had the glory of God there. When sacrifices were offered, fire came down and consumed them.
c. The second temple didn’t have the presence of God or the divine fire.

13. BUT… Haggai said the glory of the second temple would be greater than the glory of the first temple. I love these verses – read closely:
a. Haggai 2:6-9 - 6 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the LORD Almighty. 8 'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the LORD Almighty. 9 'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty. 'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the LORD Almighty."
b. God would fill the second temple with his glory. But when God says he’ll fill the temple with glory, He’s talking about filling the temple WITH HIS PRESENCE.

14. Then the prophet Malachi, who lived later, says God HIMSELF… will come to his temple and purify some of his people and bring judgment on others. Malachi uses a Hebrew term that always refers to God himself – the Lord – he will come to this Second Temple.

15. The second temple was destroyed in AD 70. The prophesied visitation of God had to take place before the second temple was destroyed. So guess what’s happening, e.g., a passage like John 7. "On the last and greatest day of the Feast [of Tabernacles – God, you have provided… like You did in the wilderness…; food…, and water. SO… SEND RAIN!!!], Jesus stood [in the temple courts]… and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. 40On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet." 41Others said, "He is the Christ.""

16. The prophecy of Haggai is fulfilled when Jesus enters the temple courts and says things like “I am the light of the world,” and “If you are thirsty come to me.”
a. In this regard Michael Brown says – “So it’s not a matter of maybe there’s another one who’s the Messiah. If it’s not Jesus (“Yeshua”), then throw out the Bible, because nobody except him accomplished what needed to be done prior to AD 70.
i. What divine visitation did take place if not for Yeshua?
ii. When else did God visit the second temple in a personal way?
iii. Who else atoned for sin?
iv. How was the glory of the second temple greater than the first?
v. Either the Messiah came two thousand years ago or the prophets were wrong and we can throw out the Bible.
vi. But they weren’t wrong. Yeshua is the Messiah – or nobody is.” (Strobel, Case for RJ, 198)

For the full text of Strobel’s interview with Brown pick up The Case for the Real Jesus. It’s an excellent read – the entire book.

For Brown’s more complete and scholarly writings on this go here.

Witherington on Calvinism's Unbiblical Intellectual Certainty

Here's a nice post by Ben Witherington on Calvinists who seem to think they've achieved "intellectual certainty" re. their theological position. Witherington wonders not only how such a thing is possible, but finds such a quest unbiblical.

Groothuis Reviews Moreland's "Kingdom Triangle"

(J.P. Moreland)

Doug Groothuis has reviewed J.P. Moreland's Kingdom Triangle. I was pleased to see that Groothuis agrees with Moreland's rejection of cessationism. Groothuis writes:

""The restoration of the Spirit's power" fills out the last leg of the kingdom triangle. Although Moreland graduated from a seminary that teaches that the supernatural gifts of the spirit (such as healing and prophecy) have ended (cessationism), in the past few years he has experienced some of these gifts himself and has reevaluated what the Bible teaches on these matters. He has come to believe that this dimension of Kingdom living is crucial if we are to respond effectively to the deadness and darkness of our time. I completely agree. While Moreland does not give a detailed exegetical or theological argument for the ongoing manifestation of supernatural gifts, he points out that the old cessationism has been losing its credibility among many, that Christians in the global south are experiencing these gifts in powerful ways, and that he himself has experienced or witnessed the miraculous dimension of the Kingdom of God in the past few years. What Moreland advocates is not classical Pentecostalism or the Charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 1970s, but the "third wave" approach of the Vineyard movement. This is an orientation that does not emphasize a second "baptism of the Holy Spirit" or insists on the speaking of tongues. It rather seeks God's supernatural agency for healing, prophecy, and other signs and wonders." "

J.P. will be one of the main speakers at our HSRM conference in Wisconsin this coming summer 2009.

Plantinga & Draper on Noetic Structures & the Reliability of Belief-Forming Mechanisms

In my Philosophy of Religion class I'm wrapping up Alvin Plantinga's "Religious Belief Without Evidence," in Pojman's Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Plantinga's essay is followed by atheist Michael Martin's "A Critique of Plantinga's Religious Epistemology." Here Martin gives the rather famous "Great Pumpkin objection' in the form of the "voodoo objection."

A little over a year ago I wrote Dr. Plantinga some questions from Martin's essay, to which he kindly responded. I read Plantinga's letter to me to my class this morning.

After the class one student told me she read Paul Draper's essay in Pojman: "Evolution and the Problem of Evil." She asked how Plantinga might respond to that. I told her about the recent infidels.org debate/dialogue between Draper and Plantinga found here.

Here's one of Plantinga's points to Draper, the point which I have been explaining in my class.

"Isn't there a problem, here, for the naturalist? At any rate for the naturalist who thinks that we and our cognitive capacities have arrived upon the scene after some billions of years of evolution (by way of natural selection and other blind processes working on some such source of genetic variation as random genetic mutation)? The problem begins in the recognition, from this point of view, that the ultimate purpose or function of our cognitive faculties, if they have one, is not to produce true beliefs, but to promote reproductive fitness.[3] What our minds are for (if anything) is not the production of true beliefs, but the production of adaptive behavior. That our species has survived and evolved at most guarantees that our behavior is adaptive; it does not guarantee or even suggest that our belief-producing processes are reliable, or that our beliefs are for the most part true. That is because our behavior could be adaptive, but our beliefs mainly false."

"Darwin himself apparently worried about this question: "With me," says Darwin,
the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?[4]"

AND... here's from Plantinga's review of Dawkins's God Delusion. Plantinga discusses theistic and atheistic noetic structures on the reliability of human cognitive faculties.

