10 Months That Will Change Your Life

(redeemerministryschool.com)

Come spend 10 months with us that will change your life!

At Redeemer God has called us to begin Redeemer Ministry School (RMS). Our first class will arrive this coming September. I’d like you to consider being a part of it. Here are some reasons why.

I will personally be giving you the best of my own training and ministry experiences. These include:

- Ph.D in Philosophical Theology, Northwestern University

- 11 years in Campus Ministry at Michigan State University

- I currently teach at three theological seminaries (Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia; Faith Bible Seminary [Chinese] in New York City; and Payne Theological Seminary (African-American) in Dayton)

- I am Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Monroe County Community College

- I’ve taught in India, Singapore, Vancouver, and other places around the planet.

- RMS will be unique in its academic component.

Because of my academic training and experience I will shape RMS to have a high level of excellence, especially in the area of biblical studies, spiritual transformation, and apologetics. This will not be your basic Bible study class. We’re going to take you deep into the things of God.

This academic component will be complemented by a focus on experiencing God and demonstrating the power and life of the Kingdom of God in the real world.

In this sense I believe in the total gospel of the Real Jesus, to include the two ways Jesus brought in the kingdom, which are: 1) Proclamation of the good news; and 2) demonstration of the power of God.

I have assembled a great team of leaders and teachers that will give you a lot of things you could not get in other ministry environments.

We have some special things lined up for you. For example, in late October I’ll travel to New York City to teach and preach at a very large, dynamic Chinese church in the heart of Queens. What’s exciting for me is that I’m working with the NYC Chinese leaders to bring our RMS students there for the week. What you will learn about Jesus, about leadership, and about communicating Jesus in another culture will be something you could never get out of a book.

You will be in our church’s culture for 10 months and be a part of the amazing things God is doing in our own ministry environment. Which is cool for me, since God has given us an amazing church family.

Here at Redeemer we are very exited about having our very first RMS class. Why not pray about taking 10 months of your life and learning about God and Jesus in the most intensive way ever?

We’ll develop community along the way, plus have a lot of fun.

If you’d like to talk with me personally, I’d love to hear from you!

Blessings,

Pastor John Piippo, Ph.D
johnpiippo@msn.com
734-242-5277

John Allen Paulos on the Cosmological Argument

John Allen Paulos (if that's really you!) was kind enough to make a few comments on my blog. I referred to two reviews of his book Irreligion and stated that, as a result of the nytimes review, it was one book I would not read. I was thinking, I’ve read Dawkins and Harris and Dennett – no need to read Paulos, not after what this review says. Paulos told me I would find Irreligion interesting.

So, I’ve got it in hand, and have finished the chapter “The Argument from First Cause.” Here’s my evaluation.

Paulos states the argument as:

1. Everything has a cause, or perhaps many causes.
2. Nothing is its own cause.
3. Causal chains can’t go on forever.
4. So there has to be a first cause.
5. That first cause is God, who therefore exists.

In my philosophy of religion classes I do not teach CA this way. Instead, I find the Kalam Cosmological Argument (William Lane Craig, in Pojman) a stronger argument. KCA goes like this:

6. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
7. The universe began to exist.
8. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

Paulos hints at KCA when he writes: “A slight variation [of CA]… states that whatever has a beginning must have a cause and since the universe is thought to have a beginning, it must have a cause.” (4) It seems that “whatever has a beginning” is the equivalent of “everything that begins to exist.”

Paulos then says, “So have we found God?... The argument doesn’t even come close.” Why?

Paulos’s first reason is a criticism of (1). Which states: Everything has a cause, or perhaps many causes. But KCA only claims that: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. So, if there is something that did not begin to exist, it would not necessarily have a cause. Since KCA is the form of cosmological argument I find most persuasive, Paulos’s first criticism does not apply.

