Questions on Christianity

A few years ago, a former boss of mine, Cedric, gave me Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Christ. [1] I read it and thought it presented the claims for the validity of Christianity very well.  A movie was recently released about the book and it gave information about Mr. Strobel’s conversion to Christianity that is not included in the book (either that or I have forgotten about it in the intervening years).  One such bit of information was a conversation Mr. Strobel had with an atheist friend of his.  His friend, Ray, stated:

At some point, young man, you’re going to have to plant your flag on a mountain of uncertainty where not every question is answered.  The human mind will never get to the bottom of every mystery in the cosmos.  Believing in God, not believing in God, either way still takes a leap of faith. [2]

The human condition, the way God made us, means that we are finite.  Being finite means our ability to know what is true is limited.  Ray is right.  Every one of our questions about life and the universe will not be answered and that includes our questions about the validity of Christianity.  So why would God make believing in Jesus a condition for our salvation when that is something we cannot know for certain?

All the Christian theologians and philosophers know the above facts.  A few will state such in the books they write. [3]  So why is not the Christian community discussing this issue in order to resolve it?

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[1]   Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1998.

[2]   Adam R. Holz as quoted in Plugged In Magazine, Tulsa Beacon, April 13, 2017, p. 1B.

[3]   William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Wheaton, IL:  Crossway, 2008, p. 55.

Does God always mean what he says?  When Jesus said:  “. . .but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:15 ESV), did Jesus really mean it? [1]  A plain reading of the text would lead us to the conclusion that we will not gain admittance into heaven if we fail to forgive others their trespasses against us.   It would also mean God requires certain actions of us and not just a belief in Jesus and his death for our sins in order to be saved.

In the past presidential primary, one candidate stated that since God gives us unconditional love, he would also give unconditional love to everyone involved in alternative sexual orientations. [2]  Like parents, God loves his children unconditionally but also like parents, God has standards to which he wants us to adhere.  The good news of Christianity is that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) but a part of the Christianity that we tend to ignore or minimize is that we must become like God if we want to spend eternity with him.  As we have mentioned in this blog many times, there are over 70 verses in the New Testament which require us to do something other than just believe in Jesus and his death for our sins in order to be saved.  Does God mean what he says in all these passages?

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[1]   Andrée Seu Peterson, “Forgive those debtors”, World Magazine, October 15, 2016, p. 63.

[2]   Janie B. Cheaney, “Aimless affection”, World Magazine, September 19, 2015, p. 20.

A Christian scientist with the Institute for Creation Research has stated in an interview with World Magazine his rules for interpreting the Bible which was taught to him at Moody Bible Institute.

“Give words their normal meaning in their normal context.” If you allow a religious authority to tell you that Scripture is mystical, hard to understand, with elusive meanings, then you need a special class of people to inform you of what Scripture says, and you are in bondage to those people. [1]

So when Peter says “that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35) do we accept the normal meaning of this passage or do we qualify it with the additional statement that we must also believe in Jesus and his death for our sins in order for God to accept us?

So when Paul, in talking to the Galatians about what the relationship between Christians should be, states:  “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.  The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”  (Galatians 6:7-8), do we accept the normal meaning of this passage or do we qualify it with the additional statement that we must also believe in Jesus and his death for our sins in order to gain eternal life?

So when James says:  “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone” (James 2:24), do we, like Martin Luther, call James an epistle of straw or do we accept it as the word of God and believe what it tells us?

In regards to the doctrine of salvation, we Christians we need to decide whether we will ignore the 70 passages in the New Testament that teach salvation is through means other than belief in Jesus and his death for our sin or whether we will accept the normal meaning within its normal context of those 70 passages.

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[1]   Marvin Olasky, “The impossible improbable”, World Magazine, March 4, 2017, p. 24.

I recently read book that has disturbed me more than any book I had recently read.  It is about Jeronimus Cornelisz who sailed on the ship Batavia which was in engaged in the spice trade in the 17^th century.  The ship ran aground north of Australia and the crew and passengers where marooned on three small islands.  Jeronimus and several who aligned with him took charge of one island and began a reign of terror, killing 115 fellow shipmates with whom they had shared a voyage of several months.  What is shocking is that they killed others for no reason that we can comprehend—out of boredom, for sport, or just because they did not like someone [1]

What is even more shocking was that Jeronimus claimed to be a Christian.  He did subscribe to antinomian philosophy which holds “that moral law is not binding on an individual who exists in a state of perfection”.  Jeronimus considered himself existing in a state of grace so that each action was directly inspired by God which means that no action he took could be thought as evil. [2]  And evidently that included murder.  It is incredible the lengths to which we humans will go to in order to justify what we do.