"Toward the end of the book, Dawkins endorses a certain limited skepticism. Since we have been cobbled together by (unguided) evolution, it is unlikely, he thinks, that our view of the world is overall accurate; natural selection is interested in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. But Dawkins fails to plumb the real depths of the skeptical implications of the view that we have come to be by way of unguided evolution. We can see this as follows. Like most naturalists, Dawkins is a materialist about human beings: human persons are material objects; they are not immaterial selves or souls or substances joined to a body, and they don't contain any immaterial substance as a part. From this point of view, our beliefs would be dependent on neurophysiology, and (no doubt) a belief would just be a neurological structure of some complex kind. Now the neurophysiology on which our beliefs depend will doubtless be adaptive; but why think for a moment that the beliefs dependent on or caused by that neurophysiology will be mostly true? Why think our cognitive faculties are reliable?From a theistic point of view, we'd expect that our cognitive faculties would be (for the most part, and given certain qualifications and caveats) reliable. God has created us in his image, and an important part of our image bearing is our resembling him in being able to form true beliefs and achieve knowledge. But from a naturalist point of view the thought that our cognitive faculties are reliable (produce a preponderance of true beliefs) would be at best a na�ve hope. The naturalist can be reasonably sure that the neurophysiology underlying belief formation is adaptive, but nothing follows about the truth of the beliefs depending on that neurophysiology. In fact he'd have to hold that it is unlikely, given unguided evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable. It's as likely, given unguided evolution, that we live in a sort of dream world as that we actually know something about ourselves and our world.If this is so, the naturalist has a defeater for the natural assumption that his cognitive faculties are reliable—a reason for rejecting that belief, for no longer holding it. (Example of a defeater: suppose someone once told me that you were born in Michigan and I believed her; but now I ask you, and you tell me you were born in Brazil. That gives me a defeater for my belief that you were born in Michigan.) And if he has a defeater for that belief, he also has a defeater for any belief that is a product of his cognitive faculties. But of course that would be all of his beliefs—including naturalism itself. So the naturalist has a defeater for naturalism; natural- ism, therefore, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed.The real problem here, obviously, is Dawkins' naturalism, his belief that there is no such person as God or anyone like God. That is because naturalism implies that evolution is unguided. So a broader conclusion is that one can't rationally accept both naturalism and evolution; naturalism, therefore, is in conflict with a premier doctrine of contemporary science. People like Dawkins hold that there is a conflict between science and religion because they think there is a conflict between evolution and theism; the truth of the matter, however, is that the conflict is between science and naturalism, not between science and belief in God.

Plantinga's Modal Argument on Foreknowledge & Free Will

This is for my Philosophy of Religion class. Sorry about that fact that I could not figure out how to get both modal logic symbols and symbolic logic symbols on this post.

*****

PLANTINGA’S [1]MODAL ARGUMENT ON FOREKNOWLEDGE AND FREE WILL

(See: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [IEP], "Foreknowledge and Free Will")

Consider these two statements:

- A) God knows that Paul will eat an orange.
- B) Paul will eat an orange for lunch tomorrow.

Each of these propositions, by itself, could be true and could be false.

But if A is true then B cannot be false. For if A is true (i.e. if it is true that God knows that Paul will eat an orange for lunch tomorrow) then B is also true.

Put another way: the truth of A guarantees the truth of B. This is to say that:

(1) It is impossible (for A to be true and for B to be false).

The compound sentence, A and not-B , is impossible (i.e. is necessarily false).

It reads: It is not possible that: God knows that Paul will eat an orange tomorrow and that Paul will not eat an orange tomorrow.

So, that entire statement is: TRUE.

"Now it is a curious fact about most natural languages – English, French, Hebrew, etc. – that when we use modal terms in ordinary speech, we often do so in logically misleading ways. Just see how natural it is to try to formulate the preceding point this way" (IEP):

That is, because (1) is true, it seems that (2) is also true. And (2) is:

(2) If A is true, then it is impossible for B to be false.

It reads: If [God knows that Paul will eat an orange tomorrow], then it is not possible that [Paul not eat an orange tomorrow].

Statement (2) is: FALSE

NOW NOTE: the proposition expressed by (1) is not equivalent to the propositions expressed by (2).

So (1) is true. But (2) is false and commits the modal fallacy.

The fallacy occurs in its assigning the modality of impossibility (necessity), not to the relationship between the truth of A and falsity of B as is done in (1), but to the falsity of B alone.

AGAIN (1) states: It is not possible that [God knows that Paul will eat an orange for lunch tomorrow and Paul choose to not eat an orange for lunch tomorrow]. THAT’S TRUE.

BUT (2) DOES NOT FOLLOW LOGICALLY: If [God knows that Paul will eat an orange for lunch tomorrow] then it is not possible [that Paul can choose to not eat an orange for lunch tomorrow].

If (2) was true, then it would be NECESSARY that Paul chooses to eat an orange tomorrow.

But the statement “Paul will eat an orange tomorrow” is a contingent, not a necessary, statement. Therefore (2) is false, and not logically equivalent to (1).

[1] In formal logic, a modal logic is any system of formal logic that attempts to deal with modalities. Traditionally, there are three 'modes' or 'moods' or 'modalities' of the copula to be, namely, possibility, probability, and necessity.

False Teachings of the (Declining) Church of Oprah

(Sterling State Park)

Oprah Winfrey is a false prophet who has referred to herself as a “Christian” but who embraces a mix of mystical teachings that are unrelated and antithetical to actual Chrsitianity. This is seen in her love affair with the ideas of a man who calls himself “Eckhart Tolle.”

Tolle wrote a book that became a big seller called “A New Earth.” Last year I read this scandalous and sophomoric book because, apparently, many were buying it. Were people actually reading it? That I don’t know, since I have learned that people don’t necessarily read the books they purchase. For example, when Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind was big seller it was called “the book everyone has bought but no one has read.” I actually read Bloom’s book over a series of days – it’s a very good, very deep and insightful read. As for Tolle’s book, I read it one night – it’s shallow reading. And, as I said, it’s scandalous, spiritually speaking. Tolle’s citations of Jesus are, honestly, laughable. Yet I wasn’t laughing at the thought that some would read his book and think he was on to something.

