Straight Edges

C O N N I E C O O K

Copyright © Connie Cook 2010, 2014

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version of the Bible, public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

To Terry,

who once told me he wished it could all be true,

“. . . if only it made sense.”

Contents

BOOK I: THE STRAIGHT EDGES

PART 1: The First Part

1. The Jigsaw Puzzle

2. Is It Absolutely True There Is No Absolute Truth?

3. Pain and Pleasure and Pride and Prejudice

4. Pain and Pleasure and Philosophies and Perceptions

5. "In the Beginning, God Created …"

6. "God Is Love."

PART 2: The Problem

7. "You Will Be Like God …"

8. Suffering and the Second Law

9. Whiffs and Glimpses (or Suffering and Glory)

10. Of Mice and Men and Mosquitoes

11. When Mortality Puts on Immortality

PART 3: The Solution

12. The Writings

13. The New Writings (or the Greatest Story Ever Told)

14. What Does God Look Like?

BOOK II: “OBJECTION!”

15. Objection # 1: "The Bible Contradicts Itself."

16. Objection # 2: "Science Contradicts the Bible."

17. Objection # 3: Miscellaneous Objections

18. Objection # 4: "What If a Person Just Can't Believe?"

19. Objection # 5: "But Does It Work?"

20. Objection # 6: "I'm Afraid It Might Work."

Opening Statement

I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this book. During this writing process, as I've read back over some of the books listed in the bibliography, I've realized that everything I have to say here has all been said by other people who said it better than I could say it. The subjects this book addresses have been thought through and hashed out by scholars for centuries. And just so you know, this is not a scholarly approach to the topics at hand in any way. For a very good reason. I'm not a scholar.

So if I'm not a scholar and other scholarly types have already said everything I want to say in this book, why am I bothering to say anything at all?

I've come to the conclusion that I'm writing just for this reason: that I'm not a scholar. The subjects this book addresses have been thought through and hashed out by scholars for centuries, but there's always the chance that a non-scholar can make the subjects a little more approachable for other non-scholars. So there's my reason for writing: I'm a non-scholar writing to other non-scholars. Because, after all, we non-scholars have to have something to think about, too.

If you happen to be a scholarly type, of course you're welcome to keep reading. Just don't expect much.

The subjects to which I'm referring give this book its title. We'll be discussing “straight edges” in this book. What on earth do I mean by “straight edges”? (We'll get to it. In a moment.)

As we're going along together, walking through my “straight edges,” you might find yourself wanting to shout, “Objection!” That's why there are two main pieces to this book. The first piece looks at the straight edges; the second piece tackles the objections to my straight edges: objections that I've heard from others or objections that have occurred to me. So hang onto your objections till Book ii of this book. We may get around to talking about them. (I will be writing as though you — whoever you may be — and I are in a conversation. I won't get to hear what you might happen to be saying to me (unless you talk really loud), so I'll have to imagine your side of it. But I'll do my best.)

Now. I told you I would explain what I meant by “straight edges” and lay out for you the ones I see. So let's get started.

BOOK I

THE STRAIGHT EDGES

PART I

The First Part

Chapter 1

The Jigsaw Puzzle

Some time ago, an idea occurred to me that seemed like revelation. It's revolutionized my perspective on life. And what is this revolutionizing revelation? It is this: We're living on a giant jigsaw puzzle.

I can hear what you're thinking. “Ri-ight!” you're thinking. “I have those kinds of revelations all the time... in my wildest and weirdest dreams. Last night it was revealed to me in a dream that world peace would be a reality if only we would all just carry a piece of cheese around with us in our right-hand pockets. However, by daylight my revelation looked a little different. Maybe a piece of cheese is the key to world peace and maybe we do all live on a giant jigsaw puzzle, but, well... probably not!”

Now before you go taking me all literally and thinking that I'm a few marbles short of a full game, let me explain about my jigsaw puzzle revelation. I'm speaking metaphorically. Our reality is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. What do I mean by that?

Well, basically, just this: I have a square head. Now, again, that's a metaphorical square head. Literally, my head is the usual roundish-yet-bumpy-kind-of-head-shaped head. It's only square on the inside. I mean, I think in squares. Yes, I am a blockhead, but I have news for you. I expect that you're one, too. In other words, we all have certain ideas about sense and order and rhyme and reason, and reality does not usually conform to those ideas. (Here's where the jigsaw puzzle comes in.) Instead of being nice and neat and square, reality is as awkward and messy and as full of jigs and jags as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered all over the table.

Now, so far, I'm not saying anything too revolutionizing, right? I mean, we could probably all agree that reality does not behave how we expect it should, that the longer you look at things the more bizarre they seem. It's all fine and dandy as long as you go on taking things for granted and not noticing them, but the instant you begin to think about them, you start to realize how strange everything is.

For instance, have you ever had the experience of writing a word you've written thousands of times in your life before, but all of a sudden, wondering if you've spelled it right because it looks so odd? Or of saying a word that you've said a million times before and then on the millionth-and-one time the word sounds so funny, you wonder if you really have the right word, and you're suddenly noticing what a strange word it is?

And before you know it, from out of nowhere, the idea comes and jumps on you (at least it jumps on me from time to time) that all words are strange! That language itself is a strange thing! All these different combinations of sounds that we string together that take on a life of their own! How bizarre!

Think of the emotional impact these sets of sounds have on us. String together a certain set of sounds, and you can make me laugh. String together a different set of sounds, point them in my direction, and I might cry. Then after I think about it long enough, I realize how strange the phenomena of laughter and tears are.

All I'm really trying to say here is, “Isn't life a crazy thing?” And we would probably all have to agree. Reality does not fit our ideas about the way we would have done things or the way we think things should be done. As humans, the realities we like to build are square and orderly and sterile. (Of course, we all have different ideas of the way things should be, but I bet we could all agree that our way wouldn't end up looking much like our present reality — though we might also be able to agree that the way things really are is somehow more meaningful and more satisfying to us than the way we would have done them.) We, with all our respective square heads, have our little ideas that reality should come in nice, neat, little, square packages, and along comes reality in all its glorious jigged-jaggedness to blow all our little ideas.

But this is where my jigsaw-puzzle idea begins to get exciting. As I'm crawling around on my piece or two of jigged, jagged reality, every once in awhile I'll crawl across a piece with a straight edge. My square, little head gets all excited when it finds the odd piece with its straight edge. Why? Because it recognizes that here is something that shows signs of being the same shape as its own square, little self. Here, at last, is a tiny glimpse that I'm not wrong in wanting to make sense and order of things because sense and order do, in fact, exist.

What happens when you put together a whole jigsaw puzzle? What happens to all the jigs and jags? They disappear; or at least, work together to turn into a beautiful picture. Incidentally, the beautiful picture also happens to have nice, smooth, straight edges. It turns into a box shape that my box-shaped mind approves of. But that's incidental. The point of a jigsaw puzzle is that it turns into a beautiful picture. That it happens to be in a nice, neat square is beside the point.

So when I find glimmerings of sense and order and rhyme and reason in my own piece or two of present reality, I take heart. It tells me those straight edges I see are there because ultimately things will turn out square. There's nothing wrong with the fact that my head is square. It seeks to make sense of things only because things will ultimately make sense.

The problem with my little, square head is not that it's too square. It's that it's too small. It can't see the big picture. So I have to content myself with my piece or two of reality and rejoice in the fact of the straight edges that tell me that there is a big picture. Sometimes I even catch a faint hint of what that big picture might look like. And then, the fact of its squareness gets lost in the fact of its beauty.

There is a danger in having a square head. The danger in trying to make sense of anything is that it soon becomes trying to make sense of everything. And here's where my jigsaw puzzle idea gets revolutionizing: What if my square, little brain could have its own way when it first encounters all the jigs and jags on my few pieces of reality? It would like to take all those individual pieces and turn them into nice, neat, little squares that conform to its own ideas. It would saw off the jigs and the jags and sand them smooth until all that's left are nice, neat, little squares. But what then? All I'd have is a collection of nice, neat, pointless, little squares that would never make anything of beauty. You see, it's all the jigs and jags and awkward bumps and lumps that make a jigsaw puzzle work and hang together and turn into something of beauty (in a nice, neat, square shape, of course). And that's what we have to remember. Ultimately, I believe, things will make sense. But if we try to make every single piece of reality fit the piece or two we have put together or try to make every piece smooth and straight — or in other words, try to make all of reality conform to our ideas of sense and order — we're bound to come up with something that's not going to work. Nothing wrong with the fact that we have ideas of sense and order. But we have to remember that our heads are small. We can't see everything there is to see and know everything there is to know. It's not a good idea to shrink reality so that it fits into our little six-by-six inch boxes. We're bound to come up with something that doesn't work and won't hang together.

I know that's my tendency and temptation: to want to make sense of everything. There will be times when I'd rather say anything other than, “I don't know.” It's probably a good idea to resist that temptation.

I think I've done the best I can to explain my revolutionizing revelation to you. It's my way of letting you know why I'm setting out to write this book. I get excited when I run across a straight edge and (optimistically) imagine others might like to hear about it. Believe it or not, my jigsaw puzzle illustration is one of my straight edges. It reminds me that it's okay to look for sense and order and rhyme and reason — that ultimately things will make sense — but also to remind me that it's okay that I can't find it on all occasions. I find my jigsaw analogy helps me with that balance. So I'll start off with it in case it might be helpful for you, too.

Now. I have a few confessions to confess to you, and then we can start off together, examining my first straight edge.

Before we get any farther into this book, I want to get a few things off my chest. I don't want anyone to get halfway into this book and think to themselves, “I've been tricked! This is a religious book! I don't read religious books!”

So Confession #1: I'm a Christian, and I'm writing this book as a Christian about Christian things.

I did tell you that I was going to be writing about all my straight edges. So it's unavoidable that I write about my beliefs as a Christian, seeing that's where things begin to make sense for me.

Now, before you slam this book shut without a backward glance because you don't read religious books, let me ask you this: If you don't happen to be standing on the same side of the fence that I am, have you ever taken a look at life from this side? Have you ever really investigated a point of view opposite your own? Christians are constantly having accusations of narrow-mindedness slung at them. I can't deny that there's sometimes a lot of truth in those accusations. But it makes me wonder if those slinging the accusations have ever given Christianity an honest and open look.

Confession # 2: I'm going to be quoting from the Bible in this book.

Now, I know there's an annoying habit those of us “religious types” have of quoting the Bible like it's the last answer on everything. And I do realize that if you haven't been convinced of the truth of the Bible, my saying, “The Bible is true, and I can prove it because I can show you dozens of verses from the Bible that say that the Bible is true,” is not going to be a very convincing argument for the truth of the Bible. However, what it would prove is that the Bible makes the claim to be true. After all, if we're going to discuss the Bible, we need to know what it says if we're going to be able to make an informed decision on whether what it says is worth consideration. So I will be quoting to you from the Bible as we go along.

Confession #3: Not only will I be quoting from the Bible, by and large, it's the only source I'll be quoting.

Not only is this because I'm too lazy to do actual research, it's because there's a maddening habit a lot of people have of making statements of accepted facts without the slightest hint as to how they became accepted facts. Which rankles. I have a kink in my nature that makes it hard for me to accept anyone's say-so without knowing why on earth I should. I like to know the reasoning behind the accepted facts before I'll accept them as facts.

Scientific books and articles are especially rankling this way. They're forever saying things like, “...the galaxy nearest ours, some five-hundred kajillions of light years away...” without the faintest mention how it's possible to measure a distance approaching anything like five-hundred kajillion light years.

Or they'll go ahead and quote their sources which is just as rankling. They'll report that “...the eminent expert, Dr. Albert J. Humpenschlinkel proved conclusively just last year in his latest work...”

But there are a few problems with citing the eminent Albert J. Humpenschlinkels of the world, too. For starters, I have to take the author's word for it that Albert J. Humpenschlinkel is, in fact, the eminent expert he claims to be and that he did, in fact, say whatever it is he's supposed to have said, not having on hand a copy of Albert J. Humpenschlinkel's latest work to know if what he said is being taken in context or mangled beyond recognition. Also, I don't have access to the same facts that Albert J. Humpenschlinkel does to know whether I would agree with his interpretation of those facts. Then for finishers, the equally eminent Dr. Frederick G. Mattenbauer proved just last month in his latest work the exact opposite of whatever it was Albert J. Humpenschlinkel proved. If the eminent experts can't even agree, how should I know which one to listen to?

So having to take someone else's “say-so” without knowing why I should rankles me. I'd rather not rankle you, so for the most part I won't be quoting anyone's say-so. The kinds of facts we'll be working with will be common knowledge kinds of facts (and most of my knowledge is extremely common) — the kinds of facts based on observations anyone could make or open up the newspaper and read or hear in a high-school classroom, that kind of thing. We'll be talking mostly about what can be apprehended by our own six senses (the sixth being common sense). In other words, this is a book that will be dealing with generalities; not technicalities.

When I quote my sources to you, it will be from a Book most people can readily access for themselves. You can check it out on your own to see if it says what I'm saying it says. (Or I might occasionally quote someone who's already said what I'm trying to say — only better than I can say it.)

Confession # 4: My whole point in writing is the hope that you, whoever you may be, will become a Christian, too.

I understand why a Christian who thinks everyone else should be one, too, is viewed as a particularly noxious species of telemarketer. At least the telemarketer won't insult you by calling you a sinner, and you can hang up on the telemarketer.

But there won't be any high-pressure sales pitches happening in this book. Just a free exchange of ideas.

All I'm attempting to do in writing this book is just present life the way I see it. I don't profess to speak for all Christians everywhere. We have a lot of different ideas on a lot of different subjects while still agreeing on the basics. I'm presenting my ideas. I'm sure they'll change over time (this book doesn't come with a warranty; a case of, “The views expressed in this book may not necessarily be those of the author”), though hopefully not about those basics. But for now, this is where I'm at. And that's all I'll do: just talk about where I'm at.

As we go along in our examination of my straight edges, the reason some Christians feel compelled to try and see other people become Christians, too, will become a little clearer. (Don't blame us! The idea didn't originate with us.)

Of course, if you already happen to be a Christian, you're more than welcome to keep reading, but seeing I'm writing hoping to convince someone, anyone, they need what I've got, I'll be writing with that majority in mind who don't see things the way I do. And I'll be addressing my imaginary (possibly forever imaginary) audience as though they're part of that majority.

Confession #5: I'm not capable of convincing anyone of anything.

Am I contradicting myself? I just said that my whole point in writing was to convince someone, anyone, they need what I've got. Now I'm confessing that I'm not capable of doing that? So why bother writing?

What I'm saying is that there's no power in anything I might say that could convince anyone of anything. I have no power to change minds or lives. All the power is found in the Source I'll be quoting, but a lot of people have a lot of mental barriers put up against that Source. If anything I say could help poke a hole or two in a mental barrier so the power of the message I'm writing about could wriggle through, then that's why I'm writing. I'm only here as a hole-poker. I'd like to bring you to the Source. That's all I really hope to accomplish.

All right, I think I'm out of confessions, so...

If there's no power in anything I have to say and all the power is to be found in the Source and the message I'm talking about, maybe we should get on with discussing what that message is that will be the topic of this book.

The Christianity most people are familiar with and the Christianity I learned from a tender age, sitting in a little, wooden chair in Sunday School class, goes something like this:

"God made people, and He loves them. He wants everyone to go to live with Him in His beautiful place when they die. But people do bad things called sin. Because of people's sin, they can't go to live in God's beautiful home with Him. Because of their sin, they deserve to go to... er... a bad place instead when they die. But God had a plan for how He could make it so that people could go live with Him in His beautiful home. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, (who was really God Himself) to earth as a human, and people killed Him. But that was all part of the plan. Because of His death, we can have our sin taken away and be God's children and go to live with God in His beautiful place. And the only way that will happen is if we believe all this."

Really? Is "all this" what I believe? Is "all this" really the message I've been talking about where I began to discover all my straight edges? Is "all this" the power that's going to creep through mental barriers and change lives? Yeah, boiled down to its simplest form, that's it.

Now, especially in the Sunday-School language I've used, when I look at my particular set of beliefs, I can understand perfectly people's mental barriers. I can understand what the “all this” looks like to the general population. That point of view is the obvious one, and there are some obvious questions to be asked. But don't assume that because there are questions it means there are no answers. In fact, it was in seeing some of those obvious questions and looking for answers that I began to see some of my straight edges. I'm glad there are some hard questions to ask of my own point of view. If there weren't — if the package was too neat and there were no jigs and jags — it would make me suspect that the whole thing was man-made. In the end, it wouldn't hang together.

So contained within the “all this” are the main points that I want to address in this book. First and foremost, the obvious place to start is with this idea of God. That's the foundation for everything. Is there a God? And if so, what is this God like? Does He really love us? No point talking about any of the rest of it if we can't agree that there must be a God.

Then, there's this topic of sin or evil. If God is everything He's supposed to be and He created everything good, what went wrong? Why is the world such a mess?

And along with the topic of evil, this matter of heaven and hell. After all, if when we're dead, we're dead, none of this makes much difference, does it? I might as well save my breath (or my ink) writing and you might as well save your time reading, if this life is all there is.

Then we'll have a look at the Book where all these ideas come together — the Bible.

And then, we'll talk about the One who all the fuss is about — Jesus Christ. He's the culmination of all the rest. Everything hinges on Him.

All right, I've told you what I hope to accomplish through writing this. I've told you what I can't hope to accomplish. I guess I'd better get on with trying to accomplish what I can. So... without further ado...

Chapter 2

Is It Absolutely True There Is No Absolute Truth?

I've said we'd be starting with the foundational question, “Does God exist?” But before we can get to that foundational question, there's one even more basic that we'll have to get out of the way. “Does anything exist?”

I could argue for the existence of God from all the design and order in the natural world till I'm blue in the face, but if at the end of it all, you said, “I believe that nature and the world we see around us are simply illusions,” for all that arguing, I'd have gained nothing (except a blue face).

I have to admit that I'm about to get in philosophical water way over my head. I'm not a philosopher. I'm not primarily interested in philosophies. I'm more interested in the search for truth. Philosophy and truth are separated by a great gulf that philosophy can never bridge. Philosophy is any idea that sounds good. Philosophy is really nothing more than a matter of a person saying, "Well, I believe such-and-such." No cold, hard evidence required because none is needed for philosophy.

The areas I'm about to jump into in this chapter and the next two are philosophical areas. At most, I'll present the logical difficulties I see with different philosophies, and with a creative imagination, I'm sure they can all be got around. Although these three chapters are about truth, they will have very little truck with truth and, unfortunately, a whole lot more with philosophy. So at the end of it all, it will come down to me saying, “Well, I believe such-and-such.” And you may say, “Well, I don't!” And there's an end. So... now for it.

There's a statement I hear a lot these days. I'm not sure what people mean when they say it. I'm not sure if most people know what they mean when they say it. On the face of it, it's a nonsensical statement. The statement goes something like this: “There is no absolute truth” or “There are no absolutes.”

Now, obviously, the reason it's a nonsense statement is because it's an absolute statement stated as though the speaker believes it to be true. Absolutely true, even. How is that possible if there is no absolute truth?

It's a little like two kids having a sleepover, and one believes there's a monster under the bed. The other one doesn't believe in monsters. “I'll prove it to you,” the non-believer says. “I'll crawl under the bed to see if there's anything there.” He crawls under the bed and re-appears in a few minutes. “I told you there's no such thing as monsters,” he says, “and the monster under the bed, he agrees with me, too.”

I mean, that makes as much sense as making an absolute statement about truth, stating that there is no absolute truth. So I don't believe that people really mean what they say when they say things, like, “There is no absolute truth.” But they probably mean something. I've made some guesses about what they really mean (and I admit these are only guesses). I've come up with about three things that I think might be meant by a statement, like, “There is no absolute truth.” These three are related but distinct.

1) We can never know absolutely what is true and what isn't. 2) There is no absolute standard of morality. And 3) Everyone has his or her own reality.

So let's handle each of these ideas separately and talk about what I mean by them.

1) We can never know absolutely what is true and what isn't.

There's probably an underlying category under number 1. There are those who think nothing can be known absolutely, and then there are those who take it the next logical step and join the “So who cares, anyway?” school of thought. If nothing can be known, then why bother trying? What's the point? Everyone is free to think how he wants. Truth doesn't matter.

As to number one, I have to agree. We can't know absolutely what is true and what isn't. Would you agree? Who of us hasn't had our senses fooled? No matter what I might think I “know,” if I argue with myself long enough, I could cast doubt on it.

For an example of the first thing that came randomly to my head, I “know” my oil needs changing in my car right now. But do I know that? Maybe the old “change your oil every 3,000 miles or every three months, whichever comes first,” adage is just a scheme by the oil companies to keep us buying their product. As a matter of fact, my car has been running a whole lot longer than three months with nary an oil change in sight. I won't confess to you just how long it has been since that oil has been changed, but still my car continues to purr along. I've never personally burnt out an engine to know why cars need oil changes.

Or I could go the whole route of believing the car itself and the poor, overworked engine and that grungy, grimy oil in it to be illusions. Maybe my car doesn't need an oil change because it doesn't really exist.

You see what I mean? What can we really know? So I would have to agree. We can't know absolutely what is true and what isn't. But in so saying, we have to leave the possibility open that truth may exist. After all, we can't know that it doesn't. So if we admit that possibility of truth and leave that much wiggle-room, we may find someday that truth has wriggled in.

But that wasn't the main thing I wanted to say on this subject. I guess the main thing I want to say is, “So who cares, anyway?” Am I enrolled in the "So who cares, anyway," school of thought that I described to you? No, what I mean is, “Who cares that we can't know absolutely what is true and what isn't?” What practical relation does knowing a thing absolutely have to any of our lives?

I'll come back to this idea. Let's talk for a minute about the “Who cares, anyway?” school of thought. I have to agree that this school has taken the “We can never know absolutely what is true and what isn't” philosophy to its logical conclusion. After all, if nothing can be known, then knowing can't be very important. I mean, if a thing is impossible, then how vital can it be? Not vital at all, right? Right!

What people are getting at when they say, "We can never know absolutely what is true and what isn't," or, "So who cares, anyway?" is that they believe truth can't be accessed by us. It's the idea that, sure, there may be truth in some form out there, but seeing we have no access to it — we'll never know about it — then why bother worrying about it? We might as well think whatever we want. If we have no access to truth, then for us, it's the same thing as if no truth exists (and for us is all we have).

But here's the thing people are forgetting: Though knowing may be impossible for us and consequently not very important, there's another cognitive process that's very possible for us and very important.

Is it true that we have no access to truth? "But none of us can know absolutely what's true and what isn't." Right! So what's knowing got to do with it, anyway? We all go from day to day living as though we "know" a great many things, like, that a car needs its oil changed every three months, etc. If we were completely dependent on knowledge (I mean, knowledge in that absolute sense), we'd be paralyzed. Yet we're not. Is knowing the only access we could possibly have to truth? What about belief? While we may not be dependent at all on knowledge, we're extremely dependent on belief.

Let's define “believing” as “thinking a thing to be true.” That's a nice, simple definition that pretty much covers it. When we use the term “believe,” we usually mean something we think is true but that we still have some doubts about. Usually, in everyday language, when we use the word “know,” what we really mean is “believe without doubt.” We use the word "know," but a more accurate word would be "believe."

Now, unlike knowing (in the absolute sense), believing is very possible for us. In fact, I would go further and say that not believing something, anything, at all, ever, is impossible. If you're reading this, unless you're actually in a coma as you read, I know that you believe some things and disbelieve others. (I mean, I believe it very strongly.) Everyone I've ever run across believes some things and disbelieves others. We can't stop ourselves from performing this act of believing every second of every day or of deciding what we believe every second of every day. This very minute, I've caught you in the act of believing or disbelieving. We find it impossible to stop. We may be undecided about quite a lot of things, or we can ignore certain issues, but that's only because we believe we don't need to address them because we've already decided that they're unimportant to us. That in itself is a belief.

Trying to stop ourselves from performing this act of belief is like trying to stop ourselves from performing the act of breathing. We may be able to manage it by conscious effort for a few minutes, but it's impossible to get through life without it.

I've agreed that none of us can know anything absolutely, and so who cares about knowing things, anyway? The reason I could agree was because I was thinking about this little matter of belief. If we stop short at, “Nothing can be known absolutely, and who cares, anyway?” we're missing the heart of the matter. Yes, I would agree that if a thing is impossible for us, then it can't be very vital. But what about if a thing is impossible not to do? Does it also follow that thing is probably very vital?

A second or two ago, I compared the act of believing to the act of breathing. Both impossible for us to avoid for very long. Is breathing a little bit important to us? And what's more, the analogy carries across a little farther. We do sometimes have choices about what kind of substances we'll inhale. How important is it to us, given the importance of breathing, to make the right choices about what to breathe? Ask the surgeon general. I think it's common knowledge that, at least in the area of breathing, it can be a matter of life and death to make the right choices.

What about believing? We also make choices about what we'll believe. Doesn't it also follow that, if believing is vital to us, then believing the right things — in fact, believing what is true — may also be very vital? At least in some important areas (and we'll talk later about important and unimportant truths). Why? Because every part of our lives that we have any say on is built on some belief or other. Why do people do the things they do? Why do they act the way they act? Why are they who they are? If you trace it back far enough, it always comes down to a belief — to what they've decided to think is true.

I believe very strongly in the law of gravity. That belief has a significant effect on my actions. I try to avoid going up on high things. I certainly try to avoid stepping off of them. My strong belief in the law of gravity and my strong desire to avoid pain greatly affect my lifestyle. There are a lot of activities I don't do willingly. What I believe controls what I do.

"Yeah, but we all know people who don't act on what they believe," you might be thinking. "I don't know that belief controls every part of our lives."

I disagree. I think there are different levels of beliefs we live with that we may not be aware of.

Why do some people do the things I won't do when it comes to heights? Is it because they don't believe in the law of gravity although they say they do? No, they probably believe in gravity. But they likely have a sub-belief lying below that one, controlling their actions. They believe, "I won't fall. I won't get hurt."

I've told you that I believe my car needs an oil change. I haven't done anything about it yet. What does that tell you about my beliefs? Belief produces action. The fact that I haven't changed my oil tells me that down below the belief in the need for an oil change there is a sub-belief controlling my actions. If I were to articulate it, it would come out sounding something like this: “It's made it this long. A few more months isn't going to hurt it.” If I really believed that something drastic would happen the very next time I turned the key unless my car had an oil change between now and then, I would be out there right now in the dead of winter, changing the oil.

Ultimately, every action, every part of life, every part of our very selves is controlled by our beliefs. Maybe what we believe is a little bit important, can we agree? Ask the sky-diver who believed in his parachute but whose parachute didn't open. (My belief in the law of gravity is stronger than my belief in parachutes so that will never be me.)

Our inability to stop belief from happening is the reason people end up speaking in oxymorons, like, “There is no absolute truth.” They find they can't help believing something even if that something is that there is no absolute truth. But if by very definition to believe something is to think it to be true, then how can a person think a thing to be true unless truth exists?

Still, I understand what prompts people to make these kinds of oxymoronic statements.

I was thinking about this subject the other day, standing in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, looking in the mirror at my insignificant, slightly ridiculous-looking self, and it struck me (as in fact, it often has) how ludicrous it is to think that of all the people in the world — all with their own sets of beliefs, all thinking them to be true — my little, insignificant, ridiculous-looking self and all those who believe like me could have a monopoly on the truth.

I understand why people would make a statement like, "There is no absolute truth." The feeling is, "It's ludicrous to think that anyone could have a corner on the market of truth. With all the different ideas out there, who am I to say that what I believe is the only right way to believe?" But that reaction (which I understand perfectly) is an emotional reaction; not a logical one. In fact, when you start to look at it logically, you begin to see that of all the huge array of different beliefs possible for us, this philosophy that none of us can access truth, and, therefore, all beliefs must be equal is the one that ends up impossible to believe (if we're talking about logic here).

You have to realize that everyone in the whole world is in the same boat. We all believe something. If we believe it, then we think it's true. We all think we're right. Including those who deny the existence of absolute truth. Those who say so, say so because (whatever they mean by it), presumably, they think they believe it. If they believe it, they think it to be true. If they think it to be true, then by the very nature of truth, they have to think that certain other things are untrue.

And there's the crunch. That's the nature of truth. Logically, it's exclusive. If a certain thing is true, then whatever directly contradicts that truth cannot be. If two plus two is four, then it can't also be five or sixty-eight. If it's true that there is truth out there somewhere, then it can't also be true that there is no truth or that all beliefs are equal. If there is truth (which we've all shown we believe by the fact that we all believe something) then obviously, right beliefs would be, well, righter than wrong ones. They wouldn't all be equal.

If you want to get around the idea that there is such a thing as truth and that it's possible for a person to get a handle on some of that truth, you would have to try to believe everything or nothing. Neither is possible for us. Because we all believe some things and disbelieve others, by that confession, the one creed that we find it impossible to believe (once we stop to think about it) is that there is no truth or that all beliefs can be equal.

So much for logic. But there is still the emotional reaction that needs to be dealt with. Logically, we might have to admit that we all believe there is truth out there somewhere. But emotionally, we tend to think that it can't be found. If there are so many, many different sets of beliefs in the world, how could anyone pick one set to be the right set? Or if a person has already picked a set of beliefs, how could he have confidence that his set is the right set? Even those who have managed to access some truth will never know for sure that they have.

It's the vast number of beliefs that are possible that gets to us. That and the exclusive nature of truth. Then add the complication that in our culture we all like to be accommodating and none of us likes to tell anyone else he's wrong. "You can believe your way, and that's fine for you. I'll believe mine, and that's fine for me."

First, let's talk about the odds: the sheer number of beliefs out there. "Of all the people in the world, why would my little, insignificant, ridiculous-looking self, (etc., etc.)" It's kind of like thinking that my little, insignificant, ridiculous-looking self might someday win ten million in the lotto.

Now, here's the crazy part: People buy lotto tickets. They wouldn't if they believed it was all that ludicrous to think they might win someday.

And here's the crazier part: Someone always wins. Not every go-round, mind you, but eventually someone wins. And those winners are probably very often as insignificant (etc.) as myself.

You see what I'm saying? The feeling I had looking in my mirror brushing my teeth was a feeling of, "Who am I? Why would I imagine that I might have the truth?" But logically, why not me or Joe-down-the-street or Martha-down-the-other-street? Is it ludicrous to think that anyone might be capable of apprehending a little bit of truth? No, I don't think so. If I were to say so, then I would have to admit that this act of believing that we all find ourselves unable to stop doing is all for nothing.

Remember that the only way we can access truth at this stage of the game is through belief and also that if we have no access to truth then for us truth does not exist. Yet remember, also, that none of us can stop ourselves from believing some things. The fact that we find ourselves unable to stop doing it leads me to believe that it may be a very important act — maybe the most important. And if important, then it follows that it must be important to, in fact, believe the truth about certain things. How could believing — thinking a thing to be true — be a vital act if accessing the truth is impossible for us? So... truth must be accessible to us. Of course, not all truth but at least some of the important stuff.

Everyone has accessed some truth if there's any brain activity going on in her head at all. There are all different kinds of truths, and it would be pretty hard to get through life without stumbling over at least a few of them. In fact, as I thought about it brushing my teeth, I had to go from a position of thinking it was ludicrous that I should be right about anything to realizing it would be ludicrous if I was wrong about everything. Of course I can trust a few truths I've learned.

Let's take the multiplication table for an instance. Is it ludicrous to think that I — li'l, ol', ridiculous-looking me — could sit down to a multiplication problem and get it right first try? (Why, yes, as a matter of fact!) All right, but for the average, say, high-school student, you wouldn't think it too ludicrous for her to have accessed that much truth, would you?

But think about the odds! Imagine sitting down to 237 x 568 and getting it right first try! Out of all the infinite possibilities of numbers in the world, how ludicrous to think a person might come up with the only one right solution to the problem!

Well, if that's what you're thinking, then you'd be right (except for one little thing). The odds would be against it — if it wasn't for people like my grade three teacher. I was taught the multiplication table (many, many years ago when the earth was flat, so the answers might have changed since then) by a reliable source, and I've used it, and I can see that it does work, and yes, even li'l, ol' me does occasionally come up with the right answers. (Now, if only my grade three teacher had taught me to avoid run-on sentences!) If I just tried guessing or if I tried to come up with my own multiplication table, then it would be pretty ludicrous to think I might get the right answers.

That's what I had to remind myself, looking in the mirror, brushing my teeth (which were good and clean by this time). "Oh right! I didn't come up with any of this. It was taught to me by a reliable source." (I'm not really talking about my times tables now, in case you missed the shift in thought). It's not ludicrous to think that a reliable source may have some important truths. It's not ludicrous to think reliable sources are available to us, even to me. So it's not ludicrous to think that I may have been taught some important truths by a reliable source.

And why should I be so lucky? Aren't the odds against it with all those possible beliefs out there? For that matter, why should I have been so lucky as to have been taught my times tables and other odds and ends of higher education ("higher" meaning grade three?) when so many others aren't? I don't know, but all the same, I'm not about to toss away my times tables and my other odds and ends and maybe some more important truths just so that I can be in the same boat as those who aren't so lucky.

Probably a more helpful approach would be to share the wealth. We can all learn from each other. Somebody else always has some truth that I don't. And everyone (me, too) is wrong about quite a lot of things. There's never a question of cornering the market on all truth.

But I believe that there is a reliable source out there that has told me the truth about the important stuff. Just an emotional reaction to the sight of my insignificant, ridiculous-looking reflection looking back at me is no good reason to toss that belief aside. Nor is the fact that many, many people don't believe that reliable source.

On the subject of reliable sources (and emotional reactions), let me talk about a couple of accusations that Christians are more likely to have levelled at them than anyone else (and I promise you, I'll tie in reliable sources). I need to talk about those accusations here because, again, they are among those mental blocks, those emotional reactions, that keep people from seriously considering the claims of Christianity and the Bible.

Because Christians believe there's only one way to God and only one truth and only one truly reliable source, the general feeling is that Christians must be arrogant or not too bright (see feelings of ludicrosity while brushing teeth) or both. Which would make any BDP (Basically Decent Person) of normal intelligence think twice before signing on.

Again, I can understand the emotional reaction. It's the obvious reaction to being told, "I'm right, and you're wrong!" I agree. It sounds arrogant. But strangely enough, of all people, those who base their beliefs on what they think is a reliable source are the only ones who can really be free from the charge of arrogance. (I mean, Christians may very often personally be arrogant and all other manner of bad things, but ideologically, we're off the hook on the charge of arrogance.)

Here's what I mean: Do you believe anything? Well, never mind. I already know you do. What's more, I know that you have a philosophy you live your life by. You have some beliefs on what I would call "the important stuff." So if you believe some things (and you do!), then you disbelieve others. In other words, you think you're right, and you think the guy who disagrees with you is wrong. I mean, if you're not agreeing with everything I've said so far, well, guess what? You just said to me, "I'm right, and you're wrong!" Oops! So far we're swimming in the very same pond. Of course, no one likes to say, "I'm right, and you're wrong," (okay, maybe some people do), but there's no way to avoid it if you're going to have any kind of beliefs.

Well, now, let me ask you this? Who's your big authority? Who's your reliable source? You? Oops again! No matter who has been your biggest influence in your life's philosophy, if it was a college professor or Karl Marx or John Lennon, unless you've taken their ideas and swallowed them up whole, you can't pass the buck to them. It was still you acting as your own big authority — you, taking their ideas and picking over them and choosing some and discarding others. You were the judge. You are your ultimate authority.

Now me, on the other hand, I've taken a source and swallowed it up whole. So if you don't like what I believe, don't look at me! I didn't come up with any of it. At least I'm not my own big authority. I have someone to pass the buck to. Sure, I think I'm right and the other guy is wrong. But I'm not the one who made up what I believe. That's why I say I should be free from the charge of arrogance. Gullibility I may still be accused of but not arrogance.

Now, of course it's true that it was I who decided what I would believe or at least decided that my reliable source was a reliable source. If I just swallowed up any old thing, I would deserve your accusation of gullibility.

But there's no getting around it. We all decide for ourselves what we're going to believe. And we all believe some things and disbelieve others. In other words, we all think we're right and the other guy is wrong (the difference being that Christians have what they believe is a reliable source to pass the blame onto). So maybe we ought to drop the charges of arrogance altogether. What belief system is the nicest and the most politically correct and the least arrogant-sounding should not be the criteria we base our beliefs on. What looks like it stands the best chance of being true is what we should be pursuing.

And that brings us back to accusation number 2: that of ridiculousness or not-too-brightness. Is it ridiculous to swallow up whole what claims to be a reliable source? I think, rather, that it's a little more ridiculous to accept our own thinking over and above any other source.

I was talking about the multiplication table earlier and how it would be pretty ridiculous to think I could come up with my own. Now, some genius did come up with it in the first place (or discover it, I mean), and, probably, if a person is smart enough, it's the kind of thing that could be discovered without any help.

Certainly we need to use our brains and think things through and discover for ourselves what we can. But there are limits. There are truths we can discover for ourselves and other truths that we can't possibly know unless we learn them from a reliable source. For me, the times table was one of those second kinds of truths.

How about historical kinds of truths? Let's take the existence of the United States of America, for instance. Here we have the good ol' US of A right in front of us as a cold, hard fact. Let's say we were never taught any history about how it came to be. Or worse, that we decided we didn't like the history we were taught and chose to discard it in favour of our own guesses. Is it reasonable to think that "all on our own hind legs" you or I might be able to guess accurately at how it came to be? We may come up with some very plausible-sounding theories, but they'd either be wrong or they wouldn't go very far. Without having been taught some history, you and I would never know anything about the Mayflower and the pilgrims or the Boston Tea Party or Paul Revere and George Washington and all those guys. Some truths we can only access through a reliable source.

Of course the onus is still on us. We do have to use our heads. We have to evaluate whether a source that claims to be reliable really is. But I'll tell you what! If I couldn't even trust myself to come up with a multiplication table or guess at the history of the founding of the United States, I'm probably not going to rely on my own judgment to tell me everything I need to know about "life, the universe, and everything." When it comes to the important stuff, I want to be standing on a reliable source. And I'm not likely to go looking to a college professor or Karl Marx or John Lennon or some other admittedly fallible source, no matter how pretty their philosophies sound, to be my reliable source. I don't want philosophy. I'm after truth.

So we all secretly believe there is truth in some form or other out there somewhere whether we recognize that belief or not. I keep alluding to important and unimportant truths. Let's hit that subject now because it will lead us into our next chapter.

Would you agree that all truths are not equal? Some might be a whole lot more important to us than others. If I'm wrong in my belief that my library books aren't due till next week, oh well! I might be out about fifty cents. If I'm wrong in my belief that my car won't blow up the next time I start the engine, that's less of an "oh well." But there are more important truths still. The rules of the road in any given country are important to know if a person is going to drive in that country. Health and safety issues are important truths. Any kind of life and death beliefs are important to have the truth about, but there may be some truths that are much more important. If there really is some kind of eternal existence, then maybe that's an area for which there's no excuse for laziness in our beliefs.

Or what about in matters of right and wrong? "Who cares, anyway?" isn't good enough all of a sudden. We'll begin to see next chapter that, in our heart of hearts, we do all know that what we believe just may be very important.

Chapter 3

Pain and Pleasure and Pride and Prejudice

All right, number 2: There is no absolute standard of morality.

A lot of people would tell me that morality is a matter of opinion. It's a matter of taste. For me to expect that everyone should subscribe to my particular brand of morality is as ridiculous as for me to demand that everyone should prefer chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream over every other kind just because that's the kind I like best.

There are a few things wrong with this reasoning, though. Mainly the fact that no one really believes it.

People may tell me that I have no right to think everyone should subscribe to my standard of morality, but they will turn around and, in the next breath, demand that everyone subscribe to theirs.

One day, a friend and I were having a discussion on this topic of some kind of a universal moral code, and I was losing. No matter what example I brought up, he knew of an exception. If I mentioned the universality of some kind of an idea of a marriage commitment, he knew about some rotten, little tribe on some rotten, little island somewhere that practised no kind of marriage at all and seemed to be managing just fine, thank-you-very-much. And so it went. Until he walked into his own trap.

"For instance," he said, "missionaries used to teach the natives, living in plus-hundred-degrees weather in the jungles, that they had to dress in a suit and a tie in order to please God. Don't you think that was wrong?"

Bloodthirsty, I jumped on it at once.

"What do you mean 'wrong'?" I asked.

He began to backpedal, but it was too late.

"Uh, I mean, they shouldn't have..."

"Whoa! Whaddya mean 'shouldn't have'? By whose standard shouldn't they have?"

And no matter what words he tried to substitute for “right” or “wrong” — “should, better have, ought to” — he ran smack-dab into this idea of a standard. My friend was relying on some kind of standard when he passed judgment on the actions of those old missionaries. Whose standard? His? Well, in that case, who was he to say that his standard was better than those of the missionaries? If it was just his standard, those missionaries were free to dress the natives in suits and ties or rape, pillage, and burn villages — whatever they felt like doing.

The one thing my friend and I could agree on was that those old missionaries had used a bent moral ruler to measure morality by when they insisted on suits and ties. But if there is no real standard out there, if there is no straight, then there can be no bent. And we'd have no way of knowing bent when we saw it.

When cornered, most people will say things like, "There is no absolute standard of morality. It's only wrong if it hurts someone." But wait a doggone minute! Whose moral standard is that? If it doesn't happen to be mine, who's to say that I shouldn't go around hurting any old one I happen to feel like hurting?

Some enlightened persons out there with all their beans in a row are sitting back, watching me argue with myself, and thinking, "The whole thing's quite simple, really. Sure, we all have ideas about right and wrong, but those don't prove the existence of some kind of absolute moral standard. They're explained by evolution and our drive to survive and all that. 'Right' and 'wrong' are really nothing more than concepts that are necessary for the survival of the species. What we think of as moral and ethical behaviours just happen to be those behaviours that work to the good of society and civilization. Conscience has evolved to ensure the continuance of life as we know it."

You would expect that our own individual drives to survive would be stronger and would overrule any collective evolutionary conscience for the good of the whole, wouldn't you? And in fact, that is exactly what we do find. I do, by nature, care more about myself and my own well-being than anyone else, certainly more than "society." And yet we find people that do unselfish things that go against this natural care for themselves — at times even to the point of endangering their own survival. How is this explicable by evolutionary thinking?

Besides, this evolutionary answer doesn't really answer the problem at all. It bumps it up a notch. Now I'm not only supposed to be concerned about my neighbour? Now I have to be concerned about my society or civilization or the human race as a whole? But why on earth should I be? Sure, the drive to survive is admitted. But why should I be bothered about the survival of anyone other than me, myself, and I? If evolution saw fit to wipe out the dinosaur, I don't complain. Why should my own kind and their survival be any more important to me, as long as I get what I want? Why shouldn't I do whatever I jolly well feel like and never mind what happens to anyone else? If whatever I jolly well feel like doing happens to include raping, pillaging, and burning villages, why shouldn't I?

Are you, you enlightened soul with all your beans in a row, prepared to tell me to go ahead — that there's really no reason I shouldn't if I happen to lack that evolutionary conscience somehow? That there wouldn't be anything really wrong about it? That it's just not very good for society, but if I couldn't give two rips about society, that I'm not really wrong in that belief?

You see, if those who preach "no moral absolutes" are right, then we still may have to lock up psychopaths or sociopaths (or any other kind of "paths") for our own protection, but we'd have to admit that there's nothing really wrong with them or with what they do.

There's a similar line of thought that says that right and wrong literally happen to be a matter of taste. I mean, these ideals are nothing more nor less than likes and dislikes. "...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," quoth Hamlet, and pleasure and pain are the ultimate standard of good and bad. What causes pain we come to see as "bad," and what causes pleasure we come to see as "good." There's really nothing more to right and wrong and morals and ethics than that. So it's nicer if we choose not to cause others pain because, well, we all know what pain feels like. Why would we want to cause pain for anyone else?

For some reason, I was thinking about this philosophy after one particular reading of Pride and Prejudice. Its characters set me to thinking. Any characters would work just as well for my point, though. For that matter, so would real people. So never mind, if you haven't read Pride and Prejudice. You'll still know what I mean.

I was comparing and contrasting two kinds of Jane Austen archetypes: the nasty characters and the just-plain-silly ones. Let's group the nasties and put Mr. Wickham at their head as their representative. Then let's make Mr. Collins the representative silly. Most of us would not call silliness a moral fault. But by and large, that was Mr. Collins' main fault. Basically, he just wasn't the brightest light bulb in the socket. On top of that, he was a bore. Nothing was too trivial for him to spend an hour talking about it. Not anything we can really blame him for there, even if we don't happen to like him.

Now Mr. Wickham we could heap blame upon. Here is a man full of traits that most of us would have to admit to be moral faults: deceit, hypocrisy, avarice, and a complete disregard for anyone else. He doesn't care who he hurts if it gets him where he wants to go. Generally, those who hold to the philosophy that right and wrong are a matter of taste would have to admit that these traits are not to their taste. These are not the qualities we look for in a friend.

Now, here's the startling thing: How did people react to the two of them? Well, for most of the book, Mr. Wickham was universally popular, welcomed everywhere, invited to parties, fawned over. Even the reader is taken in. You just can't help liking this guy (before you really know him)! How did people react to Mr. Collins, chief-among-the-sillies? Just about how you'd react in real life. You'd cross the street to get away from him if you saw him coming. His wife married him for the sake of getting married but then spent all her time avoiding him. Mr. Collins was universally unpopular. The only people who like him are readers, but that's because we can get away from him when we want to.

But that's strange, isn't it? After we've all agreed that he's not really a bad guy. Just one you can't stand! On the other hand, the real nasty is one that everyone likes and wants to be around. Maybe we do all make a distinction between moral faults and ones that are simply personally painful to us. Mr. Collins seemed to cause more pain to those around him than Mr. Wickham, although we've agreed that Mr. Collins wasn't morally bad and Mr. Wickham was.

"Yeah, but once they found out what he was really like, no one could stand Mr. Wickham, either. In the end, he caused far more pain than Mr. Collins," you might argue.

True! But what are you saying, then? When did Mr. Wickham start being morally flawed? Was it the minute his cover was blown and people knew what he was really like? Once he began to cause people pain, was that only when he became a nasty? But that would be saying that those who are better at the deceit and hypocrisy — maybe those who never cause anyone pain because they're so good at hiding what they're really like — aren't really morally bad. So the qualities that make a person bad are only bad if we know about them? And if a person is more practised and even better at the qualities that make a person bad (like deceit and hypocrisy) then he's not really bad because people don't find him out?

How many of us would vote that Hitler was a bad man, let's see a show of hands. Good! Looks like every hand went up amongst the BDP crowd (Basically Decent Persons). Now, was Hitler bad only because he did what he did and hurt a lot of people (to put it mildly), or did it go deeper, right through to his insides? What about the meek, mild-mannered mouse of a man who's a little Hitler on the inside, who through a roll of the dice of genetics and situation will never have Hitler's gift for swaying the masses and never have Hitler's opportunities, but if he could, he'd do just the same as Hitler did. He has all the same cruelty and hatred and prejudice and lust for power but just doesn't have the nerve to act on them. In that case, he's okay, I suppose. He's not causing anyone any pain, so he's not a bad guy, no matter what he would be if he could be. But this position is exactly where this philosophy of moral pragmatism leads us. If good and bad are measured only by the pleasure or pain they cause others, then it's only wrong if a person gets caught. And, sorry! You haven't sold me.

I brought up the subject of Hitler. All right, let's use him for our extreme example. There's no way around it. Unless you want to admit to some kind of absolute moral standard, you have to look me in the eye and tell me that what Hitler did wasn't really wrong. It may have caused pain. It may not have been good for society as a whole. But it wasn't really wrong in any kind of absolute sense! And then you have to tell me that there wasn't any reason that he shouldn't have done it (unless you want to start in setting up your personal standard as the absolute standard again).

In fact, I've never met anyone who truly disbelieves in moral absolutes (thank God!), no matter what they claim. All the people I know prove it to me by what they do and say, even if they themselves don't realize that they're living with a very firmly held sub-belief that there are indeed moral absolutes.

Although I don't think I've met any, I've heard of those who don't believe in them, or so their actions would say. They've taken what we've been told about "no moral absolutes" to its logical conclusion by living it out. They do go around killing, raping, pillaging, burning villages, and whatever they jolly well feel like. What you have to realize is that they're the only sane ones if there are no moral absolutes. The rest of us are delusional. They're the only ones who've stopped deluding themselves. Hitler was simply living out the logical outcome of his beliefs.

Oddly enough, I'm convinced that even psycho/sociopaths hold onto a firm belief in moral absolutes. Their number one moral absolute is that no one has the right to do unto them as they do unto others. Incredible how even people with seemingly no conscience must seek to justify what they do! To excuse themselves, instead of flat-out saying, "Who are you to tell me what to do? There are no moral absolutes!" they usually say things like, "I am the way I am because of what So-and-so did to me." And the implication? That So-and-so was dead wrong to do what So-and-so did. Interesting, isn't it? It seems there's no getting away from a belief in moral absolutes.

But we're all BDPs, you-whoever-you-may-be, reading this book, and myself, writing it, aren't we? I mean, wouldn't we all put ourselves under the heading of “Basically Decent Persons”? And being BDPs, we do all try to do the right thing most of the time for whatever reason. As BDPs, we do all have moral standards. In fact, maybe at this point (rather than looking me in the eye and telling me Hitler wasn't such a bad guy) you are admitting that maybe the moral standard us BDPs all try to live by is some sort of absolute moral standard.

I have one question for you: "Whose moral standard?"

I heard an interesting explanation for this absolute moral standard not long ago: It just is, that's all. Okay, so there is a real right and wrong. Okay, what Hitler did was really wrong. Okay, moral absolutes are real, but we don't have to try and explain them. We don't have to say where they came from. We can just accept the fact that they exist and the fact that we should all try to live by them.

That's a very interesting philosophy (and one I'm personally more comfortable with than the psychopath one). But now, I repeat, "Whose moral standard?"

"Whaddya mean?" you're thinking. "Why does it have to be anyone's? I just told you. It just is, that's all. It's the Universe's moral code."

All right, let me rephrase. Whose version of the Universe's moral code should be our standard? You see, all of us BDPs hold different moral codes. I don't agree with yours totally and you don't agree with mine, although they may be close. And what's more, there are people outside our BDP club that also have their own moral code. There are people out there whose moral codes differ radically from ours. They believe differently than you and I and the rest of us in our BDP club do, and those radically different beliefs make up a radically different moral code. But they believe it, and their actions show they do (think suicide bombings). And according to them, they're the only ones in the BDP club, and we're not in the BDP club at all. They believe their standards are right and ours are wrong. Whose moral code should we go by? Because as we've seen in recent history, there are some pretty divergent ideas out there. And all people who are convinced of the truth of their moral code are convinced that their actions are just and right and necessary however destructive our BDP club may think them.

