Contemplating Memes: Morality and Judging

As Seen On Facebook
A few weeks ago I saw a meme on Facebook that caught my attention. The text of the meme states: "Don't judge me. You can't handle half of what I've been through. There's a reason I do what I do, there's a reason I am who I am." This and similar memes seem quite prevalent on Facebook lately, and Christians need to know how to react logically and in love- not just on Facebook, but also in real life conversation. This week let's discuss some constructive ways to respond from the Christian worldview. Here are some questions to get the conversation started:

• What are the reasons that someone may state something like the meme?
• In the context of God's existence and objective morality, what are the philosophical problems with the meme's foundation and intention?
• In the context of the existence of evil and suffering (physical and emotional) in the world, how can the meme's foundation and intention be understood?
• How can Jesus' teaching in Matthew 7 be used to form a logically consistent and relevant reply to this meme?
• How can we communicate all this in love?

Over-Protection, God and Evil

The other day I was reading an interesting article about parenting. It brought up two mistakes that today's parents often make that have crippled the next generation, and many of us. The specific points may shed some light on a couple of challenges that skeptics offer against Christianity.

The article is Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids...And How to Correct Them by Tim Elmore.

The article is written from a religiously agnostic perspective- Elmore makes no religious appeals to support his conclusions. The first two points in the article are what I want to focus on: the facts that parents are unwilling to takes risks with their kids and jump in too quickly to rescue their kids from "dangerous" situations.

Not Risky Enough
His first point about risks is simply that parents over-protect their kids. They do not allow their kids to do things that may cause even minor harm. Parents are too proactive in protecting children from harm that the children don't get the important experiences until they are in the real world and have no idea how to react appropriately. Elmore points out that this teaches our children that if there is a risk of any kind of danger, that the risk is too great- it is always better to be safe than sorry, even if the latter possibility is minuscule relative to the reward. This leads to not just a fear of physical activities, but also a fear of failure in general and an aversion to anything that is unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable. This also develops an expectation that when they take a risk, that buffers should always exist to prevent them from getting hurt if they do fail.

Book Review: The Grand Weaver

Introduction

Zacharias introduces The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives (Paperback, Kindle, Audio CD) by preparing an analogy. He takes the reader on a descriptive journey to a place in India where saris are made. These large masterpieces are woven thread-by-thread, line-by-line in a pain-staking process. These can take weeks and even months to complete. The entire time, the weaver has a single design in his mind that he wishes to create. Every weave that he does, though individually they may seem insignificant, contribute to the whole. Over time, the design takes shape and becomes more evident. As the title of the book indicates, Zacharias wishes to use the weaving of a magnificent sari to illustrate God's design and purposes for what He has chosen to and allows to take place in our lives.

Chapter 1: Your DNA Matters

In the first chapter, Zacharias focuses on the physical attributes that God has chosen for each person. He explains how our DNA allows for each person to be physically unique. He explains that even certain outcomes that we believe to be crippling (physically or mentally) are not flaws in the design, but are set for a reason- all part of God's design for the individual's life. As an example he points to a young man who is a weaver yet seems to have mental challenges. Not everyone's purpose is the same, so God is not going to give every person the same tools. We shouldn't complain about what God has given us, but use what He has given us.

Book Review: 7 Truths That Changed The World

Introduction

Philosopher Kenneth Samples (Reasons to Believe) recently published his third book: "7 Truths That Changed The World: Discovering Christianity's Most Dangerous Ideas" (Paperback, Kindle and GoodReads). The idea behind the book is to examine ideas in the Christian worldview that stand in direct opposition to the majority of worldviews, making them dangerous to believe. Samples' approach to defending the truth of Christianity in this book is based on building a cumulative case for the worldview (not just a single doctrine, such as the existence of God). He introduces each idea by explaining the idea that Christianity will challenge, then he goes into a good amount of detail of the idea as he provides evidence for its truth versus the challenged idea.