Paulos writes: “Either everything has a cause, or there’s something that doesn’t. The first-cause argument collapses into this hole whichever tack we take.” But this is only a “hole” on P1 of CA. It does not create a problem for KCA, which depends on the distinction between things that begin to exist and things that do not begin to exist.

What if there is something that doesn’t have a cause? Then “it may as well be the physical world as God or a tortoise.” But surely that doesn’t follow. KCA claims the physical world (“universe”) began to exist, and whatever begins to exist has a cause. If these claims are true it can’t be the physical world that doesn’t have a cause.

Paulos asks: “Why cannot the physical world itself be taken to be the uncaused first cause?” The answer is: on CA this may apply, but on KCA this is impossible.

Paulos then asks the famous question, “If God caused the universe, then what caused God?” But on KCA this is a nonsense question, since only that which begins to exist has a cause. If God did not begin to exist, then ipso facto God did not have a cause. Paulos’s funny Saint Augustine story doesn’t apply here.

Paulos gives a second objection to the cosmological argument. He states that “the uncaused first cause needn’t have any traditional God-like qualities. It’s simply first… Even if the first cause existed, it might simply be a brute fact – or even worse, an actual brute.” (5) Again, not on KCA. See Craig’s explanation of KCA, and the reasoning that whatever caused the universe to come into being must be, e.g., atemporal, immaterial, very powerful, and personal. Craig’s KCA directly addresses Paulos’s second objection, while traditional historical versions of CA do not. Since KCA is the more powerful version of CA, Paulos needs, in my mind, to address it. Otherwise the most that can be said of this chapter in Irreligion is that Paulos may have defeated a certain traditional version of CA.

Another Paulos-concern is this: “Efforts by some to put God, the putative first cause, completely outside of time and space give up entirely on the notion of cause, which is defined in terms of time.” (5) But this is not the only option. Craig asks: “If time therefore began to exist, how is God's relation to the beginning of time to be construed? [I argue] that God is plausibly timeless sans the universe and temporal with the universe. This paradoxical conclusion is defended against objections.” Craig and others spend much time addressing how such a view of God and his relation to time relates to causality. Paulos needs to address these concerns. At least he ought to let his readers know that there are views of God’s timelessness that precisely do not “give up entirely on the notion of cause.”

Paulos writes: “The notion of cause has still other problems.” Those problems are the ones David Hume raised. Because of Hume “we can’t move as confidently from an event to its cause(s) as we might have believed.” (7) OK. But we can presume that events have causes. More precisely, on KCA, that whatever begins to exist has a cause. Confidence, if any is lacking here, is, on Humean skepticism, surely lacking re. many other things as well.

Paulos mentions, in one sentence, that certain quantum theories that rule a first cause, and some give us a multiverse theory. All that in one sentence! To this I would say, in one sentence, that multiverse theory is controversial. Craig (again!) goes into detail re. quantum-theoretical issues and KCA.

So I do not see that Paulos has defeated the cosmological argument precisely because he has attacked a weak version of it. KCA is stronger. KCA addresses a number of his concerns. So much so that atheist Paul Draper, in his criticism of KCA, still concludes by finding KCA "promising." (In Pojman)

John Allen Paulos & Steven Weinberg Forget the Unabomber

Mathematician John Allen Paulos's new book Irreligion gets another review here.

The reviewer ends the article with the famous Steven Weinberg quote, and adds a bit to it. We read:

As for the problem of good and evil, he defers to fellow atheist, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg: "With or without religion, good people will do good, and evil people will do evil. But for good people to do evil, that takes religion." Or as Paulos might say, no mathematician has ever deliberately flown planes into buildings."

How silly, and how hard atheists work to put an irrational spin on things, making religious people the most evil of all. Because, e.g., it was a mathematician who became the Unabomber.

An Explanation of Hume's Empiricism (for my History of Western Philosophy class)

(My back yard)

A simple way to understand Hume’s empiricism

Plato and Descartes were Rationalists. Truth and knowledge can be obtained by reasoning watched from empirical observation. One can arrive at some very important facts just by using reason in an a priori way.