You see what I'm getting at? If you want there to be some ambiguous Universal Moral Code out there and that Universal Moral Code doesn't have to come from anywhere or anyone in particular, then the mess we end up with in that scenario is exactly the same mess we end up with by saying, "There is no absolute standard of morality." (For us, and for us is all we have.) What we end up with are six billion different moral codes and no one to tell us which one is the closest. I mean, if the Universe has some kind of moral code it wants us to follow, then the Universe had better speak up!

Am I saying, then, that none of us can access this Universal Moral Code, seeing none of us can agree on it? But if not, then for us it doesn't really exist, right? Right! Which is why I believe it can be accessed. (And secretly, so do you, or it wouldn't be so important to you.) Yeah, you know where I'm going with this! Remember that it just may be important what you believe? And remember all that about a reliable source and how there must be one if we're ever going to be able to access some important truths?

So where does that leave us? (That leaves us two chapters away from here. I'm jumping the gun, going from a discussion on a Universal Moral Code to a discussion of a Universal God, but hey! It came up! As a matter of fact, I believe that "the Universe" has spoken up, and that's why I'm writing this book. But that discussion will fill up the rest of this book.)

There's another interesting thing about this Universal Moral Code (that, from our point of view, doesn't look like it's very universal). Although I have my very own Universal Moral Code and you have your very own Universal Moral Code and the guy from the BDP club down the road has his own, not a one of us are capable of living up to them. I mean, not only am I not capable of living up to yours, I'm not even capable of living up to mine. That's an odd thing, isn't it? Even if yours is as simple as, "It's only wrong if it hurts someone," how many times a day do I hurt someone? How many times a day do you?

Strangely enough, as important as we all seem to feel this Universal Moral Code to be, not only can we not agree on it, none of us can live up to our own standards. Just like I've never met anyone who, in reality, could make himself stop believing in moral absolutes, neither have I met anyone who claimed to live up to them. Never met a single person who claimed to be perfect. We all have elaborate excuses, but I don't believe I know anyone who, if asked, "Have you ever done anything you were ashamed of?" wouldn't look at me funny and say, "Of course! Who hasn't?!" Yup, it's a strange thing when you stop to consider it. Could you give me the reason why you place such high value on your moral code but then fail to live up to it? Well, I could tell you why I do, but that's for another chapter, too.

As to why we all seem to be moral flops (at times, at least), there's the old argument that we're all just products of our environment. But isn't the truth, rather, that our environment is just a product of us? If none of us are corrupt all on our own, how could you explain how our environment could have been corrupted in the first place?

What appears clear to me is that the corrupt environment we're born and raised in doesn't provide any way out of an admission of moral absolutes. The traditional excuses just go to show how deeply embedded in our hearts this idea of right and wrong is and what an ancient problem the wrong is. "Look at his upbringing. Look at what was done to him," people will say in an effort to excuse some piece of rottenness. But what does that show us? Aren't we tacitly admitting that what was done to "him" was just plain WRONG!? This argument only goes to show us that The Problem is a very, very old one. Sure, he's rotten because his parents were rotten, and they were rotten because their parents were rotten, and so on and so forth. But that leaves us with the inescapable conclusion that at some point someone, somewhere, started being rotten.

I think that's it. I've come to the end of section 2.

Where have we got to so far? To sum up: People make statements denying the existence of truth, but state them as though they believe them, as though they think they're true. It's because all of us will and must believe something.

Who cares about what we know or don't know? It's belief that counts. And if belief counts, then it makes sense that what we believe counts — that we should all want to believe as much of the truth as we can get our hands on. And to my mind, a very basic but a very necessary place to start is to admit that, yes, there must indeed be truth out there for us to believe. Absolute truth, in fact.

That's the start. Then we can begin looking for that truth. And for myself, I would want to start by examining some sources that claim to be reliable rather than trusting to my own little, insignificant (etc.) self.

Then we all know that what we believe is important because we all believe in the importance of moral absolutes (at least our own set, expecting everyone to live by our own). But although we feel very strongly about their importance, none of us can agree on what they should be. And stranger still, none of us can live up to them. But the importance of finding out the truth about them is underscored. It seems there must be moral absolutes and there must be a way to find out the truth about them. If the truth about them is important truth, there must be a way to access it or it couldn't be very vital. Again, we're brought back to looking for a reliable source because we all have our own ideas about morality and nothing to choose between them if there is no reliable source.

And personally, I'd be hoping that this reliable source would be able to tell me what can be done about my own failure to keep even the simplest of moral codes. But again, that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Now, to number 3 …

Chapter 4

Pain and Pleasure and Philosophies and Perceptions

3) Everyone has his or her own reality.

Under this heading, there are at least two different directions we could go. I'll start with the more extreme first.

That more extreme direction is a philosophy to which I alluded earlier. I'll call it "mind over matter" or "matter doesn't matter." It's the idea that all matter is illusion and mind is the only reality — that mind is the boundary of all existence possible. Pretty hard to argue logically for or against this philosophy. However, let's see what we might be able to end up agreeing on, even in the midst of this philosophy.

In high school, I learned about someone named Rene` Descartes and his famous "cogito, ergo sum" line (and that exhausts my supply of Latin). “I think; therefore, I am.” Now, if I'm not grossly misinterpreting him, it seems to me that what the man was getting at was that if there was nothing else he could be sure of, the one thing he knew for sure was that he existed. How did he know? Because of consciousness.

If nothing else exists, if the chair I'm sitting on is only in my mind, if the computer in front of me isn't real, if the words I'm typing and the fingers typing them, even the organ thinking them, are all figments of my imagination, at least it goes to show that my imagination exists. If nothing exists outside my consciousness, at least I know that consciousness exists.

I said there was nothing I could know to be absolutely true that I couldn't find a way around imaginatively. I'm willing to make an exception. This would be it. I, whoever or whatever I may be, exist. I don't know that you exist (and I'm sometimes convinced that any readers of this book will forever exist only in my imagination), but I can know for sure that I exist because I'm the one doing the thinking. And you know that you exist. You don't know that I exist, but you know that you do. Consciousness necessitates existence.

I told you earlier that before we could look at the existence of God, we'd have to settle the matter of the existence of anything. I think Rene` Descartes managed that task quite nicely for us. Something exists. Consciousness exists.

A-ha! But that means truth has done it! Truth has wriggled in. Even if we could agree on no other truth, I think we'd have to agree on this one. Rene` found the ultimate axiomatic axiom. Unless logic is to be mercilessly mangled for the sake of novelty, "I think; therefore, I am," is indisputable.

But that means that there is truth. We've found one we can't get around. Actually, that means we've found two. I exist, and so does truth. Even if truth consists of no more than those two statements, guess what? We've found some truth we can know absolutely.

But there's a little more that could be said on this matter of "matter doesn't matter." So what if matter doesn't exist or doesn't matter? I exist, and I matter. To me at least. That's also true, isn't it? To me, I'm very important. And to you, you're very important. I mean, what I experience (or imagine I experience) is very important to me. What you experience is very important to you. Pleasure and pain are very important to us.

"...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so..." said the immortal bard (or at least one of his immortal characters), and it's true that any of us could live "bounded in a nut-shell" and count ourselves the "king of infinite space" ... If any of us really could manage to do it. If any of us could, in fact, make ourselves believe it to be true. Were it not for, what Hamlet calls, the “bad dreams.”

Sure, pleasure and pain wouldn't exist at all were it not for a mind capable of feeling them. They have no existence outside of a mind to process them. So I suppose in a way we could say that pleasure and pain are illusions.

But here's the catch: Why do we all find ourselves incapable of doing anything other than thinking them "so"? (Why, if I live bounded in a nut-shell, can I never manage to think myself anything other than a nut?)

Are you tracking with me so far? Sure, maybe pleasure and pain have no existence of their own outside an experience of them, but the one thing we'd all have to admit is that we have very little control over our experiences of them. Who cares if hunger and tiredness and cold and sickness are all illusions?! They feel entirely, completely, one-hundred-percent real, and there's no convincing oneself that one shouldn't feel those sensations just because one doesn't want to and one doesn't believe in their reality.

There's another factor that needs mentioning. I've gone on and on about belief and the importance of it. If "matter doesn't matter," does that also mean that what we believe doesn't matter? Au contraire, mon ami. Perhaps matter doesn't really exist (who could know?), but we know that mind or consciousness does. In that case, it seems to me that anything that goes on in the mind just may be a whole lot more important than anything else.

We've established that I exist (I mean, I know I do. You know you do) and that that fact is important to all of us. We've established that pain and pleasure are also important because they feel very real and we can't get rid of pain just by wishing it away. Now, here's a little game of "what if..." for you. What if what we believe can have a direct effect on the pleasure and pain we experience?

I mean, I can see from my own experience that what I believe has some degree of control over a certain amount of my own pain and pleasure. For instance, if I feel cold (I mean, of course, if matter is illusion, that I imagine the sensation of being cold), it's unpleasant to me. In my belief system, I believe that putting on a sweater or turning up the thermostat will help. So I do it. (Or if matter is illusion, I imagine myself putting on a sweater or turning up the thermostat.) One way or the other, it helps. The unpleasant sensation of being cold goes away. The same thing with being hungry. If I feel hungry, I eat. It helps. Now, if I believed that putting on a sweater or turning up a thermostat would do no good, anyway, because cold, sweaters, and thermostats are all illusions, then I'd probably just sit and shiver.

So no matter what the belief system, we see that what we believe may have a direct effect on what matters to us: i.e. the amounts of pleasure or pain we experience.

Now, this only goes so far. I have only a limited control over the things I don't like. Because I don't like being hungry, I eat rather frequently. As a result, I've developed love handles. I don't like love handles. I like them more than the sensation of being hungry, but by and large (no pun intended), for whatever reason, I don't like them. I'd be more than happy to convince myself that they're illusions, but I don't find I can exercise that degree of control over my mind. Because in my belief system, another kind of exercise may help a little, I try to exercise (a little). (And it helps the very little I thought it would.) I also really don't like the sensation of exercising. If my mind had more power over my matter, I would be happy to imagine away either my love handles or the pain of exercising. So far neither has worked. There are a lot of things I'd love to be able to convince myself of as effectively as I've convinced myself that my car doesn't desperately need its oil changed.

What we believe may still be important and may still directly affect our pleasure and pain levels, but there are some things we can't do anything about just by wishing. For a more serious example, I'm one of the lucky ones in this world who can control the sensation of hunger by eating whenever and as much as I want. There are many who can't. Telling them to snap out of it and acknowledge that hunger is an illusion is probably not going to make them feel more well-fed. They apparently have no control over this particular painful experience, no matter what the belief system. (It may, however, make me and my well-fed belly more comfortable to believe that hungry people don't really exist. Or it may spur me on to do something to help feed the hungry if I believe that they do exist. My belief system may even have a direct effect on someone else's pain or pleasure levels.)

Now, surprisingly, even if a person believes that matter is illusion, that person (being a BDP) is probably still going to care about the issue of world hunger. That may seem odd if there is really no such thing as hunger or a world, but nevertheless, it is the kind of thing people (even "mind over matter" types) do care about. That's because "mind over matter" types usually care about right and wrong, too, somehow. In fact, in our culture at least, it seems "mind over matter" types care a great deal about even trivial things like love handles and exercise. No matter what philosophy a person holds, we all seem to live as though these and other unpleasant illusions such as alarm clocks and daily grinds are very real and weighty matters. Maybe that's because none of us have found a way to make these illusions go away by simply ignoring them.

So it seems to me that, whatever the belief system one holds, the sensible thing to do is to live as though hunger and cold and hungry people and, yes, daily grinds and alarm clocks and love handles and oil changes are all real and need dealing with. Oh wait! That is what people do.

So why live, for all practical intents and purposes, as though alarm clocks, daily grinds, love handles, oil changes, and all the trivia connected to matter are real and weighty but hide behind a philosophy like this one to try to dodge the only matters that truly may be real and weighty? It seems to me that it's not quite playing fair if a person lives as though alarm clocks, love handles, and all are real but ducks into the back alley of "mind is the only reality" to avoid meeting the likes of God and Absolutes. Not only is it inconsistent, it also may be downright dangerous.

Ultimately, even if all of matter is illusion, if mind is the only reality, does it matter, when everything important goes on in the mind, anyway? Sure, I could live bounded in a nutshell and count myself the king of infinite space were it not for the "bad dreams," but so what? None of us can stop the bad dreams from happening.

In the middle of a bad dream, it may help slightly to tell oneself, "It's only a dream, it's only a dream," but it can't make the bad dream go away. The only cure for a bad dream is to wake up.

Let's go back to our, “What if ...” game. What if one wakes up from this dream of reality into another dream or another reality that there's no waking from? And again, what if what we believe can have a direct effect on the amounts of pleasure and pain we experience? What if what we choose to believe in this dream of reality is the deciding factor as to whether we wake up into a dream of bliss and delight or a bona fide nightmare? To quote Hamlet again, "To sleep: perchance to dream..." Ay, Hamlet! There is the rub! And quite the rub it is.

When one starts to realize, especially as one must if one thinks that mind is the only reality, that mind is very possibly eternal, then what if what we believe is very important indeed?

In the "what if..." scenario I just gave you, there was no hard evidence. There was no logical argument involved. It was all speculation, so you probably didn't feel any need to be convinced by my particular "what if..." game. But you have to admit that the whole "mind over matter" philosophy will necessarily have to stay a "what if..." game. By its nature, it defies hard evidence and logical argument. It's pure speculation and will have to remain so. But that doesn't stop people from buying into it.

I can see why people duck into this particular back alley. I can see why the whole "mind over matter" philosophy is an attractive one: because people would like to be their own bosses and not have to be answerable to any Mind greater than their own.

That's people for you. They'll demand the hardest of hard evidence before they'll consider the claims of a Creator, but after being shown it, promptly discard it with relief for anything else that comes along, even a philosophy for which no hard evidence could be possible. And then cry out, "Truth is unknowable, anyway, so why bother trying?" I say "people" because I am one. That's our nature by birth, and we need a new one.

Although the "mind over matter" philosophy may, in some ways, be entertaining speculation, a fun idea, a good conversation starter when the party gets dull, considering the risks, I'm not willing to stake anything of importance on it. I know that mind exists. I know that mine exists. I know that pleasure and pain exist. Especially if mind is eternal, then these are truly real and weighty matters. So what I believe just may end up being a very real and weighty matter, too. Seems to me that the sensible thing to do is not only live as though alarm clocks and daily grinds are real and weighty but as though truth and absolutes are, too, and then to see what could possibly be learned about them. But that's me. Everyone has to decide for him or herself.

Now let's talk about the other direction we could go with "Everyone has his or her own reality." With this direction, I have no argument (as long as we leave off an assumption people tack onto it). This idea is that all the reality I'm capable of apprehending fits inside the little 6" x 6" box I call my head. We do all live "bounded by a nut-shell." We call it a skull. Every bit of truth and reality I can get hold of is only available to me through perception as interpreted by my brain.

It's a little like the old idea of the tree falling in the forest. If no one's around to hear it, if there are no ear drums to pick up the vibrations of the crash, then did it make a sound? A sound is a sound only because of perception. Perception is really all we have of reality, and every individual's is a little different from every other individual's.

The assumption people tack on is that because we all have our own realities, therefore, all those individual realities are all equally true and valid. "Not so," say I. I would argue that we all have our own realities, but we don't all have our own truth.

A fairy story is real. It's not true. A lie is a real lie and can do real damage. It's not true. Everything imaginable has reality because it can be imagined, thereby bringing it into existence — at least in a mind. But not everything can be true. A one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people eater can be given reality by my imagination, but that doesn't mean it's true. If there is truth out there somewhere, then not all those realities that we're running around with can be equally valid. Those that are closest to the truth are going to be, well, truer!

"But isn't it so that what's true for us, as far as we're concerned, is true because for us is all we have? Maybe one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people eaters do exist, but because you and I will never know about them, then for us they don't exist."

I would agree to a point. For us is all we have but not all there is. If there is truth out there, then in order for it to be truth for us, it must be accessible to us because for us is all we have. But do galaxies too far away for us to know about them not exist? They don't exist for us, but they still exist. Are all the strange creatures that live in the ocean depths that we haven't discovered yet not really there? Will our discovering them give them existence? It will as far as we're concerned. Until we're aware of them, they're not part of our reality. One-eyed (etc.) purple-people eaters won't exist for us until we know about them. But if they do exist, then they exist on their own terms whether we know about them or not. There's more to truth than just our little realities. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (to quote the ever-relevant Hamlet again).

Those who say that all our individual realities must be equally valid are forgetting an important fact. We're not born into a certain reality and stuck with that one for the rest of our lives. They change and broaden all the time. It's called "learning."

We learn about new galaxies. We learn about strange ocean creatures being discovered. When we use the word “learn,” there's an underlying assumption that learning means moving in the right direction. It means moving from a state of less understanding to more understanding, of limited perception to greater perception, of less truth to more truth.

It's a very good thing our perceptions can change, or I'd still be stuck in a one-dimensional world.

I have a picture in my mind of the chair I'm sitting on right now. Because of that, the chair is part of my personal reality. It's real to me. Does that mean the chair has no real reality, no existence of its own outside of my mind? No, I don't think so, and here's why.

The picture I have in my mind now of a chair is a little fuller, a little more lifelike, than the picture I had of it in my mind when I was three or thereabouts and first learning to hold a crayon in my fat, little fist. In order for me to say that I can draw better chairs now than I did when I was three, there must be some kind of objective reality to the chair outside my own mind. If all realities are equally valid and there is no outside reality or truth, then there would be nothing to say which is closer to the true chair: my three-year-old, stick-figure monstrosities or my present attempts at sketching. If there was no truth, nothing outside our own perceptions, then no learning or improving on those perceptions would be possible.

Let's take a friend of mine, for another example. We'll call him Fred. Now, I have a picture in my head of Fred, and Fred has a different picture of himself in his own head. Both these pictures are real pictures, and both are of the true Fred, but neither are entirely true. Neither of us, not even Fred, knows everything there is to be known about the true Fred. Yet some pictures are going to be truer than others. If I know him now better than I did a year ago, then my most recent picture is a better one. I'm seeing more of the three-dimensional Fred, not just seeing him from one perspective anymore. But what does it prove that we both have a different picture of Fred and that neither of us know him completely and that our pictures are capable of changing? Does it prove that there is no true Fred to be known? No, Fred has a real and uncompromising existence outside any of our pictures of him. Our pictures don't give him existence. Because there is a true Fred, I can say that some pictures are closer. I can say that I know him now better than I did a year ago. That's only possible if there is a true Fred to be known.

What about people who say they make their own truth? I would have to agree that we all do make, or at least affect, our own realities, and those realities can affect truth: the real reality. An inventor invents first in his mind. His inventions have reality while they're still in his head, but once he takes them out of his head and builds them, they affect the true reality. For another example, a naturally mediocre athlete may have an extraordinary belief in himself that gives him the necessary dedication and perseverance to propel him to the Olympics where a more naturally gifted athlete with no confidence may never go. In a sense, it was the athlete's belief in his own reality that made it true. His inner reality has affected his outer reality (or truth). We're all familiar with the concept of positive thinking and making things happen just by believing strongly enough that they will. Sometimes it even works.

To get back to Fred, the picture of Fred in my head will affect how I treat Fred. In turn, that will affect how Fred views and treats me. If I believe the best about Fred, he might strive to live up to my belief in him and become a better person for it. Or if I believe the worst, it would at the very least have an effect on our friendship. An imagined slight may have very real and lasting consequences. So in a sense, we are partially responsible for making our own truths.

But is the reverse true? Can we un-make truth? If we can make things happen just because we believe in them, can we take away realities that already exist just by not believing in them? Let's say I get tired of the chair in my mind. I decide to do away with it by believing it's not there. If I was into some serious mind control, I might be able to do it. That won't keep me from barking my shins on it when I get up to walk across the floor where I no longer believe it is.

I think we've all had the experience of lying in bed wide awake, listening with pounding heart and sweating palms to things that go bump in the night. Most of the time, the bumps and thumps are no true threats. However, if you're the person lying awake, they're very real threats, and the adrenaline surging through your veins, making your heart pound and your palms sweat, is very real and has a real effect. Many people have worried themselves into strokes or heart attacks over things that aren't true. We do make our own realities that can affect the true reality.

However, let's say that you're lying in bed, hearing the bumps and thumps and you manage to convince yourself that what you're hearing is just the walls creaking or a tree branch hitting the window. But if those bumps and thumps are, in fact, burglars in the house, have you imagined the burglars away? Not at all. You're still going to get up in the morning to find your T.V. and stereo missing. You could imagine burglars where there are none, and it could have the same effect on you as if you were hearing real burglars. For you, at that moment, those burglars would be real even though they're not true burglars. But if the burglars are real in truth, you're not going to be able to take away their reality just by imagining they're not.

A lot of people imagine that they've imagined away God. But if He does, in fact, exist, all their imaginings are not going to keep them from barking their shins on the fact of Him. You may be able to create your own god that will be real to you. That doesn't mean you'll be able to un-create One that exists in truth.

It's interesting that, again, it only seems to be in this whole area of a God and religious types of truth that people want to fall back on philosophies such as, "Everyone has their own reality. Therefore, all those realities are equally valid." At least, that's the only context in which I hear philosophies like this trotted out. I've never said something mundane, like, "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves," or, "Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations," and had someone respond with, "Oh really! Is that what you believe?! Well, I don't, and we all have our own realities, and mine is just as valid as yours." No, somehow we don't mind agreeing about Abraham Lincoln and Charles Dickens, etc.

Even though we do all have our own realities (or perceptions of the true reality), on a day to day basis, we all live as though there is one umbrella reality (or truth) over all of them, connected to all of them (well, most of them). Sure, my perceptions are the only piece of that greater reality that I'll ever be able to get my hands around, but we don't usually try to deny that there is that greater reality. Perception is the only cord I have linking me to that umbrella reality, but most of us would admit that perception is only the cord, not the reality itself. Otherwise, there's no point in talking about sanity. When a person's cord finally snaps, leaving her disconnected from reality entirely and one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eaters become real for her, why would we medicate that person and call her unwell? That would be foolish behaviour if we didn't believe in a real reality. But if there is one, then not all our individual realities are equally valid.

If people want to deny that there is truth about Truth, about Moral Absolutes, about God, then they should be open to the possibility that Charles Dickens freed the slaves and Abraham Lincoln wrote Great Expectations and purple people eaters do exist. Hey! Why not? Why, I ask you, do people want to deny a greater reality — truth — only when it comes to the truly Greater Realities? We'd do better to stop hiding behind philosophies like, "Everyone has their own reality." Sure, we do! We all have our own realities. So why wouldn't you want your own personal reality to be as true and sane as it could be? It's a very good thing that learning is possible and perceptions can change and that we can go on to apprehend more and more of the truth. Again, let's get on with the truth hunt.

But up pops the same old dilemma we keep running into: How can we know truth when we find it? How can we know whose perceptions are truer, seeing we all have our own realities? Granted, they may not all be equally valid, but how can we know which ones are more valid, seeing each individual's reality is real and valid to the individual? Our realities are real for us, and for us is all we have.

Do you see where this leads us? I agree that if we are all there is, if there's no mind greater than ours, then all our realities would be equally valid because there would be no one bigger than ourselves to actually know the truth. And no one bigger than ourselves to tell us the truth. Which equals no absolute truth (for us, and for us is all we have). But then I'd have wasted three whole, long, tedious, meandering chapters showing the logical difficulties with the position of "no absolute truth" (and I'd hate to have wasted three whole, long, tedious, meandering chapters).

Here's how I reason: I've told you I agree that perception is our only link to the greater reality. Just another way of saying, "Belief is our only access to truth." But if we are all there is, then all of our individual perceptions are the only links possible to that greater reality. If we are all there is, then it's exactly the same thing as having no access to that absolute truth because we all have different versions of reality and no one to tell us which is closest. It's just like the problem we ran into with all our different absolute standards of morality. We all see things differently, and no mere human would be qualified to stand up and say that his or her way of seeing things is the only right way. So if there is no one greater than ourselves, then there is no way for us to access truth because we could never know if we'd accessed it. And if there's no way to access truth, then for us, there might as well be no truth. But that is a position that none of us can live with as I've spent three whole, long, tedious, meandering chapters demonstrating.

Maybe mind is the boundary of all existence possible. In that case, I propose that some mind must know the truth — must know everything there is to be known. But then it must be some mind greater than ours. Whose mind knows all about the distant galaxies and strangest ocean creatures? Whose ear has heard every tree that ever fell in every forest? Whose eye sees the true chair, not only from every angle and every perspective but right down to every atom? Whose heart knows the true Fred that even Fred himself doesn't know? My point is, unless Someone knows the truth, then you're right! There is no truth! For us. And if for us is not only all we have but all there is, then there is no such thing as truth. And I reject the option that there is no truth as untenable. It puts us into a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland, oxymoronic, self-contradictory, ever-somersaulting universe that no one could live in. That's why, whatever people may think they believe, they all live as though there is truth and it is accessible. There's just no other way to live.

All this leads me to embrace the option that there must be One greater than ourselves. And if we're ever to know anything about this One and about truth, if it is ever to be truth for us, if we're ever to be able to have access to truth, then this One must be capable of communicating with us. It all comes back to this reliable-source idea again. So I think a reliable source must be accessible to us. I even think it extremely likely that a reliable source has been trying very hard to communicate with us and given us great, glaring signs pointing the way.

And now we may have come to that point where I say, "Well, I believe such-and-such," and you say, "Well, I don't!" And there's an end. Just as long as you realize that by so saying, you've affirmed that all viewpoints and realities are not equally valid. Not if you're disagreeing with mine.

For the sake of getting a move on, let's pretend that you've agreed with me at least as far as to say that maybe there is a good possibility that truth exists and that is just may be worth searching for. Uh-oh. Once a person does that, it means there's no more hiding behind excuses or philosophies. The truth hunt is on.

If you're setting out looking for truth, I think the best way to do it is to expect or at least hope to find it. None of this hoping not to find it. When you lose your car keys and you set your whole household to searching for them, it would be pretty silly to do so if you were expecting or even hoping not to find them. If one of your household calls out, "Found 'em!" do you call back, "Don't be absurd! Those can't be the car keys. The car keys are lost. The car keys can't be found. We're only looking for them; we're not supposed to find them"? Yet this seems to be how a great many people approach a truth-search.

I've heard people quote catch-phrases, like, "It's the journey that counts; not the destination," with a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye. Yet if this particular philosophy left the realm of philosophy and entered our everyday reality, it would produce a different kind of lump in the throat and tear in the eye. How would you like to board a flight for London and end up in New York because, well, it just happened to be a nicer journey, that's all, and after all, it's not the destination that counts? Yet this is how many people approach a truth-journey. It doesn't matter where it takes them (or so they think). It doesn't have to take them anywhere as long as it makes them feel good along the way.

There's another philosophy people like. It's the one about all the individual, various roads winding their individual, various ways up the mountain but all reaching the same peak. "All roads lead to God," they quote airily. Granted! But which god would you like to reach? All those individual, various roads are only going to reach the same peak if they're winding their ways up the same mountain.

I've said that if I were setting out on a truth-search, I would want to start by looking into some sources that at least claim to be reliable. Yup! I'm talking about religion (by religion, I mean an organized system of beliefs about the greater realities — about “the important stuff”).

I don't know much about any religion other than my own. I do know enough to know that all those roads are not heading up the same mountain. If it was just the journey that counted, then I would say, "Go for it! Pick the one you like the best. Pick the one that's the most fun." But I happen to think the destination is what counts. I happen to think a reliable source should be reliable.

There's a reason there are so many different religions. It's because they're all different. They all say very different things, and those differences are not surface differences. The most preliminary investigation of religion will show you that.

I can understand why people would want to find the lowest common denominator of all religions and meld them into one because of all the fighting that's gone on throughout history over religion.

There's a reason so much fighting has gone on. It's because the differences in religions are about the important things, and the differences are important ones — important enough to fight about for those who hold to them.

I'm all for not fighting over religion. I'm all for an open exchange of ideas which doesn't have to mean a fight. This is yet one more example of those religious differences that people consider important enough to fight over. Those whose religion demands fighting over religion would disagree with my ideals that there's no reason to fight over religion.

It's not usually those travelling on one of those roads, winding its way up a mountain that airily say, "All roads lead to God." It's those who would rather not be bothered having to travel one particular road and so hope like mad that it can't matter in the end, anyway (truth-searchers who hope truth can't be found). But that's not how it works. It's that hard, old, uncompromising nature of truth again. If a thing is true, then whatever directly contradicts it cannot be. (If Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, then Charles Dickens didn't. If Chuckie wrote Great Expectations, then Abie didn't.) Truth doesn't allow us to have things both ways.

I'm not saying that all religions don't contain some truth. Usually, everything does. But I'm talking about the important truths here. That's where all religions differ fundamentally.

There's no way around it. When it comes to the important stuff, if Christianity is true, then Hinduism isn't. If Hinduism is true, then Islam isn't. If Islam is true, then Buddhism isn't. If Buddhism is true, then Christianity isn't. They do all lead up a different mountain to a different god, and for myself, I've been convinced there can only be one true One.

I don't know a great deal about any of the other world religions. All I know is that if the claims of Christianity are true, then Christ is the only way to God. That means none of the others are. I've been convinced of the truth of the claims of Christianity. Then, to me, there's no need to try and prove all the others false. All that's needed is for one to be proven true, and then all the others are proven false.

I won't be delving into a study on comparative world religions. All I'll be hoping to show you in this book is why I, personally, have been convinced that the claims of Christianity are true. Seeing you're on a truth hunt (I presume you are, if you're still reading), you might as well start your hunt by examining those claims. So carry on. You've got this far. Maybe the worst is over.

All right, truth hunters, are you ready? Here we go...

Chapter 5

"In the Beginning, God Created …"

We don't get very far along in life before we run into a question that any sensible person wants to have answered (like any three-year-old, and three-year-olds are some of the most sensible people I know with their brains uncluttered by protocols and precedents). That first sensible question is, of course, "Why?” “WHY, WHY, WHY?”

Has anyone ever needed to train a three-year-old to ask a continual stream of “whys” Nope! No training required. Wanting to know the “whys” of things seems to come naturally.

Three-year-olds have managed to figure out what some genius discovered and named "the law of cause and effect" (probably through trying to answer his three-year-old's queries). Roughly stated, the law says, “For every effect, there is a cause.” Kids have it figured. Everything they see around them is effect, and do they ever feel a need to learn the cause! It doesn't take very long for us to realize that there are causes behind things.

There's an interesting thing about that first sensible question, though. The problem with it is that there never really seems to be any final answer. Have you noticed? No matter what answer you come up with to tell the three-year-old, the next question is always the same. “Why?” And that's because no matter what cause you come up with to answer the first effect, that cause seems also to be an effect and there always seems to be another cause lurking behind that one. What three-year-olds have discovered is the seemingly infinite chain of causes. I say "seemingly" infinite because there is one answer that I've found to stem the tide of ceaseless “whys” and buy a person a few minutes of peace: “Because that's the way God made it!” “Oh.”

Three-year-olds also seem to grasp that the First Cause at the beginning of the chain of causes needed no cause and needs no explaining. He is what He is. He did what He did. Period. End of statement. End of “whys.” When you get to God, the buck stops.

Is, “Because that's the way God made it,” a cop-out answer (or a necessary sanity-saver) or is it a statement of simple fact?

The title for this chapter is the Bible's bold statement of causes and origins in Genesis 1:1, the very first words in the Bible. “In the beginning, God created...”

Here we have our first introduction to a Creator God, the Great Cause. And just how did God create? "Then God said, 'Let there be ... '" "And there was ..." "and it was so." "And God saw that it was good." That's how He did it. At least, that's what Genesis tells us.

But what does science tell us? That's the question the man-or-woman-on-the-street will want to know as soon as this topic of origins and first causes arises. Likely, I'm not the right person to try to answer that question, but I'll give it a shot.

For a start, as mentioned, science is based on the idea that all effects have a cause. And when we look at the world around us, we see one giant effect. Science tells us that the universe the way we know it has not always existed. There are a few different angles of approach to the question of the eternity of our universe, and all of them return a negative answer. I'll explain a couple of them.

First, there are the laws of thermodynamics which tell us (loosely translated) that energy cannot be created or destroyed (and by that, it means that energy cannot be created or destroyed by anything inside of nature; of course, a natural law can hardly be expected to dictate to anything outside of nature) but that energy is constantly turning into entropy (unusable energy). The main implication of the second law which we see acted out all around us every day is that everything is heading steadily downhill toward a maximum state of disorder. So if there will be a maximum state of disorder one day, that means at one time there was a maximum state of order. There was a starting point. I mean, in plain English, if there will be an end, there must have been a beginning.

You can imagine a beginning with no end. The reverse is not logically possible. Try to imagine an end with no beginning. Doesn't work, does it? Imagine that this line had no beginning.

________________________________________

It went on forever until it got to this page and then, suddenly, it stopped. On that spot on this page.

Now, wait a minute! How could a line have gone on forever if it stopped when it got to the end? See what I mean? If a thing has an end, it must have had a beginning.

There are various other scientific evidences that have caused scientists now to embrace the idea that our universe had a beginning — a “singularity” in science-speak.1 That singularity has been popularized under the name “The Big Bang.” I'll briefly mention one other piece of evidence here (as a concept almost simple enough for me to wrap my head around): the expansion of the universe.

Observations in the past decades seem to tell us that the universe is expanding^2 — stretching out like the skin of a balloon being inflated. All points of reference (like dots on the skin of the expanding balloon) are apparently moving out away from each other. (This next part isn't rocket science, so follow me here:) If the tape could be rewound so that we could watch the “balloon” deflating, we would see the universe moving in on itself toward a common centre. That can only happen so long until everything meets. At one spot. That spot or time which scientists call a “singularity.” A beginning point.

There are a few other reasons that scientists have come around to deciding there must have been a “Big Bang” or a starting point for our universe. The others are a little too complicated for me to handle. The two I've mentioned are convincing (to me, at least) all on their own that our universe had a beginning.

So if the universe is an effect — if our universe had a beginning — where does that leave us? That leaves us (according to the laws of cause and effect and thermodynamics) agreeing that the universe must have had a cause. A cause which can create energy. A cause outside of observable nature. Doesn't it?

In light of the information I've given you so far, it seems to me that this would be the sensible thing for science to say: “The universe is an effect. Therefore, the universe had a cause. This cause is something outside the universe that existed before the universe. In that case, science will not be able to make any statements as to the cause of the universe. Science studies the universe and its components. Not anything beyond.”

Is that what science is content to say?

Although there is little disagreement now on the opening bit — that our universe is an effect — the second part has somehow become open to “scientific” debate. Is it possible to have an effect without a cause? That's the question.

Take a look at the third sentence in the official statement (kind of a press release maybe?) that I wrote for “science”: “This cause is something outside the universe that existed before the universe.” Does that third statement have to follow on the heels of the first and second? Yes, it does. That third is the logical implication of the first and second premises. If the cause of an effect does not exist (at least in some form) outside the effect and before the effect, then we're talking about self-causation. We're talking about something coming from nothing. We're talking about an effect with no cause.

If we're talking about our universe as a self-causing effect, we're talking about our universe popping into existence out of absolute zero — absolute nothingness. One minute (though before minutes exist, of course), absolutely nothing exists. The next minute, absolutely nothing explodes, and our universe begins to exist.

Astonishingly, this is the kind of idea that “science” is beginning to take seriously.3

The other ideas that “science” is beginning to take seriously are ideas about natural causes for our universe outside of our universe and its natural laws. Scientists have begun to propose ideas about well... a... something — a kind of multi-universe-producing “superspace” — that had no beginning; that is eternal, uncaused, and self-existent.4 (If self-causation doesn't happen, then something (or Someone) has always existed in order for anything to exist.)

I won't dive headfirst into any of these “scientific” speculations here. I don't need to. I stand by the closing lines of my “press release” for science. “...science will not be able to make any statements as to the cause of the universe. Science studies the universe and its components. Not anything beyond.”

Shouldn't it go without saying?

In this discussion, I have no intention (or ability) of refuting all the various whimsies passing themselves off as “science” that the most precursory glance must reveal can never move past the realm of pure speculation. All I really want to say about them is, “Why?” (our old, sensible question again). Why are scientists now being driven (or driving themselves) into realms of pure speculation?

I think when we answer that question, we'll see something enormously revealing about humanity-at-large. And when we see that enormously revealing something, we can get our investigation into the existence of God underway on a much sounder footing.

Why have scientists begun toying with notions that can never move past speculation? For one simple reason: “science” has decided that it must be able to explain everything — everything — in terms of natural causes. Rather than take the sensible route of admitting, “...science will not be able to make any statements as to the cause of the universe. Science studies the universe and its components. Not anything beyond,” most scientists are determined to leave no room for the supernatural anywhere.

And the reason for that determination is simple. And terribly revealing. The majority of us does not want there to be a God!

One day, I found myself in discussion with a friend about this topic of origins. My friend was arguing against the Bible's position, and I was arguing for it. He knows more about science than I do, and I wasn't making a very good showing for my side.

But I realized after I thought it through later that the discussion wasn't about science at all. It was about philosophy. It was about what both of us wanted to believe. It was about bias.

I had a bias; that's obvious. But my friend wasn't supposed to have one. As the non-religious person, he was supposed to be the honest, open-minded searcher after truth, fearlessly following it wherever it would lead him. But the one thing that came clear to me after I pondered the conversation in retrospect is that he wasn't at all interested in searching after truth in the direction from where I was coming. He was as unwilling to let go of his beliefs as I was to let go of mine. When it came to this matter of origins, suddenly we were no longer two friends discussing a subject of mutual interest. We were two combatants, willing to fight to the death rather than give in to the other.

I want to believe in God; I admit it. But my friend did not want to. We do indeed make choices about what we'll believe. We believe what we want to.

But don't we all decide on our beliefs based on the likelihood of their being true? Don't we believe what we believe because those beliefs look like the most reasonable options to us?

Perhaps. Sometimes. But not when biases — our “want to”s — enter the picture. And from my observation, the general population has a very strong bias against a belief in a God.

Because nothing can ever be proven beyond all unreasonable doubt (as we saw in Chapter Two), if there's one loophole left in the case for God, one tattered shred of hope left in the case against God, people will cling to their philosophies and speculations like a drowning man clinging to a splinter of wood.

Isn't it odd when you think about it? Why are people desperate to get around the existence of God? Can you admit it, if you're in that position? If you've rejected the possibility of Him, why don't you want to believe in Him?

Admitting a bias is the first, necessary step to suspending it long enough to see things clearly. So if you can admit a bias and suspend it for a moment or two, let's use our observational skills to see which way would the evidence lead us? God or no God?

Is there evidence of intelligence back of the natural order? Earlier this evening, I was fascinated by reading a child's wildlife encyclopedia. It got into describing the amazing things animals do just by instinct; things like the architectural marvels built by sponges and spiders and the migrations of birds and monarch butterflies and the food dance of honeybees.

There's a type of sponge that builds a tower-like structure for a skeleton, and this tower is an intricately-designed work of art.5 (By "sponge," yes, I mean the life form that lives in the sea, kind of like the colourful, squishy thing that wears square pants except of the genius variety.) If you've never heard of these sponges, you should look up "Venus' flower basket" sometime. Hard to think of a sponge as having the mental ability to do that kind of thing. Its engineering skills have baffled scientists. But, I mean, does the thing even have a brain, and where would it keep it?

This is what occurred to me while reading: You know what instinct is? Instinct is simply derived intelligence. At all levels of nature, we find creatures instinctively doing things that smack of intelligence. But we can be sure that the intelligence these creatures display is far beyond their own. “Instinct” is just another way of saying “intelligence that comes from another source.”

The complexity and intricacy and functionality and knife's edge balance at every level of nature scream out to me of the existence of a Creator. Apparently, these facts don't scream out that same message to everyone. Or do they? Do some stop their ears and look for loopholes?

Are there any imaginable (never mind believable) explanations that could account for how all our realities that seem to bear witness to an intelligence back of them, a designer and creator, could have come to be without one? Yes, there's an imaginable explanation.

And now it's time to examine what I see as one of those loopholes in the case for God — one of those tattered shreds of hope in the case against Him. One of those splinters of wood clung to by the desperate. (Just calling it like I see it!)

When it first came out, it took the world by storm. After all, it was science telling us that, if it couldn't disprove God's existence outright, at least it could do away with the necessity for Him. It could make Him redundant. Science had provided a purely naturalistic explanation for everything! This revolutionary, exciting new idea was this: that everything — everything — could have come to be all on its own through millions and billions of years of gradual changes acted upon by a force called “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest.” After all, didn't science show that everything changed gradually over time? And didn't science show that only the fittest survived?

Like the science speculations I mentioned earlier that I'm not here to refute, my main aim this chapter will not be to demonstrate conclusively how evolution couldn't have happened the way we're told it did. My first main point is this: What's more likely — that God exists or that He doesn't? And my second main point is this: People have a strong, vested interest in answering that question in the negative. The thrill Darwin's ideas (their main point being to provide a purely naturalistic explanation for everything) gave the world and their hearty acceptance by the world show us that. We all have our biases. Once we put our biases aside, on which side rests the stronger weight of evidence? That's all I'll hope to settle this chapter.

Let's take a closer look at the loophole of evolution and talk about a couple of problems I see with it.

The way I see it, evolution has two main problems: an evidence problem and an addition problem. I'm no scientist, so I should leave this stuff alone, but you don't have to be a scientist to "know a hawk from a handsaw." And I can't get around evolution's two main problems. First, the evidence problem.

I like what G.K. Chesterton said once: “I do not find men now so eager to prove things; but, at the most to assure me that they have been proved.”6 He wrote that a few years ago, but I haven't noticed things to have changed much since then.

I've heard the "fact" of evolution compared to the fact of the earth going around the sun and those who doubt said "fact" of evolution compared to those who doubt the earth going around the sun. But I've heard very little to show me why evolution should be considered a fact. I mean, if what was meant by "evolution" was simply “change,” then, yeah, I would have a hard time denying that everything does, in fact, change (for the worse, generally, as the second law of thermodynamics shows us). Or if what was meant by natural selection was simply that if anything survives it will most likely be the fittest, I could agree that it seems a logical proposition. But those basics are not what's meant when people talk about evolution and natural selection. And it's what people talk about as evolution and what the textbooks teach that I'm not convinced by. Because I like hard evidence. I'm into that.

And the question of whether macro-evolution happened must always remain a question of history, not science and observation. After all, who's got a spare million or so years to hang around waiting to see if it really happens the way we're told it did?

But as a question of history, if macro-evolution happened, the first place we would look for evidence would be the fossil record.

Although we hear so much about the “fact” of all the fossil evidence that supports evolution, we don't hear much about the fossil evidence itself. Or what I do hear about the fossil evidence leaves me skeptical and wondering about the bias of those discovering and classifying the fossil evidence.

For a random hypothetical example, when I learn that the "nearly conclusive" fossil evidence in an "almost perfect" evolutionary chain between two life forms as deceptively seemingly distant as, oh say, hyenas and, oh say, whales consists of a grand total of, oh say, four fossil species, all of which either look a whole lot like a whale or a whole lot like a hyena, I don't find myself exactly compelled by the evidence (but then, I always have been able to tell a hawk from a handsaw and a whale from a hyena). Are those fossils "links" really linking anything?

You and I can probably name a few examples of “missing links” that have been discovered. Finds like "Lucy," archaeopteryx, and eohippus. You know why they're famous? Because they're so rare.

Here's a riddle for you: Q: What do you call a chain made up of missing links? Give up? A: Me too. I don't know what you'd call it, but I don't think you could call it a chain.

Is there really a "chain of evolution"? In recent decades, “punctuated equilibrium” has come to be a popular idea. It goes something like this: "We don't see a whole lot of transitional forms in the fossil record to show us how evolution happened; therefore, evolution happened in such a way that we shouldn't expect to see a whole lot of transitional forms in the fossil record." Cool! A “scientific” “theory” that does away entirely with the need for evidence! Without any cold, hard evidence, we have what we may still call "science," but I myself would have to tack on "fiction.”

Shouldn't transitional species in the fossil record vastly outnumber the fossil species clearly belonging to one class or another? If birds evolved from reptiles, there would have been so many steps on the road to birdhood that there should have been far more in-betweens than true reptiles or true birds. But this is simply not what the fossil record shows.

So let's suppose that the majority of reptile species remained reptiles, and only a handful started down the long, dusty road to bird-dom. But the main premise of Darwinism is that evolution works by encouraging favourable changes through natural selection. The theory falls apart once a person begins answering evolution's evidence problem by saying things like, “Well, the members of the transitional species never became very numerous, so very few of them were preserved in the fossil record.” Shouldn't the “favourable changes” cause the transitioning forms to become numerous? More numerous than their less-favoured counterparts?

Any way you slice it, the fossil record has not yielded the kind of fossil evidence (the only hard evidence possible) that evolution needs in order to stand as a viable theory of natural history.

If you, at this moment, are protesting violently, "Okay, so there are only three transitional forms, but how do you explain away those three?" (and of course I'm overstating. Or do I mean understating? I mean, I'm hyperbolizing, but anyway. Three that I can think of off the top of my head.), maybe I should take a few paragraphs to explain how I can sleep at night, knowing about the existence of archaeopteryx, "Lucy," and eohippus. Well, one was a weird bird (but all birds are weird), one was a weird primate (but all primates are weird), and one was some other extinct mammal that looks weird to us now because there are no more (and okay, so maybe all mammals are weird, too). That's how I explain them.

Maybe transitional fossils only exist because a) people are eager to believe in evolution and in order to do so they simultaneously... b) make too much of any likenesses and... c) make too much of any differences. I mean, they see any likenesses as family resemblance and see any variations in organisms as transitional.

As far as jumping to conclusions on the basis of likeness, I know a lot of people like that — determined to find family resemblance. As soon as a baby is born, he must look "just like" at least one of his parents if not both. It can be embarrassing for these people when they meet parents with their adopted children, and not realizing the children are adopted, immediately begin noticing family resemblances. Resemblance can be found anywhere as long as you look hard enough for it, but resemblance doesn't prove relationship. Logically, where no relationship is known (and no relationship can be known that's millions of years old), seeing similarity as proof of relationship is necessarily a matter of philosophy. We believe what we want to believe. (But arguing in favour of what I believe is the fact that even those who want to believe in transitional forms can find so few of them.)

Similarities at the DNA level are especially touted as proof of evolution. But if two organisms show similarities in their body plans, those similarities will be reflected in their DNA. And the same principle applies: where no relationship is known, seeing similarity as proof of relationship is a matter of philosophy.

It doesn't surprise me that all living things have similarities. We all live in a similar manner on the same planet designed by the same Designer. Legs, wings, and fins are similar because they're all used for the same thing. They're locomotion-tools, and the general design of those tools is the design that works for locomotion.

As to making too much of differences, a lot hinges on definitions of species, and those definitions are muddy. A rough guide for determining what should be considered a true species is based on sexual reproduction and propagation. If two different organisms can reproduce sexually and their offspring are fertile, those organisms are generally considered members of the same species. But how could there be a hard and fast rule for determining the species of fossils? How could that rough guide help when fossils are dug up and need to be classified as belonging to one species or another?

Fact is, fossils aren't dug up with placards bearing their Latin names. The names and the categories are man-made. What we see is that the genetic code allows for seemingly infinite variations and changes. Nothing produces offspring that's a carbon copy of itself. And that room for variation seemed to be even greater in the past (we'll discuss that a little more in a minute). I have no problem admitting that one species can come from another species (given the muddiness of species). I mean, within any given species, there is a lot of room for variety. And at some point, those different varieties may be divergent enough to be considered different species. So I can agree with the theory of evolution in its theory of "the origin of species" insofar that one species could come from another species — say, that all different species of canine creatures could have come from one species of canine creatures. Where I can't agree with the theory of evolution and where I believe it has an evidence problem is in saying that all species of everything could have come from one species or from no species at all. There was nothing wrong with Darwin's basic observations except for the speculative territory he took them into — to go from the origin of species to the origin of life itself.

Do we have to see all strange creatures, such as archaeopteryx or the platypus, as half of one thing and half of another — as one form transitioning into another? Or could we see all creatures as unique, originating in the imagination of an incredibly inventive and hilariously creative Mind who went out of His way to make a mockery of all our neat-and-tidy, man-made, little categories?

In short, I think there are people who madly want to find transitional forms and so find them. After all, they are the ones giving them the names and classifying them. That's my not-terribly-technical-or-scientific explanation of transitional forms, but after all, I was supposed to tell you how I manage to sleep at night, and that's how I do it. What I'm curious about is how Dr. So-and-so (shall we say Humpenschlinkel?) manages to sleep, knowing about all the transitional forms that aren't out there that should be.

Now. Let's talk about evolution's second problem: an addition problem. Evolution has to have a mechanism for addition in order for the theory to work. But all we see in nature is subtraction.

People like to talk about natural selection as though that's all the mechanism evolution needs. But natural selection can only select. It's no mechanism for addition. It can only choose between already existing varieties or species. It can't create them. It can further those that already exist by taking away the less fit to survive. But extinction equals subtraction.

Also, natural selection is really no help at all in explaining how all the marvels of nature could have come about gradually one step at a time. I can see that sight is an advantage over blindness and that natural selection might reward the possessors of sight with a better survival rate than the blind. But what advantage could half an eye be over no eye? Half a loaf is better than none because it's still half a loaf, but half an eye is no eye at all. Why would natural selection reward all the in-between stages from blindness to sight when it had no idea that sight would ever happen? Blind chance must have been very farsighted indeed to know that anything like an eye could ever have been produced.

Natural selection has never been intended to be evolution's mechanism for addition. Darwin knew there must be some kind of mechanism for addition that would give natural selection something to work on. He speculated on its nature this way:

Under domestication we see much variability. This seems to be mainly due to the reproductive system being eminently susceptible to changes in the conditions of life; so that this system, when not rendered impotent, fails to reproduce offspring exactly like the parent-form. Variability is governed by many complex laws — by correlation of growth, by use and disuse, and by the direct action of the physical conditions of life.7

In Darwin's day, there was less known about inherited traits. It seemed reasonable to think that adaption and acquired characteristics could account for evolution. Salamanders living in caves lost their eyesight from disuse. Giraffes grew long necks by stretching them to reach the leaves from the tops of trees after the lower leaves had been eaten off, that kind of thing. Characteristics acquired from the environment were then passed on. It all sounded plausible. Until a monk named Gregor Mendel came along. Mendel experimented with peas about the same time Darwin was observing his pigeons. Mendel showed us something about genetics that blew the idea of acquired characteristics out of the water. Genes allow for mixing and matching and cultivating or accentuating traits, but those differences and traits are all possible because of the genetic code and are written into it in some form.