Dangerous Idea #1: Not All Dead Men Stay Dead

Samples begins his presentation with what he calls "Christianity's most dangerous idea." He examines the claim that Jesus of Nazareth died and came back to life. Samples goes over seven pieces of evidence that critical scholars tend to agree took place. He explains the significance of each one and how they all come together to support the conclusion that Jesus bodily resurrected from the dead. Samples also examines several different naturalistic explanations for the evidence offered. He explains the weaknesses of each one and concludes that there is no other sound conclusion than that Jesus did rise from the dead.

Solving the Problem of Evil

Introduction

A couple weeks ago a commenter asked a short series of questions about evil that I think deserve more than just a comment. The questions were posed on my article "Pain, Suffering, and Purpose". I was already in a conversation with another commenter about leaving a legacy from the Christian and the atheistic worldviews, and it seems that these questions tie right into that conversation. Here they are:

1. Are we (humans-Christians or non-christians) created to solve the problem evil?
2. Can we make this world a better place?
3. Can our legacy be to make it better than we found it?

Given the series of questions, this appears to be a question not about the logical problem of evil or even the emotional problem of evil, but the eradication of evil- was man created to remove evil? The logical problem of evil merely poses the challenge of the idea that an all-loving and all-powerful God is incompatible with the existence of evil. It assumes that evil exists. The emotional problem of evil focuses on the psychological effects that we experience from seeing the evil in the world. It is used to fertilize the ground for planting the logical problem of evil. This, too, assumes the existence of evil in the world. But neither of these really appear to be the commenter's concern. Rather "what are we going to do about it?".

Pain, Suffering, and Purpose

The Emotional Problem of Evil

This past weekend the On Guard conference was held in Oklahoma, which gave me the opportunity to go. William Lane Craig was speaking on the problem of evil- both the intellectual version and the emotional version. He did an incredible job demonstrating how the intellectual problem has been overcome and that even atheists recognize that. The emotional problem of evil is where he stated that the problem is still quite persuasive.

In my notes on this talk I wrote down three initials. They represents a powerful and popular resource that I wanted to highlight for the apologetic community. I have been dealing with apologetics for several years now, and I cannot remember seeing this resource come up a single time. It seems to be left untapped, yet I'm not certain why.

A Very Good Creation That Undermines Christianity

Introduction

If you've been following Faithful Thinkers for a while, you will know that I take a very strong stance regarding the age of the universe. For those who don't know, I take the old-earth creation view (OEC) (as opposed to the young-earth creation view [YEC} or theistic evolutionary view [TE]). I enjoy discussing and debating it as long as I'm not talking to zombies (please read that post as this post draws from the practices encouraged in it). This past week I've been actively discussing one particular interpretation of a certain passage of scripture. I decided to blog about it because I believe that I have identified a powerful argument that an atheist or other unbeliever can add to their arsenal of arguments against Christianity.

What Does "Very Good" Mean?

Our discussion began by my asking Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis (AiG) on his Facebook page what he believed God meant in Genesis 1:31a ("God saw all that he had made, and it was very good"). Specifically, I asked about the phrase "very good". I asked if he believed that it meant a moral good (all the matter/energy that God created has moral value), a teleological/utilitarian good (as in the creation being very good to accomplish His goals), or both (the two options are not necessarily mutually exclusive). Ham did not respond to me; however, another person did. According to Ham's view, this is a proclamation by God that creation was perfect at the end of creation day six as He is perfect. He believes there is no other legitimate way to interpret this passage. I was given an audio recording by Mr. Ham where he explains this view and his argument here: http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2006/06/06/refuting-compromise-what-does-2/

Please listen to it as the rest of the post depends on the reader's familiarity with the content of the recording. It will also allow the reader to determine if I am arguing against a strawman.

Our Compulsion to Repair A Deformed Body

Buying a New Car
For anyone who has been in the US market for a new car, you are likely familiar with the term "lemon". Anytime that a new car is purchased, the dealer must allow the buyer a "grace period" of so many days (depending on the state) that allows them to test out everything on the vehicle. If anything is not as the manufacturer says it is supposed to be, the car may be returned as a "lemon" for a full refund without questions or obligations. I'm not sure exactly what happens to the car from this point, except that what is wrong is repaired, and it is then sold again (hopefully not with a "New" sticker).