I am suspicious of anyone who changes his first name from “Ulrich” to “Eckhart” and then writes about being truthful and authentic. This is because, in my doctoral studies, I did an independent study with medieval scholar Richard Kieckhefer (Northwestern U.) on the German Christian mystic Meister Eckhart. Meister Eckhart is, historically and even spiritually, interesting. But he’s questionable when his idea of mystical experience approaches what sounds like the possibility of a metaphysical union with God.

Does “Eckhart” Tolle understand Meister Eckhart? I can’t tell. But he’s definitely on the metaphysical union side of things, except it’s far from clear that the m-union has anything to do with God. It’s more like the old “surprise – you can be one with the Universe” kind of thing. At any rate “Eckhart” Tolle is a universe away from Christianity.

When Oprah promoted Tolle’s book I thought, “She’s even more dangerous and off-base then I thought she was!” Now, in a new book called “Oprah, Miracles, and the New Earth: A Critique,” Chicago theologian Erwin Lutzer takes on the “Church of Oprah.” Lutzer says: “If you understand Christianity, you understand that the kind of new spirituality that is being propagated by Oprah is incompatible. It’s a form of occultism that is being packaged for American audiences.”

A recent Chicago Tribune article on Lutzer’s book states: “Since March 2008, more than 2 million people from 139 countries have tuned into Winfrey’s new spirituality “webinars” such as “A Course in Miracles” and “A New Earth.” Students learn about the transformation of consciousness, a spiritual awakening that requires transcending our egos—a prerequisite for personal happiness and world peace. Lutzer said many who are taking these courses are searching for something that will bring them closer to God. But Oprah, who describes herself as a “freethinking” Christian, is not leading them into a deeper walk with God, he said. She is leading them astray.”

I agree. Oprah is a false prophet.

And, according to others, the Church of Oprah is now in decline.

Michael Brown on the Real Jesus

Dr. Michael Brown is a Jew who has come to believe that Jesus is the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. Brown is arguably the greatest defender of Jesus the Messiah today. He did his Ph.D in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University. He’s one of the scholars interviewed in Lee Strobel’s excellent The Case for the Real Jesus. Brown makes a clear and compelling case for Jesus being the fulfillment of Old Testament prophetic Messianic hopes. I loved what Brown said in his concluding remarks to Strobel.

“Yeshua is the right continuation of my Jewish roots. He’s the Messiah of Israel and the savior of the world. He’s the one to whom I owe my life, and through him I’ve come to know God.

He is the one who provided for me complete forgiveness of sins, who loved me when I was a miserable, ungrateful, rebellious, proud wretch. He put a new heart and a new spirit within me; he has turned my life around and given it meaning. He’s the fullness of God in bodily form. He’s the very expression and image of the Father – in seeing him, I see and know God.

And he’s the only hope of the world. Outside of him, all we see is darkness. He’s the hope of Israel. Israel will run out of options and finally in the end recognize that the one it thought was the source of all its pain and suffering through the years actually is its only hope.

He’s the beginning and the end, the all in all. I cannot imagine existing outside of him. I can’t imagine purpose in life outside of him. So really he is the ultimate expression of God to the human race. That’s why I’m spending my life talking to Jewish people – as compassionately and accurately as I can – about the reality of Jesus the Messiah.

I just can’t withhold God’s very best from those he dearly loves.” (225)

I find these to be good words, especially today, given the global fears that surround us. Political solutions fail. Yeshua is the only hope for the world.

The End of America

Yesterday's London Times has an article titled "National Intelligence Council report: sun setting on the American century." The article begins: "The next two decades will see a world living with the daily threat of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe and the decline of America as the dominant global power, according to a frighteningly bleak assessment by the US intelligence community.
“The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons,” said the report by the National Intelligence Council, a body of analysts from across the US intelligence community."

So, here's our [possible] future:

- daily threat of nuclear war

- environmental catastrophes

- decline of America as the dominant global power

- increased conflict over resources such as food and water

- terrorist groups have easier access to nuclear weapons

And...

- global warming will aggravate the scarcity of food, water, and energy resources

- climate change will force 200 million people to migrate

- the wealth - poverty gap will widen

- there will be a global economic balancing

- organized crime will increase, maybe even take over entire countries in Europe

The bleak article concludes with one sentence: "On a positive note it added that an alternative to oil might be in place by 2025." Well that makes me feel better!

To all this I say... why not? Anyone with even a slight understanding of history knows all of this is possible. And, when I think of my children and potential grandchildren, it's sad. As a Christian theist this kind of report only strengthens my conviction that our real hope lies in the kingdom of heaven coming to earth. Most of these depressing possibilities concern human choices and what they lead to. The Jesus-message of the Kingdom says this: change human hearts and socio-cultural transformation will inexorably follow.

Logic and Rhubarb Pie

We're currently studying informal fallacies in my Intro to Logic class. On the coming exam students will have to identify whether an argument commits any one of a number of informal fallacies or commits no fallacy.

In Hurley's Intro to Logic he gives, as an example of "no fallacy," the following argument.

1. Rhubarb pie is a dessert.

2. Therefore, whoever eats rhubarb pie eats a dessert.

In this argument no informal fallacy is committed. Also, it's a valid deductive argument, which is to say: if the premise is true, then the conclusion necessarily follows. So, formally, it's a valid deductive argument. But is it a sound argument? Only if P1 is true.

We had quite a debate tonight over this thing! One student even left the classroom for a few minutes and went to a computer to print out the lexical definition of "dessert."

If you're in my class I now appeal to you:

The argument commits no informal fallacy.

The argument is valid deductive.

We don't know if it is "sound" or not - that depends on P1 being true. In other words we have to know that P1 is true. It seems debatable, and I think that's where the debate was taking place tonight. As for me, I think P1 is true.