Now we know that environment can't cause change in an organism. All environment can do is kill off or reduce in number the organisms that happen to be unfit for that environment. For example, we see that the only animals that live in the far north have special characteristics that enable them to survive in that harsh environment. Is that because of the harsh environment? Would moving to the north pole cause you to grow thick fur? No, moving to the north pole would only cause you to die if you didn't already have thick fur (or if you couldn't otherwise adapt to the environment by, for instance, killing and wearing something that has thick fur). Conditions don't alter the beaks of finches. They alter populations by killing off or reducing the number of finches who have beaks that make them unfit for the conditions. Now that we've learned a thing or two about genetics, that's what Darwin's work on natural selection boils down to.

Every living organism to varying degrees can adapt to its environment, but those adaptations happen because we are all programmed for adaption (showing us, again, the marvellous design of our genetic code. Take our immune system and its production of antibodies, for example). But that capability for adaption is already built-in. It's not addition.

Now we know a giraffe may be able to lengthen his own neck slightly by stretching it. There are still places in the world where people do the same thing with their own necks. They gradually add ring after ring around the collar, and eventually, their necks are unnaturally long. Their babies are born with quite normal necks, and the process starts all over again with them.

Evolution needs a mechanism of addition to increase complexity in the genetic code; to move from an amoeba to an accountant. Adaption and acquired characteristics don't cut it because they simply don't alter the genetic code.

From all observation, we can see no examples of addition to the genetic code. Take Darwin's observations for example. What we see from his work is the loss of genetic information, not the increase. Darwin's work with pigeons and so on — to show that varieties can harden into (what we call) species and that many species may come from one parent species — shows us subtraction when combined with what we now know about genetics. If some doggy ancestors carried the raw genetic information for Great Danes and poodles and every other canine, there's been a loss of genetic information because today we would be very surprised if Mr. and Mrs. Poodle could produce anything other than baby poodles. A poodle does not seem to carry all the genetic information that must have been carried by the original doggy parents. Successive generations have lost genetic information present in the first canines. Maybe it's true that new species were formed out of the original species, but so what? The greater number of narrowly defined species, unable to pass on that broader spectrum of genetic information, the less the genetic information. Of course it makes sense that the genetic information passed on will be less and less with every generation. And given the fact of the second law of thermodynamics, that's what we should expect. The second law applies to genetics, too.

The only possible mechanism that science has discovered so far (the only thing known to alter genes) is called mutation. So the new Darwinism says that the giraffe was a mutant with an abnormally long neck who was more fit to survive because it could eat the leaves off the tops of the trees. The polar bear was a mutant who grew abnormally thick fur and so was able to survive at the north pole. Certain salamanders are blind due to mutation and are able to survive only in caves where the competition for survival is less fierce and they're less likely to get eaten. (There's sense to that one!) The amoeba underwent millions and millions of years of millions upon millions of mutations, and out popped the accountant! Problem is that the mechanism is still the problem.

For some obscure reason, I would not be highly complimented if you called me a mutant. You might very well mean it as a compliment. You might simply mean that I was more evolved than you, but I doubt it! Probably you would be trying to tell me that I had some kind of defect that was making me less fit for survival. That's what we associate with the word "mutant" and for good reason. That seems to be so far what mutations produce.8 If you called me a mutant, you would probably be right. Like the blind salamanders in caves, I do have inherited traits that at some point in my lineage were probably produced by mutation, like weak vision and asthma. Mutations are also not additions to information in the genetic code. They're subtractions. Mutations are really printing errors in the genetic code. They're typos, if you like.

I should be the expert on typos. I can't get through a sentence without one. I can tell you that I've performed experiment after experiment with my own personal mutations of the written word, and they keep on refusing to add information. Some may be funny. Some would be downright embarrassing if I left them alone. They may add some unintentional humour, but not one has ever added any useful information. None has ever worked towards clearing up any of the confusion I may have created for the reader. I can say that not once have I accidentally typed something that I looked at and said to myself, "Hey! I'm gonna keep that one! That's a much better thought than what I originally intended."

There's no getting around it. If our amoeba is ever going to become an accountant, there must be an addition of information. Somehow the genetic code must be added to. And the only mechanism so-far discovered — mutation — just doesn't seem to be useful as a mechanism for addition.

When I try to imagine it all out — to imagine the engineering ability of the spider and the Venus' flower basket or the migrating instincts of the salmon and the monarch butterfly or the food dance of the honeybee coming about through random mutations acted upon by natural selection — my imagination balks. (And I have a pretty agile imagination. Just not that agile.) Evolutionists necessarily speak airily about “adaption” in vague generalities with a great deal of hand-waving and glossing-over. Can you imagine the exponential number of problems involved in trying to do the science to demonstrate how it all could have worked? For just one of my examples listed above? But to be considered science, evolution would have to work out the demonstration over and over and over and over again. For every species of life on earth.

If what I'm saying about evolution's two problems is true, we have a case of "science" telling us that we don't have anything to show us it happened, and we don't have anything to show us how it happened. But we just know that it must have happened. Thank you, but if that's what's being sold, I'm not buying.

And those are only the problems with evolution after we imagine it getting itself going. I have yet to mention the main problem with a purely naturalistic version of evolution. The most diehard of evolutionists has so far been stumped for even a speculation as to how it could have got itself going. To go from the simplest life form to all the vast complexity we see around us is a baby step compared to the nightmare of a challenge that faces the atheistic evolutionist in trying to explain how life, without any help, could have arisen from non-life. That's a step across the Grand Canyon. Oddly enough, no one has yet managed it.

Could all the seeming order and design and complexity and beauty of the natural world and of life all have come about through no other cause than natural selection acting on an enormous collection of typos acting on a primordial ooze? I can only imagine all that happening if one admits to a Designer, an Intelligence, back of it all. Our natural order is undoubtedly a miracle, but no explanation for its formation is more miraculous than the one which says there was no God involved in it.

But as a matter of fact, miracles go on all the time every day. The miracle of the proverbial swallowing of the proverbial camel is going on all around us as we speak. Can you admit with me that evolution without a God in the picture is really a pretty good-sized camel that people are eager to get down? As long as they don't have to choke down the gnat that sticks in the craw — the gnat being an admittance of a God in the picture. The point of this chapter is not to convince you that evolution couldn't possibly have happened. The point of this chapter is just that I'm hoping to convince you that there must be a God. Even if evolution happened the way we're told it did, there still must be a God.

It's interesting to me to hear well-educated, intelligent people on this subject. No one can deny the high level of order, precision, and complexity that exists in our natural world. The only debate possible is surrounding the issue of how all that seeming-design could have come to be. Generally, everywhere else we see order and precision we assume it's being done on purpose and think no more about it. It's only when it comes to this really gigantic question of all the order and precision in the universe that we make bones about it (no pun intended). We all agree on the order and precision, but beyond that, the bobbing and weaving begins. And all the arguments take the form of "could have happened"s. These arguments are very sophisticated ones, I admit. The amazing feats of mental gymnastics used to get around the obvious remind me of my favourite brand of fiction — the whodunit.

In the whodunit, the obvious is always the wrong answer and the least-likely suspect is always the right answer. The more unlikely, the better. The more amazing the feat of mental gymnastics, the more fun. And that's because it's fiction.

You also have to remember that in whodunits (as well as in true crime stories), the red herrings and false scents and frame-ups are all intentional because either the author or the guilty party doesn't want to be found out. Are we really supposed to believe that nature somehow managed to lay out a trail of red herrings and frame-ups to make everything look so convincingly like it was designed by a Designer? Blind chance plus natural selection is certainly the least-likely suspect and a Designer/Creator is certainly the obvious choice. If our universe was a fiction story, then blind chance would have my vote for whodunit. As we're talking about reality here, I'll go with the obvious choice. Don't we usually accept the obvious and the most likely as the truth, if all the facts point in that direction? This is the one area where people are anxious to make an exception.

All the purpose and design in the natural order is one thing that's so convincing to me that there must be a God. These things couldn't have just happened. Not in reality. Well then, is it sensible to leave it there? To say, "Okay, so there's a God of some sort," and have no further curiosity, when the first sensible question that any sensible person wants to know is all about cause and purpose? And that brings us back to "Why?" Because if we admit that God created all those other strange and hilariously inventive creations, you know what that means, don't you? That means having to admit that God created ME! (And you!) If all those other creations are so laden with purpose and design on a natural level, doesn't that make you wonder about your purpose. “Why?” “WHY, WHY, WHY?” Why were we created?

I don't think it's sensible to go the route of admitting, “Possibly, even probably, there might be a God,” but then stop short of learning anything about Him. For one thing, it goes against inquisitive human nature and that first sensible question we want to know. And for another thing, He just may have some interest in our knowing "WHY?" if we were created for a purpose.

Now, that may sound very egocentric or very terra-centric. After all, earth is hardly the centre of the universe. There's an emotional rejection we have to the idea that a God of the universe could possibly be interested in us.

There's a line from a movie I was watching tonight that's still rattling around in my head: "I find it impossible to believe the Creator of the universe could take any notice of germs like us."

But why wouldn't He take notice of germs like us if He can even take notice of germs? At every level of life, we see a complexity and design that bears witness to a Designer. If He would create a sponge that can build towers that make the Eiffel Tower look like child's play, why is it unbelievable that He takes notice of humanity? I have to admit that I have no idea why a Creator of the universe should take notice of us (or germs or sponges). But when I'm told that, whether or not He should, He does, I don't refuse to believe it. At least, not based on the size-of-the-universe-and-our-own-smallness argument. If He's the God of the galaxies, He's also the God of the electron. The God of the infinitely big would also be the God of the infinitely small if God is infinite. And as massive and mentally overpowering as the universe is, the pockets of habitation in it are going to be the sites of greatest interest, wouldn't you say? Surely, life, no matter the size, is going to be of more importance than non-life.

The immensity of the universe should tell us something about the significance of God rather than the insignificance of ourselves. Of course, it's impossible for us to talk about God in anything other than understatement. And it is certainly a mistake to talk as though we ourselves are the centre of the universe. If there is a God, He is the centre of the universe. Accepting that is a "giant leap for mankind" type of mental step, but I don't think we can legitimately use our own smallness as one more escape route to avoid taking that step. Not when it's He Himself telling us that, for whatever reason, He does in fact take a great deal of trouble about us. If the very Centre of the universe stoops to take notice of us, for us to deny Him the right to do it on the grounds that we think He couldn't possibly, it is not humility but simply insult.

“He?” you might be asking at this point. “Why not, 'She/It/Them?'” At the point we've got to so far, we really wouldn't know what pronoun to use. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to keep on referring to Him as Him. That's what I'm used to, and writing “He/She/It/Them” is very cumbersome. I'm also in the habit of capitalizing “Him” when I'm referring to God, and it saves confusion of pronouns so you'll know to whom “Him” is referring.

What pronoun to use is just a small part of the things we don't know about God yet. Maybe we should start by trying to agree on some sort of definition for the word “God.” I looked it up in the dictionary, and that didn't prove to be extraordinarily enlightening. But I thought, for a nice, simple definition, we could agree on: “The one in control.” That should pretty much cover all our bases, shouldn't it? That covers the ancient-type gods. The god of the sea was the one in control of the sea. The god of fertility was the one in charge of fertility and so forth. Of course, when I talk about God, I'm talking about the One in charge of the Universe. The One in ultimate control. And that is usually what is meant when we use the word.

Now within that range, there may be lots of different ideas about God. Let's talk about a popular one at the moment. The most popular idea of god I've run into lately is an impersonal one. “God” is a kind of a force, the energy behind the universe, that type of idea. Or maybe, "god" is just everything there is. Everything that exists is "god" by virtue of its existence. God is All, and All is God. The nice thing about All being God is that, in that case, I am part of God, seeing I am part of All. Very flattering! I'm really my own god, then, aren't I? I'm the one in control of me, after all. (This comes up again! It ends up not being so nice in the end. After all, if All is God, and I, being part of All, am also god, then all I can say about the situation is that "god" is in a bit of a mess and there's no one left to get him/her/it out of it! But I'm ahead of myself again.) I hear people talk about “the Universe” or “Life” or “Nature” or "Energy" and ascribe to these impersonal controllers all kinds of acts and attributes that I would assign to God.

My definition still works. This popular idea of god still admits to this "god" being in control of everything. "God" is the force or energy controlling the universe.

What doesn't work is the popular idea itself.

The popular idea is mystical and blurred around the edges. The hope is that one won't have to define “god” or worse yet know too much about him/her/it. Ignorance is bliss, apparently, when it comes to this matter of god. It seems that the point to believing in this kind of a controller of the universe or the "Universe" itself is: a) an admittance of the fact that there must be more to “life, the universe, and everything” than the merely material; b) an admittance that everything couldn't have come about just through pure luck; and c) an attempt to escape any kind of personal responsibility to this controller of the universe. This is a god that comes with no strings attached. If “god” is an impersonal force, if “god” is who-knows-what, but if “god” is, at least, completely unknowable, then this controller of the universe doesn't have very much control over my life. (Whew!) I can do what I want.

If God is independent of the universe, if God is a Person, if God is Mind, then perhaps God is knowable. Then perhaps He wants to make Himself known. To me. Then perhaps I may be accountable to Him. Then perhaps, I can't run my own life. He might have some say in the matter of my life if He made it. If He is God, the One in control, then He might be in control of me, and that will never do!

Why do I say that the popular idea about this nice, comfortable, impersonal, non-knowable-and-non-interfering type of god doesn't work? For “objections to God as non-personal,” read “objections to God as non-existent.” If "god" is not personal, not Mind, not intelligence, then he/she/it, for all intents and purposes, is exactly the same as no god at all. That kind of a god may be able to give people a warm, fuzzy notion that there are spiritual realities of some sort, but that kind of a god couldn't create a blessed thing beyond a warm, fuzzy notion.

The problem with trying to believe in a life-force-kind-of-god as a way of getting around the obvious design and intelligence we see everywhere is that a mindless life-force couldn't design DNA, couldn't design an eye, couldn't design a brain. "All" couldn't design and create itself. (I couldn't even create myself. I have very little control over even my own reality as already discussed).

The God that created the universe was super-intelligent, super-powerful, and super-natural. That's what I see when I look at the evidence. God may certainly be more than Mind (whatever that means). I've no doubt that's true (even though I don't know what it means). But He could hardly be less than Mind.

To me, it seems so plain and simple that the easiest and smartest thing to do is to give in and admit that there must be a God and that He's more like a Person or a Mind than any other alternative. But that's me. I am a plain-and-simple kind of person.

I don't know if you're with me. But think about it for yourself. Try to set aside any bias you may have and decide for yourself what makes the most sense. Wrestle it through on your own.

From now on, though, I'll be writing as if we've agreed on this most basic of all biblical concepts: “In the beginning, GOD...”

______________________________

1 — See: Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2004), 107

2 — Ibid., 105

3 — Ibid., 98-99

4— Ibid., 138-144

5 — See: Illustrated Library of Nature, Volume I (New York, NY: H.S. Stuttman Co., Inc., 1971 ed.), 21

6 — G.K. Chesterton, All is Grist (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, Inc. 1932, 1967), 30

7 — Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (John Murray, 1859, Penguin Classics, 1985), 440-441

8 — An arguable exception may be bacteria or viruses which seemingly mutate to survive better and develop resistances to our antibiotics and our antibodies. But I would argue that the excellent adaption skills and survival rates of bad bugs are hardly proof of macro-evolution but one more example of the overall degeneration of everything. Should AIDS or some other epidemic ever wipe out earth's human population, the survival of the fittest would be demonstrated, but it would be demonstrated that the fittest to survive are the least-complex, the least "evolved."

Chapter 6

"God Is Love."

Last chapter, we talked about our innate need to find out "Why?" and about trying to learn what we could learn from the evidence all around us about this Being who created us and maybe about why we were created. So let's go there.

I think, from looking at nature, some characteristics of the One who started it all off come into focus pretty quickly. First, from the amazing complexity and design in the universe, intelligence. Incredible intelligence. Amazing intelligence. The kind that we could deduce knows everything there is to know. And power. Incredible, amazing power. The kind that can do anything it wants to do. As one author wrote:

One cause can have many effects; however, no effect can be quantitatively greater than or qualitatively superior to its cause. When this principle is applied to the origins of the universe we discover the following: 1. The first cause of limitless space must be infinite. 2. The first cause of endless time must be eternal. 3. The first cause of boundless energy must be omnipotent. 4. The first cause of infinite complexity must be omniscient. 5. The first cause of life must be living.1

So looks very much to me like God is infinite (all-big), eternal (all-living), omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (all-encompassing). But what else can we learn from nature?

What is the nature of nature? Is it benevolent or malevolent? I mean, from our point of view, does it like us or not? Is it on our side? Or the opposite? We see both sides of nature, — benevolence and malevolence — but what do we see, by and large? (This is going to be a kind of a Pollyanna chapter. At this point, I'm closing my eyes to the unpleasant realities and ignoring them momentarily for the reason that I want to learn from the pleasant ones for now. We'll take the unpleasant ones in the next section.)

Taken overall, does nature seem to be benevolent or not?

We could spend a long time talking about all the order and precision and all those things we talked about last chapter that seem directly aimed at ensuring the survival of life; things like, how the earth is just the right distance from the sun and how the earth's gravitational pull and magnetic field are just right to make life possible and how our atmosphere is just the right blend for our needs and about all those delicate ecosystems that keep life going and how all life seems equipped with some gift of defense or instinct to ensure the survival of its kind and all the rest. We could go on and on. Our survival seems very important to "nature." Which strikes me as a great mystery — at least, it must be a great mystery if nature is all there is. Why "nature" would equip life with all these tools for survival is a riddle with no answer. Natural selection proposes to answer it. But natural selection can only tell us that because of the drive to survive, the fittest will most likely be the ones to survive. It can't tell us why anything should survive. And "the drive to survive" could be seen as one more instance of benevolence rather than evidence for a pure-blind-chance origin of nature. Why should the "drive to survive" exist? "Nature" (meaning, pure, blind chance) could care less if all life were wiped out tomorrow. If there is no benevolent power at work in the universe, it seems to me to be infinitely more likely that there would be no life at all. To me, the existence and survival of life makes it look as though some benevolent power has a deep investment in, well, in life!

That's one direction we could approach this question of benevolence or malevolence from. But I'd like to approach the question from a more introspective, closer-up perspective.

In the beautiful place where I live, right now “the year's at the spring." Today, I spent the better part of the day with a book in my hands, lying on my back in the grass, watching the clouds amble by or lying on my tummy, watching a friendly and curious ant climb up one blade of grass and down another or scurry across the pages of my book. Birds swooped and dived overhead. A fine, yellowish-green sheen of baby leaves covered the grove of trees across the way. Everything was bursting at the seams with new life. It seemed to me today that everything around me was singing for joy. At times like this, it's hard not to agree with Pippa, that "All's right with the world."

I get the same feeling lying in bed on a summer's night, listening to the crickets soothe me to sleep under the moon with his laughing face. Or maybe looking across to the mountains with a haze hanging over them on an autumn day. Or maybe waking up on a snowy one (especially the first one of the year) to a clean, new world.

Everywhere I look, I see sweet mystery and gift. We see a kind of symbiotic relationship happening where on one side a mysterious phenomenon exists that has an equally-mysterious, corresponding phenomenon on the other side, but the two fit hand-in-hand, and one would be no good without the other. You probably have no idea what I'm babbling on about at this point. Let's take an example to make my point clearer. Let's take music.

On the one side, we have the bizarre and inexplicable phenomenon of music. You know what I mean? I mean, as Shakespeare pointed out, “How ridiculous that some joe plucking away on sheep's guts should somehow have the power to draw men's souls from their bodies.” (Loosely translated.) But it does, doesn't it? Some joe plucking away on sheep's guts can take our souls up to a whole new plane (as even Benedick discovered in the end of Much Ado). Music is like some unearthly language that we all understand which tells a story no other language can tell.

What on earth is music? Can it be explained scientifically? You boil it down to some kind of equation, and that is basically what it is: an equation — nearly infinite possibilities of mathematical combinations involving pitches of sounds and occurrences of those sounds in patterns that we call rhythm.

Funny! Never found my soul being haled from my body on account of some math equation before! But remove the human ear and brain of the listener from the equation, and you have a meaningless combination of certain notes and meaningless patterns of their occurrence. Add a listener to interpret them, and you have music in all its glorious meaningfulness.

On the one side, we have this phenomenon we call music. On the other, the human brain — which appears hard-wired to produce and appreciate the phenomenon. Beauty is in the ear of the hearer. The beauty is not intrinsic in the music itself. The beauty is in the effect it has on us.

How do you explain it? Do you say that music had its origin solely in human brains, that it's purely man-made, that it's not some sort of cosmic happening floating around at large in the universe out there somewhere? That at some point, this thing called music evolved as man evolved? But it doesn't work. Imaginatively, it doesn't add up.

Let's try a scenario. Imagine Caveman Egg and Caveman Nogg sitting around their fire one night, picking their teeth with splinters from the bones of the mammoth they just killed and ate. Absentmindedly, Egg bangs a couple of bones together in such a way that he creates a rhythm. Nogg says, “Hey! That sounds kinda cool! Do more!” Sounds plausible, right? We could imagine someone stumbling across music in some form and music slowly evolving from there.

But when you really stop to think it through, there's some major problems with a theory of the evolution of music. Like what? Like the fact that something in Nogg responded to Egg's accidental rhythm.

I can imagine someone inventing some form of music by accident. But so what? The only way it could have been recognized as music and responded to as such was if there was something in the brain that was already programmed for music. Otherwise, it would be someone banging two bones together. It would be some joe plucking sheep's guts. Why would someone “invent” music if it didn't exist in our brains already? It's the chicken and egg conundrum (or the Egg and the Nogg conundrum). Which came first: music or the brain's interpretation and appreciation of music?

I've heard an evolutionary answer which traces our love of music back to our alleged animal ancestry. After all, most animals make noises of some kind. These noises serve various purposes. Birds, for instance, “sing” in order to attract mates. Female songbirds apparently respond differently to variations in the song of the male in order to choose their mates. If the females react more favourably to intricacies and improvisations in the male's songs, their choices would drive the evolution of birdsong so that the calls would grow steadily more and more complex and closer to actual music. Other animals (notably whales) produce calls that are even closer to true music, possibly for the same or similar purposes. Couldn't this idea explain how music got started? It evolved from our animal instinct to mate, a very natural instinct to further our own survival (in some form) by passing on our genes.

This evolutionary answer only deepens the conundrum. I find the experience of aesthetics mysterious and inexplicable (in purely natural terms) at the human level. The findings about birdsongs that I've mentioned reveal the even more startling conundrum that animals are capable of aesthetic preference. Which indicates that they are capable of aesthetic experience. Intricacies and improvisations in a male's song have no intrinsic survival value other than to enable the male to attract the female. The female chooses the male for no evolutionarily advantageous criteria — other than that she simply happens to like his song better than the others. It pleases her more.

Maybe, just maybe, something (or one) bigger than ourselves thought up music in the first place and then hard-wired our brains (and other birdbrains) to discover it. Isn't it true? We don't invent or even create music so much as we simply discover it. I have no argument with people who say that humans discovered music, but I couldn't agree that we invented or evolved it all by our little ol' selves. It leaves too much unanswered and unanswerable.

I find this from my personal musical experience, as well. I've always hated math. Numbers and I have never got on well together. I've never had a math kind of brain, yet to some extent, I have a music kind of brain. I play a little piano by ear. Somehow, I take what I hear in my head and translate that into a combination of notes, chords, steps and half-steps, tones and semi-tones, and octaves (and a bunch of other terminology I don't know how to use properly) and fractions like quarter notes and eighths and sixteenths and probably some even smaller that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole if I had to do them on paper. In fact, I tried briefly to learn to read music, but I discovered it was too much like math. By ear is so much easier and lazier because it's all instinct.

What I produce may not be impressive as music, but as a feat of math, it's genius! I do all the calculations in my head and reproduce them instantaneously through my fingers without thinking about it. In fact, if I have to stop and think, I can't do it.

Remember what I called instinct earlier? Instinct is simply derived intelligence. I can do all kinds of equations musically, but only instinctively, without thinking about them. I get a certain feeling of awe when I play or write a piece of music. It's a feeling of, “I have no idea where this is coming from, but it's not really coming from me.” Probably anyone who dabbles in any of the arts can understand what I mean by that feeling. Some call it inspiration, some call it “muse,” (both terms indicative of something outside ourselves).

All of us have creative ability in some form or other. And what do we call it? We call it “gift,” and those who have a great deal of creative ability we call “gifted.” And that's a pretty accurate term. What must you have if you have a gift? That's right! You must have a giver. If it's a gift, then we didn't make it, and we probably have only the vaguest notions of where our own creative ideas and abilities come from. All we understand is that we don't understand it ourselves.

Music is just one example. I find that this “mysterious gift” principle applies practically right across the board to every area of life. What about the beauties of nature?

I started off with poetic raptures about the beauties of nature and their effect on me. Why? Because I wanted to paint pictures in your mind of things I love so that you would be reminded of whatever it happens to be that you feel that way about.

But wait a minute! What on earth?! Did you notice the things I was rhapsodizing and how extremely odd it is that I should love those things? I mean, an insect crawling up and down blades of grass? He was neither friendly nor curious. He was merely hungry and in search of food. (Materialistic little beggar!) What's to love about an ant? Clouds? Merely visible accumulations of moisture in the atmosphere. Big deal! Crickets? Insects rubbing their hind legs together (or whatever it is they rub together) to produce sound. The moon with “his laughing face”? Nothing but a lump of cold, hard rock that reflects the sun's light, and the face we see, nothing but rock and crater formations. Mountains? Same thing. Lumps of rock. And the haze hanging over them? Nothing but pollutants in the air from some farmer burning the stubble in his fields. Snow? Well, after all, who could love snow for its own sake, especially after shovelling the stuff! (“I've looked at snow from both sides now!”) Do I really mean that I love the things I say I love? No, generally not. It's not the things themselves that I love.

Even if you don't love the same things I love, you can likely identify. Yours may not be caused by insects with noisy legs or lumps of rock or H_2O in frozen-flake form, but we all have aesthetic experiences. What natural beauties do you love? White beaches? Turquoise waters? Sunsets?

But do we really mean that we love huge collections of grains of sand or large amounts of H_2O or the turning of the earth? No, what we love is the feeling they convey to our minds. And here, we find again, as with music, this sort of fitting together of mysterious phenomena that looks very much like gift: on the one hand, the realities of our natural order and on the other hand, a capacity in our senses to experience them and our brains to appreciate them and idealize them.

But why should we get those feelings? It's exactly as though things were created to be enjoyed and our brains were created in such a way so that we could enjoy them.

We're talking here about pleasure of a certain kind, but any kind of pleasure would do just as well to talk about. Why should pleasure exist? Why should our natural world, after it's filtered through our senses and our minds, be so chock-full of it? Why should our minds be built in such a way that they're capable of pleasure?

Pleasure often seems to happen in conjunction with things that are necessary for the survival of life. Take procreation, for instance. ('Nuff said there!) Or how about our need for nourishment and body-fuel? On the one hand, we need a certain number of calories. On the other hand, we have taste buds and just generally enjoy putting the necessary (and too often unnecessary) calories into our systems. How about quenching our thirst with a long, cold drink? How about sleep (for those of us past our teen years)? How about a warm fire on a freezing night? Everything necessary for our survival carries with it its own particular pleasure (except, in our world, red tape, income tax, and the forty-hour-work week — though some even manage to find the last pleasurable).

We could make the argument that evolution thought up pleasure as a means of ensuring that we would do all the things we need to do to survive as a species. I would argue that there's a redundancy here as, apparently, "evolution" had already thought up the drive to survive as a means of ensuring we would do what we needed to survive. Pure instinct seems to keep most species doing what they need to do. We find ourselves doing things that contain no pleasure (like taxes and forty-hour-work weeks) because of the drive to survive.

And may I refer you to microbes? I don't imagine bacteria, amoebas, or any protozoa experience a great deal of pleasure in their little lives. Yet these life forms would have to be voted "least likely to go extinct" if anyone would. There's the amoeba in his pleasure-less existence, swimming around, happy as a clam (who I don't imagine experiences much pleasure, either) just to be alive. But amoebas will live on, happy or not. "Nature" had zero need to think up pleasure just to ensure the continuance of life. (And again, awfully thoughtful of “Nature” to be so doggone concerned about our survival in the first place.) Pleasure is a non-essential. But it sure is a nice bonus!

Or we could look at it from another side where we say (with Hamlet) that pleasure and pain are in the eye of the beholder (that there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...) and because we want to survive, we begin to understand the things that help us survive as pleasurable things. Pleasure is nothing except our acknowledgement of which things help us survive better and which don't.

But this philosophy is far too simplistic to make it in the real world. The only answer I could give is that there really is no accounting for tastes. Who knows what pleasure and displeasure truly are? They are some kind of reactions in our brains, granted, but who knows why what causes a sensation of pleasure in one brain causes a sensation of pain in another? Who knows why one person thinks it good and the other person thinks it bad? Take sky-diving as a case in point. Or jogging. Or heavy metal music. Or opera. We could pick just about anything that gives pleasure to someone, couldn't we? I love peanut-butter. Others hate it. I love coffee. Others I know would consider it cruel and unusual punishment to have to down a single cup.

There's no explaining why we like what we like. Literally, there is no accounting for it. It, too, is mystery. Have you ever found yourself stuck in one of those conversations where you try to account for your tastes to someone who doesn't share them? You tend to go 'round and 'round the mulberry bush.

“Why do you like coffee?” “Because it's good!" “What makes it good?” “Uh... because it's a delightful combination of bitter and sweet” (That is, the only kind of coffee I'll drink is sweet.) “Well, what makes those qualities good qualities? Why is that a delightful combination? Why do you like bitter and sweet together?” "Uh... because they're good."

Even in this matter of pleasure, that old sensible query of “why, why, why?” keeps recurring and keeps stumping us (if we're all there is, that is.)

There's so much pleasure attached to so many things that aren't necessary for survival at all, and none of us can explain intellectually why we enjoy them so much; all the things I've been talking about: the enjoyment of music, the enjoyment of nature, (the enjoyment of coffee!). Humour and laughter. Although we find that the pleasure we take from these kinds of pleasures ends up being good for us and aiding our survival, there's nothing in the music or the laughter itself that is necessary for survival. Again, no explanations.

We do see that, in a very general sense, the things we need to survive tend to be pleasurable to us, but those pleasures are so complex and take so many different forms that we can't find any kind of simplistic evolutionary answer to it. Yet again, looks very much like we run into a giant mystery that we can only explain by calling it a gift.

All this brings us to something that goes deeper than mere pleasure which I'll call meaning. Pleasure is one element of beauty, but I think a far more important element is that of meaning. In fact, pleasure doesn't have to be present for there to be beauty, but meaning does.

And again, with meaning and beauty, we're smack up against that old, sensible question (why, why, why?). Though we may never have complete answers to our first sensible question, at least there are indications that there are answers out there if there is meaning. And the fact that beauty exists (at least in the eye, ear, and brain of the beholder) seems to me to indicate that meaning does exist. Music has no meaning unless there is a listener. But meaning does exist. How do we know? Because the listener exists.

A while ago, I entered into some e-conversations with someone I've never met who believes very differently from myself. One statement in particular that he made stands out in my mind. I can't quote him, but the gist of it was that he has an easier time believing that matter is eternal and causeless rather than a god because he has an easier time believing in what he can see.

After I thought about it for awhile, I realized that I really don't have an easier time believing in what I can see. I guess that's because it's all the intangibles that make life worth living — all the things I've been talking about — music, humour, pleasure, beauty, meaning (and the big one that we're getting to: love). Not only are the unseen realities more “real” than the tangibles, they're the only things that lend meaning to the tangibles. It's whatever's going on in my mind, causing me to love those tangibles of clouds and crickets, that is the real reality for me. Clouds and crickets wouldn't do much for me without the intangibles.

In one e-conversation, my e-friend spoke about his love for his wife (in reference, I believe, to the non-necessity of religion in his life in order to be a healthy, happy, fulfilled, and moral person). It made me think, “What does he mean by, 'I love my wife'? Does he mean he has a pleasant electrochemical reaction in his brain to her?" I'm sure his wife would love to hear it: “Honey, you give me a pleasant electrochemical reaction.” She'd be thrilled!

Some would argue that it's we ourselves, our little pea-brains and their electrochemical reactions, that conceive concepts like love and beauty and assign them meaning. But if we want to believe that we make our own meaning — that all those beautiful and mysterious intangibles I've been talking about are simply products of the human brain — then that state of affairs is exactly the same as a completely meaningless universe. The instant we decide that we “make” our own meaning, we have to acknowledge that none of those things are real or have any real meaning.

Is that a tolerable option for you? That music doesn't exist for real? That it's mere math and sheep guts? That beauty doesn't exist? It's a trick the brain plays on us? That love doesn't exist? It's an electrochemical reaction? That meaning doesn't exist? It's a self-created illusion?

I don't think there's a one of us that can make himself believe it on an everyday, practical, life-experience level. We all know in our deepest gut that there are some intangibles that are real-er and much bigger than the tangibles.

Don't we all feel the same: that in the midst of all the vast, unattainable mysteries — to love and be loved; that is the business of life? That's what gives us and our lives their meaning.

To sum up so far, here's what I'm thinking we can see about the Someone-out-there that might lead us to suspect this Someone is benevolent (aka: loving): first, we have the existence of life as one piece of evidence that the Someone gives a rip about us. We were designed and created and that, right “fearfully and wonderfully” (Ps. 139). Then, there's the survival of life after its creation. Sure looks like Someone wants life to survive. Then, there's the existence of pleasure — which doesn't seem to be necessary for survival (take the amoeba as a case in point). So it's just a nice bonus. Again, has all the appearance of Someone caring. Then there's the existence of beauty, of which the biggest component is meaning. And then there's the subject of this chapter: Love.

Why existence? Why survival? Why life? Why pleasure? Why beauty? Why meaning? (And especially, heading the list of the universe's greatest mysteries) why love?

That's the clincher for me. Why love? Because the presence of love seems unmistakable in all these mysteries, all these intangibles, that I've had to call “gifts.” Why would we be given all these gifts that make our lives worth living if love has no existence other than an electrochemical reaction in our brains? If love doesn't exist, why would we love?

Let's tack the other way for a moment and peer through the telescope from a different vantage point. What does the Bible say about this Creator God it proclaims? Do we see any convergence between these two directions: the direction of our own observations of reality and the direction of what the Bible tells us about God?

When I was little and squirmed my way through Sunday School every Sunday on a little wooden chair, we would memorize simple Bible verses, and one of the first ones I ever memorized was this: “...God is love.” (see 1 John 4:8). It wasn't hard to memorize. Even squirmy three-year-olds can usually hold still long enough to handle three words. The words aren't big, but the concept contained in them is huge!

I find it interesting that, as far as I know, this huge, little concept is unique to the Bible. Of the people who are willing to believe in a God, most aren't willing to believe that God could be personal. Among those few religions or belief-systems that acknowledge the concept of a personal God, I believe none adhere to the concept of a relational God — except the belief-systems based on the Bible. The picture we're given in the Bible is one of a God whose very core and essence is relational. He not only loves. He is love.

This goes against humanity's grain. Imaginatively, we seem to feel that if God is a Person at all, He must be a very abstract and distant Person. But remember that reality is almost always surprising. It's a better idea in the long run to try and adjust our ideas to fit reality rather than to try and adjust reality to fit our ideas.

And I would say that there's a very strong case, even from our own observations, made for the Bible being right on the subject of God and love.

Let's tack once more (or turn the telescope inward) and look at love itself to see what knowledge we might be able to glean from its nature about the Someone we're intent on learning more about this chapter.

As mentioned, the existence of love is one convincing evidence to me that the Bible tells us the truth and “...God is love.”

But what about this one? How about the existence of anything? I mean, why would God choose to create anything?

One of the basic Christian tenets about God is that He is self-sufficient and needs nothing. So He didn't need to create anything. So why would He? We keep running into this question. "WHY, WHY, WHY?" Why would God create us?

Of course, that question sounds unanswerable. Who are we to try and read God's mind and think we could know the reasons He would decide to create? But oddly enough, I think we may have at least a partial answer to our unanswerable question contained right there in the three little words that give this chapter its title.

If, as the Bible states, God is love, then those words must have some meaning for us. I've heard people say things to the effect of, “Yes, God is love, but not love like we know love.” But that makes the whole thing a nonsense statement. We might as well say, “God is blue. But not blue like we know blue.” If the word “love” that the Bible uses to describe God has absolutely no corresponding meaning from our own experience, then what could the writer of that statement have meant by it, and why would it have been written to us as humans who have a human experience of love?

I don't mean to say that the love that God is, is identical with ours. I would argue that God's love is as much greater than ours as His person is than ours. If He doesn't have emotion as we would recognize it, then it's only because what He has for emotion is so far superior to our weak experience of it that we wouldn't recognize it as emotion. Most of us, without prior knowledge, would not draw the connection between the unimpressive-looking seed and the beautiful flower. But if we have seeds of emotion, it's only because, somewhere, flowers exist. If we love, how much more does He? What in us is a drop is, in God, an ocean.

What I'm arguing for here is that we are able to recognize the love God is because we have our own experiences of love. Our own human experiences of this gift of love are from the overflow of His nature, and as such, we can learn somewhat about His nature, just by examining the overflow that pours out on us.

So what do we know about the nature of love from our own experience? First and obviously, we know that love has to have an object. Love doesn't exist unless there's someone or something to love. Love is a transitive verb (never mind all that about transitive verbs if you didn't learn about them in grammar. Just grab hold of the fact that love demands an object).

Now at this point, it could be that I've painted myself into a theological corner. Didn't I just say a few paragraphs back that God is self-sufficient and has no needs and He didn't need to create? Yet if His nature is love and love must have an object, doesn't that imply that He needed to create in order to have an object for that love to pour out on?

Well, that corner is got out of in a couple different ways. First, in my understanding of God, yes, He is self-sufficient. Also, He is trinity. That's a big theological word that we don't have time to go into now, but it will come up later. Just hold onto this thought for now: The triune God has always had an object for His love built right into His very nature. (See John 17:24).

Second, whether or not He needed to create, He did create. And because, also in my understanding of Him, He lives outside of time and dwells in eternity, in His mind we've always existed, and He's always loved us. But both of those reasons for getting out of that corner are miles beyond the foundational things we need to start with so ignore them for now if you like. Just latch onto the idea that the corner I painted myself into really wasn't much of a corner at all.

So we know that love needs an object in order to be love as we know it. But not only does love, as we know it, have a need, love, as we know it, has a desire. What is it that love desires? Love needs an object, and love desires a return of love from that object. In plain English, to love means to want to be loved in return.

What else do we know about love from our own experience? Love must be freely returned. Love cannot be conscripted, or it's not love. We can't force anyone to love us. We all know that. We can love and pour out our love on the one we love and hope like mad that that one gives love back to us. That's all we can do. It's the old saying that launched a thousand posters: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it was never meant to be” (or something along those lines). Love necessarily involves choice. If there's no choice involved, whatever we have, we wouldn't call it "love."

Those are things we can know about love from our own experience of it. We could go further and say that love that isn't reciprocated is intensely painful for the one who loves. But of course, in the case of true love (and does any other kind deserve to go by the name of love?), we know that love doesn't depend on being returned. The one who loves truly loves no matter what, even if the only rewards are a broken heart and broken hopes.

Probably the closest parallel we have of this kind of truly true love is the love a parent has for a child. I said earlier that the question of why God created was unanswerable for us — or maybe in a way we have the answer right under our own noses.

Why do people have kids? From a dollars-and-cents' point of view, it's the worst investment a person could make. From any purely utilitarian standpoint, there's no logical reason for it. Maybe when they're finally old enough to be useful (and don't want to be anymore) you might, through great effort and bribery, manage to get a little grudging help out of them, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the energy already expended in getting them to that stage. On the list of labour-saving devices, kids don't make the top twenty. Nor the top twenty-thousand.

What kind of return do people get on child-having and child-rearing? Usually, sleepless nights and grey hairs. Yet people go on having them. Even in our enlightened age that knows how to prevent them. There must be some powerful reason people persist in this kind of behaviour.

It seems obvious that from any standpoint (except one): the practical thing to do would be to hire someone to do whatever it is people hope to get out of having kids. Kids (kind of like people) are noisy, messy, sassy, and expensive. (I know, because I used to be one. A kid, I mean. I'm still a people. And okay, yeah, I'm still noisy, messy, sassy, and expensive.)

A hired servant would never colour all over the walls in permanent marker, cut up the magazine you haven't read yet, overflow the toilet by flushing a plastic dinosaur, and then turn on you, stamp his foot, and tell you "No!" when he's told to go to bed.

But on the other hand, a servant will never slip his hand into yours when you're out on a walk. A servant will never beg for a kiss and tuck-in at bedtime. A servant will never curl up on your lap, throw his chubby, little arms around your neck, and whisper, "I love you, Mummy," or, "I love you, Daddy."

And somehow, people go on having children — on purpose even — knowing all the risks and aggravation and sleepless nights and grey hairs and noise and mess and time and energy and dollars and cents those kids are going to cost them. Kind of makes one think that love just may be the most powerful reason there is.

If we've agreed that there must be a Creator, but you still can't quite buy the whole trip that “God is love,” then you're going to have a very hard time imagining why on earth God would want to create creatures like us. If you would like to leave love out of the picture, it will be a little like aliens who have no emotions and no offspring coming to our planet and seeing people choosing to have and raise children. It would make zero sense to them. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you leave out love. Nothing very much about our lives, period! makes sense if you leave out love.

Of course, you could equally say, "But it doesn't make sense that God could love us or want that kind of love from us, big as He is and small as we are! It's ridiculous, really!" I can't say very much to that except, "You're right!" That the omnipotent (and all the other "omnis") Creator of the universe could desire something from us — it is a ridiculous idea. But I'm told that He does. And if I try to think out any other reason He could have made us — designed us intricately and wonderfully — I come up dry. I don't know why He would love us. That part makes no sense. But no other part makes sense without it, either.

In the beginning of the Bible (Genesis 1), we're told that God created man in His own image. Male and female, He created them in His image. There are many ways we can see that image in ourselves: in that we reason, feel, choose, create — but probably none more than this — in that we love. And I think He created us to love and be loved and to perpetuate our own species out of a desire to love and be loved so that we would have some small idea about the nature of His nature.

Do we begin to see glimmerings of daylight as to why, why, why? Why does anything exist? Why would God create? Because “God is love.” He desired to love and be loved. He desired to create an object upon which to pour out that love that would be capable of loving Him in return. But in order for it really to be love that was returned, that object that He created had to be free. That means that the object for His love that He created would be free to choose. To love Him or not to love Him. And that opens up for us a whole 'nuther can of worms. Remember this “love must be free” concept because it is pivotal and comes up again next chapter.

Let's recap: What can we deduce about this Creator that we agreed last chapter there must be? As mentioned, He's a whole lot smarter than we are. He's a whole lot more powerful. Those points we can see, not only from what the Bible says about Him (which could be ruled inadmissible evidence at this point), but from what all of nature would tell us about Him.

But what about the Creator being loving? Do we have any practical, everyday evidence from our own experience that God is love? I think we do. Remember all those gifts I've kept on and on about this chapter? At the top of the list is the existence of love. How else could we explain the existence of love if it didn't come from this Creator?

And second on the list is the existence of anything. If we take love out of the picture, we could stand around and scratch our heads from now till kingdom come and not be any closer to coming up with a reason why God should have bothered to create anything at all. If we put “God is love” back into the picture, we can at least partially understand it. We were made to love and be loved. First and foremost. But in order to be able to love, we had to be free to choose.

But if God is love and created out of love, what went wrong? Can you see where I'm going with this? If not, stick around for the next chapter. We're going to tackle the bad news next.

______________________________

1 — Frederick C. Kubicek, Evolution, Guilty as Charged (Shippensburg, PA: Treasure House, an imprint of Destiny Image, 1993), 95

PART II

The Problem

Chapter 7

"You Will Be Like God …"

Imagine a scenario with me for a moment. Imagine us stepping through the doors of the local high school, and the first thing that greets our eyes is a mess. There's a boy sprawled spread-eagle on the floor; there are his books and papers lying every which way; there's his pencil case spilled open and pencils and pens scattered all over the floor; there are his broken glasses beside him. Now, what happened?

"Well, isn't it obvious?" you ask me. "An accident happened. The boy tripped or something." On the one hand, sure it seems obvious. Where we have a mess, we usually assume an accident. We wouldn't expect to find an accident producing anything other than a mess. We wouldn't expect that the boy would trip on the rug and go flying only to have his books all land in a neat stack in alphabetical order according to subject or his pencils land in positions that formed the letters of his name. We would only expect to find that degree of arrangement by design.

But is the vice versa automatically true? Sure, an accident is only going to produce a mess. But does it follow that a mess can only be produced by an accident?

Now, you might not be with me so far. If you're of the belief that the whole universe came about by accident, you might be protesting that accident can produce more than just pure mess. But what I'm saying is, from our own observation, when the cause has been observed to be accident, the observed effect is mess.

Still, you might protest, "What about all those accidental discoveries that produced great inventions?!" (I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head where I know for sure this happened. I have only vague images of apples bouncing off Sir Isaac's head or Ben Franklin playing with kites in thunderstorms, but for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. Let's say many great inventions have come about through accidental discoveries.) However, there is a difference between discovery and cause.

Let's imagine another tripping scenario: this time one of a man tripping over a tree root. Or what he takes to be a tree root. But after he examines it closely, he realizes it isn't a tree root at all and after digging it up to see what it is, he discovers that he tripped over buried treasure. Now, it was an accident that caused him to discover the buried treasure. Did the accident of his tripping cause the buried treasure in any way? Or was it there all the time just waiting to be discovered? I'd agree that things may be discovered by accident (or what we call accident, anyway. Personally, I don't believe in accident at all, but that's a subject for another time), but not that the things discovered are caused by the accident.

Don't forget that accidents are not a cause unto themselves. Even accidents must have a cause. If I smashed my car into a telephone pole, the nice Mr. Policeman would get very tired of me if I kept insisting to him that there was no cause for the accident; that it was just an accident, that's all, and it needed no cause. He'd want to know if I'd been hitting the sauce or if I was asleep at the wheel or if the roads were icy or if something had gone wrong with the car or any number of other reasons. And if it was a case of the car malfunctioning, then there was still some cause for it. Maybe it was my carelessness or the factory's negligence, or it could have been sabotage. And here we see again that what looks like accident may not always be accidental.

Let's go back to our high-school hallway. Now let's picture the school bully standing over the boy on the floor. "Oops! Sorry!" he says, "I didn't mean to. It was an accident."

At this point, we'd have to have a little more data to know if what we were observing was, in fact, the result of an accident or not — to decide if the boy tripped or if he was tripped. We'd have to know something about the character of the bully. We'd have to know something of the relations between the boy on the floor and the bully. And an eyewitness who saw the whole thing would be nice. But based purely on the results we're looking at, we have no way of knowing whether the mess came about by accident or if it was caused on purpose.

When we look at our world, we see plenty of evidence for design and order and rhyme and reason. I premise that these could not have happened by accident. However, we also see plenty of mess and disorder. Based on the mess and disorder, a lot of people have been convinced that the world must have happened by accident. But given the existence of the design and order, I don't think we could blame the whole world on an accident. So then, what about the mess and disorder part of the world?

Last chapter I talked a lot about that side of nature that is benevolent. We do see that nature has a side of it that appears malevolent. Is it reasonable to think that came about by accident?

More reasonable than thinking the design and order part of the world did, sure. But remember that while accident produces nothing other than mess and disorder, mess and disorder may be caused on purpose. Because of the design, order, rhyme, reason, beauty, and meaning that pervade our world, I think we have pretty good evidence for an intelligent, powerful, loving Creator. Yet mess, disorder, chaos, and ugliness pervade our world, as well. If we blame it on accident, then we have to say that the powerful Creator wasn't powerful enough to keep accidents from messing up His creation. Or if He caused the mess, He couldn't be very loving, could He? So what are our options?

These are huge questions that we're going to attempt this chapter. I don't imagine I'll be able to answer them to your total satisfaction. I don't imagine I'll be able to answer them to my total satisfaction. But yet the answers I've seen and heard make more sense to me than any of the alternatives I can imagine.

Some time ago, I attended a talent show at the local high school. The show was heavily laden with dramatic monologues, mostly railing against "life, the universe, and everything" (especially parents). Pessimism is in fashion, apparently. One young man acted the part of a man in a strait jacket. He rolled around on the stage, doing his own railing at "life, the universe, and everything" (especially God). I don't remember his closing line exactly, but I remember the attitude behind it clearly. It was, "You had no business letting everything get in such a mess, so I'll show you! Just for that, I'm not going to believe in you!"

I'm not mocking the young man. I feel for him, actually. It does seem to all of us at times that the world is full of suffering and pain and ugliness. And our natural response is anger. In fact, in the monologue, anger was its most visible feature. But why would the young man be angry?

If the young man in the strait jacket was right in his conclusion that there is no God, then all he'd have left to blame for the mess is pure accident and impersonal causes, and there's no point getting mad at them. No point calling anything "good" or "evil" or "order" or "disorder" or "beauty" or "ugliness" or even "love" or "hate." All that's left to do is shrug the shoulders and say, "Ha, ha! Oh well, that's evolution for you!"

But looking at our world, we see things that work, but we also see that something has sneaked in to gum up the works. For the sake of brevity, let's sum up all the mess — all the things that don't work — under the simple heading "evil." And because of the order and good we see that couldn't have come about through simple accident, we have some data for interpreting the evil we see. Because there is purpose out there, we know that it's possible that evil may not be an accident, either.

But I've told you that God is a God of love. If so, we would call a God of love a good God. Is it possible He gummed up His own works? Is it possible a good God could cause evil? Obviously, I don't think so. So how do I account for the existence of evil?

There's an old conundrum that no one has ever been able to answer satisfactorily. It goes something like this: Evil exists. If God desires evil to exist, He is not perfectly loving. If God does not desire evil to exist, He is not all-powerful because evil exists.

Let's examine each leg of this conundrum in turn to see if both of them will bear all the weight of the argument placed on them.