Compelled to Fix Deformities?
The fact that the car can be returned and repaired requires the initial concept that the vehicle had a design, before it was produced. The vehicle is compared to that design and any deviance must be repaired before sell. This leads to an interesting observation about a behavior of the human species. If someone is born with physical "abnormalities" or psychological "issues", we try to "fix" them, so they reflect a prior standard. But if naturalism is true, they are already in the original state (there is nothing to repair, no need for therapy or surgery to "repair"), they are their own standard...unless we admit that there is a standard by which to compare and repair towards. Since, according to naturalism, evolution is constantly changing the original state, there is no unchanging, objective state. Yet, we treat mental disorders and operate on cleft palates. Why do we do so if there is nothing to repair? The answer to that question can be one of three options (or all), and all three of them are founded in God: design, human intrinsic worth, and beauty.

Is Pain Inherently Evil?

I want to take a few minutes to look at the question of pain. I have two reasons for choosing this topic today. The first is that many people outside the Christian worldview say that pain is incompatible with the loving God of Christianity. The second reason is that this view is also a very popular view within Christianity. The problem of pain causes many to avoid Christianity and others to walk away from it. I want to address both of those in this post.

Job, Suffering, and a Game of Chess

The Ultimate Game of Chess
As a Christian I come across many challenges to my worldview. Some challenges come from those in other worldviews; others come from other Christians. One of the most common challenges from outside is to God's existence. One argument observes all the evil and suffering in the world and asks how a good God could allow it. Many Christians also struggle with this very issue. They know that God exists, but they see suffering in their own lives and wonder why God is allowing so much. Because of this some question whether God is even there, or if they're not willing to go that far, if God is even good. This was articulated to me very clearly not too long ago: "The story of Job is just a chess game between God and Satan, and my life is no different."

Dealing with Suffering
Before I get deep into how Christianity deals with suffering and evil in the world, I want to make one thing clear. Every worldview MUST deal with the existence of what we call "evil" or "suffering". We cannot escape its existence simply by dismissing the existence of God; neither can we ignore the fact that suffering does exist. All worldviews are faced with this challenge and must offer a coherent explanation. I believe that it is only in the Christian worldview (properly understood) that suffering and evil makes sense.

Purpose, Design and Evil

It is really amazing how closely purpose and design are related, and their further relation to the problem of evil. Before someone can design some device, they must have a purpose- they don't just start throwing stuff together and find a purpose for it later. Likewise, end-users look at devices and see specific purposes for them. The sane end-user would not conclude that the useful device was not designed. Granted, some devices take on purposes different from the original; however, the device still has purpose, otherwise it would not be in the market.

Suffering Sucks...or Does It?

This post originally published in Jan 2009. 

Suffering is a topic that comes up quite often. This topic seems to come up for one of two reasons: someone is trying to undermine the belief in the all-powerful, all-loving God of the Bible; or someone is going through a horrible time in their life and are trying to figure out why God is allowing them to suffer so much physical or emotional pain. I'll touch on both of them here.

God made a promise to Israel, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Paul was confident that a similar promise from God now extends to the Body of Christ, “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)

Did God Create Evil?

God created all things.
Evil is a thing.
Therefore, God created evil.

Love is not evil.
An all-loving God would not create evil.
Therefore, God is not all-loving (he's evil).

That is quite devastating to Christianity, isn't it? The argument is logically valid. If you agree that the premises are true, then you can't escape the conclusions.

I have heard a few people use this argument to disprove the existence of the all-loving God of Christianity. It seems that this argument is quite solid. Logically, it is sound. But, there is one flaw, not in the logic, but the truth of one of the premises. What's really neat about arguments is that if you can show one premise to be false, all conclusions that follow it (are dependent on it) may be tossed out. Any conclusions above it (not dependent on it) are safe, though.