Now imagine this. You're sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal next week at your grandmother's house. She says "Let's start with an appetizer!" She then proceeds to bring out a rhubarb pie. You say to her, "But grandmother, that's a dessert, not an appetizer, because the lexical definition of "dessert" means "something served at the end of a meal."" (Privately, you also wonder about her mental competency.) She says "Oh yes, I am so sorry." It's only because you recognize rhubarb pie as a dessert that you're able to express your confusion about this. But then someone says, "Why don't we eat the rhubarb pie first?" And, getting very radical, you all do just that. You begin the meal with "dessert" and violate it's lexical definition.

Or, you go to a restaurant and on the list of entrees there appears, right below prime rib, "rhubarb pie." Hasn't something gone quite wrong here precisely because a dessert is mislocated?

Therefore, has not my point been made? :)

God Morphs a Controlling Heart Into a Trusting Heart

(I paid $2 in Jerusalem for this cup of fresh-made Arabian espresso.)

I’ve taught spiritual formation classes at a number of theological seminaries as well as weekend retreats for pastors and Christian leaders. I begin my classes by sending the students out to pray for one hour using Psalm 23 as their focus. When they return from praying I ask them the question “What did God say to you?” My experience is that one-third of them don’t get past verse 1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” God asks them the question, “Am I really your shepherd?” Arguably, this is the basic question of one’s spiritual life. Henri Nouwen has said that the basic question is “Who do you belong to?”

Find out who or what you belong to, and place your trust there. To trust is, ipso facto, to let go of control. If you’re driving and I’m riding and you see my foot move towards the gas pedal while my hand appears on the steering wheel you’re going to ask the obvious – “Don’t you trust my driving?” In that case my answer would have to be “No.” To trust in God means he is the driver and I’m along for the ride.

One biblical example of this is in John 21:13-18. Jesus asks Peter three times the question “Do you love me?” As Peter confesses his love for Jesus, Jesus then says: “I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Verse 19 tells us that “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.” Then he said to him, "Follow me!" Henri Nouwen uses this passage to illustrate the control vs. trust situation. He writes that "maturation in a spiritual sense is a growing willingness to stretch out my arms, to have a belt put around me and to be led where I would rather not go (John 21:18)."[1] It’s either “dress yourself and go where you want to go” (control) or “be dressed by someone else and go where they want you to go” (trust). To follow Jesus is to go where he wants you to go. When someone becomes a real followers of Jesus they won’t be dressing themselves anymore.

Thomas Merton says that "maturity," for the Christian, is learning how to be a "sheep." "As long as we remain sheep we overcome and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves we are beaten: for then we lose the support from the Shepherd who feeds not wolves, but only sheep."[1] If the Lord is my shepherd and his sheep hear his voice and follow, that’s the sign of a trusting heart.

To talk about heart-transformation from control to trust is to move in the “deep waters of the human heart” (Proverbs 20:5). The “control” thing is part of the kingdom of darkness. How so? For one thing it’s mostly illusory. We may think we’re in control of a lot of things, and marketers may tell us if we buy their product it will give us greater control over something, the truth is that we mostly control nothing. Things we have no control over include the weather, what other people think, time, the future, our past, and death. Things we have very little control over include sickness, the economy, our physical appearance, addiction, and our feelings. What, really, do we have control over? The TV controller? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think the “I’m in control of things” attitude is an illusion. Any feeling that “I’m in control” may make you feel that is the case, but the feeling is non-indicative of any reality that corresponds to it. The only option, then, is that we must trust. But in what or in whom? In money? Governments? The self? Gerald May writes: “In our culture, the three gods we do trust for security are possessions, power, and human relationships. To a greater or lesser extent, all of us worship this false trinity.”[1]

Some people are control addicts. My own belief is that the more controlling person is a more fearful person. When confronted with situations that cause us to fear the common response is to want to gain control over the situation. That’s not all bad. The problem comes when we become addicted to control. Since, as we have already seen, most of life is out of our control, the control addict is fearful most of the time and tries to gain control over situations that are, fundamentally, out of their control. Like trying to control the hearts and minds of other people. This cannot be done. Yet the control addict tries, because they fear people who don’t act or think or feel or choose as they do. Such people are “out of their control,” and they don’t like it.

God is not in our control. Sure, some Christians seem to think they can control God but the great truth is that God is “sovereign.” See, e.g., the parable of the workers in the vineyard where those who get hired last get paid the same as those who worked all day. The all-day workers cry out “Hey, that’s not fair?” To which the owner responds “It’s my money, right? And I can do what I want with it.” God’s in control, we’re not. And in some cases we’re out of control. So to have a heart that tries to gain control is counter to what’s really going on in this world. What can we do?

The answer is: God wants to and is able to transform (meta-morph) your controlling heart into a heart that trusts in him. Place yourself consistently in God’s presence and God will, usually over time, do this. To me it’s been happening and my experience is one of greater and greater freedom and hope. I want a heart that more greatly trusts in God. I am placing my trust in God.
[1] Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, 32. May’s insight is similar to Richard Foster’s who states that the three things people mostly trust in if it’s not God are money, sex, and power.

God Morphs Us From Pride to Humility

(My friend Timothy Chung, one of the humblest men I know.)

ONTOLOGICAL DICHOTOMIES OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

I have read over 700 spiritual journals of pastors and Christian leaders over a period of thirty years. And, I have been keeping a spiritual journal for just as many years. I have discovered seven dichotomies of the spiritual life that eventually get expressed in the heart of anyone who keeps a spiritual journal. These dichotomies indicate areas where God desires deep change. They are:
1. From Pride/Shame to Humility
2. From Control to Trust
3. From Rejection to Affirmation
4. From Evil to Good
5. From Fear to Faith
6. From Materialism to Simplicity
7. From Death to Life

Note: these are “ontological dichotomies.” That is, they are universal, cross-cultural, cross-temporal, cross personal-developmental, and cross-gender. They “work” with everyone on this planet past, present, and future. Regarding renewal, the first part of the dichotomy indicates the kind of spiritual world-conformity Romans 12:1-2 talks about. When renewal comes, for example, to the pride/humility dichotomy, a hard heart is changed to a soft “heart of flesh.” Thus there is a directionality of renewal and transformation that involves a change from some kind of spiritual death to spiritual life.