Is it possible that God is not all-powerful? Not very. Right from the start, we were forced into an admission of God the Creator because of things like DNA and photosynthesis and the alignment of the planets and architect sponges and all like that. It's hard to imagine that a God who could create all the other natural laws would let a little thing like the second law of thermodynamics sneak up on Him and catch Him by surprise. I can't believe that God ever says, "Oops!" So let's discard that option for the moment.

That would leave us with, "God is not perfectly loving." Besides the fact that this is not a very comforting idea and would make any of us want to roll around in strait jackets, it doesn't add up intellectually. Here we are, faced with the reality of all we call "good" with love heading the list. We're forced to admit (or I am) that these things couldn't have come along by accident. Then we're faced with the reality of all we call "evil." Because the idea that God is not able to keep accidents out of His creation is a not a very realistic one, we're led to believe that evil is not an accident. If we decide that God has caused the evil or desires the evil, we would be right to decide that God is not perfectly loving. The only answer we could arrive at is that God is a sort of cruel jokester. He made goodness and beauty and love and put a desire for these things in all of us and then turned around and laughed in our faces because that's not His true character and that's not the true character of reality. The human existence would not be about love and beauty. It would be about being the butt of a cruel joke.

In the high school talent show monologue, it was this idea of a cosmic cruel jokester that was the source of the anger. You can understand why the young man's costume was a strait jacket. This is an idea that would make anyone crazy. The only thing that would keep us from wanting to get out of such an existence was the thought that the Almighty Jokester had something worse planned for us afterwards. I'm afraid this is how a lot of people see God, and so many decide not to believe in Him at all rather than believe in such a God. If this was a true picture of God, of course, our anger would be justified. If this was the sort of God He was, we would all be right to shake our fists in His face even if there was no hope of winning.

But wait a minute! There's that word "right" again. It's indicative of a standard of some sort. Remember, we've run into this problem before. If this standard that I'm trying to live by is my standard and my standard only, there's no point in talking about a real right and a real wrong. There's no sense pretending that one standard could be better than another. This idea was hard enough to wrap our minds around when we were only comparing between different human standards. This cosmic-cruel-jokester idea of God puts this moral relativism on a whole new plane. Now we're forced to compare our standard to our Maker's. If His standard allows Him to torment us just for fun, we would all be driven to say that our standard is better. But the starting point for this idea is that we only have our standard or our desire for goodness and love because He gave it to us in order to torment us. In that case, we would be better off not to let Him have the last laugh. We would be better off to fight against all those desires in us for good, beauty, and love and admit there are no such things.

Are you prepared to do that? Are you prepared to settle into an existential hell of insanity of your own making? I'm not. So I reject the option that I could be better than my Creator. I reject the option that God is not perfectly loving. (To admit to anything less than perfect love in an all-powerful Creator is to admit to the kind of monster I've described. If He is all-powerful and could be perfectly loving, but chooses not to, He's not loving at all.)

Real-life, practical, everyday experience is enough to restrain me from believing in a cosmic cruel jokester. I don't see the cruel joke and evil happening on a cosmic level. I see it happening in every pie humanity gets its fingers into.

Yes, I see even on a natural level that everything is going downhill. Everything is heading for a state of maximum disorder. I do see the truth of the second law for all levels of nature, but I see it accelerated to unbelievable speeds when it hits our level. It would appear to me that the main problem is not with the way things were made. The main problem is with us. However, we are also part of the things that were made. What could have gone so drastically wrong with us? Good question. We'll get to it.

Where does that leave us? That leaves me in absolute rejection of both of the options in the old conundrum. What does that mean? That means I reject the conundrum as faulty. Is it possible there's a fallacy in the way the conundrum was stated?

Let's go back over the conundrum. "Evil exists." Check. I agree; it does. "If God desires evil to exist, He cannot be perfectly loving." Yes, I would say so. "If God does not desire evil to exist, He can't be all-powerful because evil exists." Wait a minute! I think we have our fallacy. I think we found a weak spot in the fence. The assumption is that if God is all-powerful, only what He desires is possible. That's assuming that desire and will are the same thing. That's a faulty assumption, and we all know it.

Every morning I get out of bed to go to my job. Do I desire to get out of bed? No, I do not. Do I have control over my getting out of bed? Yes, I do. I don't have to get out of bed. I could quit my job. But I choose to keep getting out of bed because the keeping-of-the-job and the being-able-to-pay-rent-and-buy-groceries are the desired results. The getting out of bed is the unpleasant byproduct. But an unavoidable one.

Is it possible to imagine a scenario where God would allow evil as a byproduct because His desired result could only happen with the possibility of evil built-in? Where He considered the desired result worth all the byproduct that He knew would accompany it? Where He went ahead with His desired result because of His great desire for the desired result? Where He could use even the results of the resulting byproduct to work out His desired result? Yes, it's possible to imagine such a scenario. We'll talk more about it in a moment. In fact, examining that scenario will be the business of the rest of this book. That scenario is the larger story of the Book we call the Bible.

So what's my answer to the old conundrum? My answer is that I don't have one. It's the conundrum that's at fault; not the people who've tried and failed to answer it.

The conundrum has another form: "God is good. Evil exists. If nothing could exist unless God created it, God must have created evil. How could a good God create evil?" To quickly point out the fallacy in this one, who says that everything that exists must have been created by God? I would only agree that God created everything that has been created; that God created everything that exists ... except evil. The faulty assumption is that nothing could exist unless God created it.

How do I explain this to science and the first law of thermodynamics which says that no energy can be created or destroyed (except by a Creator)? In other words, no energy is self-created. I'd explain it very simply. I'd say that energy and evil are not the same thing.

Am I splitting hairs? Am I messing around with semantics when real people need real answers? I don't think so.

I think that evil is not a created thing. I think it is not a thing desired by God. I think it is a thing allowed to exist by God. I think the way God chose to do things was the best possible way there could be (if there were any other possible ways). I think the good that comes from the way God chose to do things is so much greater than the evil that rode along on its coattails that in the end, the good swallows the evil up, uses what it can use (all the results of the evil), and spits out what it can't use (the evil itself). Evil gets dealt with (in the end). And I think God thought the good so worthwhile that He did things the way He did them.

Now, all these statements need a lot of clarifying and defending. I hope to provide you with a little biblical evidence for my statements, just to see if all I'm saying here is, in fact, what the Bible says. We'll also take a look at the evidence of our own six senses to see if what the Bible says lines up with the observations we can make of our own reality.

The Bible says that, "...God is not the author of confusion..." (I Corinthians 14:33a.). It also says that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [...] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:1, 3, italics mine).

There's a lot more to these verses than I'm going to point out here. For the sake of our discussion, just look at the parts that tell us that God did not originate confusion. Still, confusion, mess, disorder, and every other thing that's wrapped up in the word "evil" exist. How? Notice from the book of John that God made everything that was made. If He didn't make confusion, and He made everything that was made, then confusion and evil were not made. Thus, evil is not a created thing according to the Bible.

Evil is permitted to exist for now, but it is not a thing desired by God. He hates it, and will spit it out in the end. It must and will be dealt with. "For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you" (Psalm 5:4, NRSV). He can't keep evil around. He can't abide it forever.

And now, my last point: that good trumps evil; that it swallows up evil (or its consequences); that God can use all the results of evil — at least, for those who choose the good and not the evil. The Bible says, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). And it says, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure” (2 Corinthians 4:17, NRSV).

That's the biblical back-up for my statements. Let's look now at the evidence of our own six senses.

Even without using the Bible as a starting point, could we arrive at any hypothesis for the origin of evil, given the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God?

I've wrestled with this question for days at a time. If God created everything good, how was evil possible? If evil wasn't made, where did it come from?

The first thing I could see after beating my brains against it for a few days is that evil has only a negative existence.

Darkness may be comparable to evil. Darkness has reality, certainly, but its reality is purely negative. It's only the absence of light. (Of course, when it's three o'clock in the morning and there are three long hours between you and daylight and sleep has fled for the night, the darkness can seem very big and very powerful and very overwhelming.) But what happens to darkness when the sun rises? Where does it go? It doesn't “go” anywhere. It never really was, all on its own. It exists only because light exists.

Evil, like darkness, has no original nature. It has no existence apart from good. The absence of good is evil, or good misplaced becomes evil. Evil is always only a lack or a perversion or a corruption or a twisting of something good.

Let's try an experiment: Name something that you consider evil. Isn't it made possible only by the existence of something good? The good thing had to come first. What about war? Life had to exist before death could exist. Death is the absence of life. Life had to exist before it could be taken in war. And war can only exist because there's a right and a wrong and two sides are disagreeing about which is which. Right had to exist before wrong could exist and before anyone could disagree about them. As John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, "Where there is no good for which to strive, no strife can grow up there." Murder? The wrongful taking of a human life? Again, life had to exist and right had to exist before any life could be wrongfully taken.

After I thought about it for awhile, I could see that evil need not have been a created thing because it's a lack or a misuse or a misplacement or a corruption of something good. But I couldn't figure out how that corruption was possible in the first place.

I mulled over a few more specific evils. Lying? Just a skewing of truth; truth is the good thing that had to come first. Sexual perversion? A twisting of a good thing. Greed? Too much of a good thing. Pride? Hey! What about pride? It's sometimes called the original sin. What good thing could pride have been originally?

After thinking it through, I realized that pride and conceit really don't have any counterpart for good in us. There is nothing in us that was originally a good form of pride. We talk as though it can be a good thing. "Take pride in yourself;" "You deserve the very best," and all the rest. But when we meet someone who has taken that advice to heart and thinks he's Numero Uno, we don't find it a very pleasant trait, do we? We don't mind our own various, little conceits but none of us appreciates them in anyone else. We talk about being proud of someone else like it's a good thing, but that's because it's a very different thing than being proud of oneself. In a sense, being proud of someone else is the opposite of true pride — which is, by its nature, self-focused.

Another term we could use for pride is "selfishness" because the two are essentially the same. Pride says simply, "ME, ME, ME!"

Normally, the vice is the negative of the positive virtue. In the case of pride, it's the other way around. Humility is the negative. Humility is the lack of pride rather than pride being the lack of humility. It's the same deal with selfishness. Unselfishness is simply the lack of selfishness. Pride and selfishness are positive not negative realities, it would seem. Not incidental but original.

We could argue that all evils grow out of this one root. Isn't it true? You name it; if it's a bad thing we do, we do it because we're listening to the voice inside our heads that's shouting, "Me first! I'm going to do what I want to do! ME, ME, ME!"

But isn't it odd that pride seems to have something of originality about it? If God created everything good and all the other evils are un-created parasites of good, where did pride come from? It couldn't have sprung up on its own because it appears to have been cut from whole cloth — made from original material.

These are the ideas I was turning over in my head for days. I couldn't find any way to account for the original nature of pride. There was no place for pride in all of God's creation.

Then, from out of somewhere, an answer occurred to me. If evil is only misplaced good, and pride, being evil, must have its proper place, there is only one place possible where pride could not be evil. Only, we would never call it pride in that place.

See, what we are really saying through our selfishness, what we really mean when we inwardly shout, "ME, ME, ME!" is, "I will be god. If I can't be the god of any other thing, I will be the god of me." Remember earlier, the definition of god came up as, "The one in control." If we can't control any other thing, at least we want the final control of our own lives. And that is how I would define pride. The decision to be god. Even in a small way. Even just of me. It's a matter of the will and of pitting our wills against God's.

But is it wrong, is it evil, for God to decide to be God, to want to be Number One? Of course not! He really is Numero Uno. He really is the One in control. He is God. But for anyone else to say to himself, "I will be god," and usurp his Maker's rightful place in his life, it is evil and breeds every other kind of evil.

So I saw in a flash that what in us is pride is not made of original material, either. It, too, is only a misplacement. Its proper place belongs to God and only God. If anyone says to himself what is right for God alone to say, it becomes pride and evil.

“But what's so bad about wanting control? Just of my own life? Isn't it more evil to want to control someone else? Why would a good God seek to control us? Why shouldn't we all have control over our own lives?” you might be asking at this point.

I'll put the questions in your mouth because they were the exact questions in my mind as I was thinking through the question I asked you earlier, “Is it wrong for God to decide to be God?”

Why would a good God seek to control us? Trying to answer that question will lay the final piece into place in our hypothesis for the origin of evil (but we'll get there...in a moment).

Why shouldn't we all have control over our own lives? That's a harder question for me to answer. I suspect a kink in my own nature as being the thing that makes it a hard question to answer.

When I told you in Chapter Five that, “The majority of us does not want there to be a God!” I wasn't putting you down if you happen to belong to that majority. I happen to belong to it myself. (There's still a part of me that does, at any rate). The majority who resents the existence of God is a vast majority — as in, all of us. The truth is, by nature, none of us wants there to be a God!

What's my authority for saying so? Just the authority of being human and having a human nature to peer into. When I peer in, I'm afraid I can still see that kink I mentioned. I also can't help seeing it in the natures of everyone I know. We're all control freaks. All of us have that little voice on the inside that shouts, “Me first! ME, ME, ME!” There's a piece of all of us that wants control. All of us want the final say in our own lives.

It's only by an act of grace that I could also tell you truthfully in Chapter Five that I now want there to be a God. (That act of grace is available to all, but that's a subject for another chapter.)

But back to, “Why would a good God seek to control us?”

Is it wrong for God to decide to be God? No! God is God. But although I admit that God is God — that God is the One in control — I find that the only answer I can come up with to the question, “Why would a good God seek to control us?” is this astonishing one: “He doesn't!”

And with that answer, the last piece for a hypothesis for the origin of evil falls into place. And what I see when that last piece falls into place is not only a piece with a straight edge but a piece that begins to reveal to me a little of the beauty of the Big Picture.

Though God is the One in control, God is also love. And remember that love must be free. Love can only be the result of choice freely made. So God chooses not to control us against our wills. Because He is love, He chose to create creatures of free choice. Creatures capable of existing outside of His control — not of His ultimate control of the world because He cannot be any other than God. But He could create creatures that He could choose not to control unless they chose His control. If any love between Himself and those creatures was to be possible, that was how it had to be. They had to be free.

Why do we see it as an evil when one person seeks to control another? I believe because that kind of behaviour is not love. Love does not strive for control. Love frees. Love gives choices.

Because love is not selfish.

We don't find the attitude that shouts, “ME, ME, ME!” displayed in love. And interestingly, neither do we find that kind of attitude displayed by God (at least, not the God of the Bible). Though He is God and He is in control and He is Numero Uno, we do not find God shouting, “Me first! ME, ME, ME!” (We'll see that in the chapters to come. Boy! Will we see it!)

Love says to the beloved, “You first. YOU, YOU, YOU!” In the famous “love” chapter of the Bible, we find, in a summation of what love is, that love “...does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor. 13:5, NRSV). If God is love, then we could very properly trade “God” for “love.” “God does not insist on His own way.” Love says, “Not what I will but what you will” (see Luke 22:42). If I'm not speaking rank blasphemy here, I believe (in one sense) that this is the very thing God says to the creatures of free will He made.

And that is the only hypothesis I have for the origin of evil. It was not God's will (His desire) that evil should exist, that the story would go the way the story has gone, but because of the nature of the love that He is, He refused to impose His will upon us.

In a bizarre twist of plot, when looked at right side up, the existence of evil — the one reason many reject the idea of a loving God — is yet just one more pointer towards, “God is love.”

Now. To get back to that question I found harder to answer: “Why shouldn't we all have control over our own lives?” let me share some thoughts that helped me down the road to an answer.

It struck me on thinking through this subject one time that, from our own experience, we know that love and altruism are not precisely the same. Love does, in fact, look for payback. It does look for a reward. But the reward it looks for is just the delight of loving and being loved. Love does seek its own happiness, but the happiness of the one who loves is all wrapped up in the happiness of the one loved. To love another is not to hate oneself. Love doesn't deny Self for the sake of denying Self. It denies Self for the sake of another. It realizes that the only path to finding oneself is to lose oneself in another. Love is not selfish, but neither is unselfishness an end in itself for love. The opposite of self-centredness is not just un-self-centredness. It's other-centredness. The opposite of selfishness is not just unselfishness. It's relationship. The opposite of pride is not just humility. It's love.

“Why shouldn't we all have control over our own lives?” We do! All of us want the final say in our own lives, and lo and behold, we have it! God gives it to us. Because He is love. But when I decide that I must be in control of me, why must that decision be a wrong one? Why must that choice be an evil one and the root of every other evil that exists? Why couldn't I choose to have control over my own life but still make good choices? Why does it seem (from looking at our world) that the decision to be the god of myself will and must end badly?

Things will end badly for me unless I willingly turn over the controls to God. Unless I admit that He is God and I am not. Unless I give Him His rightful place as the God of my life. Unless I say to Him, “You first! YOU, YOU, YOU!” Unless I say, “Not what I will but what you will.” Why? Because of love.

When I begin to see that this is the kind of love that God is and that He extends to us, I have an easier time understanding why I must respond to Him in kind. I must at least begin an attempt at this kind of love for Him. Anything else only adds to the mess.

Whether we see it or not, I believe that “I must be in control of me,” grows out of, “I want what I want. ME, ME, ME!” And if love is the opposite of pride and relationship is the opposite of selfishness and other-centredness is the opposite of self-centredness, then pride, selfishness, and self-centredness by their very natures can produce only evil in the end. They stand opposed to the nature of God — which is essentially other-centred and relational. He is love. And the opposite of God could only be evil.

That's why we find that evil is a negative. Because God could not and would not if He could create evil to give people the choice between good and evil. Though choice must be given in order for love to be free, the only choice to be made was, "God or not-God." God over Self or Self over God. It's all the thousands of years of "not-God" choices that history bears witness to.

But doesn't God want us to give Him the controls? Won't He take control if we give it to Him? Yes, He will. That is the ideal state where I want to end up — with God in control. Of me.

We see from parent-child relationships that things go well only when the proper person with the right credentials is in charge. But things also go well only when the submission of the other party is a willing one.

Only He is God. Only He is all-wise, all-powerful, and all-loving. Things go well only when He's in control. But He will only take control of me if I choose. So when He's in control of me, His control over my life is what both of us want. It's a decision both of us made. And that state of affairs means that I am still free.

From personal experience, I can tell you that when God is in control, He is not controlling. He still believes in freedom (hence the reason Christians can look very messy).

I've said that evil was not a created thing. We can see how evil could exist without being created if it began as the usurping of God's rightful place. I've said God does not desire evil to exist. If He created humanity for the sole purpose of having His love returned, we can see that evil is not His desire. I've said that God allows evil. There had to be a real choice. It had to be possible to choose "not-God." Evil is the byproduct of that real freedom. I've said the way He chose to do things was the best way possible. I think we could see that the gift of love freely given is a thing of far greater value than anything. It must be worth it to Him. Even to us. Remember that the human race goes on having offspring. I've said that in the end good will swallow up the evil for those who choose God. We can admit it's a theoretical possibility, considering the negative character of evil, although imaginatively, we don't see how it can be. That's because we're stuck at three o'clock in the morning, lying awake, wondering if the night will ever end.

There are other hypotheses put forward to explain the existence of evil: one being that it doesn't really exist; it's an illusion. Let me make it very clear that is not the position I've been propounding in this chapter. It's a very different position from the assertion that evil is real, though negative. Evil and good are not essentially the same thing, not just two sides of the same coin, as some say. Although evil has a negative reality, it is the opposite of the good. Evil is not just good disguised, although God brings very good things out of the consequences of evil. But evil is evil. God brings good out of its consequences, but the thing itself must be destroyed. There is nothing redeemable about evil itself. Don't we all feel this ourselves with the justifiable anger we have towards what is evil (that is, someone else's evil)?

Another idea that tries to account for the origin of evil is called dualism. Dualism says that there are two equal and opposing forces and the good is not responsible for the evil at all. In other words, to go back to our old conundrum, the road taken is that God is not all-powerful. There is an evil force just as powerful.

This may get us around the old conundrum, but it doesn't fly; for the reason which we've discussed that evil has a derivative nature. Good and evil just do not seem to be equals. There is no creative power about evil. It is always destructive. It always takes something good and ruins it. As Frodo said once upon a time in Middle Earth, "The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them;"1

If there are two powers, it looks very much to me like the Good Power (a.k.a: God) must have been the original and creating Power, and the Evil Power (we'll get there in a minute to find out what the Evil Power is a.k.a.) is the derived and the created power.

Now that we've hypothesized together about the origin of evil, let's turn to the Bible and see how our hypothesis lines up with what the Bible teaches.

I've focused our hypothesis mainly on the origin of evil at our level, but we could start by seeing what the Bible says about the original origin of evil. It didn't start with us.

Dualism is right on the money in one regard, according to the Bible. The Bible does indeed teach that there is an Evil Power out there and it (he), like God, is not just a force or a “principle” (whatever that means) but a person — a mind. This lines up with what we've reasoned about God being too powerful to allow accidents into His creation. What we see from our experience as malevolent is a purposeful malevolence. Otherwise, if the evil is not purposeful, that brings us back to the discarded option of accidental evil and God not being powerful enough to keep accidents out of His creation. If the evil force is purposeful, then the evil force is personal. Only persons can do things on purpose.

But the Bible also teaches that God and the Evil Power are not equals. It gives us clues as to the origin of the Evil Power: he was a created being — a being created good but a being who became evil through his own gift of free will.

What I've been hypothesizing in this chapter lines up very closely to what the Bible has to say about where evil came from in the first place. (Coincidentally? No, I cheated by looking at the answers in the Book.) There was a power created good that turned evil by deciding, "I will be god!" By deciding it was better to "reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n."2 As a result, that Evil Power is very desirous to do what it can to destroy us. The mess and disorder that is part of our reality is no accident. There is a bully standing over us, sneering. And I believe we have an eyewitness account in the Bible to tell us (or at least throw out a few, veiled hints) as to how it all happened.

The Bible doesn't say very much about the origin of this Evil Power we call Satan or the Devil and the rest of the demons or evil spirits. It has plenty to say about their existence, as well as the existence of other good spirit-beings called angels, but not much to say about their origin. We can know that they are all created beings. If they weren't created, then they've always existed, but only God is eternal (1 Tim. 6:16).

The Bible also states that there were angels who fell from their proper place. And then it give us glimpses into how the whole thing happened. 2 Peter 2:4 says, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment [...]" and also in Jude 6, "And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day" (Jude 6, NRSV).

Isaiah 14 talks about someone it calls "the king of Babylon," and no doubt was written about the king of Babylon. But if you'll look into it, you'll find that a lot of what's in the Bible has more than one meaning. It seems very likely that Isaiah 14 is a picture of how Satan turned evil.

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God [...] I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High'” (Isa. 14:12-14, NRSV).

Take Ezekiel 28 as another hint. Very much the same idea as Isaiah 14, only written about a different person, the king of Tyre. It says this:

[...]Because your heart is proud and you have said, “I am a god; I sit in the seat of the gods,” [...] yet you are but a mortal, and no god [...] You were in Eden, the garden of God [...] With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you [...] You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you [...] Your heart was proud because of your beauty [...] (Ezek. 28:2, 13-15, 17, NRSV).

(A cherub is a type of angel.) Again, a fall through pride; the decision to choose Self over God; the decision, “I am a god!”

The point of all my hypothesizing earlier was to point out that love must be free. God made us free to choose Him — to choose to love and obey Him — or to choose against Him. Does this hypothesis for evil's origin work when we're talking about spirit-beings? Were angels created with the gift of free will, as well?

I think, from the hints we've seen about Satan being a fallen angel who thought he could be God, that, yes, it is pretty clear that angels have or had free will, too.

But there are differences between humans and angels that we see in the exercise of their free wills. By way of illustration, let's think about servants and kids. Angels are God's servants, the Bible tells us (Hebrews 1:7). Humans are His kids (John 1:12). Both servants and kids have free will of a kind, but they are different. A servant's free will is more of an absolute kind. Certainly, a servant can choose to defy and disobey his master. Once.

Kids do it all the time, but because there is a different relationship and a different responsibility, kids are not expelled from the house. Kids decide daily that they're going to be masters of the house. But for a servant to decide one time that he's going to be the master, well, you see how it is. That decision can't be reversed. If an employee plots to take over the company from the CEO, are the two of them going to be able to work together? One will have to go. Rebellious and disobedient kids can be redeemed. Rebellious and disobedient servants can't.

That's an illustration that makes sense to me, anyway. If it helps you, well and good. If not, it's just an illustration. Facts are what counts, and I think there's good evidence for the fact of the fall of some of God's servants through their own pride. At least the Bible calls it fact, and I have no reason to think it's not.

True, angels and demons and Satan are not part of my straight edges. Their existence is not something I would have figured out for myself just by looking around at my piece or two of reality. But if anyone right now is saying to himself, "Don't tell me anyone seriously believes in supernatural beings — angels and demons and a devil and so forth! It's all complete nonsense," I'd be curious to hear his reasoning.

Likely, it would go something like: "Well, because there just couldn't be any such things, that's all. No adult of normal intelligence could believe in them. It's feeblemindedness. A person might as well believe in fairies."

So, in effect, what that person would be telling me is that nothing could exist unless he knows about it. And if he doesn't know about it and hasn't experienced it, it can't possibly exist. But remember those far-off galaxies and those deep-sea creatures we haven't discovered yet? A great many things found (or not found yet) in nature are stranger and more fantastical than this idea of spirit-beings. But it's called education. Unless a person wants to admit that he could never learn anything else because he at present knows everything he ever will, such a person must at least leave room for the possibility of the existence of spirit-beings.

As a matter of fact, I don't happen to believe in fairies. There's a reason for it. I've never met anyone who seriously claims to believe in them. I don't know anyone who's ever seen one. There's no reliable source telling me there are fairies. However, if a person I knew well and knew to be trustworthy, who had never told me a lie about anything else and who I knew didn't do any kind of hallucinogenic drugs, confided to me seriously that she had seen fairies, dancing in a ring under the moonlight, I'm afraid I would be at least bound to consider her claims and be open to the possibility of their being true.

Especially in a case such as the one at hand where we can look around us and see the results the bully has had on our world, it does seem more reasonable to believe in foul play — in some kind of purposeful and therefore personal Evil Power out there — particularly as a reliable source that I've never found to lie about anything else seriously affirms such a belief.

So far, it looks to me as though evil was uncreated but possible because of free will. Then I can see that pride, the decision, "I will be god," was very likely the start of it all. And there does seem to be an Evil Power at work in the world. We can hypothesize that this Evil Power started off good and fell because of pride. And so far, the Bible only confirms observation.

But where did it go from there? Why does it affect every one of us now? Let's bring it down to our level next.

What does the Bible say on the subject of humanity's fall?

In Genesis 3, we find the first man and the first woman, living in idyllic peace in their perfect garden, but they have two problems: one is a tree they've been commanded not to eat from — it's called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — and the other is a snake in the grass (or perhaps in the tree). Neither of these would have been problems if the first man and woman had gone on making good choices. But a certain someone convinced them it would be a good idea to eat from the tree. He lured them (interestingly) with this promise: “...you will be like God...” (Gen. 3:5b., NRSV). And the first man and woman gave in.

"Oh right! Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. Does anyone still really manage to swallow that whole bit about the magical tree and the talking snake and all the rest?"

Not quite. I don't believe the tree was magical. I believe it was the act of committing evil (choosing the way of, “I must be the god of me,”) that opened the eyes of the first man and woman to the difference between good and evil and got the whole ball rolling and the works gummed up. Then, I don't believe in talking snakes. I believe that the Evil Power (who has demonstrated himself, in his dealings with humanity, to be a very able communicator) took on the form of a snake (a beautiful creature at that time) to approach the woman. So the woman expressed no surprise that a “snake” was speaking to her? So what? Everything was new to her.

As to all the rest, see “reasons for believing in angels and demons.” Do I know everything there is to know? I have no problem believing that God made the first man and woman and made them perfect. So if I can believe the creation account in Genesis, I would have to admit that I can have no idea from my own knowledge what the world was like back then. I can guess that it looked pretty different from our world now.

"But why a tree? The whole thing just sounds so ridiculous. Why would the first prohibition be against eating the fruit from some tree? What could be so bad about that?"

Remember that God cannot create evil and evil had not entered the earth yet. There was no “big, bad sin” for God to prohibit. I mean, this was a big, bad sin. We just don't see it from our perspective. Nor did the first humans. But to decide that I must be my own god is always big, bad sin. None bigger and badder.

Why would the first prohibition be against eating fruit from some tree? I see some awesome symbolism happening here. Remember that food is life to us. It's a life-source we are all dependent upon. It seems to me that the choice offered the first humans was, “Will you choose dependence on Me as your life-source? Or will you choose 'not-God' — independence from Me? I must warn you that the second choice is no life at all. It's death.”

"But," you say to me, "Of course they were going to eat from the tree they weren't supposed to eat from. It's only human nature. Give someone a prohibition, and you're asking for trouble. Why would God have to give them this prohibition? Wouldn't He know they'd be bound to break it? It's almost like He created evil by creating a prohibition."

Well, you're thinking from our point of view. You and I were not born into a perfect, new world. We were born into a fallen world where every one of us seems to have a kink in our natures. Forbidden fruit seems sweeter to us because of something gone wrong in our appetites.

As to why God would give them a prohibition in the first place, remember that love and obedience to God has to be a matter of choice. The Evil Power tries to make us see God giving us prohibitions as God taking away freedom. The exact opposite is the truth. If freedom is simply the ability to make choices, then without some form of prohibition for the man and woman to obey or disobey, there were no choices. They were not, in fact, free.

Of course there are many who believe the Bible without taking the first few chapters of Genesis literally. They would see this account as a kind of an allegory to explain how evil entered the world. They would take the principles literally and take the rest as poetry. For reasons time will not permit, I do take the first few chapters of Genesis literally. But that doesn't need to be our issue here. What I hope you can see is that what we've been hypothesizing about the origin of evil from our own reality is not a far cry from the principles found in Genesis 3 about the choice the first humans made.

And the results of that choice and our own we see all around us every day.

______________________________

1 — J.R.R Tolkien, The Return of the King Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991), 190

2 — Milton, Paradise Lost

Chapter 8

Suffering and the Second Law

“But wait a minute! Sure, I can see that we're responsible for a large part of the mess, but what about all the suffering that's not caused by human wrongdoing? What about cancer and other diseases? What about earthquakes and hurricanes and other natural disasters? What about babies that are born deformed?”

Nature is beautiful to us, but there's another sense in which nature seems to be the enemy. In fact, although in Chapter Six I went off in raptures about the beauties of nature, the truth is that I wouldn't particularly like to spend a night all by myself in the woods with nothing between me and the beauties of nature.

In ways, we seem to be at war with nature. Or nature is at war with us. And at war with itself.

"The survival of the fittest" is a double-edged sword. The fact that anything survives can be seen as evidence of a Benevolent Power in control. The fact that there is a struggle to survive is just another example of “the second law.”1

We see the second law in action all around us. It's a dog-eat-dog world. Bigger, stronger animals eat smaller, weaker animals. We eat some animals, and some animals eat us. And for none of this could we actually use the terms "right" or "wrong." It just seems to be how it is, and there doesn't seem to be anyone to take the blame. But yet, we don't like it.

Up to this point, we've used the term “evil” to mean “anything I don't happen to like” and lumped it all together. But it's true that there are evils that seem to have no direct relationship to our own personal evil that we, as humans, are responsible for.

Just setting out to write this chapter, I had that point driven home for me by a living illustration that made it very hard to write at all. I'd stepped on a bee, walking barefoot in my backyard (I don't mean the bee was walking barefoot, although granted, he probably was. Fun with dangling participles!) I was barefoot, I stepped on the (also shoeless) bee, and the results were a fat, red, puffy, unbearably-itchy foot (mine, not the bee's) and a dead bee. And who could concentrate to write about nature and our war with nature with a fat, red, puffy, unbearably-itchy foot? Yet was any evil involved in that particular instance of enmity? Whose evil was it that caused the suffering of my swollen, unbearably-itchy foot? Whose evil was it that caused the death of the poor bee? Was it my fault for walking barefoot in my backyard? Was it my fault for not seeing the bee sitting right where I wanted to step? Was it the bee's fault for doing what bees do when they're stepped on by big, barefoot galoots? No, there really was no one to blame in that incident. Yet there was suffering of a kind that took place for both of us (although the bee definitely came off worse) and no one to blame for it.

What's the Christian explanation for all the evil in the world that's not man-made? And there's plenty of it!

We're going to need to distinguish between our two types of evil here. The stuff that we just plain don't like but isn't actually morally evil, let's call "pain" or "suffering." The stuff that we know to be morally evil, I think the best and simplest term for is a little, three-letter word the Bible uses: "sin." So we have sin and we have suffering. And we do admit that they're two different things.

At least for myself, I notice a big difference between the way I react to sin and the way I react to suffering. Or in other words, the way I react to the suffering that man is directly responsible for and the way I react to other kinds of suffering. When I think about the millions that were killed in the Holocaust, I'm filled with horror. It makes a person ashamed to be human if humanity is capable of such things. Yet you do realize that a great many more people than six million have died since those days. But that doesn't fill me with the same horror at all. It's not just that six million people died that sickens me because everyone dies. The horror of sin is not simply in its results. It's in the thing itself — the arrogance and cruelty and hatred that resulted in the six million deaths. The sin part of suffering seems so much worse to me than even old age and cancers and natural disasters and unbearably-itchy feet.

I've said God could not create or cause evil (meaning, sin). Is it equally true that He could not have created or caused pain? Well, then we'd have a very hard time explaining the intricacies of the nervous system. If the Evil Power has no creative power, where did the marvellously designed alarm system we have in our bodies come from?

But am I saying that God creates or at least causes pain? That doesn't sound very loving, does it?

Well, is it wrong, is it sin, to cause pain? We usually think so, don't we? So we come up with moral codes that summarize all sin under, "It's only wrong if it hurts someone." Or maybe, "If it hurts someone, it must be wrong."

But that's not really true, is it? I hurt the bee, and the bee hurt me, but there was no sin involved. It was a case of accident on my part and self-defense on his.

There are other cases where we would have to admit it's not wrong to cause pain, all in a good cause. Is the surgeon who amputates the gangrenous or cancerous limb an evil person? How about the loving parent who disciplines a child? (And any kind of discipline must involve some form of pain or it wouldn't be discipline.) Because gangrene and cancer will do more damage than surgery will, surgery is sometimes a necessary pain. Because non-discipline will do more damage than discipline will, discipline is sometimes a necessary pain. Sufferings like amputation and discipline exist and are made necessary by much worse things than mere suffering.

I referred to the nervous system as an alarm system a moment ago. And that's what pain is — an alarm. Pain serves a very good purpose. It lets us know something's gone wrong or that we're doing something that's not good for us. It also serves as a memory aid to keep us from doing that painful and harmful thing again. The fastest way I can think of for a child to learn what, "Hot! Don't touch!" means is for the child to disobey one time.

Because of the necessity for death in our world (more on that subject a little later), pain keeps us alive, really. All the dangers out there trying to kill us prematurely are painful in some way. Think of pain like a fire alarm. True, it's not very pleasant to be awakened out of a dead sleep by what sounds like the cry of a gigantic, demented bird of prey. But it's probably more pleasant than burning to death in your bed. When you think of it like that, because of the existence of much worse things, pain may be a comparatively good thing.

But although I think we could all say that there isn't necessarily a one-to-one correlation between sin and suffering (i.e. me and the bee) and some pain may be necessary because of the existence of worse things than pain, there is some sort of undeniable connection between sin and suffering. It's the reason people come up with moral codes, like, "It's only wrong if it hurts someone," or "If it hurts someone, it's wrong." We can all see that there is connection between the two, but it's my contention that people who say things like, "It's only wrong if it hurts someone," have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. They see a relationship between sin and pain and so jump to the conclusion that, "If pain, then sin." But more accurately, the formula should be, "If sin, then pain." I mean, not, "It hurts someone; therefore, it's wrong," but, "It's wrong; therefore, it hurts someone."

I think we can see from what we've been talking about so far that it's not always wrong to cause pain. Sometimes it's just plain unavoidable, and no one's to blame. Sometimes it's right and necessary to cause a little pain. But I would also say that while suffering may not be directly the result of sin, sin will always result in suffering, and that's the stick of which a lot of people have got hold of the wrong end.

If you're having a hard time seeing what I'm saying about how sin and suffering are connected but, yet at the same time, distinguishable, let's take hitting someone over the head with a two-by-four, for instance. It's wrong, isn't it, to hit someone over the head with a two-by-four? Not at all. It's wrong to intend to hit someone over the head with a two-by-four. To have the act without the intention is not wrong. It's simply accident. And to have the intention without the act is wrong, even if the action is never carried out. Even our law admits that the wrongdoing is in the intention to do wrong. Attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder is punishable by law, even if it never works out that the murderer gets around to becoming a murderer. Even the law acknowledges that there's more to murder than its end result. And if all you had was the result but none of the intention, then you would have nothing more than accidental death which may be very unfortunate but can't really be called wrong.

Sin comes first. Suffering is secondary. So there's more to sin than just its result (which is suffering), but the result of sin is always suffering, though suffering may have causes other than a direct link to a specific sin.

But you may not agree with that whole statement. Does sin always result in suffering? After all, if I only intend to hit you over the head but something prevents it and you never end up getting hit over the head, no one got hurt, right? If a potential murderer only intends to murder and never gets around to it, then no one gets hurt, do they? But yet if the sin was in the intent, then the sin was already committed though no suffering resulted.

Oh really? I don't believe it. I don't believe that no suffering resulted. I don't believe I could intend to hit you over the head but then restrain myself from hurting you in that way without hurting you in a thousand other little ways. The damage that evil intention would have on our relationship would come out somewhere. And I don't believe I could intend to hit you over the head without doing damage to my own inner person. If no one else is hurt through a person's sin, I maintain that the person himself is hurt by it. We may not recognize it, but sin hurts the sinner. Always. Even if no one else knows about it, my sin always hurts me.

Now with a God in the picture, we have to take into account the possibility that it always hurts God, too.

Besides, who gets to say what hurts and what doesn't? We'd all have different viewpoints on that matter. That's another problem with the moral code of, "It's only wrong if it hurts someone." Who gets to say what hurts? The shoplifter tells himself, "It's not hurting anyone. So what's the big deal?" But don't ask the shoplifter. Ask the shopkeeper. The perpetrator is not the best one to decide if it hurts someone.

It's my contention that someone always gets hurt as a result of sin, although it's not just the resulting suffering that makes the thing sin, and suffering may be caused in other ways than through an immediate sin. I guess that sums up my position on the connection between suffering and sin.

So if we could agree that it's not always wrong to cause suffering, then we could consider the possibility that God caused suffering. Not sin, but suffering.

Does that sound completely foreign to what I've told you about a God of love? We Christians never like to talk as though God could cause pain. We'll say He "allows" it. But again, how else can we explain our "fearfully and wonderfully" created nervous systems whose major function is to let us know when something hurts? Almost sounds a little like creating pain.

Or how else can we explain natural disasters? I don't doubt that the Evil Power wreaks all the havoc he's allowed to get away with in our natural world. But ultimately, God's the One in control of the weather.

We could say that the Evil Power and humanity were jointly responsible for causing sin and so jointly responsible for causing suffering, and I think that is true, but I think there's another sense in which we would have to admit that although man instituted sin on the earth, God instituted suffering as its natural result.

But why would He do such a thing? Well, I think there's a very good reason for it. In fact, from where I'm standing, it looks very much like that was how it had to be.

Remember that a minute or two ago we were talking about the necessity of causing a little pain and suffering (i.e. amputation or discipline) because of the existence of much worse things than pain and suffering? But we all know of the existence of something worse than suffering, don't we? And that something is sin.

Remember how the horror of the Holocaust was not in the six million deaths that took place but in the arrogance, cruelty, and hatred that occasioned them? In fact, to go back to the old two-by-four, I would much rather have you hit me over the head accidentally than somehow discover that you would like to hit me over the head even though you never act on that desire. Sin is so much worse than simple suffering.

Okay, so if we grant all that, does that give us any idea why God might have found it necessary to bring about suffering as a result of sin? Sure it does. If there were no such thing as suffering, how would we know what sin was?

We all see the connection between the two, and for us, it's really only this connection that clues us in to the fact of sin.

Let's try to imagine a world where there was no suffering. That would be wonderful, wouldn't it? Not if there was still such a thing as sin. If God had created morally free creatures, capable of deciding for or against Him, capable of deciding to be the gods of themselves, but not capable of feeling any pain, where would that leave such creatures? That would make such creatures into moral monsters. They would be capable of doing evil but not capable of knowing it was evil. They would never be capable of remorse. All the horrific arrogance and cruelty and hatred would still be possible, only if no suffering resulted from it, we would have no idea how horrific arrogance and cruelty and hatred were. The only reason I have any kind of grasp on what arrogance and cruelty and hatred are really like is because I can see the suffering that results from them in events like the Holocaust. Now, having some understanding of what evil is because of the suffering it causes, I can differentiate between the suffering and the evil itself. But if there were no suffering at all, I don't think I'd have any understanding of that distinction. Or any knowledge of evil.

I remember one time, on account of some incident or other, feeling very overwhelmed by the huge amount of suffering in the world and crying out, "I know we must suffer. But does it have to be so big? Does it have to be so painful?" And I remember the answer flashing back at me. "If pain was less painful, then evil would seem less evil." Suffering must be very big and very real and very painful in order for us to have any concept how very big and very real and very evil evil is.

"Well, what of it?" you may be asking. "So what if we could sin and not know what sin was like? As long as no suffering resulted, we wouldn't care. It would still be a pretty good world." From our point of view. Maybe. Although, maybe not. Could creatures capable of evil they can't recognize as evil be capable of happiness at all? Could they be capable of good they could recognize as good? Besides, our situation has changed from the days when I was constantly spouting to you, "...for us (and for us is all we have)." Now there's Someone Else in the picture. Now we've agreed (I hope we have) that for us is not all we have. There is a God who might be expected to have some opinion on the matters that concern us. From His point of view, would it matter if He had created creatures that were capable of doing evil but not capable of knowing it? Of course it would. Those kinds of creatures would be very evil indeed. Because God, from His perspective, can see that there's more to sin than just something that causes suffering, if He could not create evil, neither could He create moral monsters. If He was going to create moral creatures, creatures of free choice, creatures capable of choosing God or choosing not-God, then He must also give those creatures a way to know what they were doing. To do anything else would be going against His nature.

I believe that pain is God's natural response to evil. For Himself, I mean. I mean, I think that when we sin, God's right and natural response is to experience a form of pain through that sin. Remember our discussion a chapter or two ago about how one of the things we know about love from our own experience is that if our love is rejected and trampled on, pain is inevitable? I can't help believing that sin (and all sin is a result of our choosing ourselves over Him and thereby rejecting and trampling on His love) must inevitably cause Him pain. We understand a little about love because we were made in His image. If we were made in His image, if we were to be "like God" in that we were to know the difference between good and evil, then we had to know pain as our natural response to knowing evil. Maybe it was built right into the natures He created us with, just as it's built into His nature.

Could we call a surgeon good and loving if he could have amputated the gangrenous limb and saved a life, but didn't bother because he didn't want to cause the patient any pain? Could we call parents good and loving if they let their child defy them and always have its own way and do nothing about it because they don't want to cause their child any pain? Could we call a God good and loving if He created creatures who could do evil but could never know what evil was? I think from His point of view, He would say that was not good and loving at all. The good and loving thing was to give those creatures an alarm system to let them know when something had gone wrong. To let them experience pain to keep them from the kind of behaviour that would ultimately destroy them. To let them feel the heat from the thing that would burn them. Pain keeps us alive in physical sense, but I think also in a spiritual sense, suffering is the only chance we've got to keep us from ultimate destruction.

Then there's another aspect of suffering that we need to talk about. This is the sum total of all the natural suffering I mentioned earlier. This is the sum total of all the suffering that is not caused directly through mankind's sin. This is the sum total of the cancers and the deformed babies and the natural disasters and the bigger animals eating the smaller ones and even the weeds in my garden and the grey hairs in my head. This kind of suffering can all be wrapped up into what I'm calling the second law, and the sum total of that law is death.

Physically, everything is heading for an ending point. We ourselves are born heading for that ending point. So we find that we are subject to cancers and natural disasters and, if nothing else, just plain old age. Something's going to get us in the end. My grey hairs and my wrinkles are only evidences of the second law at work in my body. Nothing's getting better. Nothing's getting younger. Even the old grey matter, "she ain't what she used to be." Scientifically, my usable energy is turning into entropy.

But the same thing is true of the entire physical universe. Our world is heading for an ending point. It's using up its usable energy, as well. We can try and conserve it as much as possible and make it last a little longer, but there's really no defying the second law. The holes in the ozone, the weather changes responsible for many of the natural disasters, even the rust on my car and the weeds in my garden are all just like my grey hair and wrinkles. They, too, are only more evidences of the second law. The planet is heading for an ending point, too. Even our world is going to die someday.

If we can admit that God could institute suffering as a necessity, given the existence of sin, could we also admit that God must have instituted the second law, given the existence of sin?

Now, again, we could take the blame and say that actually we (meaning humanity) are the ones responsible for bringing sin into the world. Therefore, we're the ones responsible for suffering and the second law. We (meaning humanity) brought death into the world because we sinned.

We could say that, and I think it would be fair to say it, but I think we would also have to admit that God was the one forced to make the decree of death the inevitable, final outcome of sin. God was the one who cursed the earth with this curse of death.

Again, does that raise some problems in your mind in lining up a God of love with the kind of God who could administer curses? Well, again, let's try to imagine a world without death. Sounds all right at first glance. Until you bring sin into the picture. And with sin, the necessity for suffering. And then you have a nightmare. A nightmare from which there would be no escape.

I mean, would you want to go on living forever and forever in a world such as ours? Not me! No, thank-you-very-much! Especially when you consider that the longer we would live, the more sin would accumulate and the worse the world would get. Yuck! No, I have an intense craving for perfection that jars when it meets my reality. I'm very glad this world does not go on forever.

If this world was all there was and we went on living forever in it, there would be no chance of any kind of perfect world for us, and immortality without perfection is a terrible thought! Can you imagine it? I find it pretty unimaginable. To go on living forever with arrogance and cruelty and hatred? To go on living forever with the suffering that comes from arrogance and cruelty and hatred? Unthinkable! Especially from God's point of view. Should we expect that God could go on putting up with our sin forever? Shouldn't we expect that God would very much want an ending point to this story once sin had entered it?

And if we, as individuals, died but our world went on forever, it's still the same dilemma. The sin and suffering would be perpetuated forever. Our sin taints everything around us. So everything around us is also under a death sentence.

And that's also a mercy. If God hadn't made it so, it would be like the one pair of running shoes I was allotted for the year back in my school days. No matter how beat-up those runners got, I had to make do because that's what I had.

Our planet is looking pretty beat-up at this stage. The sole's flapping, and our toes are poking through. What a good thing it is that we don't have to make do with this old planet for eternity while it goes on getting more and more beat-up.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't try to do the best we can with it. I think we should. I think trying to make the world a better place in every way is always a good idea. We have to live here for a time, after all. But it's not the ultimate good, and I'm very glad the world isn't going to last forever, either. Because of the second law, there's a shot at a fresh start for everything. There's a shot at a perfect, untainted reality. Because of endings, new beginnings are possible.

So we find two formulas emerging after thinking about sin and its effects. First, "If sin, then suffering," and second, "If sin, then death." So, Sin=Suffering and Sin=Death. Sin=Suffering + Death.

And that's how it had to be because God is just and does what's right but also because God is merciful. If man could sin, God made it so that man could also die. He cursed man and the earth with death, but this curse was a curse of mercy.

Now. What does the Bible say about it? What we've discovered through our own observation, does it line up with what the Bible has to say on the subject? Back we go to Genesis 3.

We saw last chapter how the desire to be “like God” pulled the first man and woman into the first sin. After that event, what happened? The very first thing we're told that happened after the eating of the poisonous fruit (poisoned with the poison of sin) was that Adam and Eve immediately felt a sense of shame and nakedness and made fig-leaf clothes for themselves and went and hid from God. Then God came and found them and had some dialogue with them on the subject. After they'd discussed what had happened, God did this: He issued three curses or three edicts — one to the snake, one to the woman, and a joint one to the man and the earth. I'll quote each of these in turn when we look at the story in detail.

But first there are two happenings after the curses that I'd like to point out briefly. At the end of Genesis 3, God took pity on Adam and Eve in their little fig-leaf outfits, so He clothed them in the skin of an animal. In other words, an animal died to clothe their nakedness. Then, He put Adam and Eve out of the garden because, in His own words, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever...” (Gen. 3:22). And here, God breaks off in mid-thought as if it the thought is unthinkable. It's an unspeakable horror that man in this condition should live forever. I have to agree.

Now, let's go through this story point by point to see what profound ideas are here.

First off, I'm interested to notice that the very first result eating from the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" brought about was shame. It was a sense of nakedness. And this is kind of a funny one, too. I mean, Adam and Eve had never seen clothing, had no idea of it up to this point (that we know of). What word did they even use to express the concept of "naked"? But however it worked, they had the sense that something was missing, that they were exposed and vulnerable, and that this was not a comfortable sensation. Whatever word they used to express this feeling, they felt it, and they expressed it.

I chuckle at God's response. "Who told you that you were naked?" I mean, here He is pointing out the strangeness of the fact that I was just mentioning. How could Adam and Eve have had any concept of something they knew nothing about?

But yet, isn't it profound that the very first result of knowing evil from good by having committed evil is a sense of guilt, a sense of shame in nakedness and vulnerability. This was no curse issued by God. It was simply the first and most natural result of knowing what evil was by doing it. And the first and most natural result of that sense of guilt and shame and nakedness was loneliness. Relational brokenness.

How amazing and true it is! Don't most of us spend a great deal of time and energy looking for someone we feel we could have the level of commitment with who could see us naked both on the outside and on the inside, see all our imperfections, and love us anyway? Yet our sense of shame, our sense of knowing ourselves too well (outside and in), makes us hide the real person from everyone around us. From personal experience, I know this goes deep with me (and I'm not just talking about my love handles).

And what's the first result of the knowledge of good and evil, at least of the knowledge of our own evil? A fear of vulnerability and the resultant loneliness that comes from hiding ourselves away and never letting anyone get to know the real person. As discussed last chapter, the inevitable result of the choice of, “ME, ME, ME! I'm in control. I must be my own god,” is broken relationship.

And so it was with Adam and Eve. There they were, cowering behind some bushes somewhere while God called for them. Imagine the loneliness of finding yourself hiding from the very One who had given you life and whose presence was the most complete delight you'd ever known. Not hard to imagine, is it?

I only hinted at it last chapter, but one of the promised results of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was that in the day they ate of it, the man and woman would surely die (Genesis 2:17). This was a promise of God the serpent was quick to contradict. "No, you won't. You won't die. God doesn't know what He's talking about. He's just holding out on you."