Hume is an empiricist. All knowledge, for Hume, is grounded in sense experience.

There is no knowledge about which this cannot be said.

This means that for Hume, ultimately, there is no such thing as pure metaphysical knowledge. Even “pure” mathematics is grounded in the idea of causation, which proceeds from sense experience.

If any ethical, religious, metaphysical, or aesthetic judgments are to be called rational, it must be shown how they are grounded in sense experience.

Hume’s central example is that of causation, or cause and effect. How do we arrive at the idea of cause and effect?

The idea of cause and effect is not a priori. Hume writes: “Causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason but by experience.”


But, “There is no impression conveyed by our senses, which can give rise to that idea.”

This means: for any object set before us we can see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, and hear it. We can measure it and weigh it and discover its physical composition. But we will never, by mere sense observation, find “causality” in it.

For example, when a scientist studies DNA under a microscope and refers to it as “elegant,” he has just left science; he has just left the world of sense observation. A strand of DNA may have a certain length, but it does not contain some property called “elegance.”

Hume uses this kind of empirical reasoning to ask the question as to the nature of the human “self.” Since all knowledge is fundamentally sense knowledge, one never encounters something called a “self.” All we really do encounter are bundles of sense experiences; we feel pain or pleasure, we hear noises outside of us, we see colors and shapes. From all these sense observations, over time, we infer the idea of the “self.”

For Hume, ideas like that of a “self,” are but weaker versions of sense impressions.

Note: Whereas from Descartes we have a mind-body dualism, from Hume we have, ultimately, the elimination of "mind" in the sense that what we call "mind" is but an epiphenomenon of the material brain.

I Won't Be Reading John Allen Paulos's "Irreligion"

Another atheist has written a book against religion. This time it's mathematician John Allen Paulos, and the book is called Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for Religion Just Don't Add Up.

Amazon.com's book description says: "Are there any logical reasons to believe in God? Mathematician and bestselling author John Allen Paulos thinks not. In Irreligion he presents the case for his own worldview, organizing his book into twelve chapters that refute the twelve arguments most often put forward for believing in God’s existence. The latter arguments, Paulos relates in his characteristically lighthearted style, “range from what might be called golden oldies to those with a more contemporary beat. On the playlist are the firstcause argument, the argument from design, the ontological argument, arguments from faith and biblical codes, the argument from the anthropic principle, the moral universality argument, and others.” Interspersed among his twelve counterarguments are remarks on a variety of irreligious themes, ranging from the nature of miracles and creationist probability to cognitive illusions and prudential wagers. Special attention is paid to topics, arguments, and questions that spring from his incredulity “not only about religion but also about others’ credulity.” Despite the strong influence of his day job, Paulos says, there isn’t a single mathematical formula in the book."

Nytimes.com has a review here.

From the review: "In his opening chapters Mr. Paulos uses simple logic to point up the gaping holes in the so-called first-cause argument. “Either everything has a cause, or there’s something that doesn’t,” he writes. “The first-cause argument collapses into this hole whichever tack we take. If everything has a cause, then God does, too, and there is no first cause. And if something doesn’t have a cause, it may as well be the physical world.”" Well, this ignores the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which is, arguably, the strongest first-cause argument. KCA says that everything that begins to exist has a cause. If something does not begin to exist it would, ipso facto, not have a cause. But what about the universe? Could the universe be causeless? Not our universe. It began to exist. Could there be an infinite series of universes going back in time? Thus, the entire series could be causeless? Not according to William Lane Craig's KCA, which argues that an actual infinite is impossible because it would lead to absurdities. It looks like Paulos perhaps did not take on KCA or is unfamiliar with it.

A God, argues Paulos, could not be both omnipotent and benevolent. Paulos just re-warms the old Euthyphro dilemma of Plato. It looks like he does not deal with Yale University Robert Adams and divine command theory which avoids the two horns of the E-dilemma.