1. From Pride to Humility

Humility is the foundational attitude of spiritual transformation. Pride is the enemy of all change. James 4:6 states: "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Moses, the great leader, "was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3).

Our English word “humility” comes from the Latin humus, which means “earth” or “soil.” Our hearts must be like good soil to receive the things God wants to plant in us. Pride, on the other hand, is hardness. Hardness of the heart is the great barrier to spiritual change. C.S. Lewis thus refers to pride as “the complete anti-god state of mind.”[1] Francis Frangipane calls pride “the armor of darkness.”[2] Are you a humble person, or a proud person? One indicator is how you handle criticism. A humble person doesn’t mind being critiqued, even welcomes constructive criticism if it brings more truth. A proud person doesn’t need any advice, and pride’s counterpart, shame, fears criticism.

Like the hidden pride of Isaiah, we need personal encounters with the Living God to see how undone and needy we are. Thomas Kelly has written: "But what trinkets we have sought after in life, the pursuit of what petty trifles has wasted our years as we have ministered to the enhancement of our little selves. And what needless anguishes we have suffered because our little selves were defeated, were not flattered, were not cozened and petted.”[3]
Humility, says Kelly, rests upon a holy blindedness, like the blindedness of him who looks steadily into the sun. “The God-blinded soul sees naught of self, naught of personal degradation or of personal eminence...”[4] Alan Nelson writes, “Growth in humility is a measure of our growth in the habit of the Godward-directed mind. And he only is near to God who is exceedingly humble."[5]

Thomas Merton writes:

"A humble man is not disturbed by praise since he is no longer concerned with himself. A man who is not humble cannot accept praise gracefully. One who has not yet learned humility becomes upset and disturbed by praise. He may even lose his patience when people praise him; he is irritated by the sense of his own unworthiness. And if he does not make a fuss about it, at least the things that have been said about him haunt him and obsess his mind. They torment him wherever he goes. At the other extreme is the man who has no humility at all and who devours praise, if he gets any, the way a dog gobbles a chunk of meat... The humble man receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the light is, the less you see of the glass. Humility is the surest sign of strength."[1]

James 4:6 states that God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. This is one of those great biblical either-or ideas which states that it’s not simply a bad thing to have a proud heart but it is an anti-God thing. If you are proud God is against you. My own understanding of this is that, where there is some area of one’s heart that is hard towards God, God stands in opposition to that area. I’m saying this because I don’t believe any of us are totally free from pride. If that is true than God is opposed to us all. I think the human heart can both have areas that have been conquered by God and are humble and have areas of hardness that are not open to God. In this sense it’s not either proud or humble because I can’t imagine a follower of Jesus claiming to be wholly, perfectly humble.

A.W. Tozer once prayed, "O Christ, make me strong to overcome the desire to be wise and to be reputed wise by others as ignorant as myself. I turn from my wisdom as well as from my folly and flee to You, the wisdom of God and the power of God. Amen."[6] This is the appropriate attitude. This kind of humility is the necessary precondition for spiritual transformation. Pride dies, the soft heart prevails, which allows God to shape one’s spirit into greater Christlikeness.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
[2] Francis Frangipane, The Three Battlegrounds
[3] Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion
[4] Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, pp. 62-63
[5] Alan Nelson, Broken In the Right Place
[6] A.W. Tozer,

American Christians Are Responsible For the Unhappiness of American Atheists?

Paul Bloom's thesis is that American atheists are less happy than American religious people because the latter exclude the former from community. It's community that makes us happy, not religion. Bloom argues that, e.g., Danes and Swedes are happy even though they are atheists precisely because they call themselves "Christians," "they get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don't believe in God... Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved."

I find Bloom a bit unclear about this, since he's reviewing Phil Zuckerman's new book Society Without God. "Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another."

OK - Danes and Swedes: 1) don't go to church: and 2) get married in church, have their babies baptized in church, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community." Since, biblically, "religious community" = "church" (and does not equal "a building"), it sounds like Danes and Swedes aren't part of the church and are part of the church. I just need more help from Bloom here, since he's arguing that Danes and Swedes are non-religious and happy but are attached to a religious community.

Does religion make a person happy and non-religion make an atheist not happy? Who cares? I'm reminded of something I read from C.S. Lewis years ago (in I believe, God In the Dock). Lewis was asked if he converted from atheism to Christianity because it made him happy. Lewis responded that if his goal was happiness he would have popped open a bottle of wine instead of converting to Christianity. He became a Christian because he thought it was the truth. Me too. Believing that one is on to the truth could produce inner joy if that truth gave one meaning in life.

Self-Denial & the Exorcizing of Pity Parties

(Lake Michigan sunset)

In Luke 9:23 Jesus tells us, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Self-denial is necessary to take up the cross and follow Jesus. It needs to be done every day. To me the self-denial part involves a deconstruction of negative aspects of the self. Like self-love, self-hatred, and self-pity. All are forms of self-obsession, and the more self-obsession one has the less following of Jesus there will be. The following of Jesus is in inverse proportion to self-obsession.

Self-pity is one of the more punishing kinds of self-obsession. Self-pity cannot coexist with spiritual renewal and transformation. In one of my seminary classes I was talking about holding “pity parties” when a pastor named Samuel from Ghana asked, “What do you mean by “pity party?”” I said, “Samuel, the next time I hold one for myself I’ll invite you so you can see.” Unfortunately, I could write a book and call it How To Host Your Next Pity Party.

To be self-pitying is to live life as a victim. While it’s true that sometimes we are victims, I think there is a spirit of victimization (self-deprivation) that is to be distinguished from the real thing. It looks like this. More than once the words have come into my mind, "Poor me! They are not treating me right - and after all I've done for them!" Personal deprivation and even mistreatment lead to the emotion of anger.