Now, as he still does, the serpent told just enough of the truth to get people confused. In fact, if you read further in Genesis, Adam and Eve didn't actually die on the day they ate the fruit, did they? Sure, they did. They just didn't look dead.

The essence of death is separation. That's the sting of death for those who lose a loved one. That separation is what makes death painful for those left alive.

And in other ways, separation is the essence of death. When you chop down your Christmas tree, you separate it from its roots, from its life-source. That is death. When a person dies, the real person, the life-source, is separated from the body, and that is physical death. So get this equation into your head. Death=separation. But also get a hold of this one. Sin=Death, as we talked about earlier. When we sin, we are separated from God. And that is a spiritual form of death. We are separated from our life-source, spiritually.

When did your Christmas tree die? When it started to look brown and the needles had to be vacuumed out of the carpet every day? No, it died the minute it was severed from its life-source. It just didn't look dead yet. So it is with us. Not only spiritually but even physically we're all born under a death sentence. We begin to die the minute we're born. Cheerful, isn't it?

God is not only loving. God is just. Another way of thinking of justice is as a kind of balance. "If this, then that." We see this aspect of God's character in all the areas of nature where we see equation and formula and law and any other kind of balance. Because God is a just God, math and science are possible. Two plus two equals four every single time. The planets don't collide. Gravity keeps us from hurtling off into space. Things work because of this area of God's character that we call justice. But also because of God's justice, Sin=Death. "...Die hee, or Justice must..." Milton wrote, referring to man's sin. And I think we've seen that to be true.

So long as we live hanging on to our sin for dear life, we are spiritually the walking dead because the justice of God's nature demands that His perfection cannot have truck with sin. We are walking around separated from our spiritual life-source. This life-source is the only source of anything good or pleasant. We still live in the world created by Him, and so we are still surrounded by much that is good and pleasant, but as long as we live in a state of claiming godhood for ourselves, we cannot help but be cut off from the real God. And this state of spiritual death is a state of loneliness, especially loneliness with regards to the One who we were created to love and who is the only source of everything lovable. So I say that physical death is much to be preferred over eternal spiritual death. That's why I call physical death a curse of mercy. And in this understanding of death, we can see that God told the truth, and the first man and woman did die the very day they sinned.

Next, let's have a quick look at God's words to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:14-15, NRSV).

At first glance, this looks like just a rather whimsical statement about the enmity between humans and snakes. And that is one meaning. There is that enmity, certainly. Not just between humans and snakes but between humans and all of nature.

But on a deeper level, this is the first Messianic prophecy. The instant "The Problem" appeared on the face of the earth, God was giving out hints as to "The Solution."

But we'd be getting way ahead of the game to talk about "The Solution" here. Let's just say that even in this first curse, we see God's care and love for mankind. The serpent's head will be crushed. Through man's suffering, granted. The serpent will strike the man's heel, but evil will be crushed.

How about God's curse to the woman?

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children [...]” (Gen. 3:16a., NRSV). (This isn't all of it, but it's the part I want to look at for the purposes of this discussion.)

In His curse to the woman, we see that God has instituted pain and suffering. Just like we've been discussing. If humanity really wanted to partake in the taste of the knowledge of good and evil, the first taste they must have was the taste of suffering. There's no other way for us to know evil from good.

But again, everywhere I turn, I find this God of love and mercy, who even when He issues curses, issues curses of mercy. Don't we see a little more about God's character and image even through His curses? On the one hand, the suffering involved in bringing human life into the world is very great. Surprisingly, though, the human race goes on propagating. Remember we talked about this curious fact? And we decided that the reason the human race does so is because it must think it all worthwhile.

And surprisingly, it seems to me that many women will say, once it's all behind them, that all the pain and struggle of childbirth was worth it to be able to bear the child, to have the part they have in bringing about the miracle of new life. And remember how we discussed that God also must believe that all His pain in bringing about our lives is somehow worth it, too? Even in this curse, we see a little of God's image and of woman's part in bearing that image in this unique way, a privilege not afforded to men.

Then there's God's curse to man — a joint curse as He cursed the earth at the same time.

[...] cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return (Gen. 3:17b.-19, NRSV).

And in His curse to the man, we see God putting into operation the second law. He decrees death, not only for man who will return to the dust, but also for the dust. Even the earth is doomed, and the thorns and thistles and weeds that will spring up to choke out the usable, edible plants are just a sign that it is so. Things will begin to go downhill. Things will begin to end. Usable energy will begin to be overtaken by entropy. Right here in Genesis 3, we see the beginning of the law of death. God doesn't talk about usable energy and entropy, but He uses language Adam could understand and visible proofs that Adam, the gardener, could recognize.

Again, I see God's image and character stamped all over even His curses. Not that death is part of His nature, but in other ways, this curse reveals to us a little more of what God is like. In other ways than the one that started the trouble in the first place, Adam would "be like God." He would do some hard work just as God does. The gardening Adam had been doing was about to get a whole lot harder. And hard work can be a curse, no denying it. On the other hand, it can be a blessing.

Speaking of gardening, I personally find gardening to be satisfying though sweaty work. There is something very therapeutic about grubbing around in the soil and seeing the wonder of living, growing things that I've had some small part in come to be (especially when I get to eat them). Even weeding's not all bad. Speaking as someone who likes grubbing around in the soil, I have to tell you that I can even find lessons about God and His nature and His image through weeding. Have you ever looked at a weed? Humble (and often irritating) though it is, it has all the intricacy and complexity and mark of genius and design on it that any form of life has. Even weeds have their own particular beauty.

In the valley where I live, there is a profusion of wild rose bushes. On the one hand, I have to admit them to be a pernicious nuisance, taking over and using up all the usable land that could be growing usable food (and I like food). But on the other hand, in May or June, when the hillsides are covered with their pink blossoms and their fragrance wafts in on a breeze, I have to admit that God even curses good curses. Because He is a Creator. That's His work, and He's very, very good at it. Even when He created weeds, He couldn't help showing a little of what He's like.

So we see the second law set into motion here with this last joint curse to man and the earth. Notice the scientific accuracy in the way God told Adam he would return to dust. God never told Adam He would be vaporized or destroyed or annihilated. Just that his body would change form, his energy would change form, just like science tells us. That's what the laws of thermodynamics tell us. "No energy can be created or destroyed..." Adam's atoms would be recycled. He'd go back to the ground from whence he came and from whence our lives come, too. After all, we all live by the energy that's in the soil that grows our food. God told Adam that in life he'd live by the energy that he put into the earth in the form of the sweat of his brow, but after his death, all his energy would be put back into the earth in the form of his body. And from the energy that goes back into the earth in the form of nutrients, life can derive energy and new life from that earth. So right here in this early piece of literature, we see a sophisticated understanding of the life cycle (or should I say the life recycle) stated in very unsophisticated but perfectly accurate language.

But enough of science. Back to our story ... So man is told that he will die one day. God had told the man and woman they would surely die in the day they ate of the fruit. But the word could have no meaning for them up to this point. What was this strange thing called "death" they had brought to the earth?

Then, what was the next event that took place? The death of an animal.

The Bible never says that God is callous towards animals. Quite the opposite, in fact. He cares about them, too. He just cares much more for humanity (Matthew 10:29-31).

God didn't strike Adam and Eve dead on the spot for what they had done. Yet He must have wanted them to understand what a grave and terrible thing they had brought about. So instead of their deaths, an animal died. Now the word had meaning for them. Now they could see the fact of a body, separated from its life-source, lying cold and still on the ground, the life that was in the blood draining back into the ground. Not only sinners must die, but now that they'd tainted the world, everything in the world must die, even those who hadn't sinned. If they were to "be like God, knowing good and evil," then they must also, like God, be able to see and feel the effects of sin.

Then God did this: He took this first death and used it to clothe their shame. No more hiding from Him. He Himself had clothed them.

Don't you love this book I've been quoting? Maybe you don't yet, but I hope you'll come to. There are miles and miles of meaning hidden below the surface that you can dig into for a lifetime and never hit bottom. Even as I've been writing this chapter, I've noticed things I've never noticed before from this account and had things occur to me that never have before.

But one thing that we don't have to get far below the surface to see is that the very results we've seen from our own observation to be the right and natural and inevitable results of sin are the very results God instituted in Genesis 3. Yes, we do see that suffering and the second law must come to us all because all have sinned.

Intellectually, it might help to know that suffering had to accompany the knowledge of good and evil — that if we're capable of doing it, we had to be capable of knowing it. And intellectually, it helps to know that death is necessary.

But on a practical, everyday level, intellectual knowledge doesn't help much. Having that intellectual knowledge is probably going to be small comfort to the parents of the stillborn child or the wheelchair-bound quadriplegic or even the man or woman suffering from unrequited love. There must be answers that go deeper still. Suffering and death are much too personal matters to be satisfied intellectually. So let's get personal.

______________________________

1 — When I use the term “the second law” in this chapter (as elsewhere in this book), I am making reference to the second law of thermodynamics. I am, however, using the term in a colloquial sense, not a technical or scientific one. I'm using it to mean the tendency everything has of running downhill or degenerating.

Chapter 9

Whiffs and Glimpses (or Suffering and Glory)

So the question moves from, "Why would God allow suffering?" to "Why would God allow my suffering?" Any talk about suffering must get personal because suffering is such an intensely personal experience. We talk about "sharing sorrow," but even in a sorrow that we share, it doesn't really become our sorrow. It's my sorrow and your sorrow. Suffering is never a group activity. We may suffer the same event, but we'll suffer the same event alone and experience it differently. Suffering is common to all of us. There's no such thing as a life free from suffering. But it's different for every one of us.

Now, if this chapter is going to get personal, I'm going to have to talk about my own experiences (limited as they are) and any lessons I've learned from them. Because suffering is different for every one of us, my experiences may not be helpful to anyone else. But they're mine and all I have to talk about, so I will. This chapter is going to be nearly entirely subjective, but for what it's worth, I'll write it. Parts of it might make sense to one other person. All right then. It won't be wasted.

When I look back on my life so far, sometimes, just sometimes, it's the painful experiences that stand out to me as having been the most necessary. That's not to say that I welcome them and can't wait for the next one to begin. But how incomplete my life would be without those experiences! How incomplete I would be!

Maybe — just maybe — it works like this: We sin, and that's bad. Sin produces results. It produces suffering, and that's neither good nor bad. It's just necessary because of sin. But suffering can produce results, too — good results. And that's good. Or at least it can be good. It depends on how it all ends up, perhaps. It depends on what we do with the suffering allotted to us.

The first lesson that I'd like to tell you about that I've learned through my own experience of suffering is that it's transient. It doesn't last forever. That's foundational. It's especially foundational to remember in the midst of suffering because it always feels like it's going to go on forever.

“Happiness recalled is happiness again. Pain recalled is no longer pain.” (I put that in quotes, but I don't know why, seeing I made it up.) It's a little ditty that came to me one day that I'll tell myself sometimes. What on earth does it mean?

I've noticed that I get twice the mileage of happiness out of a happy memory. A happy memory has the ability to make me happy all over again, thereby doubling the happiness. Or maybe even tripling it, seeing a happy memory might be twice as sweet the second time around.

But I've also noticed that (for me at least) painful memories lose their potency once the pain is past. This is not necessarily so if there's still a chance that particular pain may recur. Then those painful memories can bring pain in the form of fear. But if the pain is gone and there's no chance of that particular pain ever happening again, then there's no fear, and somehow, there's even no power to hurt left in the memory. In fact, there can almost be a kind of pleasure, a relief to remember that I never have to experience that pain again.

Take, for instance, the time my dentist was out of town for a week when my tooth abscessed. A week-long abscessed tooth was not a pleasant experience at the time; I know that for sure. But there's no pain in the memory. That's all over and done with. Or when I sprained my ankle badly a few weeks ago, I lay on the ground groaning for about ten minutes right after I did it. I know it wasn't a happy time for me. But there's no pain in that memory.

I should qualify this by saying that there are pains that haven't left me yet; certain losses or wounds that might always be with me. Time subdues much of the sharpness of the original sting, but still, there's pain there. But these are not just painful memories, they are present pain. The loss or other repercussions of the painful events are still there. When I talk about pain that's in the past, I mean pain that has stopped being pain — painful experiences that I never have to re-live. Because of these transient pain-experiences, I have hope that maybe all pain is transient. Some pains may just take the rest of this life to stop being pain.

I don't know if anyone else has found my experience of retroactive pleasure and non-retroactive pain to be true, but that's what I've noticed for myself that leads me to believe that, no matter how big and huge and powerful pain and evil is in the here-and-now, how one drop of it seems to contaminate all the good it's mixed with, on that final scale when all is said and done, the side holding all the good I've ever enjoyed will plummet to the earth with its weight, making the suffering look like nothing. Because good, happiness, joy has staying power. Pain doesn't.

I was lying in bed this morning, listening to the kettle whistling and birds singing outside the window, with nothing to dread and everything to look forward to, with happiness flooding me, thinking about these things. Again, maybe that's why I can write now about the permanence of joy and the transience of pain. I'm really not so philosophical at all when I'm in pain.

But there! That's my point. I'm not in pain now. I have been in the past. I'm not now. It doesn't last forever. The bad stuff doesn't. But it seems to me that the good stuff may. The sound of the kettle and the birds and the lying in bed recalled memories hidden below my consciousness that could fill me with the same delight and sense of all-round well-being as if those memories were happening all over again. Well, really, they were. And that's what I mean. Happiness compounds. Pain dissipates.

But as I was lying in bed thinking about it, I had to stipulate. Pain doesn't have to last forever, but there are some pains that can, if we choose. I know people (and have been one of them) who can hang onto painful memories and re-live the pain over and over anytime they want to, even though there doesn't need to be any pain left in them. But interestingly, those kinds of memories are never just about pain, pure and simple (like my abscessed tooth or my sprained ankle). These kinds of memories we almost enjoy remembering (as long as we can pat ourselves on the backs about how strong and brave we were). The kinds of memories that can still hurt us are the kinds where someone hurt us. They're the kinds of memories where not just simple suffering was involved but sin was involved.

But there's a secret ingredient that turns those kinds of memories into the kind where they have no power to hurt anymore, and that key ingredient is forgiveness.

I don't have a very good handle on forgiveness — what it is or how to do it — so I won't say much on the subject here. I bring forgiveness up just to say this: These are the first two lessons I'd like to mention that I've discovered through pain. It doesn't have to last forever, and that's possible because of forgiveness.

This comes into play later when we talk about "The Solution." Our sin does not have to cause God pain forever because He can forgive it. This is one of those ways in which it can be a good thing for us to learn to "be like God." In fact, learning the art of forgiveness may be one of those good results that suffering brings.

Because it doesn't last forever and because once it's over, it's really over, we can see how it's possible that suffering may actually turn out to work very good results in us.

But just knowing that it won't last forever doesn't automatically mean that it's a good thing or that it produces good results, either. So let's get specific and talk about some of the good results I've seen through my own experiences with this subject.

For some reason, as I'm thinking right now about the suffering I've experienced, the first thing that comes to my mind is the suffering that's self-inflicted. Of all my painful experiences, living with myself is the top of my list today. It's just so horribly day-in, day-out, and there's no escape. Truly, I am my own worst enemy.

On the one hand, there's the suffering that I inflict on myself (and others) because of my sin. (I hate that!) But on the other hand, there's the suffering I inflict on myself just by being myself. I have to confess to you that I have, what for lack of a better term I'll call, "the artistic temperament." Sometimes it seems like a great misfortune, but there it is! I've got it, and I can't get rid of it.

I've lived through some of the typical "big" things: broken home, broken heart, the death of a loved one, homesickness, culture shock, job loss, prolonged unemployment, being flat broke. I think I dealt with the big things like a normal person. I don't mean I sailed through them. I mean, these things are hard for everyone. What I don't seem capable of dealing with like a normal person are all the little things: the normal conflicts and tensions and rubs of being human and living amongst humans.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm a gigantic wimp. Even small amounts of pain can seem so big and painful to me. Why do little things seem to lose all proportion for me? Why do I get hold of a thought I'd really rather not think and tumble it round and round and round in my mind and worry it like a dog worrying a bone and seem so unable to leave it alone and get on with life? I've come to the conclusion it's because of my artistic temperament.

Making this claim for myself is not bragging, believe me. I have all of the temperament and none of the talent. I've known others with "the artistic temperament," and I have to tell you that I'm a little bit sorry to have to admit to being one of them. It's nothing to brag about. In fact, usually "artistic temperament" is just a polite way of describing someone hard to be around.

But there is something to be said for artistic temperaments. They often belong to artists. I mean, maybe there are those artists who can have an altercation with a taxi driver or deal with an irate customer, let it all run off them like water off a duck's back, and go home to paint masterpieces or compose symphonies. But I think they must be very rare. Most artists seem to be, well, a little different. I think it's because they look at the world a little differently. Often, artistic talent accompanies artistic temperament.

For myself, although I didn't get any of the typical talent, I do know that my world looks a little different from anyone else's. That's a given, isn't it? Isn't that what we ended up deciding in Chapter Four? Every individual's world looks a little different from everyone else's. My world has a slightly different flavour and fragrance than yours does and vice versa. And I know that in spite of my artistic temperament, there's a beauty to my world that would be lost to me if I were someone other than who I am. But maybe it's not "in spite of." Maybe it's "because of."

Maybe it's because little things can really get to me — little things can really affect me negatively — that little things can really get to me — little things can really affect me positively. Maybe it's because my lows are so low that my highs are so high. When I'm sick to death of myself and my quirks, I have to ask myself, "Would you really want to be someone else, then? Would you want to stop being you? Would you give up the good to get rid of the bad?" And the answer I always come back to is, "No, I want to be me. I guess I'll have to keep the whole package."

There's a sensation very common to me that I don't know how to describe or even name that is a big part of the particular flavour and fragrance of my world. In his book Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis describes it and gives it the name "joy." But it is different from what we mean when we ordinarily use the word. These feelings of "joy" (in the C.S. Lewis sense) are those sensations of indescribable delight and beauty that come upon us when we're least expecting them. It's these feelings I was talking about when I was telling you how I was lying in bed, listening to the kettle and the birds. Trying to capture those feelings and hang onto them is like trying to catch smoke in a cup. They are elusive and momentary, though gigantic, and they make life worth living.

But when I've tried to discuss them with my normal, non-artistic-temperament, non-neurotic type friends, they look at me blankly. The only people I've run across who have any clue what I'm talking about are, well, a little different, too.

It's probably no coincidence that many of the people who seem to recognize this feeling I'm talking about are artists or poets. These feelings show up often in poetry. They're probably the reason people find themselves compelled to write poetry. In "The Grasshopper and Cricket," Keats called it, "the poetry of earth." Robert Louis Stevenson called it "glory" when he wrote:

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,

Say, could that lad be I?

Merry of soul he sailed on a day,

Over the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Rum on the port,

Eigg on the starboard bow;

Glory of youth glowed in his soul:

Where is that glory now?

I believe in Stevenson's "glory," we find C.S. Lewis' "joy" and Keats "poetry of earth." My personal favourite poet, Wordsworth, also calls it "glory" in "Ode on Intimations of Immortality."

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is now as it hath been of yore;

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare,

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth ...

Sadly, both the poems quoted are about losing that sense of "glory" as adults which was so strong with us as kids. Maybe all kids are blessed with artistic temperament. Didn't little things seem huge to us as kids — either for good or ill? Maybe my non-neurotic friends who look at me blankly when I start rambling on about "joy" and "glory" have grown up, and that's the problem. Maybe we do all know these feelings of "glory," but some of us have forgotten.

I think that's the term I like best for this lovely intangible: Glory! Or maybe, it would be more accurate to say these feelings, these enormous pinpricks of bliss, are only whiffs and glimpses of Glory, not the thing itself.

It does almost seem as though for a moment there's a hint of the most beautiful aroma wafting in on a breeze or as though this same breeze has blown back a curtain for an instant, revealing a sight too beautiful to describe. I think this fragrance wafting in and this sight behind the curtain are the Glory. The feelings are just the whiffs and glimpses.

We could blame it on nostalgia. We could say it's just the happiness of an unremembered happy memory, prodding us from the back of the sub-conscious. But I don't think that explains it very fully.

These whiffs and glimpses involve happy memories, I don't doubt it. My singing kettle and the singing birds doubtless harked back to some earlier memory. But if that feeling is just a sub-conscious remembrance of some other time I felt that feeling, then where did that feeling come from that other time that I'm remembering (or unremembering, as the case may be)? If we trace that recalled happiness back to another memory, then where did the happiness or the "glory" in that memory come from? It seems to me that if we think we can trace it back and discover its source, we'll find that what we thought was the source is only a mirage. What we expected to be the source of the river was ever only another bend in it around which we still expect to find the source.

We don't have explanations for this experience in earthly terms. Why should kettles and birds hold such happiness for me? The feeling of glory must lie outside and be bigger than the thing itself that conveys the feeling to us. It's bigger than birds and kettles.

At any rate, all that was not really the point I wanted to make about my whiffs and glimpses. The point I set out to make all those paragraphs ago was simply this: I believe glory is linked to suffering in some inextricable way. I believe my world looks the way it does because of the way I am. I believe I get these whiffs and glimpses of glory because of the suffering I experience. It's this artistic temperament of mine that can make my world look very dark at times that can also make it look so very bright and shiny and laden with Glory. And I'm not really sure that one is possible without the other. I'm not very sure that we could have Glory at no cost.

That's the conclusion I've come to about me. I am a package deal. If I don't like my sensitivity to pain and would rid myself of that quality, I would also have to rid myself of my sensitivity to beauty. Wanting to keep the one without the other is like wishing I was a bird, except without the flying because I don't like heights. Or wishing I was a fish, except without the swimming because I don't like water. But it doesn't work that way. That's not the way things are. And maybe — just maybe — it's a principle of "the-way-things-are" that you can't have Glory without the suffering.1

I like what Madeleine L'Engle wrote in A Wrinkle in Time about the planet where no one was ever unhappy. " 'But nobody's ever happy, either,' Meg said earnestly. 'Maybe if you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy...' "2

We do see this as a reality in our reality in some ways. Beauty is not beauty without contrast. In a landscape or a face, it's the dark offsetting the bright, it's the smooth offsetting the rough, it's the round offsetting the angular that makes up beauty. A canvas painted a solid orange or a solid yellow or a solid anything is not a thing of particular beauty. In music, it's the highs and the lows taken together that make a melody. A song of one note would not be much of a song. If every day were Christmas, no day would be Christmas. If everyone were beautiful, no one would be beautiful. If everyone won first prize, no one would win first prize.

And I'm also tempted to think that if everything was a pleasure, we would hold pleasure much more cheaply. How could we be the kind of people who could know the true pleasure of pleasure? We'd be incomplete.

I have to say, honestly, that looking back over my life so far I can dimly see that it is the curious blend of all the pain and all the pleasure that lends it the depth and the beauty and the meaning that I feel it to have in certain moods. If all the pains were chopped out, my life would seem shallow and empty.

Speaking of beautiful people and first prizes, we tend to think of the beautiful people and those who win first prize as the lucky ones, but maybe it's the opposite. I'm tempted to think so when I look at the people and their lives that our society calls beautiful and that our society hands all the first prizes to. They're missing out on the character-building that comes from not being beautiful and not winning first prize. Unless a person has a little of that kind of character worked into them, they'll never be the kind of person who can appreciate beauty or success.

Glory and suffering and glory through suffering are deep philosophical waters a way over my head that I'm in, and they may not make a great deal of sense to you. Yet the Bible does give us clues that, although there is some sort of unbreakable link between suffering and sin, then because of the sin and suffering that is part of our reality, so now there is some sort of unbreakable link between suffering and glory — however little we may be able to understand it. (See 2 Corinthians 4:17 and Romans 8:18.) Somehow, God does the work of making us able to bear Glory by making us bear suffering. I don't know how it works, but I'm told it does, and I've seen a little of it from my own experience.

Now, all this philosophizing may be all very well. It might be a nice thought to think that suffering is going to end someday and in the meantime is working out some good result. But that's all someday. If I were right in the midst of some suffering or other right now (I mean, except the daily suffering of my artistic temperament), it might not seem very helpful.

I'm not going through any particularly hard time at the minute. Right now is one of those sunshiny times for me. But a day or two ago, I stumbled across the pages of an old journal, written when I was going through a rough patch. This is what I had to say then:

So how do we come to terms with that? The fact that God does, most emphatically does, allow more pain than we think can be stood? ?

I need to leave that question mark hanging in the air for a bit. Pat answers are not good salve to open sores.

At least I know that any answer I find at the moment is not going to be pat.

I am one giant sore at the moment, so I'm not overly wanting to find a pat answer. I want real answers born out of real pain and real need.

And that is what I find.

The only answer is that God doesn't do things the way we would do them because He isn't us. And we are not Him. We don't have perfect wisdom. We don't see the end from the beginning. We see only our little inch in the galaxy (and that is part of the pain that presumably is working out all that good in our lives — the fact that we're left in the dark, left without knowledge of the whys and wherefores). If we knew all the whys, where would be the need for faith? And that faith, that freely given love and worship, that feeble clinging on in the midst of huge doubt and uncertainty, is infinitely precious to God. So precious that He allows unimaginable pain in the lives of those He loves so that their precious faith can be refined. He allows the things that they were clinging to, thinking they were clinging to God, to be burnt up and that one tiny nugget of true faith to stand.

So how could a loving and merciful God allow things that we wouldn't because we think we're too loving and merciful to allow them?

Because He sees the end from the beginning. Because He weighs things out on a different scale. He weighs the cost of the pain against the price of the good that will come from it and finds the good worth the pain. That's really the only answer. He allows it because it's worth it.

If you, right now, are stuck in the middle of somewhere and something you don't want to be stuck in, all I can really tell you is that the only way for you to know what good purpose God wants to make happen through your pain is for you to ask Him. You may not get the answer all at once or completely. You may never in this life get an answer. But you can be sure that if you let Him, whether or not you realize it, He will be working out some good result in your life. No pain is too great for God to use.

You don't have to take my word for it, and I would have no authority to talk about great pain anyway. Check out books like concentration-camp survivor, Corrie ten Boom's, The Hiding Place. Check out the Bible through the stories of Job or Joseph or Jesus. I can't even begin to imagine going through what these people went through and coming out the other side, somehow still with a faith in God, somehow still managing to say that God is a good God.

The horrific things God allows His people to go through and still allows them to praise Him through convince me that there is no suffering so great He can't somehow turn it around to do a perfect work in those who let Him. There's no suffering so great which God allows that we could ever be justified to spit in God's face for allowing it.

Or if you're in the midst of some fierce bout of suffering at the moment, even if you do spit in His face, don't ignore Him. Don't shut Him out. Spitting in His face may be the natural reaction. He's had His face spit in before and forgiven it. It's not the unforgivable sin. It can be cured. The sin there's no cure for is a complete and final disregard of Him, a complete and final denial of any need for Him. There's no cure for that sin because we won't let Him cure it. It's my sneaking suspicion He'd rather have His face spit in than be ignored because there's more hope for the angry than the indifferent. Maybe on some occasions, suffering is His way of trying to shake us out of that self-satisfied state where we acknowledge no need. Remember our old enemy? It's called pride. And pride and suffering don't co-exist peacefully easily.

It's impossible for me to write about suffering without sounding trite, especially when I know as little about it as I do. That's why I referred you to those experts I mentioned earlier. When you read their experiences, you'll know there's nothing trite about them, but all the same, they say the same things that I can affirm with my very limited experience.

Not that anyone likes or seeks or would even choose those times of suffering beforehand. Pain is pain. And knowing that God will do good things through it may only help slightly at the time. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said once, somewhere, something like, "It's not that we doubt God will do what's best. It's that we wonder how much that best is going to hurt."

And when we hurt, we cry out. We stamp and rage and beat on the doors of heaven. That's okay. God can handle it. Read the Psalms if you think God's not okay with our being honest with Him in the midst of pain. Pain is pain, and pain is pain for God, too. Don't ever think that your pain is not His pain. Read the Bible if you doubt it. That message threads its way throughout the whole Book. God's heart breaks for our pain. But He's no wimp.

Maybe it comes down to the question, "What is God's greatest desire for us?" To see us happy? Well, yes. In a sense.

I believe God's greatest desire for us is that we would know Him. He is the All-Relational One.

And that knowing is the only true, lasting, ultimate happiness possible. So yes, God's greatest desire for us is to see us happy because if He sees us truly happy, it's because we know Him. And that's His greatest desire for us.

Is His greatest desire for us to keep us from all pain? Obviously not. Keeping us from all pain could be the very thing to defeat His greatest desire for us. Keeping us from all pain could be the thing that keeps us from our ultimate happiness. Keeping us from all pain could be the thing that keeps us from knowing Him.

Again, all I'm saying here may or may not be helpful to you. The only truly helpful thing I could tell you, if you're in the middle of one of those painful times right now, is to turn to Him. He may not give you answers, but He will give you Himself which will help you more than any answer could.

It may seem that Himself is the very thing He withholds at those times. It may seem as though those are the times He's the most distant. He may be silent. Even those closest to Him, (Job, David, Jesus) cried out in those times and expressed their experiences of, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His silence, in itself, seems to be the form of suffering that makes the others hardest to bear. But it's in those times when our faith may seem to be the weakest, I believe it's really the truest and most precious to Him. It's very easy to believe in God when His presence is obvious to us and all is well, but to go on believing when it's not obvious at all and the doubts almost swamp us, those are the times when He will really give us Himself. Not all at once perhaps, but He will.

I can tell you He can and does use those times like no others. I just can't exactly explain to you how or why. In anything I've ever suffered and learned through, that is the main and best lesson I could tell you about. God became more to me. I learned to know Him better. He gave me more of Himself through my times of suffering. And that is Glory.

______________________________

1 — This chapter raises questions that are too big to be explored here. For a defense of the idea that Glory is inextricably linked to suffering, Revelation 13:8 says “the Lamb” was slain “from the foundation of the world.” From the beginning, before sin had entered the world, God, living in eternity and knowing how the story would go, has always known the Glory that would come about through suffering. There are no “ifs” for God — no Plan B.

2 — Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (New York, NY: Dell Publishing, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1962), 103

Chapter 10

Of Mice and Men and Mosquitoes

Besides the question of, "How could a loving God allow evil and suffering and death?" there's another question that casts aspersions on the God of the Bible and His character as a loving God. It's a very hard one and needs to be looked at before we can go any farther.

"You say the God you believe in is love. Yet you also say you believe in hell. How could anyone believe in a loving God and a hell at the same time?"

While we're on the subject of sin and suffering, let's have a look at a loving God and sinful humanity and this concept of hell.

As we speak, I'm having a mouse problem. I do mean a problem. As I was sitting at my desk writing a little earlier, a cute, little, brown, furry thing with big ears and bright, black eyes came within four feet of my chair and looked at me for the space of a few seconds. That is a problem because, you see, I hate mice.

Now, really, that's not accurate. I don't hate mice. In fact, the other day as I watched my mouse run across the kitchen floor, I saw that he was cute and little and helpless and almost as terrified as I was, and for an instant, I felt something akin to pity for him. It hurt me on the inside that I was going to have to destroy him.

Because I am certainly going to have to destroy him. You see, while I may not hate mice personally, I hate, loathe, detest, despise, and abominate what they do and having them do what they do anywhere near me. I hate the little, gnawed holes in my food that has to be thrown out. I hate their little calling cards left on my counters. I hate hearing them scrabbling and squeaking in the walls at night. I hate the thought of their little, germy, mousy feet running over everything I own, and more than anything and less rationally than any of my other hatreds, I hate the way they scurry out from under things at the speed of mouse and suggest to my mind all kinds of nightmarish possibilities of having my pant legs scampered up. I think it's this extremely remote possibility more than anything that has bred the fear of mice into generations of us normally quite sensible folk.

To illustrate to you how very much I hate being around mice, let me tell you a little story that happened the other day. As I was sitting writing at my desk, I was surprised to see a mouse come dashing out from under my bookcase (by my desk) and make a break for the kitchen cupboards. I was a little perturbed, but I decided my desk was the safest place to be because the mouse was somewhere in my kitchen and my desk was not. I kept on writing, and around bedtime, as usual, my thoughts started turning towards a cup of tea. Well, I hadn't planned on a cup of tea that night because that would mean I'd have to go into the kitchen to make it, but old addictions die hard, and I couldn't stop thinking about that cup of tea. Finally, I hit on a plan.

In the fine, old, time-honoured tradition, I feel safer around mice when I'm standing on a chair. I couldn't tell you what ancient, primitive ritual chair-standing dates back to or why it started. It can't be to avoid the nightmarish scampering-up-the-pant-leg possibility because as mice have demonstrated, they're able to scale sheer cupboard door surfaces Spidey-style. (Mice do have super powers, I'm convinced. Evil ones.) Knobbly chair legs would present no challenge at all, and if the pant leg was the goal, by standing on a chair, I've opened up a clear field. If chair-standing is designed to make me look bigger and more threatening to the mouse, I still don't see the point. I'm only two or three hundred times bigger as it is. Well, there's nothing rational about my chair-standing, but it does give me a false sense of security.

I think it would have made a dog laugh "to see such sport" when I made myself that cup of tea. I started on the edge of the kitchen and stretched till I could pull one of the kitchen chairs to me. I got up on that and leaned till I could get hold of another one. I managed to get all around my kitchen and get my cup of tea by using a sort of relay method with those chairs. From one chair, I could reach back and pull the other one forward where I could step onto it. I'm not kidding. That's what I did. I probably would have been able to see the humour in it if my heart hadn't been in my mouth the whole time.

I hope you can see why I say I have to destroy the mouse. I don't hate the mouse. I know he's just doing what mice do, but this house ain't big enough for the both of us, and I can't spend the rest of my life on chairs. One of us will have to go.

Maybe you don't hate mice. Almost every one of us has some secret phobia. Snakes? Spiders? Cockroaches? Mosquitoes? I also hate mosquitoes (only a little more rationally than I hate mice). Normally, I like to consider myself a non-aggressive, pacifistic, gentle, even merciful type of person. Unless we're talking about mosquitoes. Then I'm a rabid killer.

There may be those reading this who are of the belief that all life is sacred and no creature should ever be destroyed. If I knew anyone like that, I'd be interested to see her at two o'clock in the morning, listening to that endless whine around her head that has ended sleep for the night. If she doesn't throw back the blankets, fling on the light, and arm herself for battle, she's more than human. There are limits to anyone's endurance, and mice and mosquitoes are my limits.

What's all this have to do with God? I find it extremely believable that God hates, loathes, detests, despises, and abominates sin. More than that, I find it necessary. I wouldn't want to worship a God who didn't hate sin.

I hate certain types of sin. We all do. I hate some sins much more than I hate mice or mosquitoes. I hate the Holocaust much more than I hate the idea of having my pant legs scampered up. How could I worship a God who looked on the atrocities of the Nazis and sighed and said, “Well, I don't like it, but I guess I'll let it go this time."

There are people who think that's the attitude God should have toward sin. Until it gets personal and concrete. Until we start discussing things like the Holocaust. Or genocide. Or child abuse. Then most of us find a burning desire inside to see justice done.

That desire to see justice done might lead us another direction, still finding fault with God. "If God is supposed to be so loving, why doesn't He stop these things from happening?" Every part of us — our intellect, our emotions — screams out against these kind of injustices. If we (I mean, us Basically Decent Persons) wouldn't allow such things, how can God?

There are no easy answers to this one. On the one hand, I have to admit that I have no idea. But on the other hand, I can see where the problems all got started in the first place. "I will be the god of me!" Haven't we all, in our own way, told God to butt out and mind His own business? Haven't we all said to Him at one time or another, "Not what you will, but what I will." Then when He does butt out and mind His own business, we can't believe He would do such a thing.

I think to a certain extent our reality is the result of God allowing us to see what happens when we tell Him to butt out. But He can't help but mind His own business, and that business is doing what's right. And He will do what's right in the running of the universe, too. It's never run amuck and out of His control. But at the same time, it can sure look like it because He will ordinarily let humanity do what it wants to do. But though He may butt out when we tell Him to, He keeps on minding His own business. I see both the pleasure and the pain in our world, the beauty and the ugliness, as Him minding His own business. The beauty is meant to show us a little of what God is like; the ugliness to show us what happens when we choose "not-God." We could say that earth is a little taste of heaven and a little taste of hell; that little taste given to us to help us figure out which would be the better choice. Of course, we still all manage to choose against God, anyway, and then turn around to use all the pain and suffering and ugliness as one more excuse for telling Him to butt out.

But what would you have Him do? Haven't we already agreed on the necessity and rightness of His giving us freedom? He gave us a real freedom with real consequences. The consequences are very big and very terrible, but how could it be otherwise? If our freedom was a feeble thing, then the consequences would be feeble, for good or ill. If anything of value could ever result out of His Grand Scheme of Things in creating creatures of free will who could love Him freely or not, then the freedom had to be real and so did the consequences. A child may never do any real damage if you only give him a plastic hammer and saw. He may never be able to take a chunk out of the dining room table. But neither will he be able to build anything like the dining room table. If he's going to build a thing of real value, he must have the tools with which he could also do real damage. If God's Grand Scheme was going to have any real value, it had to be a real freedom capable of real damage.

Your sense of proportion might be outraged by this discussion so far. After all, there is certainly a difference between the Holocaust and the kinds of sins you and I commit every day. Why should God extend the same freedom to everyone? We tend to think God should stop "really terrible" people from doing the kinds of really terrible things they do. And of course, you and I don't fall into that category, so we're all right, aren't we? Let's talk about that for a little. What is a "really terrible" person?

Most of the people I know seem like BDPs to me. That's because I can't read minds, and I'm very grateful I can't. I'm very grateful no one can read my mind, either. I suppose to the world at large I look like a BDP, too (to those who don't have to live with me, that is). The problem is that I know what goes on in the inside. Even I can't tolerate my own sin when I stop and look at it (or when it becomes so obvious to me I can't ignore it anymore). I have these awful moments of self-revelation every once in awhile where my deceitful, critical, unloving, grudge-bearing, violently angry, thoroughly selfish, and prideful layers are exposed to my own sight, and I begin to see where the cruelty, hatred, and arrogance I despise in the Nazis came from. I have those seeds in my nature.

Is there anything quite as comfortable as a long, hot soak in pride? Is there anything quite as uncomfortable as having that pride suddenly drain away, leaving you naked and shivering and exposed? Yet I think we occasionally have to view ourselves in that state to see ourselves honestly. Although most people I know look to me like much nicer people than I know I am, having some insider knowledge of what really goes on in the human mind, I tend to think that we're all in the same boat (or the same bath?).

From the standpoint of perfection, we have no way of knowing how hideous all sin is. I've told you I can't tolerate mice or at least what they do or at least having them do what they do anywhere near me. Do you suppose it matters to me if it's a very good mouse or a very bad mouse? To some extent, they all do what mice do.

Remember the pride and selfishness and "ME, ME, ME!" and "I will be like god!" that was the sin that started off the whole mess in the first place? It's that sin that not a one of us can steer clear of. How many times in my life, in some form or other, have I told God to butt out!

But let's suppose all those BDPs I know aren't very much like me. Let's suppose they are what they seem to be and are basically pretty good people, at least by our standards. Surely, none of them are bad enough to go to hell. We might be able to bring ourselves to think that maybe a Hitler or a child molester or a murderer deserves to go to hell, but what about everyone else? After all, it seems to us that a sin must be very bad in order to deserve eternal punishment.

"According to your beliefs, really and truly good people who don't happen to believe the way you do are on their way to hell. Is that what you call a loving God?" some would say to me (with flashing eyes and a scornful lift of the lip).

The question of good people going to hell has been on my mind a lot today aside from the fact that I've reached the point in this book where it has to be addressed. I've been thinking about it because of a book I'm reading right now: Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. In this book at the place where I've got to, a particularly obnoxious character, Miss Clack, who is an earnest "Christian" woman in a state of constant anxiety about the condition of those unsaved souls around her, has just broken the news to another character, Rachel, that she (Miss Clack) believes Rachel's dead mother to be in hell. Miss Clack might not have put it that way, but that's the gist of it.

This is Rachel's reaction:

"Come away!” she said to Mr. Bruff. “Come away, for God's sake, before that woman can say any more! Oh, think of my poor mother's harmless, useful, beautiful life! You were at the the funeral, Mr. Bruff, you saw how everybody loved her; you saw the poor helpless people crying at her grave over the loss of their best friend. And that wretch stands there, and tries to make me doubt that my mother, who was an angel on earth, is an angel in heaven now!"1

When I read it, of course I saw the thing from Rachel's point of view. I believe my own eyes flashed and my own lip lifted scornfully. Of course one can't help seeing the thing from Rachel's point of view. It's the obvious point of view. Of course none of us would wish to side with Miss Clack (especially as Mr. Collins has drawn her in such a way that no one could wish to side with her or even read any more about her than one has to). But there! Truth is what we're supposed to be concerned with in this book. Not wishes.

Could Miss Clack have been right? If she was right, all Rachel's indignation is pointless, isn't it? All your indignation against me for what I believe would also be pointless. According to what I believe, whether Miss Clack was right would all hinge on what Rachel's mother believed about the issues we've been discussing in this book. (Of course Miss Clack wasn't right for the simple reason that Rachel's mother existed only in ink and paper and the minds of her author and his readers and wasn't capable of believing a solitary thing one way or the other). But what about real people who are in the same position as Rachel's mother? They're awfully nice people. They lead "harmless, useful, beautiful" lives but just don't happen to believe the way I do. What do I have to say about them?

For starters, I wouldn't say that I can pass judgment on anyone. I can't put myself in Miss Clack's place and tell Rachel that her mother has gone to hell because I wouldn't know. I don't know exactly what any other person believes nor certainly what any other person believes in her dying moments. The staunchest atheist may about-face on his death bed. I hope this is the case for all staunch atheists. I hope no one goes to hell. If the Bible is true, then this is a false hope and some will go to hell.

But I'll tell you what I'm glad about. I'm glad I have no way of knowing exactly who has gone or will go to hell. All I can tell you is, if the Bible is true, then those who go to hell are those who did not, in this life, accept the biblical prescription for salvation. Not a popular idea, is it? Because, as we've agreed, we would all wish that no one would go to hell.

You may be surprised to hear that, according to the Bible, God also wishes the same thing. The Bible says that God is "... not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Remember that I have no desire to destroy the mice in my house. Destroying them is abhorrent to me, actually. Just not quite as abhorrent as living with them as permanent house guests.

There are a few more things to say on the subject of good people going to hell, and those few more things end up making a strong case (from my point of view, anyway) for the Bible being right on the subject.

Arguing on the one side, we have the obvious: Rachel's point of view. It consists of the fact that none of us wants good people to go to hell, and because it seems so right we should feel that way, we assume it must also be true.

On the other side, for the moment ignoring the evidence of what the Bible has to say, there are at least three pieces of evidence that I've touched on already that I hope we can agree on. 1) We have a real freedom with real consequences. 2) God is just. 3) God is also good and the source of all good.

I reason like this: God gave all of us freedom of will for purposes of His own because He thought it was worth it. All of us have the choice to make: "God or not-God." At some point in our lives, every one of us has made the choice that we must be the god of ourselves. Every single one of us has chosen Self over God. The deciding factor is, do we go to our graves still in that condition, or do we decide at some moment before we reach the grave that we were wrong after all and God must be God? If I go to my grave, after which point is eternity, determined to be the god of myself, God will let me. The freedom He gave was a real one. And if I go to my grave clinging to my own godhood, how could I possibly go to heaven or the state of perfect existence with God?

Why? Because God is just.

God is love, but God is also just. Because He is perfectly just, He can be perfectly loving. You may not see how that follows.

Here's what I'm saying: Justice is all about truth and rightness and balance and all those kinds of things. If His love outweighed His justice at the cost of His justice, it wouldn't be love anymore. It's the old, "I could not love thee so much loved I not honour more" idea. We can never be more important to God than the truth that He is God — the only God — because that would deny His own nature. If He could and would take us on any other terms — if He took us as we are, still clinging to our own godhoods — what would become of us? What would become of His heaven? What would become of Him?

We've tried having six billion different gods on this earth, and we've seen what it produces. Child abuse and genocide and Holocausts. Gross, isn't it? If we asked God to abdicate His throne — His right and true Godhood — out of "love," we have no understanding of love. That wouldn't be a loving act at all. It would be the ruin of us. It would be hell for us all.

In order for heaven to be heaven, in order for a perfect state of existence to exist, how many gods could there be in that state of existence? That's right! It's an easy one. There can only be one God in heaven. If we tried having the same number of gods in heaven as we do on earth, we'd get the same result in heaven, only it would last forever. And remember that idea was unthinkable.

So if I go to my grave determined to be the god of myself, God will let me. Forever and ever. I can be my own god. I can be in control of me. We are asked to choose who will be God (at least of our own lives) because the whole point of creating us was to give us the chance to choose Him freely. If we don't, is He suddenly supposed to revoke that freedom? Then where would be the real freedom in that? Where would be the real love or worship if everyone "chooses" Him in the end only because He takes away that freedom of choice when the stakes get too high? So He will let me choose, but if I choose to be my own god, He just can't have me anywhere near Him in His eternal dwelling if that's my final choice. I can be my own god. Just not in His heaven. And now hell enters the picture.

Remember that God is good and the source of everything good. Whatever else the states of existence we call heaven and hell may be, their fundamental quality is that God's presence is there in the one and it isn't in the other.

"Great! All right!" some people think. "If hell is nothing more than a state of existence forever apart from God, why should I worry about it? I didn't particularly want Him around, anyway, the wet blanket! If hell is just being allowed to be in control of myself, then who wants heaven?"

Ha! That's what you think! (At least, I sincerely hope that's not what you think.) If it is, you're not thinking clearly. God is good and the only source of anything good.

What you think of as "good" may not turn your crank. Maybe "good" in your mind is associated with people like Miss Clack, and the sooner you're away from them and the kind of God they believe in, the better. Maybe you think you like evil better than good because the evil is more fun. You're missing the point. When I say "good," I mean every kind of good. If you enjoy evil, where do you think your power of enjoyment came from? You're misusing it, but its misuse doesn't change the fact that your capacity for pleasure only came from the One who made you. All pleasure is possible only because it originally came from God.

There will be nothing fun about hell. That feeling we label now as "fun" will have vanished in hell along with the presence of a good God.

So it makes sense to me that the only ones God can have living in His presence forever and ever are those who have made one certain decision, and that decision is to let God be God. It also makes sense to me that living apart from His presence forever and ever will be hell (literally).

But hold on! What about all those good people we were talking about earlier? Who's to say that they haven't decided to let God be God?

I hope most of them have. But if you mean good people who just can't believe the "all this" the Bible tells us we have to accept in order to be “saved,” well, that tells me right there that those “good” people are still clinging to their own godhood.

If a person says to himself, "I'm all right. I'm good enough. God will accept me. I don't really need to bother about anything more," what does that tell us? That tells me that that person isn't willing to do things God's way, still wanting to do things his own way. Remember that pride and Self-over-God and "ME, ME, ME!" and that desire for the ultimate control of oneself are the starting-points of all evil. If God says, "Just admit that you're not good enough to make it to heaven on your own," and I say, "No, I won't," who's in control of me? Who's the god of me?

Can anyone really be good enough to make it to heaven on her own? Rachel thought her mother was good enough. She described her as an angel on earth. Really? Did she really mean that her mother had already attained a state of perfection? Did she really mean that her mother had arrived at a place where she never made decisions out of that "ME, ME, ME!" attitude? Then her mother probably was an angel already, and there was nothing human about her. If she meant that her mother was still human but a very good human, then I think we would be forced to admit that her mother wasn't quite perfect. In that case, if her mother had never arrived at the point in her life where she admitted that she wasn't quite good enough for heaven on her own, then we could deduce that whatever good points she had, she was still determined to do things her way and be her own god. Then we could further deduce that God couldn't let her into heaven.

How good do you have to be? If there's one crumb of sin in heaven, how long would it be heaven? Even if the stalk is ripped off the root of pride so that none of its fruit is left, how long would it take for the root to grow a new stalk and bear new fruit? If pride was what got the whole ball rolling in the first place, shouldn't it be sin enough to keep us out of heaven?

I've admitted that I can't blame God for wanting to keep me out of heaven with all my sin intact. Even I want to be rid of the stuff. But here's my dilemma: I can't be perfect. I can't even be good. Rachel's mother was good (by our standards). Even she couldn't be perfect. And perfection and nothing less is demanded to enter heaven. The question is not, "Why should anyone go to hell?" Suddenly it becomes, "Why shouldn't everyone?" And there's only one answer. We should.

But God doesn't want us to. In fact, almost unbelievably, He wants us with Him forever. But nothing I can do can make me good enough for heaven.

So God came up with a way of making me good enough. He can make me perfect. But first, I have to let go of that grip on the godhood of myself. I have to let Him do it His way.

But why? If God could make us perfect, why not just do it? Why all the insistence that we believe a certain way and all the rest? Because it seems to me that if God said, "Well, you blew it. You're determined to be your own god, but I'm going to overturn that decision. I'm going to go ahead and make you perfect, even though it's not really Me that you want," then where's the freedom of love or obedience or worship in that? And if no freedom, maybe no perfection is possible — at least not the kind of perfection that God's interested in.

Then there's the guy who says, "If He wants us to choose Him, why doesn't He try harder? Why doesn't He make it plainer that He exists?" There are a bunch of answers to that one (mostly along the lines of, "What more do you want?" and "Whatever it is, it's been tried, and didn't do any good, anyway." At least not for those who just, plain do not want to believe. People can find a way around any kind of evidence). But the answer I want to talk about here is this one: faith. The Bible tells us that without it, it's impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

It's also this matter of faith that explains why we must choose God "this side of the grave" if it's to do us any good. You may have noticed that I kept referring earlier to "the grave" and to the necessity of choosing God before our time is up. Why is that such a big deal? Why do some Christians believe there are no second chances after death? Again, faith. I think faith and freedom are twins that must go hand in hand.

After we die, we'll know one way or the other, won't we? I mean, we will if I'm right. If the annihilist is right, if there is no conscious life after death, then we'll never know. In which case, nothing I'm saying here matters. Nothing anyone could say about anything matters very much. But if I'm right, it matters.

Now, if we do know the truth about all this when we die, if we do see God with our blindfolds off, could we still choose Him freely? No, we could only choose to choose Him, or in other words, we'd have no choice. Even from the little we can deduce about God, do you really think, in being face to face with the reality of Him, any of us could stand up before Him and coolly say, "No thanks. I don't need any help. I can manage, thank you"? I don't think any one of us would be standing up at all, never mind saying anything of the sort. So if there is to be any freedom, if there are to be any real choices, they must happen right here in the uncertainty of earth.