What's great is that the problem premise in this argument is the second premise. "Evil is a thing". So, we don't have to accept either of the conclusions. Since I want to claim that "evil is a thing" is false and that "evil is not a thing", I need to make an argument. So here it goes:

I want to start by defining what the opposite of "evil" is. Good. "Good" is not a thing either. It is a description of God's nature. God has a moral nature that is good. God is not subject to "good" (otherwise "good" would be greater than God, making it God) and God does not determine "good" (if he did, then "good" would be arbitrarily determined- God could have made rape good). Instead "good" is a description of God's moral nature. God knows what His moral nature is, so He can tell us what is "good" and what is "evil". This is called the moral law.

Based on this, an absence of "good" would make something "evil". I want to clarify this, though. Just because something is "not good" does not mean that it is "evil". For instance, take the colors black and white. They are opposites. If presented with the color gray, it would be perfectly acceptable to say that it is not white, but it would not be acceptable to say that it is black. Many things are morally neutral. Such as your choice of ice cream. A choice or action does not cross over into the "evil" category unless it is "actively working or standing against" God's moral law or nature.

God created humans "in His image" (the imago dei) . One of the properties of God's image is the recognition of what is "good" and "evil". However, when sin entered into the world, that ability was clouded. I'll go more into this in a future post on the depravity of man.

Humans can discern "good" from "evil" on their own (Romans 2:14-15). Many secularists can make an argument for how (not why) they determine "good" from "evil"- they observe human behavior and nature. But that can only go so far, mainly because human culture changes and what is perceived as "bad" will one day change to "good". Some areas that seem gray may actually be black or white. Since our discernment has been clouded by our sin, we need to refer to God's revelation (the Bible) to help us determine more concretely what is "good" and what is "evil".

Once we recognize that God's standard of good cannot be met; and no matter how hard we try, our good deeds will not restore our relationship with Him, we recognize the need for a Savior. Once we recognize our need and humble ourselves to the point of accepting Jesus as our Savior, then we allow Him to reveal to us even more about His nature and what "good" is.

For more information, I recommend these:

Podcasts
Just Thinking
Defenders
Reasonable Faith
Straight Thinking
Apologetics.com Radio Show
Stand to Reason

Books
Without a Doubt by Kenneth Samples
Beyond the Cosmos by Hugh Ross

If God Hears Me, Why Does He Not Care?

This is a challenge that I have heard put against practicing prayer many times. It is also used to imply that God either cannot hear our prayers, or does not care about us (thus He is not all-loving).

Simply put, this claim is the result of the person claiming it "forming God in man's image". The person has a specific idea of what God is supposed to be. Many sources exist to arrive at this conclusion. Someone might have told him to believe that if he prays for healing...POOF! He's healed! A church may have taught him that God wants his people to have the very best (referring to material possessions, of course). "God, please let me win the lottery." Have you ever seen the movie Bruce Almighty? :) Watch it and you'll know what I'm talking about.

The thing about God is that He made us in His image, not the other way around. Man is impatient, greedy, and selfish. Many times, God answers your prayer, not how you think it should be answered, but how He knows it should be answered, and when. For instance, I have a friend that has been wheelchair bound for several decades. This person asked for healing from God, and she believed with all that her heart that God would do it. Years passed, but she was not healed. Later, she realized that God had other plans for her life. She has been a tremendous witness for Christ. Specifically she has the ability to testify that God will never leave nor forsake us when we are going through suffering. She can testify that God makes drastic changes in our lives to drastically change us, for the better.

Let's think about this for a minute. If God was to give us the $200 million lottery ticket like we prayed for. Would that make us feel more dependent on Him or less dependent on Him? Many times God gives us a resounding "NO!" to teach us to be more like Him and depend more on Him.

God also has perfect timing for everything. You might be in a painful situation that you have not been delivered from. God could be biding his time, waiting on you to acknowledge and change something that you haven't yet, and may not have even considered if the pain was not there. God may also be leading you down a different path in life.

Either way, while we are suffering, we can know that God is there, and we should use the situation to the best of our abilities to discover new (possibly temporary, possibly permanent) ways to serve God.

