"Anonymous said . . ."

a response by Jack Roberts
to a comment posted dec. 5th, 2008

Your questions are important and indicate an inquisitive, thoughtful mind; they also touch on the core issue framed by Pilate to Jesus, “What is truth?” In order to address your questions, we need to back up a little and notice a word you used several times: the word ‘know.’ If you mean by the word an absolute, 100% certainty beyond even the possibility of error, then no one can ‘know.’ This is simply because we can’t be everywhere at once and have no way of getting outside of our bodies and minds to verify that what we ‘know’ actually corresponds with what ‘is.’ This means that everyone must have a starting point from which he begins to think, reason, evaluate. That starting point cannot be ‘proven’ with 100% certainty. For example, Des Cartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” assumes there is an “I” to do the thinking. But that is what the ‘thinking’ was supposed to prove. His statement should be more accurately stated thus: Thinking, therefore Thinking. In other words, the experience of thinking does not prove there is an “I” doing it; it may be there is a spirit being that is dreaming or thinking and there is no independent “I” at all.

If I say that logic is my starting point, I run immediately into a problem. I must assume the law of non-contradiction in order to reason, think or even communicate: that ‘A is not non-A’ cannot be ‘proven.’ What logic or ‘proof’ could be offered for its validation that does not assume that words or symbols cannot also simultaneously mean their contradiction? For example, if I say “A is an apple. A is not an apple.” If the terms in the two statements retain the identical meanings at the same instant, how do I ‘know’ that they are not both true? If they can both be true, then communication becomes impossible since my words can also mean their opposite. I cannot appeal to the ‘law of non-contradiction’ because that is what I am trying to ‘prove.’ I must assume that law in order to use logic and to have my words have meaning.

Hence, everyone operates under the rubric of some assumption. The scientific method uses this in order to come to conclusions in experimentation: make an assumption (hypothesis) about some phenomenon, evaluate if the consequences of that assumption correspond to observable, known data. If the conclusions match the expected results, the assumption is ‘proved.’ This is the way we daily live our lives: we do not have ‘absolute proof’ that the labels on cans are accurate but we make buying decisions based on what we read there. This is true at restaurants, medical appointments, lab results, pharmacies and medications – in fact, everywhere. We all live by faith every moment: we believe the car will stop when we brake; we believe that stove will not explode when we turn it on; we believe that the woman we call our mother really is our mother even though there cannot be 100% proof (as Augustine observed 1700 years ago).

Given that an assumption is necessary to live, there are only three possible: 1) this is all a dream, an illusion in the mind of the universal spirit (the religious pantheisms of the East); 2) there is only matter, simply the unfolding of the Big Bang following laws which we do not yet understand (the philosophic materialism of the West); 3) the Tri-Une God revealed in the Bible. Having stated that, the debate is which gives the best explanation for things as we experience them. Let’s take them one at a time.

If all this (the universe of our experience) is an illusion, life is utterly meaningless and it is useless to continue the discussion. In fact, nothing matters at all because it is not actually happening. This view is untenable because it is unlivable: no one can live as if everything is an illusion; as least, no one can live that way very long. I must act as if the truck is real or it will run me over; I must act as if there is a difference between good and evil, truth and error, life and death or my illusionary existence will end, probably quickly and tragically. So although it is theoretically possible that this all is an illusion and no one can prove it is not, no one really believes it is. It is an inadequate starting point.

The second possible assumption, nothing but matter (or stuff in various formulations) exists or ever has or will exist, undergirds the philosophical and scientific belief systems of the educational/social/cultural leaders of the West. Extrapolating backwards from the observations and mathematical formulae of the past several hundreds of years, the best conclusion is that sometime about 13 billion years ago (a few years ago it was 15 billion) everything that is began with The Big Bang. Since there is nothing outside of what can be construed to be part of the space-time continuum, all that is comes as a result of forces perhaps mostly only crudely understood as yet. However, the faith-commitment is that could we know everything at work, all phenomena is simply (though marvelously complex) a part of the machinery of the Cosmos. That means, in practical terms, if we could enter all the data that is into a computer large enough in a single microsecond, all that ever has been, is, or will be could be known. In other words, all ‘decisions,’ feelings and actions of every human being are not ‘free;’ everything and everyone is a robot, an action figure in the computer game of the Universe.