And it must be uncertain. By faith, I mean that acceptance of things that are not proven absolutely to us. Sure, I suppose God could write the fact of His existence across the sky in bold letters for all the world to see. (Oh wait! He's tried that. Looked at the stars lately?) I suppose He could speak to us from out of the clouds in language we could understand. (Tried that, too!) I mean, I suppose He could overwhelm all of us with His presence until we couldn't stand before Him (and He will someday), but where would be our freedom in that? I think in His insistence on faith, His insistence on our choosing Him in spite of our uncertainty and our not hearing clearly from Him, we can see the importance of this matter of our freedom and of our freely choosing Him. This life is the exam, and we don't know all the answers. If we did, there would be no point to the exam. If there's to be any element of choice at all, there must be an element of the unknown for us.

Speaking of exams, have you ever had to take one of those silly tests that claim to show how carefully you read and how well you follow instructions? At the beginning, it says something like, "Do not begin this test until you've read it all through." Then it goes through pages and pages of difficult and impossible questions and the final one says something like, "Don't answer any questions other than this one: Did you read all the questions before you started?" Of course, most people ignore the first instruction and struggle away through the pages and pages, wondering why a select few are sitting there grinning with their tests turned over. Then they get to the last question, but... arrggh! It's too late, and they've already failed the test.

If you like, there's a parallel here. In this test of life, there are millions of hard questions. We do have to attempt them all, but there's really only one that's the clincher. There's only one that determines if we pass or fail. The test is so hard, and we're such backward students that none of us has a hope without this one question. A lot of us, like me, struggle through, getting 10 or 20% right (and that's a high estimate). Maybe some BDPs get pretty close. Maybe an absolute saint might get 80 or 90%. But the passing grade is 100%.

There's a much-used illustration that shows how inadequate that 80 or 90% is. In a broad jump, I might be able to pull off a distance of about three feet. Let's make you an exceptional jumper and assign you a superhuman ability of about forty feet. Now, if you and I are perched on the edge of the Grand Canyon, who's going to come closer to jumping across it? You will, right? By a whole thirty-seven feet. You might feel very good about yourself and your jumping ability if you were just competing with me. After all, you can jump more than ten times my distance. But those thirty-seven feet don't really amount to much in light of the Grand Canyon. In light of God's perfection, whether we're very bad mice or very good ones, whether we get ten or twenty percent or eighty or ninety, none of it matters very much.

On the exam of life, there's only one question you must answer right, and that question will give you the perfect grade you need that you can't get any other way. When the time's up and the Teacher calls for us to hand in our papers, there's really only one question He's looking to see if we got right. If that one was answered correctly, He takes His red pen and marks a big A, 100% at the top of the page and erases all the wrong answers and fills them in for us Himself. That one question we must answer right is this: "Will you let Me write this test for you?"

You've asked me (or I've asked myself, I mean) how I could believe in a loving God and a hell at the same time. Are you beginning to see the answer? Here we have a God who hates sin, who hates what we do — what we all do — more than I hate mice or mosquitoes. But does He write us off? Does He destroy us en masse? No, He takes the surprising route of tolerating past endurance the things He hates in the hope that we'll learn to hate them, too, and let Him get rid of those things for us. Then, He's found a way, at great cost to Himself (more on that in later chapters), to get rid of our sin and turn us into His much-loved children so we can live in His presence and enjoy Him forever.

I can't have mice in my house forever, and He can't have sinners with Him forever. So we have to become something else. We have to have our natures transformed.

When I try to stretch the analogy of my rodent problem to include the reality of what God does for us, I just have to laugh. It's ridiculous to think of me not only tolerating the mice in my house but loving them and finding a way to get rid of their mousy habits and natures so they can live with me forever. No one would do it. No one but God, that is. As ridiculous as it would be for me to turn my pests into pets, it's ridiculouser (almost as ridiculous as that non-word) for Him to do what He does. My mice analogy breaks down at this point simply because what God does beggars analogy. There's nothing like it that's ever been seen or attempted before. Imagine opening a wildlife preserve in your house for mice and snakes and cockroaches. Imagine opening a blood bank for mosquitoes. Then you'll have a little better understanding of why Christians talk about God's grace and call it amazing. They might almost as well call it ridiculous grace, it goes so beyond reason.

Now, it's true that to God we are not what rodents and insects are to me. We do have great worth and value to Him, and that worth and value says a whole lot more about what He's like than it does about what I'm like. I have great worth and value because of the price God assigned to me, because of what He was willing to pay. A lot of people talk as though it's easy to believe God loves us — why wouldn't He, after all? — but that it's ridiculous to believe in hell. It's a far bigger stretch to see why God should love us. The hell part isn't ridiculous at all. The lengths God goes to to keep us from going there are.

If all else I've reasoned about God is true, I have to believe in hell. If I believe He allows us to follow through on our own choices, I have to believe that not everyone will be able to spend eternity in His presence. I know beyond doubt that eternity completely removed from God's presence will be hell.

There's another obvious objection I should probably mention here. It's the obvious objection that none of us are capable of being anything other than what we are. Mice can't help doing what mice do. Mosquitoes are what they are by nature.

On the one hand, Christians are always placing the responsibility for a person's actions on the person but then turning around and saying that he never stood any chance of being perfect anyway. I mean, all Christians will admit that everyone sins, that none of us can do much besides sin. Next, we admit that God judges a person for his sin. Still, we believe that God is just and only does what's fair. Is it fair to judge someone for something she can't help? If all of us have sin in our natures passed onto us by the original pair of sinners, why are we judged when we're not to blame?

Before we can really sink our teeth into that question, we first need to decide if the Christian doctrine of a hereditary sin nature is a viable one. Especially when I phrase it like that, "hereditary sin nature," it sounds like a bad mix between theology and science fiction. But it is a Christian doctrine that, for some reason and in some way, we all sin because our original parents sinned. Sin entered the world through them, and as a result, every one of us since then has been and will be a sinner.

Is it a reasonable idea? Though the Bible really gives us no information as to how a bent toward sin is passed on, it states loudly and clearly that all have sinned (Rom. 3:23). It is definite on the fact that all of us will sin. It's inevitable.

Of all of Christianity's claims, this is one that should be indisputable when we look around. How could anyone have any knowledge of history and still come up with the philosophy that humanity is basically good?

Even the segment of the population we suppose to be the most pure and the most innocent isn't. Could you name me an environment in which cruelty and nastiness and bickering and selfishness and "ME, ME, ME!" flourish any greener than in a school playground? But isn't that because of environment? Isn't it all learned behaviour? The truth is the exact opposite. "ME, ME, ME!" is the most natural thing in the world to us. That old self-will asserts itself from the very youngest ages.

I saw the truth of it yesterday in living colour with a mother and her little girl who was about two. The mother was trying to teach her little daughter to say "please" for something she really wanted. I know the little girl was perfectly capable of saying "please." Her mother was prompting her in the request for the coveted item, and the little girl could repeat the rest of the request just fine, but the bone of contention was the "please," and she locked her lips tight when she got to that "please." The toddler ended up giving up the toy she wanted because she exchanged it for the greater pleasure of exerting her little will and showing her mother that she was going to be in control of herself. "You're not the boss of me!" Interesting how it all comes down to that decision of the will — of this matter of who will be in control — and how early that battle starts.

Can you imagine any adult in his right mind teaching a toddler the word, "Mine!"? Where do kids pick up this word? Yet why is it always one of the first words a kid learns? (A close second, right after the word, "NO!") It's unselfishness that has to be trained into us, and those who aren't trained in any direction do not end up unselfish. And yet some claim that we're born basically good and learn to be bad from our environment. Remember that our environment is just the product of us.

I understand why we want to think that kids are innocent, little creatures. I would say that they do have a special place in God's heart. They are specially loveable in their total openness and their total defenselessness. And they're just so totally cute! But I don't think I could agree that they're also so totally sinless. Like it or not, they are just littler, cuter versions of you and me, and I know what I am.

So if we acknowledge some kind of sin nature that rears its ugly head very early in life, the question stands: Why are we judged when we're not to blame?

I'm not sure that I could quite agree that not being able to help what we are and not being to blame for it are quite the same things, but let's leave that question alone for the moment. Let's suppose that we really are not to blame for what we do. Does it still follow that we could call God unloving or unfair for sending us to hell for it?

Let's go back to the illustration of mice and mosquitoes and other undesirables. Let's suppose another ridiculous supposition. Let's suppose I had created mosquitoes. In some lab somewhere, I'd put together this little creature and started off the whole species. Let's say I'd done it for some good purpose, but it hadn't happened. The only result was mosquitoes as we know mosquitoes. So I was the one responsible for this torment of all mankind, results ranging from uncontrollable scratching to death by malaria. Now, let's also pretend that I had the means at my disposal of their disposal. If I chose, I had it in my power to wipe out every mosquito absolutely. Would I be unjust or unloving to do it? I have to tell you that I probably wouldn't hesitate. Even though I didn't create mosquitoes, if I could destroy them all outright, I don't believe I'd stop to think about it. They'd be gone.

Now, there's probably some perfectly good reason they exist, and some part of the ecosystem would be violently out of balance if I wiped out mosquitoes, and the whole world would end up falling apart, but I know myself well enough to think I'd take that risk and just up and do it.

As it is, when a mosquito lands on me and does what's in its nature to do, I don't waste a thought on justice or blame or the responsibility or irresponsibility of the mosquito for its evil nature. SMACK! That's my decision.

You could call me unjust and unloving for a variety of reasons. But you have to understand that it's not a question of blame. It's a question of what I can tolerate. An intolerance for mosquitoes is in my nature, and an intolerance for sin is in God's.

And supposing I really had made mosquitoes. I might feel very badly that they hadn't turned out how I'd hoped. I might feel regret and sorrow at their destruction. But being responsible for them, I'm quite sure I would destroy them. Could you have anything to say against me? The fact that I was their maker, that I had given them life in the first place, would silence all your objections.

Can you see that God really does have the right to do the same with us? He made us. Whether or not we're to blame, we cause misery. To Him and to ourselves. He would have every right to destroy us and banish us from His presence forever, especially as we're not unknowing, unwilling, passive victims of our natures like mosquitoes are. We really do know that what we do is wrong. But God doesn't exercise His rights to do whatever He wants with us. Instead, He allows us to do what we want with ourselves. He allows us to make our own choices. If those choices lead to our destruction, He even allows that, but He does everything He can to keep us from that destruction.

I looked at that mouse running across my kitchen floor and felt a twinge of pity because I was going to have to destroy him. God looks at us with more than just a twinge of pity to see us destroying ourselves. He looks at us with heartrending compassion and love. He sees us in all our sin and misery and sickness and helplessness and longs for us. Longs that we'll just make the one simple decision that will give Him permission to free us from our sinful, miserable, sick, helpless state. Those who point out that the Christian understanding puts God in the position of condemning us for something we can't help forget that in the Christian understanding, God does His best not to condemn us. He doesn't ask much. He doesn't ask or expect us to get 100% on the test on our own. He only asks us to let Him write the test for us.

It's not a case of us being condemned for something we can't help. It's a case of being condemned when we refuse His help. And that is something we can help. All right then. Once and for all, let's be finished with calling God unfair and unloving.

I can believe in a loving God and a hell at the same time. What I haven't done is show why I need to believe in a loving God and a hell at the same time. We've gone through some steps to determine that a belief in a loving God is the most reasonable option (even as much beyond reason as it takes us, it's really the only way anything else about life makes sense). In this chapter, I was hoping to show you that a belief in hell is not a deterrent to a belief in a loving God. I suppose what I haven't done is show you why I think a belief in hell is necessary at all. I mean, I haven't gone through any steps to show why a belief in a life after this one is the only logical choice. I haven't because the fact of an after-life seems self-evident to me, given the fact of a loving God. Apparently, it's not self-evident to everyone. So let's look at the reasons it should be self-evident. We've gotten ahead of ourselves. All right, let's go backwards to catch up to ourselves. Let's see if the horse does draw the cart. Let's talk immortality.

______________________________

1 — Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 294-295.

Chapter 11

When Mortality Puts on Immortality

What exactly is life? I'm asking the question right now in a plain old biological or medical sense. I mean, what's the difference between life and non-life, between the living and the dead?

In biology, I remember learning something about the four (at least, I can only remember four) basic characteristics of life: movement, growth, reproduction, and energy consumption and output. But obviously there's more to life than a list of basic characteristics. A list of criteria that helps us recognize life tells us nothing about what it really is. There's nothing to tell us why something moves, grows, reproduces, and uses energy. These characteristics show a thing's living. They don't make it live. We can say, "An organism is alive because it moves, grows, reproduces, and uses energy" (and whatever those other criteria are), but really, it's not true. A thing moves, grows, reproduces, and uses energy (etc.) because it's alive. The life comes first.

In fact, life is a great mystery. It's more than a matter of chemicals: of amino acids and proteins and cells and DNA. I mean, what happens when an organism dies? Its physical make-up, in one sense, is the same. The chemical composition is the same. The amino acids and proteins and cells and DNA and all like that haven't gone anywhere. The chemicals have just stopped reacting as they once did. What made them react? They've just stopped being alive. What makes them live?

When we get to consciousness, the mystery deepens. In higher animals, there are certain vital signs that we look for as signs of life. We look for a pulse or a heart beat; we look for respiration; we look for brain activity. And if there are no vital signs, we conclude that the body is dead. But my question is, what is it that makes the heart beat and the lungs go in and out and the brain function? You may say that it's the brain that keeps all the others going, but don't they keep the brain going, too? So maybe it's all the vital organs working in conjunction that make something live?

That's true as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. Is that all life is? A functioning of organs? So what is it that makes the organs function? They'll still be the same old organs after the life has left the body. So what's changed? Are we alive because our organs function, or do our organs function because we're alive? What I'm getting at here is that there is more to life than meets the microscope.

I think that holds true for all levels of life, but especially true when you get to our level where a concept of a soul or a spirit emerges — the part that experiences and processes and reasons and feels and chooses. It seems obvious to me that the soul is inextricably connected in some way to the organ we call the brain as long as the brain is alive, but to say that the soul doesn't exist at all or is no more than the brain seems nonsense to me. If I am nothing more than a body, dependent on caffeine and oxygen (in that order), then what will have changed after I die? What will be the difference between the living, breathing, walking, talking, thinking me and the me lying on a slab in the morgue? If humans have no immortal souls, then you, the real you, are nothing more than a set of lungs filling and emptying and a heart muscle pumping blood and a certain amount of brain activity.

And when those organs stop performing those functions, there's nothing left of you. The real you that loves and hopes and dreams can be captured and graphed by some piece of hospital equipment. If you are body and only body, the real you would be nothing more than certain behaviours of your atoms — certain reactions and interactions and chemical processes — that cease after you die (although there's nothing to tell us what makes those atoms behave the way they do when you're alive). Maybe you are nothing more than some random atom activity. Maybe you are nothing more than the functioning of your organs. Maybe that's you, but it ain't me! I am not my cells. Whatever you may happen to be, I know that I am more than the sum total of my atoms.

Is there any reason to believe there must be a life after this one? Is there any reason to think all humans have immortal souls?

I think there's good reason to believe it. I think the main reason I can't help myself believing there must be immortality is because I can't help myself believing that there must be a point — a point to life and a point to us. If there is no immortality, then there is no point. If there's a great void on the other side of the grave, then everything we've waded through in these past chapters is completely pointless. Is there truth? Well, seeing we can never know it for certain in this life, if this life is all there is, then there might as well be no truth. For us, and if this life is all there is, then for us is all we have. Is there a God? Well, maybe, but if this life is all there is, then we can never know Him in any kind of absolute way, so for us, there might as well be no God. Is God a God of love? Again, see last answer. We may have some glimmerings that He created us to love and be loved, but we would never find that love very satisfactory if it ends when this life does. Why does evil exist? Why does suffering exist? If this life is all there is, who could say? Evil is a tragedy for which there is no possible happy ending. And suffering? While it may work out a few good results in this life, if this life is all there is, we could hardly admit to suffering being worth it.

If, on the other hand, there is a life after this one, then someday we may see the point. Then we may know Truth, God, Love, and Glory. Then suffering may make sense after all. The suffering of this life doesn't last. But if we do, God may allow so much of it because He's thinking long term. The suffering doesn't last, but it can leave lasting impressions for good on the things that last (if there's a life after this one) — on ourselves, on our relationships with Him, on our relationships with each other, and on others' relationships with Him.

In everything I've written so far, the reality of immortality has been inherent in every point I've made. Have any of those other chapters we've been through together had any truth in them at all? To me, it looks very much like the conclusions I've come to seem more reasonable than the alternatives (I admit a bias in my own favour, but all the same; that's how I see it.) There's a sort of necessity in the conclusions I've come to (not that I'm taking credit for any of them. You know where I got them). If you leave out any of the basic tenets of truth, God, love, freedom, evil, suffering, or death, you have a picture that doesn't work. It doesn't add up. And I find it's the same with this chapter. Leave out immortality, and nothing else adds up. If there is a God and that God is loving and that God is just, then there must be a life after this one. Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer in this life? This life certainly isn't fair. If God is, there must be another life.

I think most of us would have to admit that the only possibility that everything may make sense in the end is if this life is not the end. Those who deny immortality must also deny any kind of purpose or sense to the universe.

And that is the route many people have taken. “I don't believe in all that pie-in-the-sky and happy-hunting-grounds stuff,” they say. “So I admit it. We live in a senseless universe.”

Funny thing is, it's kind of like that stubborn refusal to let go of a belief in an absolute moral standard. None of us can do it. None of us can stop ourselves looking for and expecting some kind of point. I can't believe in a pointless universe because I just plain can't! I can no more stop myself looking for meaning and purpose and sense and order and rhyme and reason than I can sprout wings and fly to the moon. And why would I spend all my time looking for a point if I thought there was no point at all to be found?

Yet all of us are the same. We look for point everywhere in everything. Remember that we all have square heads. But if there is no immortality, then there is nothing square in our larger existence. Our heads happen to be square for no purpose at all. There is no corresponding squareness to the universe. There are no straight edges, so we might as well stop looking. But the need to try and make sense of things is so written into our hard drives that even our best attempts to erase it just go to prove how indelibly it's written there.

Pointlessness shows up in a lot of our modern works of art. It's interesting, isn't it, that pointlessness is the point of the work of art? No one has ever yet created a work of art without having a point to it in her own mind. The rest of us may not have an inkling of the point the artist was trying to make (although we'll turn the work upside down and inside out looking for a point), but there always is a point, even if the point is that there is no point.

But it's not just artists striving for a point. It's all of us. Every time we open our mouths, we're expected to have a point. If I had rambled on for ten chapters already and none of it was working towards any kind of a point — if it was all disconnected and random thought that happened to pop into my head — you'd have given up on this book long ago. But has it ever occurred to you that it's asking a lot of a speaker or a writer always to have a point in everything he or she says if the universe itself is pointless?

Those who attempt to end their search by deciding there is no point to be found still seem to feel the tragedy of the situation, just as if they really expected there to be one. All this is extremely odd if we do, in fact, live in a pointless universe. If pointlessness is our natural habitat, why would we spend all our days looking for what doesn't exist? How could we possibly have any concept of point and purpose if none exist?

I know other people who are okay with living in a pointless universe because they think they can make their own point. They themselves can bring meaning and purpose to their lives (again, I'd like to point out, (no pun intended) that it's strange they even feel a need for a point if the universe is pointless. Okay, I think you've got that point by now. I'll leave it alone.).

Humanity making a point for itself in a pointless universe; it's become a common theme in movies and books, and the idea of it can seem very powerful and very moving. Have you ever read a movie review or the back cover of a book? If it's highly recommended, then it's probably because it "...celebrates the power of the human spirit..." Or maybe "...chronicles the story of an all-conquering love." The movies and books and the ideals about the power of the human spirit and the all-conquering love may be able to give us warm fuzzies. But without immortality, what happens to all those points we try to make for ourselves to give our lives meaning and purpose and warm fuzziness?

Think about it! The "power of the human spirit" is nothing without the human spirit. If the human spirit is not more powerful than the grave, then it's not very powerful at all. The "power of the human spirit" dies with it. The idea may live on in our minds to give us, the readers and the viewers, a warm, fuzzy feeling, but so what? It's a false warm, fuzzy feeling. "The power of the human spirit" would be a delusion.

The lover must be more than the abstract "...all-conquering love..." because the love is nothing without the lover. If all-conquering love can't conquer the grave, it's not all-conquering.

I'm groping to convey a concept here. I'll try to make it plainer. What I'm saying here is that big and powerful ideals would be nothing without minds to conceive or perceive them. If those minds last only a mere seventy years or so, then the ideals can't be all that big and powerful. If the universe is ultimately pointless and we believe we can make our own point, all our points end up looking pretty pointless.

Not only pointlessness, but the finality of death seems intolerable and unthinkable to us. Who doesn't rebel at the thought? Again, very strange if we're not immortal souls and death is only natural to us.

Even those who deny the existence of the immortal soul seem to feel it necessary to try to hang on to some form of an after-existence. There's the idea of going back into the universe and becoming part of it in some way. All our individual lives are individual cups of water that get poured back into the universal ocean when we die, that type of idea.

There's a poetic view of this after-existence that's expressed perfectly in a poem that goes:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sun on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled light.

I am the soft star that shines at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there; I did not die.

(Anonymous)

I'm not sure what the poet meant by it, but I know it expresses the sentiment of those who want there to be some kind of after-existence that's not quite an after-life.

It's a beautiful poem. It's a beautiful sentiment. It may even be slightly comforting. In light of what the laws of thermodynamics tell us, there's even truth to it. It's true that when we die our atoms get recycled. Our bodies go back into the ground, and the dust or the ashes that we become turn into something else. Our physical energy goes back into the universe for some other cause. It's the energy of ex-living things that we now use to heat our homes and fuel our cars.

My description of these events is not nearly as poetic as the one I quoted above, but it's probably more accurate. I'll tell you what it's not, though. It's not enough! It's not enough for me as regards my own immortality. It's not enough for me as regards the immortality of those I love.

I don't really care if my atoms get recycled back into the universe. I am not my atoms. It doesn't matter to me if I someday become petroleum and fill someone's gas tank. I'm not satisfied to become petroleum, valuable as it is. It doesn't even help to think that a part of me could survive on in my offspring (if I had any) who would still be carrying around my genetic material. I am not my genetic material. I'm me.

It's not even helpful to think that I might become a thousand winds that blow or the diamond glints on snow if I don't know I'm those thousand winds or those diamond glints! If there is no conscious life after this one where I know myself as myself, then it all amounts to the same thing. For me. For me, I will have ceased to exist. In that case, life is pointless. At least, my life is pointless.

Of all of these after-existence ideas, the most pointless is the constant recycling not only of our atoms but of our souls in reincarnation. I say that reincarnation is the most pointless of the after-life ideas because the pointlessness keeps on getting repeated. All that improving we're supposed to be doing, if reincarnation is true, doesn't seem to be working, judging by the human race. We're all still busy trying to live by our own moral codes. So all that improving is hampered by the fact that none of us will ever know if we're getting closer to what we're supposed to be doing. Pointlessness. Again, if I don't know myself as myself after I die, then I, the real me, the me I am now, has ceased to exist.

I take our felt-need for immortality as one evidence that it's true, but besides that, pictures from nature abound that preach immortality to us, as well. There's the oft-mentioned winter/spring cycle with the beginning of new life from old, dead matter that happens every year. But there are more than just that one.

Today is Easter Sunday. I went to bed a little too late last night, and this morning I had to get up early to go to an Easter Sunrise Service. As you may have noticed (from Chapter Seven where getting out of bed was an unpleasant byproduct), I'm not a morning person. My waking thoughts are not generally pleasant or coherent. My first thought after the alarm went off this morning was a nice one, at least. For some reason, the first thing I thought was the traditional Easter greeting: "Christ is risen!" My next thoughts were not nearly as nice or as reverent. I don't know if they actually took the form of words, but they were along the lines of feeling like the dead myself and not wanting to have to rise.

Though my first waking thoughts are not usually even coherent, sometimes there is flash of brilliance that cuts through the fog. It was probably working on this chapter and thinking about different pictures of immortality found in nature that brought my next thought into my head. It was the sudden realization that even I, in my foggy-groggy state, was living out another of those pictures from nature. Sleep, too, is a natural picture of death. It's sometimes used even as a euphemism for death. The parallels are striking. Sleep is a cessation of consciousness (or at least a change from one form of consciousness to another), and it's something that happens to all of us. In a way, it is an ending. It's how we end every day (nearly every day).

But sleep is not a final ending. Much as I dislike the rising, there is always the rising the next morning.

Morning, too, is one of those pictures. Darkness takes over for a period of time, but there's always a morning.

Now, it's true that all the pictures of resurrection and of life-after-death found in nature are not hard evidence. It's even true that my own desire for life-after-death is not hard evidence.

"It's very easily explained," some would say. "Death is unimaginable to the human mind, this realization that we just cease to exist. So that's where religion came from. People have always desired to live forever and desired those they love to live forever, so naturally, early on people started to look to the world around them for support for what they wanted to be true and began to read into nature all these kinds of 'pictures' of immortality. And so nature religions evolved, and then all religions evolved out of them."

Well, at the very least, you'd have to admit that it's a pretty tidy, little coincidence that we all have this desire for immortality and that these "pictures of immortality" are so easy to read into nature. The ones telling me I must accept this as coincidence are the same ones telling me I have to accept all those other kinds of coincidences. Like the fact of hunger coupled with the fact of food. Like the fact of thirst coupled with the fact of water. Like the fact of vision coupled with the fact of light and colour. Like the fact of sexual desire coupled with the fact of sexual reproduction (and so on and so forth). And now they tell me that while my own desire to live forever is perfectly natural (though unfortunate, of course), the fact that I see resurrection everywhere else in nature is just coincidence and everything else will live again (except for me, of course). But as for me, I'd better just get used to the idea of being dead forever. But here! Have some warm, fuzzy notions about the Power of the Human Spirit (even if the human spirit isn't anything at all, really) and the possibility of becoming a thousand winds blowing (even though I won't know it!).

It's a little like offering an aspirin to a man who's hungry and telling him it'll make him feel better soon. Personally, I find it more reasonable to take growling tummies as evidence for the existence of something that fills them, and when traces and rumours of food can be found, to believe that food was meant for growling tummies. My metaphorical tummy may not be satisfied at this moment, but I believe it will be someday. I believe there's food out there for it. I mean, there's only so much coincidence I can accept before I start to get suspicious.

If God arranged things in such a way that the earth never stops revolving around the sun but brings springtime every single year, if the earth never stops rotating but brings daylight every single morning, if even I manage to get out of bed day after day after the sleep of the dead, why wouldn't He arrange a renewal for what counts most to us? If even our atoms are not wasted but get recycled, I have a very hard time believing that the only part of us that really counts — that mysterious life-force which science can't even begin to touch, that which on a higher level we call soul or spirit, that which makes you you and me me — is simply going to vanish and cease to exist. It doesn't seem to fit at all with how God does things, even on a natural level.

And speaking of God, let's take a look at the Source I've been quoting all book-long to see what it has to tell us about the life after this one. I'll warn you in advance. It pulls no punches, as you'll see. It very definitely proclaims both a heaven and a hell. I'll let it speak for itself. Here are some of the things it has to say on the subject.

First the good news:

Psalm 16:10-11: "For you do not give me up to Sheol,1 or let your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (NRSV).

Psalm 23:6: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

Job 19:25-26: "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

All through the Bible is the promise of immortality. Those were a small sampling from the first part, the Old Testament. Now over to the New Testament, the second part...

1 Corinthians 15:53: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

2 Peter 3:12-13: "Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens^2 being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

Revelation 21:1-4: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

In the New Testament, the good news of immortality is usually coupled with the bad news of immortality. A few verses later we read, "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8).

Then the chapter goes on to describe a holy city where God's very presence dwells and tells us about it in terms of streets of gold and pearly gates (among other jewels). And then, to let us know that we have to be perfect to go there, it says, “But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life” (Rev. 21:27, NRSV).

Then there's the popular John 3:16 and the not-so-popular John 3:18: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life [...] He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Matthew 13:41-43: "The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father [...]" (NRSV).

Matthew 25:41, 46: "Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels[...]And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (NRSV).

“Someone asked him, 'Lord, will only a few be saved?' He said to them, 'Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able[...]But he will say, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!” There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth[...]'”

(Luke 13:23-24, 27-28a., NRSV).

“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:23-24).

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9: "...in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." (NRSV).

And from the Old Testament again, Isaiah 66:24: "And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh" (NRSV).

(Quoted three times by Jesus in Mark 9:44, 46, and 48, to refer to the never-ending existence of hell.)

These passages need to be examined in context to get the best sense of them, but nonetheless, their statements are plain.

We've examined a few of the passages that tell us about the after-life. I won't even begin to try to tell you how much of the language used is the language of imagery put in terms we can readily grasp and how much is literal. I won't try to guess because I don't know.

I have to admit to you that some of the images the Bible uses to tell us about heaven don't excite me. Golden streets and pearly gates don't move me because, frankly, I don't give a rip about gold and jewels. I would be a lot more excited by the Bible's description of heaven if it used images like pine trees and mountains and first snowfalls. There are people who don't give a rip about pine trees and mountains and first snowfalls (especially the snowfalls), so my images might not convey the right message to other people, either.

There's a little girl I knew once who confided in me that she wanted to go to heaven, but she wanted me to assure her that heaven would be what she wanted it to be. She wasn't sure she wanted to go to a heaven where she couldn't have her horse or where she didn't live next to the river where she lived at the time.

Don't all of us tend to feel that there are bits of earth we wouldn't want to leave behind and that God couldn't possibly do anything better than them? If visions of heaven had been given to my little friend like they were to the biblical writer, they might have included horses and rivers, like mine might have included pine trees and mountains. Maybe the biblical writer was given a vision of heaven involving images of gold and all manner of precious stones because, to many, those are the substances of the highest worth and beauty they can imagine. Maybe, I say, because I really don't know. What I would say is what I tried to explain to the little girl. It really won't matter if there are horses and rivers or pine trees and mountains or gold and jewels. There may be. I don't know. But what I know there will be is God: His presence in an unveiled way. And in His presence is "fullness of joy."

Did you notice from the passages on heaven I quoted to you, the joy and the delight and the bliss of heaven come simply from being in His presence? He's the One who came up with horses and rivers and pine trees and mountains and romance and laughter and music and eating and drinking and even gold and jewels in the first place. I've told you that it's probably not the things themselves that we're attached to, anyway. It's the feelings those things are the medium for. Imagine no longer needing the medium because we're right there in the presence of the actual fact behind the feelings. Those feelings and their mediums ("media," I guess, but why start worrying about correct grammar at this stage of the game, eleven chapters in?) are a small part of what He's capable of coming up with.

Right now, we can see some of the gifts that have come from His hand, and so we catch a glimpse of the hand. They're good gifts, and it's a very good hand. One day, we'll be able to look from the hand to the face to know the heart. If the hand is this incredible, what will be the face? What is the heart? The Apostle Paul phrased it this way: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face" (1 Cor. 13:12a.). I'd put it this way: Right now we sip through a straw from a cracked cup drawn from a polluted well. Still, we long for those draughts, not very satisfying as they are. One day, we'll be able to jump in and bathe in the Source.

I leave the details up to God. I just want Him. That's all I know for sure.

I know very little about the after-life. A lot of things are unclear about it from the Bible (like, duh! Try explaining colour to a blind man! Some things are going to be unclear.) This is what is clear from the Bible, so this is what I know: It will be forever. It will be conscious; we will know ourselves as ourselves. God will be wholly present in the one state of existence. God will be wholly absent in the other. His presence makes the one pure delight. His absence makes the other pure, er, the opposite. Both the delight and its opposite will be conscious and eternal.

And now you can blurt out all those questions you're dying to throw at me.

"But why does it have to be that way? Couldn't God have done things differently? I mean, couldn't there be a heaven without also having to be a hell? Sure, I admit it's a nice idea to think we can be perfect and live forever in a perfect state of perfect delight. But why should we also have to think that there must be a state of torment forever as well?"

There is a popular idea even among Bible-believing Christians that there is a heaven but that there is no hell or at least that hell is not as I've portrayed it — a place of eternal, conscious destruction. The idea is that, granted, not everyone goes to heaven when they die, but neither does anyone go to the kind of hell I've been describing. Some people just cease to exist. The idea is one of destruction, but not an everlasting, conscious destruction, just a momentary one. Those who choose against God will be destroyed in a hell of sorts, but it will be all over and done with at once. There's a great many people who believe the Bible who get around its uncomfortable teachings on hell by making hell mean this kind of an annihilation.

I can see where these people are coming from. After all, almost always, when the Bible talks about hell, it pictures it in terms of fire. The most obvious feature of fire (besides its heat) is its destructive power. It burns things up, and there's nothing left (nothing recognizable, anyway). When the Bible uses terms like "eternal destruction" (2 Thess. 1:9) and "eternal punishment" (Matt. 25:46) mightn't it mean that the destruction of those who don't go to heaven is final and so is eternal? The punishment lies in being banished from God's presence and then ceasing to exist. It's everlasting in that it's irreversible. It lasts forever. Isn't that compatible with what the Bible teaches?

It is a much more comfortable idea. As terrible as the idea is that some people will just cease to exist, it's a great deal more terrible to think that they'll exist forever in a state of conscious “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” There are a couple of reasons that I can't buy into this more comfortable idea of hell, much as I'd like to. For one, I don't think it's what the Bible really teaches (of course, that may not have much sway with you at this time, but it's the reason I, personally, can't buy into the more comfortable idea of hell). The passages I quoted to you earlier just don't seem to fit with this “hell-as-annihilation” doctrine.

That's one reason I believe that hell is a state of conscious, eternal destruction and punishment — a final, conscious state of separation from God: the Bible certainly seems to tell us so.

The other reason is that I can't quite reconcile this more comfortable idea of hell-as-annihilation with everything else I've seen about God's way of doing things.

I suppose the question comes down to, "Are we truly immortal or not?" If we want there to be an eternal, conscious, final dwelling-place of delight in God's presence, maybe we have to admit to its opposite. If we want there to be a heaven, maybe there has to be a hell. How else could God have ordered things? If He made immortal souls, capable of free choice, wouldn't those souls have to be immortal, no matter the choice?

I think those who believe in a heaven but not hell have erred in how they see the nature of immortality. It's as though possessing an immortal soul is not part and parcel of being human but as though immortality is a kind of reward that's conferred on some humans after death, and on some it's not conferred. Those others never were and never will be immortal.

But I don't think that's the true nature of immortality. It seems to me that if God were going to create creatures capable of loving Him, capable of communing with Him (literally, capable of having communication with Him), capable of making the kind of immortal choices we're talking about, then those creatures had to be immortal. Remember the child's plastic saw and hammer? They're made of cheap, flimsy stuff that isn't capable of producing anything of real value. Where the stakes are low, nothing much can be lost, but nothing much can be won.

Is it possible that an immortal soul could cease to exist? Now there's a contradiction in terms for you. So if some will cease to exist entirely, then we would have to say that we don't all start off with an immortal soul but are given one after death. That would mean we have a kind of a disposable "soul" here in this life. Could God have created Styrofoam souls, disposable souls, capable of knowing Him? Remember that if there is no immortal soul in a man, then he is nothing more than a set of lungs and a heart and a brain and a few more bare necessities like that. Can a kidney know God? Can a liver commune with its Maker? Even a brain, could any organ that is nothing more than an organ do what God created us to do? I rather doubt it. Any kind of disposable soul ends up looking like no soul at all.

Or if He created some souls immortal, knowing they would choose Him in the end, and others destructible because He knows the final outcome and He knows that these are the souls who would reject Him, would we not be justified to accuse Him of unfairness? Maybe it was all based on His all-knowingness, but then what chance did the Styrofoam souls ever have? They never stood any chance of immortality.

Is it even possible God could have done things that way? That would, in actual fact, make some bodies no more than bodies but some others immortal souls and entirely different. Worlds different. Universes different. That would make some humans merely animal, not capable of knowing spiritual realities, and some humans, well, human — with souls and spirits.

I was writing facetiously at the beginning of the chapter when I told you that you may be no more than a set of lungs and a heart and a brain, but that I know that I'm bigger than my body. But like it or not, you're bigger than your body, too.

Of course God wouldn't have made two different types of humans. Yet I think this is the position we put God in if we try to do away with an eternal hell. Only if we accept the idea that all humans start off with an immortal soul can we see the possibility of every one of us having the chance to live forever with God. And I don't know that God could have done things differently.

An artist creates out of his own nature. Looking at his art, there's some part of his nature we see. Other acts he performs may not flow directly out of his nature, but his art will. Especially in a self-portrait, we see to a certain extent just how it is that an artist sees himself.

This is what I'm thinking: God couldn't make creatures — sons and daughters — in His image — capable of being loved and loving Him freely, capable of comprehending enough of Him that they could love Him freely — and not make them immortal. His nature is life. Death is not part of His nature. So He couldn't make creatures in His image for whom death was part of their nature. Even in the way He made the rest of His creation, death is not part of its nature.

An artist may issue curses that don't flow directly out of his deepest nature. God could issue death as a curse, death of our physical bodies (although that curse was a curse of mercy, as we've seen, and mercy is part of His nature), but in the act of creation, what He created flowed directly out of His nature just as an artist's creations must. We had to reflect Him.

God is immortal. He is ever-living. So, too, must be a creature in His image — His self-portrait. Only this kind of creature would be capable of the kind of relationship with Him that He looks for.

You may still rebel against the idea. "Why should He gamble on people's immortal souls? If He's the one risking, why isn't He the one paying?" Rather, why should people gamble on their own immortal souls? (And He was the One who paid. But no time for that subject here.) It's the immortal souls who are the ones doing the gambling, aren't they? If you disbelieve everything I'm saying here about immortality, you're the one taking the risk that immortality is nothing more than "a thousand winds that blow" or a cup of water being poured back into the sea.

I'm not much of a gambler myself. I'm not prepared to take that risk. Furthermore, I really don't want to. I very much want there to be a heaven. And from everything else I've thought likely to be true, it looks as though heaven must also be true. But if that's the case, then it looks like I'll have to admit to a hell as well. I can't have it both ways.

______________________________

1 — The grave.

2 — “The heavens" or "heaven" is often used differently in the Bible from the way we use it to mean the state of perfect existence after death. In the Bible, it often means "space" or "sky." (See Genesis 1.)

PART III

The Solution

Chapter 12

The Writings

I've made no secret of it. I'm a cheater.

I didn't come up with my straight edges all on my own. I haven't formed my beliefs strictly from looking around at “life, the universe, and everything,” and drawing my own conclusions. I'm not clever enough to figure things out for myself.

I began to see all of my straight edges because I had them pointed out to me. My cleverness extends only so far as being able to say, “Oh, I see! That makes sense!” when I'm told the answers. Yet the answers I've seen from the Bible (as so far discussed) make much more sense to me than any of the alternatives I've heard.

I'd like to enter all the ideas we've looked at so far into evidence for the case I'll be arguing this chapter. If the Bible says true things, that's one piece of evidence for the truth of the Bible.

We've seen a little of its content. If its content is true, then the Bible is true. But putting aside its content for the moment and considering its character — looking at it from the outside, so to speak — is the truth of the Bible our most probable probability?

These two considerations are separate strands of thought, but if intertwined, they make a strong cord. That cord is this proposition: “The Bible is true.”

What we're really asking when we ask if the Bible is true is, "Who wrote it?" There are only two answers to that question. One answer is, "God did!" and the other answer is, "No, He didn't." Those are our alternatives.

I hope you can see why I say that asking, "Is the Bible true?" is the same as asking, "Who wrote it?" If not, I'll explain.

I heard a saying on this subject that I like: "All truth is God's truth." It means that one truth is not more true than another truth. Truth is truth. Scientific fact is not more true than historical fact which is not more true than spiritual truth. And also it means that God is the Author of truth. All truth.

And that brings us back to the question, "Who wrote the Bible?" If God wrote it, then it must be true. In fact, completely true. Infallibly true (unless you would like to call God a liar — or more politely, mistaken). And if it's true (like, completely, infallibly true), then God wrote it, if all truth is God's truth.

The other alternative to God writing the Bible is that people wrote it, and there's no doubt that people wrote the Bible, too. When Christians say, "God wrote the Bible," they're not thinking that He reached down from heaven, picked up parchment and pen, and set to work. Of course, people wrote the Bible, too. The difference is that "too." The alternative to the Christian answer is to say that people wrote the Bible, period.

So on the one hand, people wrote the Bible. But the Christian answer to "Who wrote the Bible?" says that God was really the One doing the writing and that He used people as His instruments in writing His book. If a boss dictates a letter to a secretary, who wrote the letter? It's the secretary's hand holding the pen and making the indecipherable, little squiggles of shorthand on the page that eventually become the finished product. So it must be the secretary, right? But no, we would say that the boss wrote the letter. It's not the hand that holds the pen but the mind that holds the ideas that we credit with authorship. When we say, "God wrote the Bible," we mean it started in His mind, and it came out just the way He wanted it.

But there is a difference between inspiration and dictation. In dictation, the secretary knows full well that the funny-looking squiggles are the ideas and words of the one dictating the letter. But in inspiration, it's different. We don't know how it looks to the one being inspired. I would guess the one being inspired often feels and believes the words and ideas to be his or her own.

For sure, we see that people wrote the Bible, too. There are diversities of styles, expressions, perspectives, voices, genres. The Bible was written to humans through humans in very human language. And it does seem possible (even probable) that some of the hands holding the pens which wrote the Bible thought theirs were the minds originating the ideas.

Maybe some who wrote the histories in the Bible were simply trying to write the most accurate history they could. They didn't realize they were writing the Bible. And maybe some who wrote the Bible's poetry were simply trying to express their true feelings however they came out. But then there were those prophets who had a "Thus-sayeth-the-Lord" experience. They don't often tell us the method God used for getting His message across to them, but in some instances, some of the hands holding the pens stated in no uncertain terms that had they heard from God. They claimed a level of inspiration closer to dictation.

So far, this is all just to explain what is meant when people say, “God wrote the Bible.” But what are the reasons people say so?

Is it reasonable to think that God would have wanted to write a book? Is it reasonable to think God would want to communicate with us? If it's reasonable to think that He might have something to say to us, then maybe we can agree that writing us a book was the most efficient way He could have done it. I can see the superiority of written forms of communication over any others because of the longevity and accuracy of the written word.

We know about Hammurabi's law code because it was all written down. In stone, even. But we also know what Plato or Aristotle or Shakespeare said because their thoughts and words, too, were written down. Even though they weren't written in stone, they're still with us today, and we can be pretty sure of their accuracy because the written word can be copied and translated so that the intended communication survives through the ages.

So I can imagine that the message would be in written form if, in fact, God had something He wanted to say to us. But the question remains, is it reasonable to think that God would want to communicate with us?

Everything else I've written in this book addresses that question in some way. (i.e. Yes, because He is love. Yes, because we're in a mess. Yes, because we can't fix our own mess. Yes, because He is love, He wants to fix our mess.) So I won't say any more about the reasons God might want to communicate with us. I think He does.

But why would His communication with us have to be in the form of one particular book? I mean, if all truth is God's truth, and every person and probably every piece of literature has a little of that truth, why make a big deal out of the Bible? Aren't the ancient writings of other religions equally God's books? For that matter, why not just any old piece of literature, if there's truth to be found in them all?

Or what about all those other kinds of truth to be found out there? Like, scientific or historic truth? Why shouldn't a science or a history textbook be just as much God's book as the Bible?

Sure, truth found anywhere — truth in the ancient writings of other religions, truth in a classic work of literature, truth in a best-seller (or a worst-seller), scientific or historical truth — is all God's truth. Truth is truth, wherever it shows up, and wherever it shows up, I would call it God's truth.

But remember the problem we ran into all those chapters and chapters ago? None of us can know truth for sure when it shows up. The problem with scientific truth is that no one can be sure where to find it or that he's found it once he's found it. I'd bet you that some of what's in the latest science textbook is truth absolute. But I'd also bet that a lot of it isn't.

Before Copernicus and Galileo, the sun went around the earth, and that was scientific "fact." Wasn't it obvious? And those who think that those were the dark ages after all and science has now entered some kind of age of infallibility are in for a rude awakening. The truth is that scientific truth is infallibly true, but none of us can ever be sure what is scientific truth because no scientist is infallible. I think it's been pretty well-established now that the earth circles the sun, but what other obvious "facts" will we discover we've been wrong about? No one really knows.

History is in the same boat. We go on making new discoveries all the time. New "facts" come to light that dispel historical myths that were once regarded as "facts" themselves. But then again, are the new "facts" really facts? Maybe they in turn will be dispelled.

All I'm trying to say is that no one knows everything. Maybe, no one knows anything. Any knowledge from a human source is going to be up for debate. No one is wrong all the time, but everyone is wrong some of the time. If they happen to be human.

If any book is true from cover to cover, I would say it could only be because God wrote it. If it ends up looking as though there is some source that's infallible, that's our winner.

But again, why one particular book? Why couldn't God leave us to glean truth from error for ourselves from all those other sources of truth I was talking about? Or maybe through our own thinking? Why doesn't He let us stumble on, making our own discoveries, even though we get it wrong some of the time? Why this Christian insistence on one infallibly true source?

Well, remember that there are some truths that are important. It's fine for us to make scientific discoveries, getting it wrong a lot of the time but growing in knowledge. But that's because scientific facts don't matter in an eternal-destiny-kind-of-way.

So the sun went around the earth before Copernicus and Galileo? Now that the earth goes around the sun, what's changed exactly? Not much. Life goes on much the same. The sun goes on rising and setting (except that now we know it doesn't, really). Back when the world was flat, people managed to walk around on it just the same as we do on our big ball.

I'm glad God didn't see fit to write us a sort of Encyclopedia Britannica of All Knowledge Possible because I think discovery is kind of fun. I'm also glad He did see fit to write us a "Basic-Instructions-Before-Leaving-Earth" kind of manual on the bare minimum we really can't afford to get wrong — that we can fall back on as trustworthy, rock-solid, infallible, cover-to-cover truth. We need some secure ground somewhere. We don't have to spend our lives adrift on a sea of speculation.

Those are my reasons for thinking that God wrote us a book: because we just, plain needed a book from Him.

But is the Bible that book? What is it about “the Scriptures” that makes people think they're God's book?

First, a side note on the term “the Scriptures”: Christians use the name to mean the whole Bible, but when it's used in the Bible itself, it almost always means what's come to be called the Old Testament. In this chapter, it's the Old Testament we'll be talking about mostly. “The Scriptures” just mean “the Writings,” and we can keep right on calling them that if you like.

Why have a certain set of people down through the ages revered the Writings as God's Writings? Why do a certain set still revere them as such today? As we have a look at them, keep in mind our two options: "God wrote them," or "No, He didn't." And if He didn't, then people did, period. And I think as we get into it, the alternative that people wrote the Writings, period! doesn't end up looking like our best option. There are supernatural elements to the book that make it look as though it couldn't have come only from the hands and minds of fallible humans.

The first piece of evidence for the supernatural origins of the Writings that I'd like us to explore is their unity.

I come from a fairly large family. All my five brothers and sisters and myself are of the same generation and genetic material, reared by the same parents in the same environment. We're probably as much alike as any six people are ever likely to be. Yet if you were to sit the six of us down and have all of us write an essay on any given topic, you would have six very different viewpoints and opinions on the topic. As much alike as we are, we have very different ideas on nearly every subject. Trying to put our essays into one cohesive whole would not lend itself to a lot of unity. You'd be getting a lot of mixed messages.

That's how it is for us humans. I will always see things slightly differently than anyone else, and so will you. Two people may agree on one point, but they'll differ on the next.

Yet here we are presented with a book written by unquestionably more than six different authors from unquestionably different generations and unquestionably diverse walks of life in agreement on everything, though written from different perspectives. But from start to finish, the Writings present one message and one story. There's a remarkable unity to them that is inexplicable in human terms.1

There are a couple of natural explanations I can think of that could be offered for the Writings' apparently-supernatural unity. Let's call the first one “the copy-cat theory.” Maybe the Bible is one consistent whole because the authors based their writings on each other's works. After all, they weren't all written independently in complete ignorance of all the Writings that had come before. The prophets knew the histories. The historians knew the psalms. The psalmists knew the law. If I were trying to write an essay that would say the same as my brother's essay, it would be a whole lot easier if I had a copy of my brother's essay in front of me.

Of course that's one way to look at it. Or we could flip it around and offer this point as one more piece of evidence for the truth of the Writings. It's the "multitude of witnesses" idea. All the writers of the Writings acknowledged that the Writings which had come before them were, in fact, written by God. If the writers of the prophecies wrote God's words and so did the writers of the histories and also the writers of the psalms and the writers of the law, then the prophets would affirm the histories to be God's histories, and the historians would call the psalmists' songs God's songs, and the psalmists would speak of the laws as God's law. And that is what we find with the Writings. The writers of the Bible back each other up as being the writers of the Bible — one of the factors in canonization which we'll talk about in a moment.

If you think that different authors all holding one source to be infallible and authoritative will automatically have perfect unity in what they write, just check out the plethora of Christian books, church denominations, and diversities of interpretations today regarding that source we call our infallible, authoritative source. A common source does not have to mean common ground.

But couldn't the remarkable unity of the Writings be the result of nothing other than canonization? By canonization, I mean the official process of collecting and of picking and choosing which books would be considered the Sacred Writings. Maybe the Bible looks like a unity because of the picking and choosing that went on. If a book didn't conform to what the rest had to say, out it went! So what was left looks like a unity. If all dissenting voices are excommunicated, those who are left will look pretty unified. Maybe there's nothing more to the Bible's unity than that.

I remember when I first learned about the canonization of the Bible. I was dismayed to learn that the Bible, which I had been raised to accept as God's Word, forever “settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89), was a collection of works chosen in such a non-supernatural and even bureaucratic fashion. I had mental images of a group of men sitting around in an ancient version of a committee room, ayeing and naying over what books would or would not be considered God's Word. Was God's Word really put to a debate and a vote in a boardroom? How sacred was that? Didn't it make the Bible look a whole lot more like the result of ordinary human decision and effort than it did the divinely-inspired Word of God? It bothered me until I realized that I had no problem accepting that it was ordinary humans who were divinely inspired to write God's book. So why balk at ordinary humans being the ones divinely inspired to endorse it?

God's work in the world usually looks everyday and humdrum and ordinary to us because we get used to it. Doesn't mean it's not His work. So why couldn't God work through a boardroom?