In this regard Henri Nouwen asks, "What else is anger but the response to the sense of being deprived? Much of my own anger comes from the fact that my self feels deprived." When one chooses to express this anger by hosting a pity party the self-obsession has begun.

One then becomes like Tolstoy’s character Ivan Ilyich, of whom it was said that “no one pitied Ivan the way he wished to be pitied.” If you’re at all familiar with self-pity read this section from Tolstoy and relate.

"What tormented Ivan Ilych most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and the only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result… The awful, terrible act of his dying was, he could see, reduced by those about him to the level of a casual, unpleasant, and almost indecorous incident (as if someone entered a drawing room defusing an unpleasant odour) and this was done by that very decorum which he had served all his life long. He saw that no one felt for him, because no one even wished to grasp his position… [W]hat most tormented Ivan Ilych was that no one pitied him as he wished to be pitied. At certain moments after prolonged suffering he wished most of all (though he would have been ashamed to confess it) for someone to pity him as a sick child is pitied. He longed to be petted and comforted.”

When you hold a “pity party” and invite yourself and others to it, the focus is on you. It’s all about how you have been hurt, how you have been mistreated, and how you have been wronged. The ruling emotion of pity is bitterness. But one can’t be at the same time bitter and fulfilling the Great Commandment to love God with all your heart. Self-pity seems to be the opposite of renewal and transformation of the heart. For an unfortunate example of the spirit of victimization consider this.

In 1978 Dan White, a former San Francisco city supervisor who had recently resigned his position, entered San Francisco City Hall through a basement window, went upstairs, and shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified in court that White had been depressed, which led to eating junk food: Twinkies and Coca-Cola. This further deepened White's depression, since he was an ex-athlete and knew that the food was not good for him. White’s legal defense was that this junk-food-induced depression prompted his murder spree. This celebrated diagnosis became known as the "Twinkie defense." We were supposed to have pity on him because the Twinkies made him do it!

Someone who holds “pity parties” refuses to take responsibility for their own behavior and blames others. Self-pity leads to a “victim mentality.” Therefore self-pity needs to be denied, because it keeps us from being fulfilled in Jesus. To experience renewal and transformation be free from giving the “Twinkie Defense.” Experience God as your Defender. Do this by daily being like a branch attached to Jesus the true Vine, gaining your sustenance from him.

Deconstructing Self-Hatred to Gain God-Acceptance

(Bolles Harbor)

Over the years I have met many people who have hated themselves and thought themselves to be worthless. This includes people who are Christians. This almost always comes from having parents who failed to express unconditional love towards them or who abandoned them. Because I see a lot of parental failure in today’s culture, and add to this the cultural belief that personal worth is based on one’s accomplishments, there’s a lot of self-hatred out there.

Self-hatred is one side of a coin the other of which is self-love. Self-love is a form of pride which thinks “I am really something (in the sense of being better than others).” Self-hatred is a form of shame which thinks “I am really nothing.” Both are forms of self-obsession. And both are spiritually cancerous things that harm spiritual formation and maturity.

Unfortunately, I have much personal experience in hating the self. I have, at times, thought of myself as a nothing and worthless. This is not a good place to be. It’s especially painful to beat on one’s own self. It feels more painful than having others hate me. How can this be overcome? To get at the roots of self hatred I have found hope in the Scriptures as mediated through many who have sought God long and hard about this issue.

Such as Thomas Merton, who writes: "How are we going to recover the ability to love ourselves and to love one another? The reason why we hate one another and fear one another is that we secretly, or openly, hate and fear our own selves. And we hate ourselves because the depths of our being are a chaos of frustration and spiritual misery. Lonely and helpless, we cannot be at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we cannot be at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God."[1]

Here is a simple and profound solution to self-hatred: Be at peace with God, and you will be at peace with self. Love God, and you will love self. This will lead to a truly transforming experience where, instead of beating one’s self for faults and failures, we will rejoice in the greater purposes of God manifested in them. Dom Augustin Guillerand said, "God will know how to draw glory even from our faults. Not to be downcast after committing a fault is one of the marks of true sanctity."[2]

To be free of self-hatred know the love of God. To know that God loves you, and that your worth is not the same as your usefulness and your being-loved is not related to your failures and accomplishments is to live a life of radical freedom. I have found that the more I dwell deeply in the presence of God, like a branch attached to Jesus the Vine, the more I hear God’s voice telling me “John, I love you.”

[1] Thomas Merton, The Living Bread; in Through the Year With Thomas Merton, p. 66.
[2] Dom Augustin Guillerand, in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, p. 208.

Roman Catholic Bishops to Oppose Obama on Abortion

Today's cnn.com has an article re. Roman Catholic bishops who will confront Barack Obama on the abortion issue. The article states:

"Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is preparing a statement during the bishops' fall meeting that will press Obama on abortion.

The bishops suggested that the final document include the message that "aggressively pro-abortion policies" would be viewed "as an attack on the church.""

Beckwith's Logical Argument Against Abortion

Tonight in my MCCC Logic class I will present philosopher and jurisprudential scholar Francis Beckwith's argument against abortion. Beckwith's argument does not depend on any particular religious beliefs. I think it's a good argument to use in a logic class because logical arguments are to be non-emotive arguments. The abortion argument can get very emotional. We'll see if we can keep this thing purely logical tonight. And, I find Beckwith's analysis relevant to my logic class since we are now studying informal logical fallacies like "appeal to pity" and "begging the question," both of which are, according to Beckwith, often found in pro-abortionist arguments.

Here are some notes I'll be handing out to the students.

FRANCIS BECKWITH’S LOGICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST ABORTION[1]
John Piippo, Ph.D

(Beckwith is currently Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Jurisprudence at Baylor University.)

1. The unborn entity, from the moment of conception, is a full-fledged member of the human community.
2. It is prima facie[2] morally wrong to kill any member of that community.
3. Every successful abortion kills an unborn entity, a full-fledged member of the human community.
4. Therefore, every successful abortion is prima facie morally wrong.