The nytimes review closes with: "Still, there is something perfunctory and hurried about all of Mr. Paulos’s arguments, which will be shrugged off by anyone who has made the leap of faith into belief, and which will seem obvious to anyone who is already a proud heathen. Indeed, the reader finishes this volume with the suspicion that it was a rushed and cursory project, turned out quickly in an effort to catch the coattails of Messrs. Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris."

Looks like, with all the really good books to read, I won't be reading this one.

Jazzy Blue Donald Miller

There's an article on Donald Miller in today's cnn.com. Personally I agree with Miller as he revisits the meaning of "Christian" and "Christianity." The article, e.g., states: "Watching TBN one night on TV, Miller, 36, realized the conservative religious network was many people's baseline for Christianity. He wanted to change that."These people are absurd. I've been a Christian all my life and I don't even know Christians this weird," said the Portland, Oregon-based writer, who is single."

As for myself, when I watch "Christians" on TV I see some things that connect with actual Christianity and I see a whole lot of things that make me go, "Nooo! That's not the real thing!!!" In this regard I challenge people to read for the first time Matthew/Mark/Luke/John. That's our baseline; viz., the life and ministry and words and deeds of Jesus. Get that stuff deep into your soul. Then, note the great disconnect between the actual Jesus and some of the stuff on TV that's, sadly, done in his name.

Miller has some importance in the Jesus-dialogue thing in America. A bit more from the article that highlights his importance and expresses some concerns:

""People like Donald Miller are speaking almost like a prophet of a new age and describing the landscape in a way people who feel comfortable in that landscape really couldn't articulate before," said David Kinnaman, a researcher for The Barna Group and author of "Unchristian."

Critics call Miller's works casual and glib and that he strays from biblical truths when he downplays homosexuality and other sins.

One such critic, Shane Walker, says Miller presents Jesus as a "nice fellow who meets one at the campfire and swaps stories." He forgets to remind readers that Jesus is also a judge and avenger who "wants to save you from his just wrath," according to his review for "Blue Like Jazz" , an organization designed to help local churches re-establish their biblical bearings."

Check out Miller's very classy and artsy website here.

"Don has teamed up with Steve Taylor and Ben Pearson to write the screenplay for Blue Like Jazz which will be filmed in Portland in the spring of 2008 and released thereafter."

Christians Are Being Persecuted Today in India

(Valley Forge National Park)

Our church has been sending some mof our leaders to India for several years now, working in conjunction with India Bible Literature. As a church we’ve been all over the nation of India, reaching many people.

I also traveled to India once by myself, and spoke in a number of churches and villages in central India.

So, we have many friends over there. And in one of the areas we reach out to, the Indian state of Orissa, Christians are in great danger. Some have been murdered. All this by Hindu extremists. (Please pause here for a moment and give thanks for our country and the idea of freedom of religion. We don’t murder others who disagree with us.)

For the story, see this article in Christianity Today. “Over 90 churches and Christian institutions have been burned and vandalized, over 700 Christian homes destroyed, and the number of pastors and Christians killed is yet to be known…”

Can Science Produce Life from Non-Life?

(Sterling State Park, Monroe, MI)

In today’s nytimes.com there’s an article in the Science section that begins with this: “Taking a significant step toward the creation of man-made forms of life, researchers reported Thursday that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components.”
“Synthetic biologists envision being able one day to design an organism on a computer, press the “print” button to have the necessary DNA made, and then put that DNA into a cell to produce a custom-made creature. “What we are doing with the synthetic chromosome is going to be the design process of the future,” said Dr. J. Craig Venter, the boundary-pushing gene scientist.”

Note, especially, the word “design.” And the idea of “painstakingly stitching together… chemical components.”

So, it’s not an easy thing to design life. But it is designed. Which, for me, argues against such a phenomenally difficult thing happening without a Designer.