Besides, I don't think my boardroom scenario is very accurate. From what I understand, canonization was just the collecting of the works that had already come to be generally accepted as divinely inspired and authoritative because of their claims and their character. Canonization made official the acceptance of certain books as God's Writings. But they'd already been accepted by the Jewish people as God's Writings long before canonization made it official — just because there was something so different about this particular set of Writings that set it apart from all others.

I've talked about the unity in the Writings as a remarkable unity, and it is. It's not so much the fact of this unity in itself that's remarkable, although it is. What's remarkable about the Writings' unity is the character or nature of it. It's the kind of unity the Writings have that convinces me it can't be explained away with copy-cat theories or the fact of canonization or any principles of “higher criticism.” I can't quite explain what I mean by this kind of unity. You'll have to read it for yourself to see what I mean. It's an eerie kind of unity, different from merely an agreement of opinion or message. There are certain themes, unbroken threads, that run through the Writings that even the writers themselves don't seem to be aware of. It's as though all the different writers held a different piece of a puzzle blindly without knowing what it was. Or maybe like a treasure hunt where they all independently had found a different clue leading to the same treasure. But none of them knew where or what the treasure was. None of these clues made a lot of sense individually. But put them all together, and voila! That's the kind of unity I'm talking about. A kind not explicable in human terms. But this unity I'm talking about ties in to our next section. I think it will come clearer there.

The next evidences for the truth of the Bible are conjoined. These are the factors I mentioned earlier that make writing superior to other forms of communication: longevity and accuracy.

So...the Bible's longevity. So it's an old book? There are lots of old books out there that have survived through the ages. Why should the Bible's longevity tell us that it must be God's Word?

It's not only that the Bible is an old book, though. What makes it amazing is that it's such a current book. Hammurabi's law code is still in existence, true. Read it lately? But people are still opening up and reading their Bibles daily. And if you open it up and read it, some of what you'll read is a little like reading the front page of today's newspaper. Oh wait! Some of what you'll read is on the front page of today's newspaper! And that brings up the subject of the Bible's accuracy.

Under accuracy, I could talk about the Bible's historical accuracy as vindicated by secular history and the discoveries of archaeology. Or we could talk about the accuracy of historically-fulfilled prophecies also vindicated by history and archaeological discoveries. However, I won't as this would require quoting the Alfred J. Humpenschlinkels and Frederick G. Mattenbauers of this world, and I've promised not to inflict my research on you. So we'll stick to general knowledge kinds of things that we can see for ourselves on this question of the Bible's accuracy.

The Writings present themselves for incisive examination in this area by making clear-cut predictions that can easily be seen to be fulfilled or not. Let's look into some that we can see coming true from our own observations — that have happened right under our very noses, in fact. Or on the front pages of today's paper. These fulfillments are hard to find a way around.

I hope you'll agree with me that if anyone can accurately predict the future, that person has insider knowledge. He's hearing from the Supernatural. (That's the test the law itself tells us to apply to prophecies spoken in God's name: Do they come true? Deut. 18:18-22). It's one thing to guess the outcome of a horse race or make prophecies like, "Today, expect the unexpected," or, "This week, you will encounter difficulties in your closest relationships." (I mean, like, duh!) But to accurately predict future events that go against the odds — that's a different category of prediction.

The Bible makes astounding claims that have come true and stood the test of time. Against the odds. (And here we come back to the longevity of the Bible.) It makes some claims for itself that would be laughable. If they hadn't come true, that is.

The prophet Isaiah had this to say about the longevity of God's words to him: "And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the LORD: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children's children, says the LORD, from now on and forever" (Isaiah 59:21, NRSV).

And in another place, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8, NRSV).

Pretty definite, that!

Here's what the prophet Jeremiah said about the words God gave him: “Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, 'Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:9-10, NRSV).

Nations were to be built, nations were to be destroyed, all to be accomplished in accordance with the words the Lord was putting in Jeremiah's mouth! Pretty big claims for those words.

You have to realize that when these words were spoken, they were spoken by some, little, two-bit prophets from some, little, two-bit nation, standing tall in their dusty sandals, and proclaiming "Thus sayeth the Lord..." They would have remained two-bit prophets from a two-bit nation were it not for one thing. Their words happened as promised.

Often those words were about the longevity of their two-bit nation. Listen to this unequivocal language:

Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the LORD of hosts is his name: If this fixed order were ever to cease from my presence, says the LORD, then also the offspring of Israel would cease to be a nation before me forever. Thus says the LORD: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will reject all the offspring of Israel because of all they have done [...] (Jeremiah 31:35-37, NRSV).

In other words, God has eternal kinds of plans for the nation of Israel. He'll never be done with them as a nation as long as the earth is still standing. The longevity of the nation Israel is one of those astounding predictions that has come true against all odds.

Here's Isaiah again — on the subject of his nation:

On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. He will raise a signal for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth (Isa. 11:11-12, NRSV)

I believe we've seen the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy but not the end of it. Both the scattering and the regathering were prophesied. When has the world ever seen a nation that ceased to be a nation for nearly nineteen hundred years come back to life again? It's unprecedented! For centuries, the nation Israel looked just as dead as Ezekiel's dry bones in chapter thirty-seven of that book. (For another regathering prophecy check out Ezekiel 37:21-28.) But now, prophecies like Isaiah's and Ezekiel's are in the beginning stages of their fulfillment. It's somehow necessary to God's plan for the world that Israel should again be a nation in its homeland.

So the prophets claimed that not only would their little, two-bit nation stand until the end of time but that they were speaking God's words and that those words would also stand until the end of time. Now, it may not be all that astounding that people should have delusions of grandeur and make these kinds of claims. It's not all that odd for someone in a padded cell to believe he's Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte. But what would be odd is if he left the padded cell and went out to conquer the world.

It may not be all that strange that the little prophet in his dusty sandals made claims that his nation and his words would stand forever. It is pretty strange that they have so far. But for confirmation, check the front page of your newspaper. Can you deny that there is something really not-quite-normal about the little, two-bit nation of Israel? It's not its size that makes it important. But there is something uncanny about it; the way it's been down for the count more times than you can count but always gets back up again. It's uncanny in the way it has always been a focal point of history and the way it's still there, going on being a focal point of history! Why all the fuss over this nation? Why all the opposition? No nation has suffered more, but no nation has beaten the odds like this one has. Just look at its history from this century and the past one. These days it's always at the centre of some major controversy involving the world powers. But still it goes on. And on. And on.

There is something extraordinary about the longevity, resilience, and importance of this little nation. Especially when you take into account the fact that its longevity, resilience, and importance were all predicted in the book claiming to be God's book.

Same thing goes for the longevity of the Writings. "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever," it says, and sure enough! Check any bookstore. There it will be. You could even take your pick which language you'd like to purchase it in. It's been translated into hundreds or thousands.

You could also certainly find the works of minds like Plato, Aristotle, or Shakespeare on bookstore shelves. The works of a lot of the great minds of the world have survived, too, and are readily available. But yet, what is it about the religious literature of a little, two-bit nation that would make it so long-lasting and world-pervading? Who were the biblical writers that their words should be a bigger deal than Plato's and Aristotle's and Shakespeare's?

And why all the fuss over this book? Why all the opposition? No one's tried to destroy a book like people have tried to destroy this book. Many have tried to stamp it out, but no Marxes, Stalins, Lenins, Nietzsches (and the list goes on) have ever succeeded. Why is there such furor over this book? Many are still trying to stamp it out, but if what the Writings say is true, they won't succeed, either. The harder they stamp, the more they prove the truth of it by the fact that they can't do it. After all, it tells us it will never be stamped out. There is something uncanny about this book and its longevity, resilience, and importance, also.

Remember those threads and themes I was talking about earlier — those clues to the treasure hunt? I was talking about certain major themes of prophecy. These are two of them: the nation of Israel and the Word of God. There are prophecies fulfilled that no one can deny have been and are being fulfilled because their fulfillments are splashed all over the front pages of today's paper or sitting on your bookshelf.

There are other prophecies, though, other themes, other clues to the treasure hunt that are even more crucial.

Here's what one of the psalmists wrote:

Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and his anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds asunder and cast their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the LORD has them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:1-7, NRSV).

Passages like this one are where the idea began to grow up among the Jewish people that one called “the Messiah” was on His way. (The “anointed” in verse two is the Hebrew word from which we get our English word “Messiah.”) He would be King, as we see from verse six. (Incidentally, we see from these verses that same, revealing something I've pointed out to you repeatedly. People resent God's rule and determine to burst free from His “bonds.”)

The Messiah's common title among the Jewish people was “the Son of David.” This was a reference to a promise regarding David's kingly line made by God to David, Israel's second and (arguably) greatest king (2 Sam. 7).

But one facet of the promise of Psalm 2 seems to have evaded most people looking for the Messiah. In Psalm 2, the Messiah is equated with someone called "The Son." A Son of God. In fact, a begotten Son; not a creation, not even an adopted son. A begotten Son made of the same stuff as His Father, like all begotten sons.

Then again in Proverbs 30:4: "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?"

(Well, I might be able to tell, actually.) Here again we see the indication that, astonishingly, God has a Son! The Jews were looking for a Son of David, not a Son of God. And what is the talk about “ascending” and “descending”? Surely, these actions couldn't apply to the Most High (although the rest of the questions in the verse plainly do). But the puzzling predictions keep on coming.

Here's Isaiah again (Isaiah 9:6-7):

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Curiouser and curiouser! Clearly this is written of the Messiah. "...upon the throne of David..." after all, but here this passage is telling us the Son will share a name with the Father. There's to be a child, and apparently, He'll be born, like all babies. Birth suggests humanity, does it not? But at the same time, this child would be called the Everlasting Father. His name would be the Mighty God. This went well beyond what anyone was looking for in a Messiah. Where were the prophets coming up with this stuff?

Micah 5:2: "But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."

Now, there really could have been only One whose "goings forth" have been “from everlasting” — only One who had no beginning. Is Micah saying here that the Ruler of Israel would both "come forth" (or begin) from the little podunk of Bethlehem, Judah (David's hometown), yet in a deeper way, He had already "gone forth" from eternity? It looks very suspiciously as though Micah was prophesying that the Messiah was going to be God. And Man.

The prophets seem confused. On the one hand, they make it clear that the Messiah is going to be a son of David, a son of man, a human. He'll have a birth and a birthplace like any other baby. Yet on the other hand, they seem to be sending the message that the Messiah is going to be God. How can this be?

Maybe not surprisingly, in spite of the clear statements of the prophets, no one expected any such thing. No one expected the Messiah to be both human and divine, both the Son of Man and the Son of God. It boggled the mind. It still does. No one had a clue (including the prophets themselves, most likely) what the prophets were on about.

Then the prophecies get more puzzling.

To back up to the Micah 5 prophecy I quoted to you, Micah, immediately before casually announcing that the Messiah really had no beginning, also casually announces, "...they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek" (Micah 5:1b).

Smiting the judge of Israel (from the verse following this one, plainly the Messiah, the Son of David, the King) with a rod on the cheek? That hardly sounds fit treatment for a king.

To quote Isaiah again, he heard something even more puzzling from God about His plans for the Messiah (Isaiah 53:3-10):

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Wow! How can this picture of the Messiah as a Suffering Servant, not only that but as a Dying Servant, be made to fit with all the pictures of One whose kingdom would be everlasting and all the rest? Are there contradictions here? But wait! At the end of this Isaiah 53 passage, we read that because "My righteous servant" poured out His soul to death and bore the transgressions of many, He'll divide the portion with the great and the spoil with the strong. In other words, He'll have a conquering hero's welcome yet. Because He made His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed and prolong His days and prosper and all the rest. So it appears that the plan was for the Messiah to be rejected and to die. But that's not the end of the story. Because He dies, He conquers.

This wouldn't make much sense if you were a Jew living back in the B.C. years. No wonder most people glossed over this passage. But these are vital prophecies. These are the ones that make the rest make sense. These are the clues to the treasure hunt.

This was that eerie kind of unity I was talking about. Although no one seemed to understand what was being said by the prophets, here are all the clues pointing one direction. Why all the sin offerings and blood sacrifices of lambs and sheep and so forth in the law (notice that the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 is “brought as a lamb to the slaughter”)? Because they pointed in this same direction. The law itself, Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Atonement for sin, the treatment for sin, could only happen through the taking of a life — the shedding of innocent blood (in the Old Testament, always animal blood).

And these hints and clues and pieces of the puzzle help to answer the questions that might arise from the first predictions we saw about the nation of Israel and the Writings themselves. Why the importance of the nation Israel? Why a chosen people? Chosen for what? It was to the nation Israel that the Messiah would be sent. Not just to Israel. To the whole world (see God's promise to Abraham, father of the nation, in Genesis 12:1-3). But if God-the-Messiah was going to be truly human, He needed to be born. He needed a birthplace. He needed parents to raise Him. He needed a nationality.

God began preparing the little, two-bit nation of Israel for the central event of history, and He did it through the Writings. And that's why the importance of the Writings. Because over and over, they point us in this same direction — to the central event of history. To the Solution to the Problem.

Through this nation, through the Writings that came to them, the revelation of this central event would spread to the whole world to be translated into many, many languages to transform lives wherever it goes. It reaches into the deepest jungles and transforms lives there. It transforms lives in our concrete jungles, too. God loved and chose the nation of Israel. But it was never His plan to stop with that one nation. Israel was the instrument to bless the whole world (again, see Genesis 12:1-3).

So why Israel, that two-bit nation of nomads and prophets in dusty sandals? Haven't you noticed? God delights in two-bit. He likes the unlikely. It's how He reveals that His work is, in fact, His work. If all those two-bit prophets had been great minds, it wouldn't be so convincing that their writings are really God's.

All this is what I mean by an eerie kind of unity, an eerie kind of longevity, and an eerie kind of accuracy. This book and its fulfillments are not explicable in purely human terms.

We see the prophecies about the nation of Israel and the Writings coming true right under our noses. What of the ones about God being born as a baby, becoming a man, being rejected, suffering, and dying? Does it look as though these prophecies were fulfilled? That's what we have to decide next — if the central event of history did indeed take place as prophesied. Where do the clues to the treasure lead us? We're going treasure hunting next.

______________________________

1 — For those who claim that, on the contrary, the Bible contradicts itself, see Chapter Fifteen which addresses this objection.

Chapter 13

The New Writings (or the Greatest Story Ever Told)

Have you ever noticed that humans have an innate need for story? That may seem kind of a strange question. You may not have thought of it before, but I sometimes wonder why I have an intense need for story. It seems like a strange kind of a need to, well, need. But I've noticed that I'm not the only one. Look at the abundance of movie stores and theatres. And who are the popular heroes of our day? The ones who star in our celluloid stories. (Then we end up consumed with the real-life stories of these people.) This is not a recent phenomena proving the corruption of our times. Good story-tellers have always been revered.

There is something buried in our natures that responds to a story. It's stronger for some of us than for others, but I think it's there for all of us. Why? Is it mere escapism? Are our lives so bad that we only feel better by hearing a story about someone else who had it worse, and then hearing how it all came right in the end? I think it's deeper than that, even. I think this thirst for story is written into our natures because Story is the true nature of things. A romance story, even. Happy ending included.

Let's analyze a little: What is it about a story that makes it a story? Let's start there. First, a story must have characters. It must have personalities acting and reacting and interacting. Then, a story has movement. It has forward movement. It has a beginning. Then it has a conflict, it has a climax, it has a resolution, and it must have an ending. If a story doesn't have a proper ending, we don't see purpose, and purpose is the essential element in story. We feel a need to see things tie together and go as they ought. We like a little surprise, too, but a satisfactory ending is a must. Even if it's not a happy ending, it must have an ending where we can see the point behind the story.

All those elements are what make up plot or drama.

For some reason, I got thinking about this subject while lying awake with insomnia one night. I started comparing the little bit of knowledge I have about different world religions and analyzing them in regards to this matter of story. I came to the conclusion that, of all the religions I'm at all familiar with, none of them other than Judaism or Christianity has the forward movement required to be Story (and Judaism-minus-Christianity must always be admitted to be the first instalment of a "to be continued..." sequel. There is an unfinishedness to the Old Testament. It ends in breathless, cliffhanger expectation).

Hinduism has a circular movement: the hamster on the wheel of karma and reincarnation. Buddhism has a backward movement of renunciation. The ideal state in Buddhism is the extinguishing of desire rather than its fulfillment (in contrast to Christianity which teaches that desires are meant to be fulfilled and whose whole business is pointing the way to the only real source of their fulfillment). In Buddhism, the snuffing of the candle is nirvana. It's a backward movement towards cessation. Islam is stationary on its five pillars. With fatalism, everything is set in stone. Only in the Bible do we see the forward movement of story, of plot, of drama — not a forever movement because there is a "happily ever after," a crossing of the finish line. The goal of a story is its finish.

Amongst religions, only in Christianity do we see a protagonist and a villain, a beginning, a conflict, a climax, a resolution, and an ending — with some surprising twists along the way. And only here do we see the purpose which we all look for our whole lives.

What drives this story is its Main Character. Christianity is unique among the religions of the world, and that's because its Founder is unique.

Sure, the whole thing about the Dying God-Man may be a great story. It may be great drama. But what's even better is that we find our need for story being met by what looks very much like a true story. It's my belief that only in Christianity can we find the ultimate drama wedded to ultimate truth. Only here can we have both our need for story and our need for truth met at once.

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "It is a story and in that sense one of a hundred stories, only it is a true story. It is a philosophy and in that sense one of a hundred philosophies; only it is a philosophy that is like life. But above all, it is a reconciliation because it is something that can only be called the philosophy of stories."1

I ended last chapter by saying we were going on a treasure hunt, and the treasure we're hunting for is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Writings. If it looks as though the prophecies about God coming to earth as a Man and dying to take away sin were fulfilled at any time by anyone, then it's pretty convincing proof that we've found our reliable source. If those prophecies have been fulfilled, I would say God has, in fact, written a book.

But do we have any evidence that those predictions were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, called “the Christ” (or Messiah)? The whole Dying God idea might be a great story — great drama — but can it be substantiated as true? Isn't it more likely that most of what was written about Jesus in the New Testament is myth, at best? If what was written about Him in the Gospels is gospel truth, then we've found our treasure. But what evidence do we have to say that the New Testament — the four Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and the epistles (letters) written about Him — are true? A man claiming he's God doesn't make it true. A man claiming that a man claimed he was God doesn't make it true.

Let's go to "the New Writings" (aka: the New Testament) to see what claims it does, in fact, make about this Jesus of Nazareth.

Did Jesus really say He was God?

To be honest, nope! He didn't come right out and state, "I am God," in so many words. But that's certainly the impression His followers and His closest friends came away with and accepted as true. Why? Because that was the impression Jesus gave them. Because He made such loaded statements, because He gave them such huge hints in that direction, wrote it in such large letters between the lines for them to read, that even they couldn't miss it.

For one thing, He constantly referred to God as His Father. That may not be a big deal to us who take lightly “the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God.” But Jesus claimed a special kind of relationship. In John 3:13, Jesus references the Proverbs 30:4 passage about God and His Son descending from or ascending to heaven and applies it to Himself. In fact, He claimed a begotten Son relationship (John 3:16). (Remember Psalm 2?)

C.S. Lewis said this about begetting: "When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs, which turn into little birds [...] What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man"2

And as a matter of fact, according to the Gospels, not only His friends came away with the impression Jesus claimed to be God, so did His enemies. They understood rightly the prophetic and biological implications of claiming to be the begotten Son of God. John 5:18 says, "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making Himself equal with God."

When Jesus announced in John 10:30, "I and my Father are one," His enemies took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy and said, "You, being a man, make Yourself God." They got the general drift. And Jesus did not backpedal to clear up “misunderstandings.”

On another occasion, Jesus informed His audience that before their father Abraham had existed "I AM!" (John 8:58). Not only was Jesus claiming preexistence before Abraham, He was using the sacred name of God for Himself. I AM was God's name as revealed to Moses in the burning bush incident. Those who didn't believe in Jesus' divinity understood what He was getting at and again snatched up stones. And again, no backpedalling from Him.

There's the much-scoffed-at virgin birth story recounted by Matthew and Luke. It may seem a random and arbitrary sort of claim for the miraculous. But when one starts to take seriously the idea that Jesus just may have been the Son of God — in fact, God the Son — this miracle begins to look integral rather than arbitrary. If Jesus had been the son of man and the son of man (I mean, the son of man and the son of woman, but you know what I mean), what would that have made Him? Nothing but human. But as the Son of Man and, literally, the begotten Son of God — if there was no father involved in His begetting other than God in some miraculous way — what would that make Him? The Son of Man and the Son of God. Just as He claimed to be.

Now by "begotten Son of God," there's a whole lot more meant than just the virgin birth. The Son has always been the begotten Son of God. But I conjecture that being the begotten Son of God on earth would necessitate a virgin birth. Otherwise, Jesus would have been no different from the rest of us. And I can't help but think that He was very, very different.

Then there were His alleged miraculous works, spectacular healings, and so forth. I won't bother to quote any to you as these are numerous throughout the pages of the Gospels. Again, they tie into Jesus' tacit claims to be the Son of God. In John 10 where the Jews were ready to stone Jesus for blasphemy, He tells them (in my paraphrase), "If you won't believe that I'm the Son of God, how do you explain away the miracles?" (See John 10:37-38.) And from the nature of all the miraculous works He did, all His miracles could be seen to be claims to Godhood.3

Speaking of miraculous works, undoubtedly His Grand Finale was coming back to life after dying an excruciating death and being solidly dead and buried for three days. His death and resurrection are the focal points and climaxes of all four Gospels.

Those are the basic facts of what the New Writings claim about Jesus: He effectually claimed to be God, He went around working miracles, He died and rose again. We have to do something with them. What do we make of them? Does it end up looking like these claims are very likely to be true?

As far as likelihood goes, we'd have to say these claims look enormously unlikely in one sense.

C.S. Lewis wrote, "Now, if one asks whether that central grand miracle in Christianity is itself probable or improbable, of course, quite clearly you cannot be applying Hume's kind of probability. You cannot mean a probability based on statistics according to which the more often a thing has happened, the more likely it is to happen again [...] Certainly the Incarnation cannot be probable in that sense. It is of its very nature to have happened only once."4

So the laws of probability are not the kind of likelihood we're going to look for in this instance. Although strangely enough, a great many people seem to think that's the kind of criteria we should judge the assertions of the Gospels by. "Oh yeah! The virgin birth and all that God-becoming-man-and-dying-and-rising-again stuff! How very likely!" the skeptic may snort. And what the skeptic really means is, "That certainly doesn't happen every day." The skeptic is right. It certainly doesn't; nor should we expect it to. It would be a funny old world (and a boring one) if the only things that ever happened were the things that happen every day. So when I ask, "Is it likely to be true?" get it out of your head that what we're looking for is a statistical kind of likelihood. What we're looking for is more what I would call historical likelihood.

This is a courtroom kind of likelihood; the kind of likelihood a jury looks for when they try to decide what actually happened based not on probabilities of a future event but on evidences of a past one. It may be terribly unlikely, before the fact, that any given person will suddenly run off the rails and shoot some other person, but a jury's job is to decide if it's likely that the unlikely event actually happened. So in that light, is it likely that Jesus' life happened the way the Gospels say it did?

If this were a courtroom, the main source of our evidence would necessarily have to be the evidence of witnesses. And that is all the evidence we have to consider here. Any physical evidence, any shrouds of Turin or ancient manuscripts or what have you, would be beyond the scope of this book and my capability. But yet we have the fact of the New Testament accounts, and those accounts have to be accounted for in some way. We'll have to consider the New Writings to see if there's good likelihood they're telling the truth, and we'll do that by considering all the options.

They are two: 1: The New Writings tell the truth in their central message of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Or...2: They don't.

Under 2: "They're not true," there are probably two or three different possibilities to consider. I mean, when people don't tell the truth, it could be from two different causes. Either a person may be mistaken, or a person may be lying. A person may also tell half-truths, and we'll examine that option as well. So let's take those as our options under 2: "The Gospels are not true." a) The Gospel writers were mistaken, b) The Gospel writers were partially right, or c) The Gospel writers were liars.

For politeness' sake, let's not jump immediately to the conclusion that the Gospel writers were liars. Let's start with the option that they were just misinformed or mistaken.

Under this "mistaken" option, there have been numerous theories to explain away the supernatural aspect of the Gospels to get around calling the writers of them liars. For instance, Jesus didn't really walk on water. He was walking on a sandbar that no one could see which somehow the disciples, experienced fishermen though they were, had forgotten all about. Jesus didn't really multiply loaves and fish. A little boy shared his lunch, and that inspired everyone else to pull out their own lunches that they'd been hoarding. The miracle was in the sharing. That type of idea.

The first problem with these theories: They may allow us to get around calling the writers of the Gospels liars (rather, just gullible fools), but it puts us in the rather more uncomfortable position of having to call Jesus the real liar in the situation — or at least an elaborate hoaxter, a conjurer such like the world of legerdemain has never before seen. ("Now keep your eyes on the blind man while I rub a little mud over his eyes, say a few magic words, send him to wash, and Hey! Presto! He sees!") (See John 9.)

But the main problem with these theories is that they just don't work out very well. When a witness solemnly swears that he saw a man the whole community knows to have been blind from birth suddenly made to see or a crippled and deformed hand suddenly being made normal right in front of his eyes or stranger still, a man he knows well whom he saw hanging on a cross, put to death very thoroughly (and the Romans were very thorough about those kinds of things), suddenly alive three days later, walking around, chatting with his friends, eating breakfast on the beach with them, there's not really much room for error. I mean, these aren't the sorts of facts we could say a person may be legitimately mistaken about. Let's file this "mistaken" option under "remote possibility" right after, "Yes, someday pigs really may fly," and move on.

Because people don't usually like to call other people liars outright, yet the "mistaken" option doesn't look like a very good one, b) "The Gospels are partial truths," is a popular option. This option avoids name-calling while also avoiding the need to take the witness of the Gospel accounts very seriously. The problem is that it doesn't work very well either.

Let's take the most popular idea I've heard to explain away the truth of the Gospels: "The stories in the Gospels are legends that grew up around the historical person of Jesus and became distorted by time. They were recorded generations after the fact."

A discussion on the ancient manuscripts in question would soon dispel this idea, but I've told you we'll steer clear of ancient manuscripts, so let's look at this theory from another angle.

What doesn't work about this theory is the idea that time can distort facts. Actually, time has no effect on facts. People distort facts. Either it's done intentionally, or it's not, but it comes down to people. And those are our same two options again: If whoever wrote the Gospels intentionally distorted facts, they were lying. If the distortion wasn't intentional, they were mistaken.

It's true; stories passed on too many times over too many years often end up unrecognizable, and the distortion is usually not intentional. (Let's believe the best about Granddad and assume that his walking to school eight-days-a-week-barefoot-in-twenty-feet-of-snow-year-round-ten-miles-uphill-both-ways is actually how he remembers it.) Is Jesus a kind of King Arthur? This kind of written-legend scenario would be possible to imagine. Except for the statements of the New Writings themselves.

There are four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Here are the claims each makes regarding its authorship: The book of John states, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) [...]" (John 1:14). Notice the first person "dwelt among us..." "...we beheld." And at the end of the book, "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:30-31). "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24). No way around it, the book of John claims to have been written by an eyewitness.

And in another New Testament book bearing the name of John, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you ..." (1 John 1:1-3a.). Do you get the idea John is trying to drive home the point that he was an eyewitness?

The book of Luke opens this way: "Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account..." (Luke 1:1-3a., NRSV). Though Luke doesn't claim to be an eyewitness himself, he claims to have written what he learned from eyewitnesses whose contemporary he was, and he certainly makes the claim that he's writing the truth.

Mark's Gospel is believed to tell the story of Jesus through the Apostle Peter's memories as told to someone named John Mark. (From Acts 12:12, it seems that John Mark and Peter knew each other.) At any rate, this is what it says in a New Testament book bearing Peter's name: "And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet. 1:15-16, NRSV). I don't know positively that the author was referring to Mark's Gospel that he intended to see accomplished before dying, but here we have the claim that the writer of 2 Peter was an eyewitness to the coming, power, and majesty of Jesus Christ that we read about in the Gospels and that these were not cleverly devised myths.

The book of Matthew doesn't overtly lay claim to eyewitness authorship within its pages, but it bears the name and purportedly the authorship of an eyewitness (Matt. 10:1-4). If it wasn't written by Matthew, then whoever stuck Matthew's name on it was lying.

Nope! If some well-meaning legend-writer wrote any of these claims generations after Jesus had lived, there's no way around it. That writer was lying. "Based on a true story" could mean just about anything, but none of these writers claimed to be writing works "based on a true story." They claimed to be writing a true story, period, end of statement, that's all, folks!

So what about this scenario? What if a disciple of Jesus wrote some of the bare facts about Jesus' life and made the statements about how he was an eyewitness; then generations later, some well-meaning follower came along and embellished those bare accounts with all the legends that had grown up around Jesus?

This doesn't get around the necessity of calling the well-meaning forger a liar. Or at least a forger. Imagine the editor of a paper who has a reporter somewhere on the front line, sending back reports of the action. What would you call this editor if he "edited" in his own ideas about the way he thinks things really are on the front line, yet he prints these reports as first-hand, front-line reports and keeps the reporter's byline on them? You'd call him a liar. To insert one's own words and writings into a document and pass them off as part of the original document is forgery. And forgery is a type of lie. If the whole thing isn't true, it was written to make people believe it's true, and that is a lie.

The other options peter out once you really start examining them. Because the Gospels so emphatically claim to be true from start to finish, if they're not, then the writers of them were liars. It's as simple as that. Option 2: "The Gospels aren't true," comes down to saying that they are out-and-out lies.

What about Option 1? Are any sub-headings possible under, “The Gospels are true,” other than having to admit God wrote them? Could we admit the basic accuracy of the Gospels while still getting around their supernatural aspect? What about coincidence?

If the Gospel accounts are more or less accurate, but Jesus just happened to fulfill some of the requirements for the Messiah, we have quite the coincidence on our hands. Here we have a man who gets Himself misunderstood to be claiming to be the Son of God; in fact, God Himself. Then He accidentally goes about healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, etc. Then He manages to get Himself killed and then casually chances to come back to life again. No, we have to rule out coincidence if we admit the basic accuracy of the Gospels because if we take away those events from the Gospels we don't have much left. Jesus' death and resurrection are the pivotal points of the Gospels. Unless Jesus really rose from the dead, the Gospels are not basically accurate, and as already discussed, if they're not basically accurate, they're lies. If a person tells me that the Gospels aren't lies but Jesus was misunderstood and it was all coincidence that people jumped to the conclusion He was the Messiah, he's really telling me he's never read the Gospels.

So our options come down to two. Either the Gospels are true, or they're lies. If they're true, we would have to admit that Jesus really was the Messiah, the Son of God. In fact, God — the Dying (yet rising) God whose coming was predicted in the Old Testament. If those Old Testament predictions were fulfilled, we would also have to go the further step of admitting that God did write a book. If so, I think it seems probable that the New Testament is also part of that book that God wrote, seeing the story isn't complete without it. But that's all under Option 1. We haven't ruled out the “lies” option. Let's talk about it.

To go back to our imaginary courtroom, is there any evidence to show that the eyewitness testimony of the New Testament is untrue? Otherwise, if it were a courtroom situation, we would accept eyewitness testimony. But in this situation, all the "lawyers" can say is, "Objection! Yeah, right! Likely story!" It's really the only argument a skeptic can make against the testimony of the witnesses of the Gospels — just that their stories don't seem very likely. These kinds of stories don't happen every day. But we've agreed that statistical probability can have no bearing on this case.

If the jury is expected to believe that the witness is telling bare-faced lies, the jury would at least want to know what motives a witness may have for telling bare-faced lies. Why would someone get up in a courtroom, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and then start in on a pack of bare-faced lies? People do it, but they generally have some reason.

A common reason is self-preservation or, along the same lines, gain. People tell lies, in a courtroom or elsewhere, to get themselves out of trouble. Or to protect someone else. Or to put money in their pockets or otherwise benefit themselves. But this motive falls apart in micro-seconds if we try to apply it to the situation we're talking about. You don't have to know much about history around the first century A.D. to know that the early followers of this man Jesus got themselves in whole mess of trouble. If the events written in the Gospels were a pack of lies or a forgery, they didn't help the early Christians self-preserve. They've never helped anyone self-preserve. All throughout the history of the years Anno Domini, the New Writings caused more trouble than they got anyone out of. Lying for self-preservation is not going to fly as a motive for the writing of the Gospels.

Another reason I can think of that people tell lies is for self-aggrandizement. I mean, they lie to make themselves look bigger and more important. Does this offer a very good motive for the writing of the Gospels? Not exactly, when the only person "aggrandized" through them is the person of Jesus Christ. The disciples often come off looking foolish, and the Gospels claim to have been written by the disciples or those closely connected with them. If that's a lie, too, then we have no idea who wrote them, and that doesn't fit in well with the self-aggrandizement idea.

Here's another reason I've heard given for why anyone would tell lies like the Gospels if, in fact, they're lies. They were written for the self-preservation and self-aggrandizement of the church. A few centuries into its existence, the church found it needed something to help prop it up and keep it going — to support the faithful in their beliefs. And so the Gospels were concocted.

This theory has one main problem: If the "legends" of the New Testament Gospels were born after the church, what church, exactly? The faithful? Faithful to what, exactly? If the church was already well along in its existence before the basic tenets of the Gospels had been conceived, I'll say the church would need some propping up! It would have materialized out of thin air in the first place. If there were no Gospels or, at least, no gospel (singular) to begin with, then out of what substance could the church have spontaneously generated itself? (This point will come up again.)

I find myself stumped trying to discover why anyone would want to write such lies as the New Writings if they are indeed lies. We can't rule out absolutely the possibility that the New Testament is a pack of lies, however. People do lie sometimes for no apparent reason. But there also doesn't seem to be any historical evidence that contradicts the New Writings to give us reasons for believing they must have been lies.

On the other hand, I'd like to talk about two facts we have right in front of us that seem to me to be strong evidences that support the truth of the New Writings. The first we've looked at already: the Old Testament prophecies apparently fulfilled in Jesus. If the Gospels are lies, we have to have some explanation for them.

The usual explanation offered for apparently-fulfilled Old Testament prophecies (and here I mean the explanation usually offered by those who don't believe in prophecy or don't believe it could be fulfilled) is that the prophecy was written after the event. Those who offer this explanation make no bones about it. They have no problem calling these prophecies lies.

For example, perhaps the most striking of historically-fulfilled prophecies (or not, depending on the bias) would be prophecies from the book of Daniel. Several times, Daniel prophesies future world powers that did, in fact, become world powers. In Daniel 8, the Medes and Persians and the Greeks are specified by name as the empires that would take over the known world. How was this possible if Daniel prophesied, as stated, in the time of Babylonian domination before anyone had heard of Alexander the Great? “The answer is plain,” says the skeptic. “Daniel (or this 'prophecy' in Daniel) was written after Alexander made his entrance.”

Daniel predicts other world powers that were to come after Greece, though. In Daniel 2, we read of Nebuchadnezzar's dream that Daniel interpreted. This dream was about a statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, and legs of iron with feet of iron mixed with clay. In the dream, a stone, cut out without hands, came and struck the statue on its feet. The statue fell and crumbled away into dust. Then the stone became a great mountain that filled the whole earth. Daniel interpreted the dream as being all about different kingdoms, starting with Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold.

If we wanted to give names to these kingdoms represented by the different parts of the statue, it wouldn't be hard. The golden head — that's Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon as Daniel said. That would make the silver chest and arms the kingdom of Persia or Medo-Persia. Next, the bronze belly and thighs of Greece. And finally, the iron legs of Rome and the iron and clay feet of Rome's uneasy amalgamation with all the nations it conquered. So far, so good. The different empires fit the different pieces of the statue fairly well, I'd say. Would that mean that Daniel was written in the time of the Romans? Or would it mean that whoever wrote the book of Daniel made a lucky guess and kept the prophecy vague enough that whatever happened, it would look like it was fulfilled?

For now, I just wanted to talk about how the skeptics would get around this apparently-fulfilled prophecy of the statue. They would point out that it's easy to write the story if you already know how the story goes because you saw it happen. That's all I wanted to say about this prophecy for now; just use it as an example of the skeptics' explanation. But we're not done with it yet. Hang onto this statue story. It comes up again later.

The usual explanation for fulfilled prophecy might be conceivable in the cases of some prophecies. How does the usual explanation stack up against the "suffering and dying God" prophecies? Does anyone suggest that these Old Testament prophecies were written after the fact of Jesus' life and death to bolster support for Him and His following? I don't know that I've heard anyone suggest such a theory and for obvious reasons. Take the clearest example: the prophecy I quoted to you last chapter from Isaiah 53. Does anyone seriously attempt to say that it was written after the time of Christ? If so, all I could answer is that it would show that a person hadn't really looked into it, had no idea what he was talking about, and was madly grasping at straws to get around something he didn't want to be true. I think it's pretty generally accepted that the Old Testament was completed many years before Jesus lived. But even if I'm wrong and that's not generally accepted, think about it!

Scripture-believing Jews today, most of whom don't accept Jesus as the Messiah, accept this passage as part of their Holy Scriptures. Could you imagine how that state of affairs could have come to be if the passage was written after the time of Christ by His followers? Can you imagine a forger trying to insert prophecies like this one into the pages of the Jewish Scriptures? With the high regard the Jews had for their Scriptures, with the thorough knowledge the Jews had of their Scriptures, and with the determination of the majority of Jewish leaders at that time to stamp out Christianity, can you imagine any forger managing this feat so successfully that Jews today accept these Scriptures as their own? Obviously, any attempt at that kind of forgery would have met with a hue and cry, not with open arms. The idea is ludicrous.

So then, what explanation can the person offer who is reluctant to see the "suffering Messiah" prophecies as being fulfilled in Jesus?

I believe that in the case of Isaiah 53, those who believe in Isaiah but don't believe in Jesus explain the passage by saying that it's not really about the Messiah at all. It's referring to the nation of Israel as God's suffering servant. There's a great deal of truth to the nation being a suffering one. History's shown us that. But that interpretation simply doesn't fit with the entire message of the passage or the rest of the book. The message of Isaiah 53 is that the Suffering Servant would suffer for the sins of the world, not having any of His own. The message of a great deal of the rest of the book of Isaiah is that Israel would indeed suffer but for their own sins, having plenty of their own, just like the rest of the world.

So far, I'm not exactly compelled by any explanation to get around Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in Jesus. But here's another one: Knowing the prophecies, isn't it possible that Jesus' followers after Him made up a bunch of stuff that never happened to make it look like Jesus had fulfilled prophecy?

Taking this theory to its extreme are those who doubt the existence of any historical Jesus whatsoever. The idea is hard to take seriously, and most people don't. I'll mention it here, anyway.

Jesus indisputably had followers very shortly after the time He was supposed to have lived. What could His followers have been following if there was no person named Jesus at all? Of all the theories about who Jesus was, the theory that He wasn't demonstrates nothing so clearly as the bias and wishful thinking of those who can convince themselves to hold it. The facts that Jesus lived and that He died by crucifixion are pretty inarguable and are confirmed by secular history and historians.5

That's one problem with the idea that Jesus' followers made stuff up to fit with the Old Testament prophecies. They didn't make up the crucifixion. But there are other problems.

There's this matter to be reckoned with that Jesus' followers before his death, according to the Gospels, had somehow missed the implications of all the Dying God prophecies. That God's Son, God Himself, would come to earth, meet with general rejection, and die for sin was not the common idea in Jewish minds at that time. Nor is it today. Although to my twenty-first-century eyes, the prophecies seem clear and unequivocal, somehow they passed right over the disciples' heads until after the fact.

From (allegedly) the disciples' own accounts, Jesus would tell them He was going to suffer and die, and they'd flatly contradict Him. He'd tell them He was going to rise from the dead, and they'd wonder what He was on about. By their own admission, they overlooked the suffering/dying prophecies until they had happened because they had all their hopes pinned on the conquering/reigning prophecies the Old Testament is full of. These admissions have the ring of truth, and I believe that's exactly how it must have happened when I see how veiled the suffering/dying prophecies are to the eyes of those who don't believe the Gospels. But there they are, plain as day for all the world to read.

Whatever the theory used to get around the suffering/dying prophecies apparently fulfilled by Jesus' life and death, none of them can explain the existence of the prophecies themselves. These kinds of prophecies would have been more likely to be chopped out of the Scriptures, if people dared mess with the Scriptures, than forged in, seeing they don't seem to fit with all the conquering/reigning prophecies or with people's ideas about what the Messiah should be like. They leave a discordant note. No one would have thrown them in if he was merely writing his own ideas. Why would they be there at all if they weren't God's idea?

I've said that these Old Testament "Suffering Servant" prophecies that seem to be so perfectly fulfilled by Jesus are one piece of evidence that we have to contend with. If a person doesn't want to believe that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies, there's only one option. He has to see the whole thing as one giant coincidence. We'll say that coincidences, even giant ones, aren't impossible, and leave it there for now. I want us to move on to that second piece of evidence I mentioned earlier.

That second piece of evidence is simply the existence of a group of followers of Jesus Christ. I mean the Christian church. The church is a cold, hard fact that takes some explaining if Jesus was not who the New Writings claim He was.

Three of the four Gospels record Jesus making this statement: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt. 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33). Does this sound familiar? Sounds very much like the Old Testament prophets saying, "God's words will never pass away," except in this case, it's Jesus saying, "My words will never pass away."

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus announced that He would build His church and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. He would build His church, and it would stay built. Now, this is also sounding very much like an echo from the Old Testament. In the Writings, we're told that God's words will never pass away. In the New Writings, we're told that Christ's words will never pass away. In the Writings, we're told that God will establish His nation Israel, and it will stay established. In the New Writings, we're told that Christ will establish His church, and it will stay established. Now, the interesting thing is that all these promises have so far come true. The Bible is still standing; so is the nation Israel; so is the church of Christ. These are the facts. Whatever a person wants to believe about the Bible being a book of lies written not by God but by liars, he has to take into account the fact that it is the book that made all these promises which have come true so far.

Why should Christ's words be carrying on? Why would Christ's church be carrying on? Unless there was something out of the ordinary about Him. Unless He was no ordinary man. And if the skeptics are right and God has no Son and Jesus was just an ordinary man, then not only "Why is the church still standing?" but, "Why did it ever come to be in the first place?" That's a question for which I can find no answer if the Gospels are lies.

To go back to an earlier point, if the church wasn't founded on the basic premises of the Gospels, if those Gospels were written generations after the church was in existence, if the message of the Gospels wasn't the starting point but evolved over time, what could the church have been founded on? In Matthew 16, Jesus said He would build His church on a rock, and that rock was the truth Peter had just blurted out: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (v. 16). But if the church wasn't built on that rock, if that idea hadn't even entered people's minds at the time of the founding of the church, why was it founded? What exactly did those first followers of Jesus who got the whole ball rolling go around preaching that got that ball rolling?

We could argue and speculate about what Jesus did or didn't do (that is, if we toss out the Gospel records) because His life wasn't well-documented by secular history. However, after His death, His following grew so rapidly and was so hard to ignore that secular history does have something to tell us about what happened with His early followers. (And it wasn't pretty.)

Even without leaning on the Gospels as our source, we can look at history and the early church to answer the question, “Who was Jesus?” What does His church have to tell us about who He was?

Perhaps people were so desperate to find a Messiah that they built a sect around someone who could fit the "Suffering Servant" profile, so they chose a common criminal, crucified for His crimes.

Are you seeing a problem? A criminal who is executed for his crimes is not usually the obvious choice to build a religion around. It doesn't seem very likely that Jesus was just a common criminal. Yet it seems very likely that He was crucified. But why would He have been crucified? The Romans didn't generally go around crucifying lowly carpenters without some kind of reason.

So who was He really if He wasn't a common criminal and He wasn't just a lowly carpenter? What had Jesus done to attract the attention of Rome? What had He done to tread on Caesar's toes?

If Jesus was (as the popular idea today goes) just a nice (though rather insipid) moral teacher who went around handing out nice (though rather insipid) moral advice, the church of His followers would have been much different than it was. And is.

I very much doubt that Jesus ever struck anyone who met Him as nice-but-insipid. Firebrand would be a better description for Him by the mark He left on the world. And firebrands, literally, are what His followers became all too often. So many of Christ's followers down through the centuries have died because they were His followers. Nice-but-insipid doesn't usually get a person killed, and nice-but-insipid doesn't inspire other people to get themselves killed. Passing out moral advice has never been a capital offense anywhere. If that's all Jesus and His followers did, we would have a very hard time explaining why they started dying like flies at the hands of the Roman government. Even harder to explain is why they continued to multiply like flies in spite of it.

Church growth exploded in the first century. Before the end of the first century, the ball those early disciples of Jesus got rolling snowballed. In the first century and in those that followed, the movement grew to the point where the Christians managed to get under the emperor's skin — to the extent that they became Public Enemies Number One. And that under several different emperors.

But that only seemed to add fuel to their fire. What could have caused the Christian movement to snowball like it did in such a short time? If those early ball-rollers went around preaching nice-but-insipid moral advice, it's hard to imagine the movement snowballing or getting under anyone's skin. What could they have gone around preaching that was so revolutionary and so threatening that a very decided attempt was made to silence them?

Jesus must have been more than just a moral teacher. So was He, in fact, a revolutionary, standing up and shaking His fist at Rome, then? That He was crucified for the alleged crime of treason seems to be the most likely surmise (and that is what the Gospels tell us). After all, the Jews were expecting their Messiah to come and free them from the hand of Rome. And Rome was a little bit touchy about people wanting to be free from its hand.

But if Jesus wanted to overthrow the might of Rome, what do we do with the fact that His followers so completely failed to follow Him in this regard after His death, even though they themselves were killed en masse for no good reason? If they were going to die, anyway, and the whole movement had started off as a resistance movement, then for pity's sake, why didn't they try to resist? But there is no record of any kind of civil action at all on the part of the early Christians. Quite the opposite. Christians being torn to bits by lions or being torched at Nero's garden parties, singing hymns of praise with their last breaths, that sort of thing. That's the picture we're given of the early Christians. However biased you may think that picture, you must know that history records no attempt at a political movement on their part.

If Jesus was a zealot, working to take down Rome, and if that was why He was crucified, we would have a very hard time explaining why on earth a man whose one goal in life was to lead an underground resistance, who met with such glaring failure as to die ignominiously as a criminal without any recorded uprising (except for, perhaps, one lopped-off ear — Mark 14:47), would suddenly after that ignominious death gain a much larger following than He had when He was alive. Especially when His followers proceeded to do anything other than put up any kind of resistance.

Maybe we could combine theories and decide that Jesus was ever only a nice-but-insipid-moral-advice giver, but because His following grew so large and so rapidly, the civil authorities saw Him as a threat and mistook Him for a revolutionary. And so His crucifixion was all a big misunderstanding.

But this still doesn't explain the behaviour of His followers after His death. If you were a follower of a nice-but-insipid moral teacher who clumsily got Himself executed, and you saw Him die that horrible and painful death, would you run right out and announce yourself as His disciple and start preaching in His name? If you still believed in His moral advice, you'd probably try to practise it quietly and in private. Or you might be angry enough to try for revenge against the authorities who crucified Him and so begin plotting the uprising the government was expecting.

Neither of these understandable reactions is compatible with what history tells us about the early church. Jesus' followers were emphatically not quiet and private about what they practised and preached. We know this from the boom in early church growth.

The existence of a body like the church so soon after the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived and died is a powerful, historical testimony to some dramatic, direction-changing event like the coming-back-to-life of a dead man. The existence of the church today is a powerful testimony to Jesus' resurrection.

Speaking of history and Jesus' followers, if you don't happen to believe that Jesus was who the Gospels claim He was, you have a really gigantic coincidence to swallow. It's a fact of history that Christ did indeed conquer Caesar.

With the Emperor Constantine's conversion, history tells us that the non-political movement of Christianity suddenly had very political effects on the world. Constantine's conversion began the long years of “Christendom.” The world began to consider itself a kingdom ruled over by Christ (hence, Christ-en-dom).

I now find the coincidence growing a bit too gigantic to be swallowed comfortably as coincidence. What on earth is some obscure carpenter/teacher/firebrand from Israel doing conquering the entire Roman world (which the Romans thought was the entire world) all without striking a single blow? But even more staggering, what do you make of the fact that such a conquering was predicted in advance?

Not only do the Gospels record Jesus saying that He would build His church and the gates of hell would not withstand it, but remember Nebuchadnezzar's dream about the statue and the little rock that brought it tumbling down? There's no way we can bump the date on that prophecy ahead until after the time of Constantine. But it sure looks to me as though the prophecy of the little rock began to see fulfillment through Christ's church in His time. Under Constantine, it really began to see fulfillment.

Who did we calculate that the iron legs and feet on the statue belonged to? Right! Rome! The last of the world empires. And whose feet did the little rock "cut out without hands" come and strike, bringing the entire statue to its knees? Right again! Rome's. And then remember that the little rock grew till it became a mighty mountain, filling the whole earth.

And what empire did Christ's little rock (surely not made by human hands) come and strike and bring to its knees? Right again! Rome! And then what happened? Some time after, the Roman empire disappeared. It became a Christendom. Then that little rock grew till it became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. I can only swallow so much coincidence.

You may be saying, "But 'all of Christendom' wasn't truly subject to Christ. It wasn't really His kingdom. And the church isn't some kind of great mountainous kingdom today."

Well, all right, but don't forget that prophecies have a very long shelf life (like, till heaven and earth pass away), and prophecies can have more than one fulfillment. I think the prophecy of the little rock that became a great mountain has only begun to be fulfilled. Don't forget all those conquering/reigning prophecies which this mountain-filling-the-earth is part of. The New Writings tell us repeatedly that Christ is coming back, this time as the Conqueror. And then His kingdom won't be just a spiritual kingdom over willing subjects. This all could be fodder for another whole book, though. I'm going to leave it there. All this was just to say that, like the little rock in the dream, the coincidence we're expected to swallow has grown rather mountainous.

If Jesus wasn't the Messiah, wasn't the Son of God, His conquering the world in that way at that time of the Roman Empire really was a coincidence on par with the coincidence of the padded-cell man, claiming to be Napoleon, escaping from his cell and going out to conquer the world. No, actually stranger! It would be more like the man from the padded cell going out to get himself killed almost immediately. Then, after his death, his measly following turns into a mighty ocean that rises up in his name to go out and conquer the world. All the stranger when you add to it the coincidence that it was predicted it would happen that way hundreds of years before it did. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, that He was the little rock hewn without human hands, that He was the Son of God, that He was the Dying-yet-rising God. It seems to fit the facts better.