Remember that your prayers are never unheard, and they are never unanswered. God just might be doing something that you don't expect. As we strive to be more like Christ and draw nearer to Him, we will be able to see more clearly what He has planned for our lives. As this happens, we will be able to be a witness to others in the same situation.

I have posted more on the topic of suffering in my posts "Suffering Sucks...or Does It?" and "Natural Evil".

Natural Evil

With all the inclimate weather Oklahoma has been having lately (tornadoes in Feb), I've been thinking about natural evil in the world. This will probably touch a bit on a couple things that I already covered in "Suffering Sucks...or Does it?". If you haven't already, check that post out before you continue with this one.

Many people have asked why an omnibenevolent (all-loving) God would allow such disasters to happen. These people tend to associate anything that causes pain with being evil. In my post about suffering I addressed why this argument does not logically follow. But on this post I would like to provide a short defense of why God would allow such things to happen at all (whether they affect people or not), and why this is actually the opposite case- these are, in fact, the works expected of an omnibenevolent God.

This argument is pretty much weighted on the impression of extreme design of our planet specifically for the existence of intelligent life.

One of the necessary factors required for a planet to support advanced life forms is "plate tectonics". In short, plate tectonics is the movement of a planet's rocky material. The way most planets form is that they start out as complete "water-worlds". Basically, they are nothing but a ball of water with a rocky center. Movement of the planet's crust allows the rocky material to come to the surface and produce landmasses.

Unfortunately, another effect of plate tectonics is that is that it interacts with the atmosphere (another just-right component) and produces natural disasters such as tornadoes and hurricanes. Plate tectonics, by itself, can also produce earthquakes and tsunamis.

All of these disasters are side effects of have a planet that can sustain our living here. We are stuck with them, if we want to live.

Some prominent Christians have said that recent natural disasters are "divine judgment" on humanity. They base this claim on the fact that God did use some natural disasters in the Bible as judgment. However, it does not follow that God used these natural disasters for this purpose.

If you take a look at the damage from natural disasters in the past, they did much more damage (in monetary terms) in the early 1900's than they do now. This is because humanity has been able to develop technologies that can keep them safe(r). Some have said that today, these same "natural evils" may be considered "moral evils" because of the fact that the more advanced nations have not implemented the same technologies in the poorer nations of the earth, and thus the loss of life may be indirectly the responsibility of the more advanced nations. So, an argument could be made for this. I don't know that I quite agree with that, but I digress.

My point in all this is that God created the universe with fixed laws of physics that have certain requirements in order to support life. God created our planet specifically so that the human race could not only live, but thrive. This is what is to be expected of an omnibenevolent God. Here's a quick video from Greg Koukl from Stand to Reason:



But this brings up another question: "Why did God not choose laws of physics that would allow for us to thrive without all the natural evils?" Here is an episode of the podcast "Why The Universe Is The Way It Is" in which Dr. Hugh Ross answers that question.



If you would like to do more research into this check out these great resources:

Web Pages
Natural Disasters- Reasons to Believe
Design Found In Earthquake Activity- Reasons to Believe
What If There Were No Hurricanes- Reasons to Believe
Problem of Evil- Reasonable Faith
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

Books
Creator and the Cosmos by Dr. Hugh Ross
Why The Universe Is The Way It Is by Dr. Hugh Ross
A World Of Difference by Kenneth Samples
Without A Doubt- by Kenneth Samples

Podcasts
Why The Universe Is The Way It Is
I Didn't Know That
Straight Thinking
Reasonable Faith
Just Thinking

Suffering Sucks...or Does It?

Suffering is a topic that comes up quite often. This topic seems to come up for one of two reasons: someone is trying to undermine the belief in the all-powerful, all-loving God of the Bible; or someone is going through a horrible time in their life and are trying to figure out why God is allowing them to suffer so much physical or emotional pain. I'll touch on both of them here.

God made a promise to Israel, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Paul was confident that the promise from God now extends to the Body of Christ, “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)