And, by the way, evolutionary theory says nothing about this sort of thing. Evolutionary theory is about actually existent life. The word ”abiogenesis” is used to describe life coming from non-life. This is NOT an easy thing to have happen.

But now look at this. The nytimes article states: “The synthetic genome made by Dr. Venter’s team was not designed from scratch, but rather was a copy, with only a few changes, of the genetic sequence of a tiny natural bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium.” Ah, so it’s not really an act of abiogenesis. Now THAT would really be painstakingly difficult. “George M. Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said, “Right now, all they’ve done is shown they can buy a bunch of DNA and put it together.” ”

Somewhere along the way life came from non-life. That is, from no DNA there came DNA. Psalm 139:13 expresses it this way: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” You and I have been stitched together in our mother’s wombs. It was not an easy thing, at least from our human perspective. So if scientists accomplish this painstaking process of designing life it will show that, minimally, scientists have painstakingly designed human life. From this one cannot conclude that life is undesigned.

Foreknowledge, Free Will, and Modal Logic

(Briarwood Mall, Ann Arbor)

I like the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on "Forekowledge and Free Will."

A few quotes:

Ultimately the alleged incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will is shown to rest on a subtle logical error. When the error, a modal fallacy, is recognized, and remedied, the problem evaporates...

...Once the logical error is detected, and removed, the argument for epistemic determinism simply collapses. If some future action/choice is known prior to its occurrence, that event does not thereby become "necessary", "compelled", "forced", or what have you. Inasmuch as its description was, is, and will remain forever contingent, both it and its negation remain possible. Of course only one of the two was, is, and will remain true; while the other was, is, and will remain false. But truth and falsity, per se, do not determine a proposition's modality. Whether true or false, each of these propositions was, is, and will remain possible. Knowing – whether by God or a human being – some future event no more forces that event to occur than our learning that dinosaurs lived in (what is now) South Dakota forced those reptiles to take up residence there."

When There's a Water Emergency In Your Soul

(Lake Erie at Sterling State Park)

In John chapter 7 Jesus is in the Temple in Jerusalem on the last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles. This Jewish festival was a celebration of God’s leading the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage into freedom and the promised land.

Jewish pilgrims - thousands of them - converged on Jerusalem for this 8-day event. They set up “tents” (”tabernacles”) in the city and lived in them, much as their ancestors lived in tents during the 40 years of wilderness-wandering. They remembered how God provided food for their ancestors, and how, in a dry wilderness, God provided water, having Moses strike the rock at the base of Mount Horeb.

Every day of the Feast of Tabernacles the high priest would lead a procession from the Temple to the Pool of Siloam. He would fill a golden urn with the water of this pool (which were supposed to bring healing). He would lead the large procession back to the Temple. He would pour the water on the altar. And the people would thank God for the provision of water.

All this happened at the end of the harvest season, so thanks for water that grew the crops was given. There were also prayers asking God to send water in the coming year.

It was on the 8th and final day of the festival that Jesus stood up. He announced: “If any of you are thirsty for water, come to me. I will give you streams of living water which will flow out of you.” John tells us that by “living water” Jesus meant the Holy Spirit. And by the Holy Spirit N.T. Wright means: “God’s refreshing personal presence”; and Gordon Fee means: “God’s empowering presence.”

Yesterday in Monroe there was a water emergency. The intake pipe, located a mile off shore in Lake Erie, froze. Monroe residents were asked to not use water unnecessarily. As I drove down Telegraph Rd last night a number of restaurants were closed because of little water to use. And I thought of Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles.

The human spirit needs watering. Every day. The soul can get dry. It can get dry in a such a way that no earthly thing or accomplishment can nourish it. But Jesus says that, come to him, and streams of living water will flow in your spirit. He gives us the Holy Spirit, the refreshing personal presence of God. It’s water for the soul. It’s fresh rain falling on the deserts of this life.

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit…” (John 7:37-39)