Again, as with the first possible assumption, this is theoretically possible but unlivable. Everything that is important to human beings - relationships, creativity, moral responsibility, achievement, honor, decisions – lose all meaning if they are simply the result of the evolution of “only stuff” from the cataclysmic event of the Big Bang. In fact, no one lives this way, nor can they. Even the ones who developed the naturalistic rationale for all of life want to get credit for their ingenuity. Everyone wants to believe that people choose to love them/be with them because they choose to, not because they are so programmed. No government can function, no human significance can be maintained without living as if people are not programmed but individuals responsible for their behavior. This deterministic view of reality is fatalistic and concludes in hopeless cynicism. It is an inadequate starting point.

The third possible assumption, starting with the existence of the God revealed in the writings of the Old and New Testaments, is the only one that is both internally consistent and corresponds to reality as we experience it. It is important to note that this is not simply a ‘religious’ answer: if the Tri-Une God of Scripture did not exist, hard-core, radical atheism or total, suicidal despair would be the only ‘reasonable’ alternatives. There can be no god but the God of the Bible; all other posited deities are insufficient. For example, the god of Islam, Allah, is a single individual – “There is no god but Allah” - he is all-mighty, all-powerful, all-sufficient in himself. However, there had to be a time when he was alone (or whatever it was, is co-equal to Allah, at least in his timelessness). What was Allah before he created anything else? In our experience of reality, for love or power to have meaning it must be in relationship to something “other.” For Allah, he must have needed to create in order to have an “other” to love or to whom/which he could display his power. Without that, there was no ‘worship,’ no ‘glory’ no ‘love’ as we use the terms; he had to make something to be the sovereign over. No purely monotheistic construction of a deity can resolve this fatal flaw; such religious alternatives to the secular position are nothing more than the clever inventions of the mind of man. Lenin was right: “religion is the opium of the people,”…If that is the best there is.

Enter “In the beginning God.” Immediately in the ancient Hebrew text we are confronted with the hint of something different in the nature of God: plurality in singularity, singularity in plurality. As the Scriptures unfold YHWH’s self-revelation, we are teased with visions of a Creator who is beyond all human conception: the I AM and I AM WHO I AM to Moses, the Shepherd to David, the First and the Last to Isaiah. Here is a starting point which is simultaneously infinite and personal, one and yet three. Given that the Three Persons who are-is God are outside of space and time, they-he are the definition and initiators of all that is (except evil, which must be addressed later). The Scriptures state that “God is love” (I John 4:8), meaning that he is the source of all love and his very nature is love. This makes sense in the relationship of the Tri-Une God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three equally infinite persons delighting in one another timelessly without ever being bored because of their equally infinite creativity. In other words, love is the word given to name the relationship between the Three-in-One; to understand love, we must understand something of that God. It also means that instead of a cold, empty universe or a meaningless illusion, the ultimate background of human existence is the breathtakingly exuberant love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (e.g., John 17:22-26). Humanity can then be seen as God’s “love-child,” the expression of that eternal love relationship, where creating man in his image was not necessary to have an object of love, but the overflow of the Infinite(s) delight in one another.
Thus, Adam and Eve, each made in the ‘image of God,’ reflect something of each member of the Tri-Unity and together the unity and diversity of YHWH, so that the union of the two becoming one flesh makes a visible statement about the invisible Infinite. Heterosexual marriage, then, is unique in its ability to mirror in a tiny way the mystery of the Tri-Unity of God.

The problem of evil, again, can only be seriously addressed by the God of Scripture.
In the assumption of illusion, real evil does not exist; it is only a temporary misperception of the ultimate nothingness of the all. For the consistent materialist, evil is simply a handle given to particulars that are objectionable to the ill-informed. Things are not ‘good’ or ‘evil;’ they just are. There is no actual evil; it is all part of the Cosmic Reality and all moral judgments are programmed into space and time by space and time.

In stark contrast to this non-moral world-view, the Scriptures proclaim a God who is good and defines good for humanity. In fact, he has not only written it in a series of books/letters (called The Book) but on human hearts. The reason why the Ten Commandments (at least five through ten) are observable in rudimentary form in virtually all cultures is because “the law is written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15). Since God is good, why is there evil and where did it come from? Although the story of the origin of evil is not definitively recorded, we are told that Satan is the evil one, the father of lies, the deceiver. As a person-spirit (angel) created by God he was good also, but there is the hint of an explanation for the creation of evil by this one in Isaiah 14. If that is a record of an event before the creation of the world, evil is the creation of this spirit-being; he is the only one besides YHWH who created out of nothing. There was no evil, no temptation; he brought it into existence. Because God is sovereign and nothing happens apart from his will, he could have prevented or undone the creation of evil. However, since this angel was also a ‘person,’ and thus also reflected something of God’s personal nature, to disregard his creative act or destroy him, would be to dishonor his own image. Since God has always known everything and can do whatever he wants, it is impossible for the human mind to construct a logical sequence of events that would explain how he could simultaneously be sovereign and not be responsible for the existence of evil. Yet, that is the unequivocal position of Scripture.