This is not a religious argument, but a logical argument. No appeal to religion needs to be made.

By "full-fledged member of the human community" is meant that the conceptus[3] is as much a bearer of rights as any human being whose rights-bearing status is uncontroversial, like you or me. As Beckwith says, "the unborn entity is entitled to all the rights to which free and equal persons are entitled by virtue of being free and equal persons." "Full-fledged member of the human community" cannot mean something like "viability," since then we have two problems:

1) the arbitrariness of deciding who's a full-fledged member and who's not; and

2) the odd philosophical idea that there is suddenly a "moment" (call it time 't') when the conceptus/fetus/inborn child becomes a person, which means at time 't-minus-1 second' it was not. “Abortion advocates argue that the unborn entity is not a person and hence not a subject of moral rights until some decisive moment in fetal or postnatal development.” (Beckwith, 130) Such a position is incoherent and fraught with philosophical problems.

“Virtually no one disputes – including leading defenders of abortion-choice – that every mature human being was once an adolescent, a child, an infant, a baby, a newborn, a fetus, and an embryo.” (131) But the abortion advocate argues that it is morally permissible to end a human being’s life at the embryo stage of human life. How is this possible? Beckwith says they argue that not all human beings are equally intrinsically valuable (IV) because some do not have the present capacity to exhibit certain properties or functions that would make them IV. (130) Thus, the fetal self is not “intrinsically valuable.”

Beckwith holds to a “substance view of persons.” This means that a human being “is intrinsically valuable because of the sort of thing it is and the human being remains that sort of thing as long as it exists”. That is, an individual “maintains absolute identity through time while it grows, develops, and undergoes numerous changes”.
Various functions and capacities, whether fully realized or utilized do not constitute a person. Thus a human being is never a potential person, but is always a person at different stages of development, whether potential properties and capacities are actualized or not.
To explain: a human being may never realize the ability to reason logically. It would then lack this ability. In contrast, a frog is not said to lack something if it can’t study logic, because by nature it is not the sort of being that can have the ability to do logic. But a human being who lacks the ability to think logically is still a human being because of her nature. A human being’s “lack” makes sense if and only if she is an actual human person. (E.g., a rock does not “lack” the ability to see.)
Most pro-abortionists argue that personhood is not inherent or intrinsic, but based on certain capacities and functions, be it consciousness, sentience, self-awareness, the ability to reason, and so on.
WHAT ABOUT THE FOLLOWING POPULAR ARGUMENTS FOR ABORTION CHOICE? Beckwith says they many commit the informal logical fallacies of “appeal to pity” and “begging the question.”

“An argument from pity is an attempt to show the plausibility of one’s point of view by trying to move others emotionally, although the reasonableness of the position stands or falls on the basis of other important factors.” Here are some arguments from pity:

Argument from the dangers of illegal abortions
If abortion is made illegal then women will perform illegal abortions.
If women perform illegal abortions then women will be harmed.
Therefore if abortion is made illegal then women will be harmed.

This argument “begs the question.” Only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. “But if the unborn are fully human, this abortion-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people (i.e., unborn people), the state should make it safe for them to do so.” (94) Therefore, the argument begs the question.

Argument from financial burden
We can’t minimize the fact that there are tragic circumstances, like a poor woman with four small children who becomes pregnant by her alcoholic husband.
“But once again we must ask whether the unborn entity is fully human, for hardship does not justify homicide.” (98)
For example, if I knew that killing you would relieve me of future hardship, that’s not sufficient justification for me to kill you.
Argument from the unwanted child
This argument, again, begs the question.
Because only if we assume that the unborn re not fully human does this argument work.
It is extremely difficult to argue that the value of a human being depends on whether someone wants or cares for that human being.

Argument from the deformed and handicapped child
First, if this argument succeeds in showing that abortion is justified if a woman is pregnant with a deformed or handicapped fetus, it only establishes the right to abort in those kind of situations.
But this argument again begs the question. “For if the unborn are fully human, then to promote the aborting of the handicapped unborn is tantamount to promoting the execution of handicapped people whoa re already born.”[4]
Of course having a handicapped child can be a terrible burden. “But it is important to realize that if the unborn entity is fully human, homicide cannot be justified simply because it relieves one of a terrible burden.” (102)

Argument from interference in career
Again… this begs the question. “For what would we think of a parent who kills his two-year-old because the child interfered with the parent’s ability to advance in his occupation?” (104)

Argument from rape and incest
This is a horrible thing, of course.
Note: this argument is not relevant to the case for abortion on demand.
Note also this: “the unborn entity is not an aggressor when its presence does not endanger it’s mother’s life (as in the case of a tubal pregnancy). It is the rapist who is the aggressor. The unborn entity is just as much an innocent victim as its mother.” (105-106)
Again… this argument begs the questions by assuming that the unborn is not fully human.

Another popular argument is the Argument from Imposing Morality.

This argument says: It’s wrong for anyone to “force” his view of morality on someone else. Pro-lifers, by attempting to stop women from having abortions, are trying to force their morality on others.

But this argument cannot be right. Because it’s not always wrong for the community to institute laws that require people to behave in certain moral ways. E.g., it’s not wrong to institute a law against child molestation. If the unborn entity is fully human, forbidding abortions would be perfectly just. Any law prohibiting abortion would unjustly impose one’s morality on others only if the act of abortion is good, morally benign, or does not unjustly limit the free agency of another. The real issue is: what counts as a “person,” a full-fledged member of the human community.
[1] All quotes from Francis Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice
[2] Prima facie is a Latin expression meaning "on its first appearance", or "by first instance". It is used in modern legal English to signify that on first examination, a matter appears to be self-evident from the facts. In common law jurisdictions, prima facie denotes evidence that (unless rebutted) would be sufficient to prove a particular proposition or fact.
[3] The fertilized egg
[4] See Peter Singer, who admits that “pro-life groups are right about one thing: the location of the baby inside or outside the womb cannot make such a crucial moral difference… The solution, however, is not to accept the pro-life view that the fetus is a human being with the same moral status as yours or mine. The solution is the very opposite: to abandon the idea that all human life is of equal worth.” (In Beckwith, 101)

Violent "Reconversion" of Christians in India to Hinduism

Here's a christianitytoday.com article on violent Hindu groups in India who are "reconverting" Christians back to Hinduism. I'm especially interested in this since we have friends now in India training Christian leaders.