I wonder if this event would have turned out differently if salvation was understood to be the change of our soul so it becomes like God.  Christians recoil at the idea that we can earn our salvation and that is the correct view.  But to assert that salvation does not require any action on our part is also in error.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?   If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,  and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  (James 2:14-17 ESV)

If Jeronimus understood his salvation depended upon him loving God and his neighbor as himself, would he have committed these atrocities?

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[1]   Mike Dash, Batavia’s Graveyard, New York:  Crown Publishers, 2002, Kindle Edition, p. 222.

[2]   Ibid., pp. 46-47.

Orthodox is defined as “pertaining to, or conforming to the approved form of any doctrine”.  The approved form of the Christian doctrine of salvation is that we are saved only through belief in Jesus and his death for our sins.  But what if there are questions about this orthodox belief?  Is there room in our Christian faith to question the first principles?  Consider the following contradictions within this doctrine.

• If God is a God of love and justice, how can he condemn people to hell who have not heard of Jesus, who have a distorted view of Jesus, or whose culture and/or religion tell them Jesus is irrelevant (not everyone has the time and resources to question the culture and religion in which they were raised)..

• Everyone agrees that God made us finite. Being finite means our ability to know what is true is limited.  Human existence is like living in a fog.  The things that are near can be easily seen but things at a distance are obscured in the mists.  So how can God require us to believe in the extraordinary events of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection which occurred over 2,000 years ago?  How can God require us to do something he made us incapable of doing?

• There are well over 70 passages in the New Testament that teach salvation is through belief in God, or through our conduct, pattern of behavior, motivation, use of abilities, and repentance (see the page titled “What the Bible Says about Salvation” for a complete list). If salvation is only through belief in Jesus, why did God place these verses in the Bible?  Is God trying to confuse us?

Am I the only one who sees a problem when a major doctrine of Christianity has substantial contradictions within it?  In my conversations with other Christians, they recognize these problems but seem to have no interest in discussing a solution.  Why?  I have a very hard time believing that God would place such contradictions within a doctrine that is essential to our eternal fate.  There must be a solution.

Nancy Pearcey’s book, Finding Truth, asserts that the Christian worldview is superior to other worldviews because it best explains our world and is logically consistent. [1]  Part of the Christian worldview is that God exists, that he is a person, that he loves us, and that he is just.  But yet in the Christian doctrine of salvation, which states we must believe in Jesus to be saved and go to heaven, we are faced with three contradictions.

• If God is a God of love and justice, how can he condemn people to hell who have not heard of Jesus, who have a distorted view of Jesus, or whose culture and/or religion tell them Jesus is irrelevant.

• Everyone agrees that God made us finite. Being finite means our ability to know what is true is limited.  So how can God require us to believe in the extraordinary events of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection which occurred over 2,000 years ago?  Also, not everyone in the world has the time and resources to investigate all the different religions to see which is superior.  How can God require us to do something he made us incapable of doing?

• There are well over 70 passages in the New Testament that teach salvation is through belief in God, or through our conduct, pattern of behavior, motivation, use of abilities, and repentance. If salvation is only through belief in Jesus, why did God place these verses in the Bible?  Is God trying to confuse us?

So what kind of God do we worship?  Is he a God that claims one thing and yet does another?  Is he a God who claims to be a God of love and justice and yet condemns people to hell who either have not had the opportunity to know about Jesus or who do not have sufficient proof to convince them of the validity of Jesus and his teachings?

That is not the God I worship.  The contradictions we have described above are so inconsistent with the life and teachings of Jesus who is our best guide to the character of God.  The only logical solution to this problem is that our doctrine of salvation must change.

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[1]   Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth, Colorado Springs, CO:  David C. Cook, 2015, p. 181.

In the last blog, we discussed Nancy Pearcey’s book Finding Truth.  Another reason I appreciate this book is Pearcey’s emphasis on having reasons for our faith instead of just accepting what is taught.  In the foreword to her book, J. Richard Pearcey states that Christians should “think for themselves, question authority, examine evidence, and push for answers that make sense of our world”. [1]  And that is exactly what we do in this blog.

Why is it necessary to admonish Christians to have reasons for our faith?  It is because when a worldview does not square with the facts the adherents generally “suppress the things that their worldview cannot explain, walling them off into a conceptual area separate from reality”. [2]  Is that not what Christians have done with the doctrine of salvation?  Our blog of February 28, 2017 details one contradiction in the Christian doctrine of salvation.  Previous blogs and my book detail a total of three contradictions that Christianity has not addressed.  Why has Christianity ignored these issues?

Pearcey points out that a major reason people leave Christianity is because they could not get answers to their doubts and questions.  In fact, they could not even get the church to treat their questions seriously.  [3]  If we have contradictions that are at the heart of one of our major doctrines, we must resolve it.  Otherwise, our worldview is no better than any other and those who think for themselves, who seek answers that make sense of our world, and who question authority will continue to leave Christianity.