How can this be? If God is good and evil exists, either God is also evil or he is too weak to prevent it. The self-revelation of YHWH, the I AM WHO I AM, must always be the backdrop of our understanding. There are two perspectives, represented in the Old Testament by Deuteronomy 29:29 and in the New Testament by Romans 9:19-20a.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are
revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the
words of this law.”

“You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can
resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?’”

The OT viewpoint is that there are things that cannot be revealed to man because they are rooted in the nature of the Tri-Unity of God and are inaccessible to the human mind. If a brilliant genius could explain God, then a brilliant genius could have invented God. The inexplicability of the Triune God makes acceptable the apparently contradictory truths of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of angels and man. Like parallel lines, they meet only in infinity: the Tri-Une, infinite-personal God of the Biblical record is the infinite reference point. This means that it is not surprising that when the infinite (God) intersects with the finite (man), he cannot be understood. It also means, and gloriously so, that eternity will not exhaust our knowledge of God: there will always be more!

Paul the Apostle in the NT brings the other necessary consideration which makes the ‘mysteries’ palatable: man is the creature; he did not create God. As creatures, we did not invent the rules, define the meanings or determine the outcome. The Creator has the right to do whatever he wants and whatever he wants is good by definition: his definition. This is remarkably consistent with the revealed nature of God. Imitations of the real God who are human constructs may be more amenable to the creature’s sense of justice, goodness and truth, but they are little more than ‘man writ large.’ As such they are insufficient to explain things as they are and impotent to give lasting hope. The revelation of the only true God goes against the grain of humanism’s founding principle: humanity, the apex, center and hope of reality. This sovereign, uncompromisingly holy, inscrutable Tri-Une God would not be the invention of any man; something/someone more manageable and reasonable would be more attractive.

This counter-intuitive revelation even explains why other ‘gods’ are so popular: by nature and by choice man does not want the true God. The created evil has entered the ‘good earth’ by means of disobedience by the first parents and now that corrupt mindset pervades everything. Sin is a rejection of the Tri-Une God and his rule over us; it is inbred in us to be repulsed by this God and prefer virtually anything else. The Scriptures state that in our inner/unseen self we have a committed hatred of God; that we do not see that or exhibit that fully is God’s mercy to us. Because of our inescapable self-deception, to see it fully requires the uninhibited light of God’s holiness; but that holiness would completely shatter us, wither us into utter judgment. If the corruption of our hearts were to be fully manifested, human life would be ‘hell on earth’ and no flesh could survive long. Such is the pronounced verdict of God: “The heart is deceitful above all things and (desperately wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9)

This brings us to the focal point of human history and God’s intervention into it: YHWH became man. The Eternal Spirit becomes flesh and blood; the Creator becomes the creature. This was not simply to model a better way of life (like Buddha), or deliver a set of requirements demanding submission (like Mohammed): Jesus came to give his life a ransom for many. He came to die a death that would absorb the full and everlasting wrathful judgment of the Holy God. To qualify for that he had to be God and yet man. If he were not a man, his life could not substitute for a man just as a sheep was an inadequate substitute. If he were not God, he could die for only one other life and then his life would have to forever experience the judgment of God. Because he was fully man, he could substitute for man; because he was God, he could substitute for many people. His death as the Lamb of God accomplished what no one else could do: the Infinite One experiencing an eternity of hell in a moment of human time, was equivalent to many (finite) individuals experiencing God’s wrath for an eternity. When Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), he was separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit for an instant of human time. In other words, he experienced hell, which is being cut off from God and everything good that comes from him. That this was complete suffering to substitute for sinners is proven by his next statements from the cross: “It is finished” and “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” The payment was made; nothing more to be done.

Again, this goes against our natural inclination to do something to make ourselves acceptable to God, something to redeem ourselves and make up for foolish or wicked acts. In this revelation from the Creator, he makes it clear that the only contribution corrupt humanity can make to God’s work of salvation is to nail the Son of God to the cross. There is no room for pride, or sense of accomplishment or self-cleansing; God did it all. There is nothing to do but to bow before this awesome, loving, holy, sovereign God and receive the gift of forgiveness from him.