Billy Graham on Praying for Political Leaders

Tired of reading Christians who demonize our political leaders? If so, then consider some actual wisdom from Billy Graham. It’s his 90th birthday, and he is interviewed at christianitytoday.com.

Billy is asked:

I understand that you are an avid TV news and talk show watcher. Were you following the presidential campaign? Any endorsements?

Graham responds: “I’ve always tried to keep up with what’s happening in the world, and I still do—including politics. But no, I’m not making any endorsements, and I’m staying out of partisan politics. I’m grateful for our system of government, and I strongly urge people to vote—but I don’t endorse any candidate.

I also strongly urge people to pray for our new leaders, whoever they are, because they will be facing enormous problems, and they’ll need great wisdom and patience from God to deal with them. I pray also that they’ll be able to work across party lines on these problems, and avoid the partisan wrangling that we’ve seen in recent years.”

Now there’s a biblical idea. It’s 1 Timothy 2:1-7 -”1I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” If you or I have a problem with some elected leader God has allowed us to see it so we can pray for them. Surely God loves them. Jesus told us we’re even to love our enemies. Personally, I don’t view any current elected leader as my enemy precisely because I am free to live out the Gospel and preach it. What if that changes? I don’t see that stopping me either. Don’t panic or spread panic. Instead, pray.

Deconstruct Self-Love to Construct a Cross

Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” To take up the cross everyday one must deny the self. This means, among other things, that self-love and cross-carrying don’t go together. Deconstruct the self in order to construct a cross and carry it.

This is a profound thing because the self-love issue goes very deep. Self-love, writes Thomas Merton, "is the source of all boredom and all restlessness and all unquiet and all misery and all unhappiness - ultimately, it is hell."[1] How much easier is it to love the self before loving others and living sacrificially in relationship to them. One British politician's actions were once described as "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his friends for his life."[2] I discover in my heart a deep-rooted propensity to love “me” as my first priority. But I want to follow Jesus, so I see the “love me” thing must be rejected.

As a young Christian I was counseled to keep my priorities as follows:
a. Love God first
b. Love others second
c. Love self

I have found that when I live in this way the love I have for myself is healthy and godly. This love of self is also called pride. C.S. Lewis called pride “the great sin – the complete anti-god mentality.” Put simply, it’s impossible to love God with all one’s being if one has such an elevated love of self. Francis Frangipane refers to pride as “the armor of darkness.”[3] I like this definition of pride because is shows how this kind of self-love necessarily thwarts spiritual renewal and transformation. And, as Merton said, while all this seems counterintuitive to the proud lover of self, in reality it’s all boredom and misery.

1 – Thomas Merton, The Waters of Siloe
[2] Eddie Askew, No Strange Land, p. 20
[3] Francis Frangipane, The Three Battlegrounds

Refuting the Legendary-Jesus Thesis

While teaching apologetics at Faith Bible Seminary I mentioned that there are a few scholars and some internet non-scholars who maintain that Jesus never existed. Two books that decisively refute this idea are: The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, by Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd; and The Resurrection of the Son of God, by N.T. Wright (especially chapter two).

Eddy and Boyd write: "Much of the fuel for the legendary-Jesus thesis is drawn from anachronistic approaches to the early Jesus tradition, approaches that are tied to a modern, literary paradigm. Our contention is that when the early Jesus tradition is assessed from an orally oriented perspective - and in concert with an appropriate historical methodology - the legendary-Jesus thesis becomes difficult to maintain... We will provide an overview of eight major lines of argumentation that are typically proffered by defenders of the legendary-Jesus thesis." (15)

Eddy and Boyd are so thorough that their book becomes the text that must be looked at if one thinks Jesus didn't exist as a historical person.

Self-Deconstruction & Spiritual Transformation

Henry Blackaby has said that we have been “created to be God’s friends.”[1] Renewal and transformation of our spirits happens in this intimate friendship relationship. What could thwart this from happening? A main enemy of intimate friendship with God is self-obsession. Self-obsession necessarily takes us out of relationship with God and others.

Therefore, in order to be renewed and transformed we must deny negative aspects of the self; namely, the self-obsessive aspects. Jesus gives us this stark, ascetic either-or: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself daily, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever will save his life shall lose it: and whoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”[2] Self-denial is to be a daily discipline. I know from this command of Jesus and from my own experience that every day the self will rise up and try to assert itself against the ways of God. When I have allowed God to search me and know my heart one thing He points out my emphasis on myself, sometimes to the point of idolatry. Obsession with one’s self is the enemy of all spiritual renewal and transformation.

God desires to defeat our self-obsessiveness so we can experience renewal and transformation. One way God does this is by calling us into times of solitude. This is why Henri Nouwen has called solitude “the furnace of spiritual transformation.” If solitude is a “furnace,” what gets burned away? The answer is: the negative aspects of the “self.” Unless we daily practice self-denial, self-centered ideas will rise up against the ideas of God. I have discovered ten such negative aspects of the self. I’ll share them with you soon in separate posts.

[1] See Henry Blackaby, Created To Be God’s Friend
[2] Matthew 16:24-25

Philosophy of Religion Oral Exams: #2

Oral exams will be held: this Friday, room C-232; next Monday, room Z-272.

Students need to be able to explain the views of the following philosophers re. the "problem of evil against the existence of God":

1. Mackie's logical argument

2. Buddhism - evil is an illusion

3. Plantinga - refutation of Mackie

4. Rowe's inductive argument from evil

5. Hick's soul-making theodicy

6. Wyckstra's refutation of Rowe - CORNEA