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[1]   Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth, Colorado Springs, CO:  David C. Cook, 2015, p. 13.

[2]   Ibid., p. 152.

[3]   Ibid., pp. 58-60 and 247-248.

I had known of Nancy Pearcey’s book, Finding Truth, for some time but had never read it.  Recently my step brother, David, suggested that I read it.  So I took his advice and I am glad I did.

The premise of Pearcey’s book is that while all different worldviews have an element of truth [1], they at some point are deficient.  By deficient she means their philosophy does not fit the facts we observe in our world or is not logically consistent. [2]  Pearcey does an excellent job of showing how the dominate worldviews of our time are deficient.

Pearcey’s book mainly points out the deficiencies of worldviews other than Christianity.  She does not spend a great deal of time defining the Christian worldview or defending it other than to point out the Christian worldview better fits the data we have available to us.

Does the Christian worldview have any deficiencies?  Pearcey does not mention any.  However, look at my last blog.  The Christian doctrine of salvation has a glaring deficiency when it states that anyone who wants to be saved must believe in Jesus and his death for our sins and yet a majority of people who have ever lived have not heard of Jesus or have an erroneous view of Jesus.  How could a loving and just God require us to do what a majority of us cannot do?  Pearcey states that “any inconsistency within a system of thought discredits it” [3] and “internal contradictions are fatal to any worldview”. [4]  So why do Christians not want to address this issue?

In Matthew 7, Jesus tells us to address our own short comings before we criticize others for their faults.  Maybe we Christians should address the inconsistency and contradiction in our doctrines before we judge the worldview of others.

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[1]   Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth, Colorado Springs, CO:  David C. Cook, 2015, pp. 86-88.

[2]   Ibid., p. 181.

[3]   Ibid., p. 117.

[4]   Ibid., p. 181.

The Christian doctrine of salvation states we must believe in Jesus and his death for our sins to be saved and go to heaven.  In this blog and in my book we have asked three questions about this doctrine.  One of these questions is:

• What kind of a God would condemn to hell those who have never heard of Jesus or who have a distorted view of Jesus?

This question has been asked for centuries but no one has developed answers that are logical and Biblical based.  Having no answer for this question creates serious problems concerning the validity of our Christian faith.  As David Trueblood, a Christian philosopher, states:

What kind of God is it who consigns men and women and children to eternal torment, in spite of the fact that they have not had even a remote chance of knowing the saving truth?. . .A God who would thus play favorites with His children, condemning some to eternal separation from Himself while admitting others, and distinguishing between them wholly or chiefly on the basis of the accidents of history or geography, over which they had no control, would be more devil than God.  In any case He would not even remotely resemble Jesus Christ, and thus there is a contradiction at the heart of the system. [1]

If we have a contradiction at the heart of our faith, how can we justify adhering to our faith?  Now I understand that we are finite and will not understand why God does everything the way he does.  As a result we will need to take some things on faith.  But I have a hard time believing that God would place a contradiction at the heart of our faith and expect us to essentially ignore it.

There must be a solution to this problem.  So why have we not resolved it?

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[1]   David Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion, New York:  Harper & Row, 1957, pp. 221-222.

In an article on the impact black holes have on galaxies and the various theories scientists have about that subject, John Kormendy notes that “Scientists get very sure of things that they think they’re very sure of.  And sometimes they’ve been wrong—and when they are, it’s a hell of a job to change the folklore”. [1]

We are no different than the scientists.  In his Curious Cat blog, John Hunter notes that it is difficult for all of us to change.  Part of the problem is that once we invest so much in a particular way of thinking, to change that way of things means what we have done in the past is wasted. [2]  And none of us like to think we have wasted a considerable part of our lives. But regardless of what it costs us we should follow the advice of a Turkish proverb:  “No matter how long you have been on the wrong road, turn back.”

Now Christians can use what is stated above to convince someone to become a Christian.  In fact that is what Christianity is all about—admitting our failures and resolving to take a new direction.  However, we should also follow this Turkish proverb when we encounter problems with our beliefs.  For example, in this blog and in my book we have raised three questions about the Christian doctrine of salvation.  For centuries, Christianity has not addressed those questions.  In this blog we have proposed a solution but accepting that solution requires that we change some of our beliefs about our doctrine of salvation.  Will we continue down the wrong road on which Christianity has been or will we turn back?

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[1]   John Kormendy as quoted in Camille M. Carlisle, “Of Black Holes and Galaxies”, Sky & Telescope, February 2017, p. 20.

[2]   Gerald Suarez as quoted by John Hunter, http://management.CuriousCatblog.net, June 25, 2014.