______________________________

1 — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1993), 246. (See also: C.S. Lewis, "Myth Became Fact," God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), 63-67)

2 — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984), 138

3 — See: C.S. Lewis, "Miracles," God in the Dock, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), 25-37

4 — C.S. Lewis, "The Grand Miracle," God in the Dock, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), 81

5 — Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger, Epictetus, Lucian, Aristides, Galenus

Chapter 14

What Does God Look Like?

I've come a long way since my days of squirming my way through a Sunday School class on a little wooden chair. Something must have sunk in from those years because I graduated to teaching Sunday School myself. One of the remunerations of the job is the questions kids will ask. One that comes up frequently in kids' minds is, "What does God look like?" It's a very good question. There's a bunch of different answers a person could give.

One answer would be that if God revealed Himself fully in all His searing glory and brightness, no one could look on Him and live, so we'll never know what He looks like as long as we're stuck in these bodies.

Another answer would be that God is Spirit. That's how He can be everywhere all at once. He doesn't presently have a body quite like ours, and so we can't see Him at this time.

Or I might wax poetic and say that God looks like starry nights and sunsets. We can certainly see something of God through His handiwork just as we can see something of an artist through his artwork.

Or I could say that if we wanted to see a self-portrait of the Artist we could look in the mirror. Of all of God's creations, we can learn the most about what He looks like by looking at ourselves, made in His image as we are. But when all's said and done, an image is not the real thing.

So probably the closest and most accurate answer I could give to the question, "What does God look like?" is this: male; possibly brown-eyed, olive-skinned, and dark-haired; bearded (Isaiah 50:6), height and weight unknown; a few distinguishing scars (check hands and feet); not very impressive-looking, not what you'd call a good-looking man — probably we might even call Him homely at first (Isaiah 53:2), but those who've met Him personally end up by calling Him altogether lovely.

As you read through the Gospels and the person of Jesus jumps off the pages and stands face to face with you, what an amazing thing it is to think that this Person is what God looks like! Who wouldn't want God to look like Him?! What very good news that would be!

One so powerful He could tell a stormy sea to be quiet and it would listen to Him. But so gentle in that power that He ever only used it to help people; to heal some hurting person or to feed hungry people or to save a bride and groom from embarrassment by turning water into wine at their wedding.

So fierce He took on corrupt business men and, brandishing a homemade whip, chased them out of their place of business; then on other occasions used language against the corrupt authorities, like "brood of vipers" and "hypocrites" and "sons of hell." Yet so tender He would always make time for little ones, scooping them up in His arms and blessing them. He even let His best friends know in no uncertain terms that they had their priorities askew when they tried to shoo the kids away to make room for more important people.

So blameless in His own conduct He could say boldly, "Which of you accuses me of sin?" and even His enemies couldn't answer Him. Yet so patient with others' non-blameless conduct that the sinners no one else would hang around were some of His best friends. And somehow just the being around Him and the wanting to be around Him seemed to be the thing that changed their lives.

So profound that His teachings have been analyzed and dissected for centuries without being exhausted or even totally understood. Yet so down-to-earth and everyday that He told His stories to farmers and fishermen about their familiar territories.

So stern about the things God hates, like things that keep people from God. Yet so free from false piety that he trampled the man-made rules and regulations the religious leaders of His day held dear (those being some of the things which keep people from God). Not to mention (although I will), He could enjoy a good party and clearly was good company. Certainly anything but a stuffed shirt.

So exalted that for His birth announcement He needed nothing less than heavenly messengers. Kings paid Him the homage due a King of kings. Yet so humble that the birth announcement by heavenly messengers came to shepherds. He started off life in a cattle-feed trough and when He grew up had no fixed address or income, owned nothing of value, and acted the part of a servant. I mean, does the CEO of the company scrub the company toilets? Well, that's the example this CEO set. He demonstrated to His best friends the way He wanted them to live by performing the lowly servant's duty of washing their feet. Have you looked at feet lately? Not surprising it was a lowly servant's duty. Yet He took on Himself the place and position of a lowly servant.

So unpretentious that "the common people heard Him gladly." Yet so clever that no one could set a trap He couldn't spring and then turn it around to catch the trappers in their own trap.

My favourite example of this kind of behaviour was when the Jewish leaders came to Him, demanding an answer on the issue of taxation. Were they supposed to pay taxes or weren't they? You have to understand that it was a classic catch-22. If He said "yes," His following would turn on Him. The Romans were not popular. The people would not take kindly to the idea of His sticking up for the Romans and their taxation policies. Besides, it wouldn't make Him look very religious. The more money people gave in taxes, the less they had to contribute to the temple or to God. But if He said "no," His enemies had Him. They were looking for an excuse to get Him in trouble with the Romans. To do away with Him legally, they needed the Romans' help. If He spoke against the Roman taxes, they could turn Him in for insurrection or treason or general mischief-making. The Romans weren't known for their senses of humour in these matters.

So what did Jesus do? He didn't answer them. Instead, He asked somebody to pull out a coin. "Whose image is stamped on it?" He asked. Caesar's image was stamped on it.

The same illustration would still work today. Whose image is stamped on the coins I have in my purse? The queen's (in my country, at least). So whose money is it? It's got her face all over it. It came from her in the first place (well, not her personally perhaps, but you know what I mean! It's government-issued, legal tender.) I'd have a lot of nerve telling the queen she's got no business taking back her possession that she has her face all over.

Then Jesus said this: "Let Caesar have the things that are Caesar's, but give God the things that are God's." His audience knew their Scriptures. They could have hardly missed the implication. Whose image were His listeners stamped with? Whose image are we stamped with? Right! So what things are God's? Right again! We are! Let Caesar have his money. Let the queen have her money. God doesn't need money. He's after bigger things. He wants us.

So we find that with one small coin and one small sentence, Jesus neatly turned the tables on those who were trying to trap Him. As a bonus, He threw in a lesson on logic and a mini-sermon. Not bad for one sentence!

I mean, you have to love this guy! I don't understand much of what He said (owing to pea-brain syndrome), but what I do understand is jam-packed with meaning and sound logic and the ring of truth.

He set the world of His day on its ear. He's still doing it to our world. How could a person not be drawn to Him?

And then this man claimed to be God. One of His friends said to Him one day (in my paraphrase), "What does God look like?" And you know what Jesus told him? "You're lookin' at Him!" (See John 14:8-9). All this that I've been describing — this fascinating, complex, brilliant, surprising, fierce, tender, compassionate, humble, majestic, colourful, flavourful, thoroughly lovely personality is what God looks like. At least, you have to admit that it's good drama.

I call it more than good drama. I call it very good news. And obviously, so did those who knew Him well enough to write about His life. That's what their books are named. That's what the word "gospel" literally means: Good News.

Good News, indeed! This God is not the austere, unapproachable, untouchable, demanding taskmaster most of us have come to expect.

He was nothing if not approachable. He was nothing if not touchable. He was one of us. He knows just how we feel in whatever we go through (Hebrews 4:15). We cry out against suffering and feel how very unbearable it is. So did He.

And now we come to the climax. The whole point of God coming to earth was to suffer. And His suffering was enormous. He didn't have to go through with it. But He did. Why?

Why did Jesus have to die? It's the Gospels' explanation of Jesus' crucifixion that makes the most sense. They tell us that He was a great teacher, sure, but that one of the main lessons He taught was that He was God. That got the Jewish officials riled up enough to want to kill Him. Then they went to work to get the Roman officials riled up. A man going around claiming to be God would be blasphemy to the Jewish mind, and a man going around claiming to be greater than Caesar would be treason to the Roman mind. (And claiming to be the supreme, omnipotent, eternal ruler of the universe could probably, in a way, be seen as claiming to be greater than Caesar.) The logical outcome of it all was that Jesus was crucified. No other explanation for who Jesus was or what He claimed to be leads us to that logical outcome.

The Bible also tells us that this logical outcome, including His rejection and subsequent death, was all prophesied in advance because it was a very necessary logical outcome of the eternal councils of God's Grand Plan. The reason for His crucifixion on the one hand was perceived revolution. On the other hand, it was prophesied rejection.

But why? Why was it necessary to God's plan for the world? Why would He do it? Why would He suffer willingly?

One of my favourite verses in the Bible says, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame[...]" (Hebrews 12:2a.). Did you catch that? "... who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross ..." What did He get out of dying? What was the joy He thought worth dying for?

As to His being demanding, what is the only thing He asks of us? What is it He desires of us? He wants our love because that's what God looks like. He looks like a lover. He looks like a pursuer. (I told you last chapter that the story of the Bible is a romance story. The husband's relationship with his bride is an often-used biblical metaphor for God's relationship with His people.)

Remember us talking about why God would create such creatures as ourselves in the first place? What He desires from us is that we come to Him and curl up on His lap and throw our chubby, little arms around His neck and whisper, "I love you, Daddy!" (Romans 8:15-16) Seriously! That's what He wants from us. Jesus told His best friends they had to learn to imitate little people (Mark 10:13-16). And that's what little people do.

What does God look like? He looks like a Father, running — yes, running — because off in the distance that He spends His days straining His eyes toward, He sees His kid coming home — a kid who rejected Him and made bad choices all 'round. But that kid is coming back to Him, and that's what the Father cares about. That's the joy He thought it worth dying for.

Don't believe me? I'm not making this stuff up. Read your Bible. That's where I'm getting it. That's the face that God showed us when He showed up on earth.

I've said that God must have created us because He thought it was worth it; that He considered the whole mystery of this gift of love worth any cost. I would say He's done what He could to prove it.

I also told you that we'd see as we went along how the love that God is does not shout, “Me first! ME, ME, ME!” but whispers, “You first! YOU, YOU, YOU!” When you see the climax of the Story, wouldn't you agree? (See Philippians 2:3-8.)

Like I think I've told you, I live in an extraordinarily beautiful part of the world. One day, I was out walking and revelling in the beauty. There suddenly was a sense of sadness and loss that came over me in the middle of it all. It came home to me how very much unlike all the beauty and purity and innocence that was all around me I was. I was cut off from it by my own ugliness and sin just like a cloud cuts off the sun from the earth. But as quickly as that feeling came, the words to a passage of Scripture I'd been working on memorizing came to me. It was the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows [...] But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

The words were like the clouds rolling back and a hole opening in the midst of their greyness to let the sun break through. I don't have to be dead to God, cut off from God, though He be so holy and I be so unholy. It's because of the climax to this drama that He played out.

Jesus never turned away anyone, no matter what she'd done in her life, who came to Him, just wanting to be around Him. And He hasn't changed. Sure, God hates sin. Sure, Jesus hates sin. But He had a plan for dealing with it, and He carried off that plan. That was His business. Our business is just to accept that plan and then to love Him. And how could we not?

But how did His death accomplish the work of bringing us back into relationship with Himself? Short answer: I don't know.

I have no idea how the whole thing worked. It's not one of my straight edges. C.S Lewis had this to say on the subject:

Now before I became a Christian, I was under the impression that the first thing Christians had to believe was one particular theory as to what the point of this dying was. According to that theory God wanted to punish men for having deserted and joined the Great Rebel, but Christ volunteered to be punished instead, and so God let us off [...] What I came to see later on was that neither this theory nor any other is Christianity. The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter [...] Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary; mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself.1

I can't understand it, but I can catch faint glimpses of this enthralling, edge-of-your-seat, nail-biter of a drama of a God who allowed evil to enter the world only because He had a plan for dealing with it, and that plan was for Himself to become human and take on the evil by submitting to it fully and to all it could do to Him; yet through that submission to it, to crush it outright.

Think of the specific prophecies that we've looked at, telling us that God would become Man. And as is par for the course for humanity's treatment of God, the majority would reject Him. And as a direct result of that rejection, that Man would die. And in a twist of beautiful irony, that would be God's provision for dealing with man's rejection of Himself.

I catch other glimpses through human relationships. How could Jesus' death on the cross serve the purpose of allowing God to forgive us? I told you in Chapter Nine we'd get around to talking about how our sin doesn't have to cause God pain and suffering forever because He made a way for Himself to forgive us.

What is forgiveness? I'd say that it's taking the consequences someone's sin has had on you and making them your own. When you say to someone, "I forgive you," you're saying, "Your sin has hurt me. But I'm going to take that hurt on myself and not seek any of it back from you." In effect, "I'll pay for your sin so you don't have to." The consequences of sin are suffering and death. He took those consequences. So forgiveness is possible.

Josh McDowell said this about the relationship between God's forgiveness and Jesus' death on the cross:

At this point many people ask, “Why couldn't God just forgive?”

An executive of a large corporation said, “My employees often do something, perhaps break something, and I just forgive them.” Then he added, “Are you trying to tell me I can do something that God can't do?”

People fail to realize that wherever there is forgiveness there's also a payment. For example, let's say my daughter breaks a lamp in my home. I'm a loving and forgiving father, so I put her on my lap, and I hug her and I say, “Don't cry, honey. Daddy loves you and forgives you.”

Now usually the person I tell that story to says, “Well, that's what God ought to do.”

Then I ask the question, “Who pays for the lamp?”

The fact is, I do. There's always a price in forgiveness. Let's say somebody insults you in front of others and later you graciously say, “I forgive you.” Who bears the price of the insult? You do.

This is what God has done. God has said, “I forgive you”; but He was willing to pay the price Himself through the cross.2

But these are only hints and glimpses. The picture of this truth is too big to be captured by reasoning and theories. Jesus' saving death is not one of my straight edges that I can make sense of. But it is part of the final picture that I know is incredibly beautiful by the glimpses I've caught of it.

What does God look like? He looks like love. That really is the only answer.

But at this point it comes down to you. You have a decision to make staring you right in the face. It all hinges on this issue: Who is this Man? Who was Jesus? Was He a fictional character? Was He largely legend? Was He a revolutionary? Was He a great moral teacher? Or is He God the Son, in fact, the God-who-died-and yet-lives-and-is-coming-back-someday? Here's the much-more-than-sixty-four-thousand-dollar question on which everything rides: "Who do you say that I am?"

You tell me: What does God look like?

But why should it all have to hinge on this issue? What's the big deal about what a person believes? Why must a person accept a few facts about Jesus and the reasons He died in order to be “saved”?

It's a legitimate question. Why would God particularly demand an adherence to certain articles of faith in order to let someone into heaven or to forgive him or to deal with that person's sin problem or to put him back into a right relationship with Him or anything else involved in the word “saved”?

The first question to be asked is, "Does God, in fact, demand any such thing?" And the next question would be, "If so, what are those articles of faith?"

Let's again turn to the Bible to see what it has to say. What does it teach are the truly important truths that a person must agree are true in order to be saved?

This question was asked very distinctly by an honest inquirer in Acts 16:30 and answered very succinctly in Acts 16:31. "What must I do to be saved?" was the question. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved ..." was the answer.

So far, so good! The Bible tells us we have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But if the answer stops there, it's a bit of a dead end, isn't it? Believe what, exactly? Believe He was a historical person? Believe He was a great teacher? Believe He was a political leader, a firebrand, a revolutionary?

We have a hint what we must believe from His name given in Acts 16:31: "the Lord Jesus Christ." "The Lord" is God's title. "Christ" comes from the Greek word for “Messiah.” And “Jesus” comes from the Greek version of His given name (Yeshua, in Hebrew). And Jesus or Yeshua means "Saviour." Does that give us any help as to what we must believe? Jesus is God, the Messiah, the Saviour.

The man asking the question in Acts 16:30 was a Philippian jailer. The men answering the question in Acts 16:31 were his prisoners, the Apostle Paul and his friend Silas. They didn't leave the jailer scratching his head as to what it was he needed to believe about the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 16:32, "...They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house" (NRSV).

We're not told exactly what Paul and Silas said on that occasion when they "...spoke the word of the Lord to him..." But we can have a pretty good idea what it was based on another passage; this one written by Paul. 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 says:

Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you — unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (NRSV).

According to this passage, this is the message that those who “got the ball rolling” went around preaching. Notice what the “good news” (the gospel) is by which we are saved: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ... In other words, it helps a lot to know the prophecies of the Writings to have an understanding of why Jesus died for our sins — the prophecies we've talked about numerous times (whose point I think I've driven home): that God would come to earth as a human baby and grow up to be a man to die to take away our sins. And we have to believe not only in the Dying God, we have to believe in the Risen Christ (who was seen after His resurrection by eyewitnesses who went around telling everyone what they had seen).

We saw last chapter some of the bare facts as revealed in the Gospels. Jesus really did lead people to believe He claimed to be God, and His disciples re-iterated those claims in the rest of the New Testament. (See John 1:1, Romans 9:5, Philippians 2:5-11, Colossians 2:9, I Timothy 3:16, I Timothy 6:14-16, 1 John 5:7). The Gospels say He died for our sins and rose again. To be saved, the Bible would tell us, we have to believe those bare facts. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ..." means believing not just that He lived and died or that He was a great teacher but actually believing some of the bare facts about Him.

What do the Gospels themselves say about the salvation Paul speaks of? There's the famous John 3:16; famous because it's possibly the clearest Bible verse on the subject. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

So again, believing is the only thing we have to do, and again what we need to believe is that Jesus was God's "begotten Son" and all the implications that go along with the begotten-Son status.

Also in John are a couple of verses I quoted to you earlier: John 20:30-31, "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."

Here we learn that the Gospels were written for this reason: so people could know some of the bare facts they have to believe in order to have eternal life. And again, we see that these bare facts are that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God (or in the biblical understanding of begotten Son, that He's God, the Son.) Believing is the only work mentioned required of anyone.

It used to be a fairly common understanding that getting into heaven depended on being good — on what a person did or didn't do (at least, that was what many people thought the Bible said on the subject). This common understanding (which is really a misunderstanding) may have come from a scattered reading of the Bible without reading enough to know what it really said or what it really meant. In fact, you don't get to heaven by being good. You get to heaven by being perfect. And there's only one way that's going to happen.

There are certainly places in the Bible where it informs us that only the righteous will inherit eternal life. But we're told very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that the righteousness is not ours at all. It's Christ's righteousness and perfection given to us because He took our sin for us. And that comes about through no act of our own other than a simple belief in some bare facts about this person, Jesus Christ. This exchange of our sin for Christ's righteousness is a deep truth that I have no way to explain or even commentate on, but it's very clearly what the Bible teaches.

According to the Gospels, what did Jesus Himself have to say on the subject of being saved and getting to live forever with God? He makes this scary statement in Matthew 7:21, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

Now, this may sound a lot like the old "Be good little boys and girls so you can go to heaven when you die" doctrine. It may sound like we must mind our Ps and Qs and stay in line and attempt a degree of obedience impossible for any human. I mean, how much of God's will do I have to do? All of it? Who could do God's will all the time? What kind of good works do we need to do to do God's will? But read on. Jesus tells us the good work that's required of us to do to God's will.

"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:28-29).

So it all seems to come down to a very simple acceptance of certain facts about Jesus. The New Testament (and the Old, too, although it says it in different ways) makes it clear that believing, that this simple act of faith, is the only part we have in being saved. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."

The last verse I want to quote to you is one of my favourites. It comes from the prayer Jesus prayed on the night before He died. John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (NRSV). It's knowing Him that's life. That is life eternal.

So now we've seen what the Bible says about being saved or about having our sins taken away. If you're still not at the point of admitting that the Bible has the authority to have the final say on the subject, let's see what we could come up with just by reasoning it through.

I remember a friend of mine saying to me one time, "I believe in God, but I don't understand why that means I should have to believe in Jesus."

One thing is clear. If you admit that it does look very much as though Jesus might actually have been God in human flesh, then it's idle nonsense to talk as though a person could believe in God but not in Jesus Christ. If Jesus is God, then an accurate re-phrasing of my friend's statement would be, "I believe in God, but I don't understand why that means I should have to believe in God."

Why would God demand that we accept the facts that Jesus was God, that He died for sin, and that He rose again, to gain access to His eternal life/forgiveness/salvation offer?

Remember that we decided that the only way God can let me into heaven is if I agree with Him that He must be God. Remember that I can't be my own god. It doesn't work out so well.

Well, if I think I'm letting God be God, but I reject the most complete revelation He's given us of Himself, then I might believe in a god of sorts, but it's not the true God. It would be an imaginary god I've made for myself. It would be the god I can tell what to do. It would be the god I can mold and bend until I have him/her/it how I want it. I would be answering the question, “What does God look like?” by inventing an image — a little idol of my own creation. And if I am my god's creator, what does that make me? That's right! That makes me still trying to be my own god. And how many gods can there be in heaven?

If Jesus was God and if He died for our sins and rose again, then it seems to me that those are the basics that a person must accept about the true God before he can be saved.

And that's what the Bible says. That's the bare minimum that we must accept as true. Either that or a person is making up his own version of God again, and that doesn't exactly cut it with God.

Of course, none of us has even a tiny picture of the true God, and so we do all have imaginary versions of God to some extent. But again, as we've talked about, it all comes down to the important truths. The truths mentioned above certainly look to me like the important ones.

From time to time throughout this book, I've referred to Christianity as a religion and lumped it, as a religion, in with all the other world religions. Most Christians wouldn't let me get away with calling Christianity a religion, however. “It's not a religion,” they'd correct me. “It's a relationship.” And it's true. Christianity is not just an organized system of beliefs about the greater realities. In its essence, it is relational. In its essence, it's being able to come to God, curl up on His lap, throw our chubby, little arms around His neck, and whisper, “I love You, Daddy!”

The goal is knowing God, being in relationship with Him. It's knowing God that is eternal life (John 17:3). So where does “the organized system of beliefs” enter into it?

If we put it into terms of getting to know another human, think of the Bible's prescription for salvation — those three or so bullet points it says we must believe in order to be saved — as being that first, tentative, finding-out-the-basics stage in a new friendship. The basic facts we've been looking at this book — the “all this” laid out in Chapter One — are only the first steps. They are only the bare minimum God wants us to know about Him. But they are very necessary first steps.

I'd have a hard time believing you if you claimed that my friend, Fred, was a good friend of yours, too, but you couldn't tell me if he was married or if he had kids or what his last name was. The goal of learning a few intellectual and factual basics about Fred is to enter into friendship — relationship — with him. But without even the smallest fraction of an intellectual knowing, the relational knowing can't happen.

If you want to know Fred, you'll want to know about Fred. You'll ask him questions about himself. You'll ask him about his family, for instance. Then, you'll want to get to know Fred's family if Fred is important to you. And if Fred's family is important to him, you'll have to get to know and love them, as well, in order to really know and love Fred.

I'd say it's the same with God, as Father and as Son. "Love Me, love My Son. Love Me, love My Father." That's one of the important things.

If we're getting to know God, how else could we know Him but through His Son and what He did? He was the One who showed up on earth to show us just exactly what it is that God looks like.

Now there's that same decision still staring you in the face. Who was Jesus? Rather, who is Jesus? This is not the kind of decision about which you can remain neutral or indifferent. It can't be put off or ignored. An attempt to decide neither for nor against is to decide against because it leaves you right where you started; still trying to be your own god.

I believe the majority of people live in a state of "I'd rather not think about it," but it doesn't work to stay there. It must be done. A decision has to be made.

He starts His work in us from the moment we tell Him we're willing. And that very moment of that decision, we begin to know Him “whom to know is life eternal.”

Even now, it can all be yours. The clouds have parted, and the Son is shining through.

______________________________

1 — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1984), 57-58

2 — Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense. (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, Inc., 1990, 1992) 409

BOOK II

“OBJECTION!”

Chapter 15

Objection # 1: "The Bible Contradicts Itself."

This is a big one. If the Bible contradicts itself, then that rules out the possibility of the Bible being absolute truth or being a book written by God. I think we could agree: Truth will not contradict itself. So the question is, "Does the Bible contradict itself?"

Now, obviously, I'm going to say no. Obviously, I wouldn't have written this book from the perspective that the Bible is God's Book if I was going to admit to contradictions in it at this point.

A contradiction would be one statement opposed to another statement where no reconciliation is possible. In other words, if I say, "Did too!" and you say, "Did not!" we have a contradiction.

Or maybe, if one witness says a certain event happened at ten o'clock in the morning and another witness says the event happened at two o' clock in the afternoon, we have contradiction. But before we could know we have a contradiction in this case, we would have to know that both witnesses were talking about the identical event, not something similar that happened twice, and that this event could not possibly have lasted for four hours. Otherwise, both witnesses could be telling the truth. They might not both be telling the truth. Maybe neither one of them is telling the truth. But if both could be telling the truth, then they're not contradicting each other. If different statements can be reconciled, even if we don't know for sure the right way to reconcile them, but if reconciliation is possible, they're not contradictory. Truth and non-contradiction are two different issues. Non-contradiction by itself doesn't prove truth. I won't be attempting the prove the Bible is true in this chapter. I'd just like to show that it doesn't contradict itself.

I'd like to point out that those who spend the most time studying the Bible are generally the ones who are convinced that there are no contradictions in it. And very often, those who say there are contradictions wouldn't be able to give a single example.

However, there must be reasons people are fond of saying that the Bible contradicts itself. Isn't it true that there are places where the Bible appears to contradict itself? Or in other words, aren't there perceived contradictions in the Bible?

Yes, there are. Just as there are in normal, everyday conversation. Now, of course, there are true contradictions in normal, everyday conversation, too, but there are also a great many perceived contradictions that exist because of lack of knowledge. For convenience sake, we can't possibly include every detail from the start that would prevent perceived contradictions. It would mean endless talking. And worse, endless listening.

I'll give you a hypothetical example: If, oh say, Shirley at work asks me what I did over the weekend, I might say, "Nothing much. I went to church. I taught Sunday School." Shirley doesn't imagine that I haven't left the church all weekend and that I've subjected my longsuffering Sunday School class to a gruelling, forty-eight-hour marathon of erudition. In normal, everyday language, "What did you do over the weekend?" doesn't mean, "I want to hear everything you did over the weekend," and, "Nothing much. I went to church and taught Sunday School," doesn't mean, "That was everything I did over the weekend." I don't bother to tell Shirley, "At precisely 9:42 a.m. on Saturday, I opened my eyes and glanced at the clock. Then I rolled over and closed them again. Then I thought better of going back to sleep. So I lay on my back staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing in particular for another ten minutes. Then, slowly, I exited the bed. I made my way to the bathroom..." (and etc. ad infinitum) Nor does Shirley get all bent out of shape and call me a liar when she hears me tell Hank five minutes later, "On Sunday, I played a bit of tennis." So I told Shirley that I taught Sunday School, and I told Hank that I played a bit of tennis. What of it? They're both true. I just didn't happen to think of the tennis while I was talking to Shirley, and it came up while I was talking to Hank.

That's normal, everyday conversation. We seem to put the Bible in a bit of a different category, though. One where we're hyper-critical. Now, that's only fair. After all, if the Bible was written by God, it should be able to stand up under a hyper-criticism that our normal, everyday conversations wouldn't. And I believe the Bible does stand up under hyper-criticism. At the same time, we have to recognize the same rules of ordinary speech when it comes to the Bible as we do for normal, everyday conversation. The Bible was written by God, but it was written to normal, everyday humans. And thank you, but no thank you, I'd rather not hear every detail ad infinitum regarding everything possible all at once to avoid any possible perceived contradictions.

Shouldn't we give the same benefit of doubt to the Bible that we would give to anyone? If two different friends of mine tell me their two different versions of the same event they both witnessed, I usually like to believe they're both telling the truth and that they both know what they're talking about. Generally, if it's possible, we listen to both sides of the story and combine both sides to come to a better understanding than we would have from just one side. If the two sides are easily reconciled and help explain each other, we accept them both. We don't write them off as contradictions but explore them as perspectives. But that is what I find with the Bible's accounts. Not only are they generally easily reconciled but with exploration, prove to be very instructive.

Let's take a look at a few of the examples I can think of where the Bible is perceived to contradict itself and see if there are any possible reconciliations. We have to use our imaginations to come up with reconciliations, but that is legitimate. Where we don't know the correct reconciliation, we have to guess. We're not trying to guess the right explanations. We're trying to decide if we're dealing with true contradiction or not. If reconciliation is possible — even if I happen to have guessed at the wrong explanation out of many possible explanations, but if reconciliation is possible — then the contradiction is only perceived and not actual. Potential reconciliation eliminates true contradiction.

Now, there are many paradoxes in the Bible. (Paradoxen?) A paradox is a deliberate contradiction used as a form of speech. It's really more than just a form of speech, though. A paradox is used to express a truth that's too big for one simple statement to hold. So combined into one simple statement, it looks like contradiction.

Jesus was fond of paradoxical sayings, like, "Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it," or, "The first shall be last and the last first," that kind of thing. The Sermon on the Mount is full of paradox. It could aptly be named, "The Sermon of Paradoxes."

But not only statements can be paradoxical. Concepts can be, as well. And that's where it gets tricky. We don't tend to accuse people making paradoxical statements of contradicting themselves because we understand paradox as a form of speech. When a paradox is no longer just a form of speech but is a real, live paradox, we're more likely to jump to the conclusion that a person trying to describe that real, live paradox is contradicting himself. For instance, how can Someone be a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit and yet be one God? How can one Person be three Persons? I don't know. But I do realize it's a paradox; not a contradiction.

By and large, I don't think it's the existence of paradox in the Bible that causes people to assert that the Bible is full of contradictions. There are other sorts of statements that appear contradictory that give people problems.

Let's start with some Old Testament examples. (This might work best if you find a Bible and follow along.)

Some people believe that the creation account from Genesis 1 is different from the creation account in Genesis 2, that they were written by two different people, and that there are contradictions between them. I believe, rather, that the account from Genesis 1 to 2:4a. is the overview, the account from Genesis 2:4b.-25 is a more detailed description of one specific event from that overview (the creation of mankind in 1:26-28) which would be of particular interest to the reading audience, that it was authored by the same Person (God) so that how many human writers there were for these passages is irrelevant, and that, given their authorship, they don't contradict each other. (Whew! That was a mouthful!)

People see perceived contradictions between these two accounts in two places. First, Genesis 1:11 informs the reader that God created all manner of green, growing things on Day Three. Genesis 1:27 tells that mankind was created on the sixth day. Genesis 2:4b.-6 opens by explaining that its account is starting with the time when there was no green, growing life on earth (it also mentions that humanity had not yet been created, either). Then 2:7 details the creation of the first man from the dust of the earth, and the following verses carry on to tell about God planting a beautiful garden as man's first home. Isn't this contradiction? Genesis 1 states that plants and trees came before humans.

Unless we're specifically told the order of events, we can't assume that they are written in chronological order.1 In Genesis 1, the chronology is specified. In Genesis 2, although some versions add the chronological word “then” in verse seven, “and” is the better translation which has no chronological implications. We're not told that there was no vegetable life at the time man was created. We're simply told that, in the beginning, there was no vegetable or human life but that, at some point, God created man and planted a beautiful garden home for him — which planting may have taken place at the same time God created the rest of the plant life on Day Three or may have happened at some time later. It may have been an act separate from the creation of all other vegetation. It may not have been. We're not told the chronology of the planting of the garden in Genesis 2, so we can't assume it. But neither are we told in Genesis 2 that there was no vegetation on earth at the time man was created. That's reading into the passage. Genesis 1 can be read more or less chronologically. Genesis 2 need not be. It doesn't specify chronologies.

The same issue arises in 2:18-19 where we read that God said He would make a helper for Adam, that He made all the animals out the ground (none of whom were intended to be Adam's “helper,” by the way), and that He brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. This looks like contradiction because in 1:24-25 we read about God creating the land animals, etc. Then in 1:26-28, we read about God creating humans. Because Genesis 1 gives us specified chronology, I would guess that animals were indeed created before humans. But bearing in mind that Genesis 2 does not specify chronology, what we have in Genesis 2:19 is simply the statement that God formed all animals out of the ground or dirt and (this next part is certainly logical!) that He made them sometime before He brought them to Adam to name.

Moving past Genesis, we have two recordings of a story where God told Moses how to get water from a rock for the thirsty people of Israel in the wilderness. In Exodus 17:5-6, God commands Moses to strike the rock, and in Numbers 20:8-13, God tells Moses to speak to the rock.

To tout this as one of the Bible's “contradictions” looks to me like scraping for reasons not to believe the Bible — along the lines of "stumpers" like, "Where did Cain get his wife?" (Rather than spend a whole chapter on this one which I had figured out the first time I heard it when I was very young but which people are still trotting out, I'll solve it here and now. He married a sister. (See Genesis 5:4). Ooo, gross? Well, not back before the gene pool was polluted by mutation and God hadn't yet proscribed against close relatives marrying like He did in the Mosaic law, presumably knowing something about genetics. Okay, moving right along...)

How many times do you think God would have had to provide water for the Israelites in the desert? As the narrative of Exodus and Numbers makes clear, Exodus 17:5-6 and Numbers 20:8-13 are not describing the same incident. These are two incidents.

What are the odds that something like this could happen twice? About the same as the odds that it happened once. All miracles, by definition, defy the odds. Those who have a hard time believing that a miracle like this could happen twice are doubtless going to have a hard time with its happening even once. It doesn't seem to me that the supposed contradiction is the real issue here.

Okay, here's another: In the last chapter of 2 Kings, we read an account that seems to be a direct quotation from the last chapter of Jeremiah (or vice versa, whichever came first). In the descriptions of what the old temple looked like before its destruction, there appears a detail that seems contradictory. In Jeremiah 52:22, we're given a detailed description about a couple of specific pillars in the temple. It says, "And a chapiter of brass was upon it; and the height of one chapiter was five cubits [...]" In 2 Kings 25:17 we read, "The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the chapiter upon it was brass: and the height of the chapiter three cubits [...]"

Isn't this a clear contradiction? One says five cubits; one says three. No, this is no clear contradiction. There were two pillars; there were two "chapiters" on those pillars. We may have a description of two different "chapiters." Whatever a “chapiter” was, apparently one was three cubits high and one was five. Jeremiah 52:23 adds additional details about one of the pillars that 2 Kings doesn't mention, so they were getting some of their information from two different sources, though most of it is identical. This is just an example how a difference in numbers may be cited as a contradiction that a careful reading of the passage will eliminate.

There are more number discrepancies throughout the books of history, especially the books of the Kings and the Chronicles which give lists of reigning kings and dates (of a kind) for those reigns, but those dates aren't based on a uniform or standard system.

For an example, there's a great deal of confusion surrounding the reigns of the kings of the two separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the reigns of a couple of Ahaziahs and a couple of Jehorams (or Jorams); first, because at that time, the royal families of Judah and Israel were intermarried and added to the difficulty of learning their history by doing some name recycling (not unlike other royal families). Israel had both an Ahaziah and a Jehoram (Joram) as did Judah. All these kings came within a generation or two of each other. That's one confusion.

The other is the system of dating the reigns and determining the length of reigns. Comparing 1 Kings 22:42, 22:51, 2 Kings 1:17, 3:1, 8:16, 8:25 and 9:29 and then trying to sort out all the numbers on paper is guaranteed to leave one's head whirling. Most of the muddle is sortable-outable, however, once you take into account the fact that a part of a year may be totted up as a full year in one place but not in another place: As in, when it says that Jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, we don't know that those were a full twenty-five years. He may have reigned twenty-three years and two months which could still be counted as twenty-five years if one of those months was at the end of the calendar year and another was at the beginning. By another system of reckoning, they could be counted as only twenty-three years. Or when we're told that Ahaziah began to reign in the twelfth year of Joram, we have no way of knowing when in the twelfth year that was. If we're not talking about twelve full years, another historian might have called it the eleventh year.

But even taking into account those sorts of tallying differences, there's no way around it. There seems to be a contradiction regarding when the respective Jorams began their reigns. I won't go into great and complicated detail, but this seeming contradiction can be reconciled. When you realize that Ahaziah (Israel's Ahaziah) was bed-ridden from a fall at the beginning of 2 Kings, and we're not told how long he lasted in his bed-ridden state, we may have our answer. If he was bed-ridden for approximately seven years before he died, and his brother, Jehoram/Joram, was the de facto ruler for those seven years, the contradictions are cleared up. One historian in 2 Kings may be counting Joram's reign as the beginning of his regency while Ahaziah was still alive; whereas another historian may be counting his reign from the death of Ahaziah and Joram's official reign.

But there's one that's especially tough, here. If you compare 2 Kings 8:26 with 2 Chronicles 22:2, 2 Kings says that Ahaziah (Judah's Ahaziah, that is, the king after Judah's Joram. Confused yet?) was twenty-two years old when he began his reign, and 2 Chronicles says that he was forty-two. The simplest explanation is that this is a copyist error. That is, until you look at the original Hebrew. The words for twenty and forty look nothing alike in Hebrew. But this would be a clear contradiction then, wouldn't it? No; not if there's some way these two verses can be reconciled.

And there is. The reconciliations for this one are wildly complicated (but then, royal lineages are often wildly complicated). I'll try not to belabour the proposed explanations for how Ahaziah could have been both twenty-two and forty-two when he began his reign. Both could be true if Ahaziah had two different ages.

But here's another problem: If you do the math, beginning his reign at forty-two would make Ahaziah older than the man called his father (Joram). (And here's how Ahaziah could have different ages:) One possible explanation is that Ahaziah was not Joram's biological son but perhaps his step-son (the son of Athaliah) in which case he could be older than his adopted father if his mother was much older. The fact that he's called the youngest son could have more to do with rights of ascendancy than literal age. The Hebrew is ambiguous in its terminology for stating ages. A more literal rendering of 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 would be "Ahaziah, a son of twenty-two years" or "Ahaziah, a son of forty-two years." In which case, Ahaziah could be twenty-two and forty-two at the same time. He may have begun his reign at the biological age of forty-two but at the adopted age of twenty-two.

I don't expect you to have followed every detail. Just notice that reconciliations are possible for all these number discrepancies.

There are other numerical discrepancies that I've noticed (and, I'm sure, more that I haven't) from these books of history that we don't have time or space to delve into here. None of them are major. All of them (that I've noticed, anyway) are reconcilable.

I would be careful about deciding that the Bible contradicts itself just because a certain set of numbers doesn't match up. I'd see first if any reconciliations are possible. I'd also be careful about attributing everything to "copyist error." It might look like the easy way out but end up causing more problems than it solves.

Let's move to the New Testament now. Here's a New Testament example: Matthew lists a different genealogy for Jesus' ancestors than Luke does.

The reconciliation here is that Jesus had two parents. (One was a step-parent, but anyway...) The guess is that Matthew is listing Joseph's ancestors and Luke is listing Mary's, seeing Luke seems well-informed from Mary's point of view and relates events surrounding her pregnancy and Jesus' birth and early life we don't find elsewhere. But Luke phrases it this way, "And Jesus [...] being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli [...]" (3:23). And the genealogy carries on from there.

Now, if Luke is, in fact, listing Mary's ancestors, that would make Joseph the son-in-law of Heli, not his son. Why doesn't Luke list Mary as the daughter of Heli? Simple. Because he doesn't list any women in his genealogy. Women weren't normally included in genealogies. You'll notice that he calls Jesus the son of Joseph, although he adds so there's no misunderstanding, "...(as was supposed)..." A man could be called "the son of So-and-So," even if So-and-So hadn't actually begotten him.

We do the same thing. I often hear mothers-in-law refer to their sons-in-law as their sons. Kinship terms and views on family relationships are culture-and-language-specific. Just because Luke's may not have been exactly like ours doesn't make it wrong.

Then, don't let the Bible's confusion of names confuse you. This was the age before a well-established system of surnames had come along, and the same person is often referred to by different names (just as we sometimes are). Also, there was a plurality of common names (just as there is today). Without a standard system (like our system of surnames) for identifying which person is meant, some careful study is sometimes needed to clear up who it is that's being referenced in the biblical stories.

The lists of the twelve disciples of Jesus from Matthew, Mark, and Luke have slight variations. The most obvious is Thaddeus from Mark 3:16-18, Lebbeus Thaddeus from Matthew 10:2-4, and Judas, son of James, (not Judas Iscariot) from Luke 6:13-16. That these are all the same man is seen by the fact that the other eleven from the lists match up. The easiest explanation is that Lebbeus Thaddeus used to be a Judas. John 14:22 also mentions that there was a "Judas (not Iscariot)" present with the twelve at the last supper. You can understand why this Judas found something else to be called after that time. How would you like to go through life known as "Judas" followed by a hasty, "but not Iscariot, though!"? One of Jesus' brothers had the name Judas as well (Matt. 13:55, Mark 6:3). He apparently went on to become a leader in the early church and wrote a book of the Bible. This brother began to go by the name "Jude" it would seem. Probably for the same reason "Judas-not-Iscariot" found another name for himself.

At any rate, you have to imagine the fun we'd have keeping all the Jims, Joes, Joshes, and Marys we know straight if we didn't have such a thing as last names, and then you can understand the trouble the biblical writers had keeping their readership straight on all the Jameses, Josephs, Jesuses, and Marys they knew. These were extremely common first-century Jewish names.

Okay, here's another: In Matthew and Mark, we read that Jesus took seven loaves and a few little fish and fed over four thousand people with them and there were seven baskets of leftovers (Matt. 15:34-38, Mark 8:5-9). Luke and John record that there were five loaves and two fish and over five thousand people were fed and there were twelve baskets of leftovers (Luke 9:13-17, John 6:9-13). Clear contradiction, right?

Wrong! Sorry, trick question. Matthew and Mark also both record the incident of the five loaves, two fish, five thousand men, and twelve baskets (Matt. 14:17-21, Mark 6:38-44). Matthew 16:9-10 makes it clear there were two different miraculous feedings.

If I tell Hank that I played tennis on Sunday, am I contradicting myself when I tell Shirley I played tennis on Monday? Not if I played tennis on Sunday and Monday. Yet if we weren't told that there were two different feedings of the multitudes, these stories would look like blatant contradiction. Who would expect Jesus to do this miracle twice? (Probably not the people who wouldn't expect God to draw water from a rock twice.) All just goes to show, it doesn't pay to be too hasty in assuming clear contradiction before we have all the facts.

Okay, all tricks aside, I'll tell you the one I think is the hardest — the one that shook me the most when I noticed it years ago.

In Matthew 27, we read the story of Judas' (Iscariot, this time) remorse for his betrayal of Jesus and also of Judas' final end. We learn from Matthew: a) that Judas brought back his blood-money to those who gave it to him, that he threw the thirty pieces of silver down, and that he left them where they lay; b) that he then went out and hanged himself; and c) that the chief priests took the blood-money and, not knowing what else to do with it, bought a potter's field with it to bury strangers in. And that was the reason for the field being known as "the Field of Blood."

In Acts, we read a different version of the incidents. From Acts 1, we learn: a) that "this man" (Judas) bought the field with his blood-money; b) that (and I quote) "falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out" (yuck! and end of quote); and c) that this was the reason for the field he bought being called the "Field of Blood."

Doubtless, both the authors had heard a different version of what had happened to Judas and his money, but there's no reason why both can't be true. a) So what if one version said that the chief priests bought a field with Judas' money and the other version said that Judas bought it? If I send you to the store with my money and ask you to pick up a carton of milk, I bought the milk, even if you're the one who handled the transaction. It's one of those normal, everyday conversation kinds of things. We could both truthfully say, "I bought some milk at the store the other day..." It was Judas' money that bought the field. Hence, it was Judas who bought the field. But it was also the chief priests.

The next one is harder. b) How does one hanging oneself equate to one falling headlong and one bursting asunder in the middle and all one's entrails gushing out (don't you love the Bible's way with words!)? There could be several ways, actually. "Hanging" in our vernacular almost always refers to a rope around the neck and etc. That may not necessarily have been the case in the time Matthew was writing. Impaling is very literally a form of "hanging" (though not the rope kind) and would certainly fit the falling-headlong-bursting-open-in-the-middle-entrails-gushing-out scenario to a tee. I don't want to go into a lot of detail (the Acts' version is detailed enough, thank you!), but a man could certainly commit suicide quite effectively by throwing himself off a high point and impaling himself on something below him and meet both the requirements for "hanging" and well, er, all the other picturesque language in Acts.

There's also the equally possible and equally unpleasant option that Judas "hanged" himself (with a rope) and when the rope rotted or broke, the other effects occurred as described in Acts.

Or there's the possibility that “hanging oneself” was an inclusive term at that time, used generally to mean committing suicide by any method and Matthew was using it as such.

Okay, 'nuff said there! I can probably come up with a few other explanations off the top of my head, whether or not any of them are the right one. But if they're that easy to produce, it tells me that we're not looking at a true contradiction here. In Acts, we're not actually told how Judas died. The emphasis is on the gruesomely fascinating medical details of what happened to his body (thank you, Dr. Luke!) at the time of death or after death.

c) is also very explicable as one of those normal-everyday-conversation types of explanations. If a field was used as a burial grounds and it was bought with blood money and it was also bought by a man who had died a bloody, entrails-gushing-out kind of death, I think we would have three perfectly good reasons for calling the field "The Field of Blood." No one ever said there had to be one and only one reason for doing a thing when there are three perfectly good reasons for doing it.

The next example of perceived contradiction I'd like to point out also relates to Judas and his final end. (Don't worry! No more about entrails in this one!) Matthew 27:7-10 says:

After conferring together, they used them to buy the potter's field as a place to bury foreigners. For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me” (NRSV, italics added).

Now, that's fine, until you try to find the quote about the thirty pieces of silver in Jeremiah where Matthew apparently said it would be. I've scoured Jeremiah and found nothing like this whole quote.

As a side trail, let me tell you something I've noticed when the writers of the Bible quote. They quote the way we, as normal, everyday humans do in normal, everyday conversation. We don't quote verbatim. We simply don't have those kinds of memories. But here's the thing about words. They convey meaning. That's their whole and entire function. If we can use several different words to convey the same meaning, then those words serve the same function and they don't contradict each other.

And biblical writers quoted to convey meaning. Writers now have to be very careful and exact with their quotes and reference their sources just so, citing chapter and verse, publisher and copyright date and so on, thanks to the advent of red tape in our world. In the Bible's world, people didn't worry about red tape. Seldom do you read a biblical passage quoting another passage where any source is listed at all. Or quotes will be jumbled all together till they look like one, even though they are two entirely separate passages. But biblical writers are trying to convey a particular meaning, and they use their knowledge of the Scriptures with the assumption that their reading audience has a knowledge of the Scriptures, as well, and knows the background, knows the context, knows the prophet being quoted, etc.

With that preamble, let's get back to Matthew. So Jeremiah never said anything about the thirty pieces of silver as quoted by Matthew. But if you look in Zechariah 11:12-13, you'll find (not verbatim, mind you) the prophecy about the thirty pieces of silver being thrown down in the house of Lord for the potter (although these verses don't say anything about the potter's field). So what happened? Did Matthew have a memory glitch and say Jeremiah when he really meant Zechariah? Well, who knows about Matthew's memory.

But seeing I believe the Bible was ultimately authored by God, obviously, I don't believe that God had a memory glitch. No, if God authored the Bible, He knew perfectly well that the main part of the passage quoted came from Zechariah. Actually, I don't believe that Matthew had a memory glitch, either. I believe that Matthew (though ultimately God) wanted to draw the reader's attention to Jeremiah.

Now, you have to understand that Matthew, at that time, was writing to a Jewish readership who would have known their Scriptures. So they would have doubtless been a little puzzled. Here's Matthew quoting Zechariah but citing Jeremiah. Why? And after puzzling over it for a bit, they would probably have noticed that Matthew throws in the mention of a potter's field where no mention of a field is found in Zechariah. But after puzzling over it a little more and after scouring the book of Jeremiah, Matthew's readership would discover that it's Jeremiah who brings in the bit about the Field of Blood. But the Jeremiah passage is a long one and would take a lot of quoting. So Matthew makes mention of what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah as being what was relevant to the subject of the Field of Blood (the thrust of the passages being quoted), and leaves it up to his readership to figure it out that it's connected to the Zechariah passage.

When you read the Matthew 27 passage in that light, you'll notice that it could easily be understood to be saying that the reference to Jeremiah is connected to the Field-of-Blood bit immediately preceding and that the passage from Zechariah was tacked on as a bonus.

I did scour Jeremiah, looking for some kind of answer to this puzzle of Matthew's supposed memory glitch, and what I discovered put me onto a rather exciting trail of gleaning deeper meaning from all the passages put together. Jeremiah 19 is a chapter all about the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which, if you keep reading, you discover will come to be called, "The valley of slaughter" (Jer. 19:6). Now, considering that words are message-bearers, what's the difference between "The Field of Blood" and "The Valley of Slaughter?" Different words. Very similar meaning. Are these two the same? Is that what Matthew (and ultimately God) was trying to draw our attention to?

Jeremiah 19 is a prophecy of judgment, and we read in verse four that the reason for the name and the reason for the judgment was because they "have filled this place with the blood of innocents." Innocent blood! Hmmm! That sounds familiar from Matthew 27 with Judas' remorse for betraying innocent blood.

But it goes on: "and shall say to them: Thus says the LORD of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that it can never be mended. In Topheth they shall bury until there is no more room to bury" (Jer. 19:11, NRSV).

And so the mention of it being a burial grounds (also, the mention of a potter's vessel). I don't think it can be coincidence that Matthew had a "memory glitch" and "misdirected" his readership to Jeremiah where we find this prophecy that fits the situation too well. But now let's look at the deeper meaning I discovered through having to scour Jeremiah.

In Jeremiah 18, God sends Jeremiah to a potter's house to watch pottery-in-motion (pun intended). The gist of Jeremiah 18 is to illustrate how the potter can do whatever he wants with the clay. He can make useful, beautiful things. He can destroy anything that doesn't turn out useful or beautiful. The point is that Israel (in fact, all nations and people) are clay in the Potter's hands (the Bible gets a lot of mileage out of the fact that we were made out of earth or dirt). Now to Jeremiah 19 where God instructs Jeremiah to take "a potter's earthen bottle" and go to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (aka: Topheth, aka: The Valley of Slaughter) "[...]at the entry of the Potsherd Gate[...]" (v. 2, NRSV) (again with the potter connection as seen in Matthew 27). Then Jeremiah was supposed to explain to his audience the reason for God's judgment against them (the shedding of the blood of innocents) and break the earthen vessel as an object lesson of how God's judgment would fall. I mean, one can't put a broken vessel back together again, can one? One can't put a broken nation back together again, can one?

Well, depends who that One is. If you skip ahead to Jeremiah 32, you'll also read about a field — this time the buying and selling of a field. In this passage, we see that, actually, God can put a broken vessel back together again. The point of this chapter and of the buying and selling of the field in this one is that there is hope. God would restore Israel. God would bring them back to their land, and fields and houses and vineyards would be possessed there again. Hope after the Valley of Slaughter. In Jeremiah 32, there's mention of an earthen vessel again, but this time, it's an earthen vessel used to store the deeds for the land being bought and sold — an earthen vessel to preserve the deeds because they would need to "continue many days." The prophecies of judgment are temporary. The prophecies of hope are for "many days."

God's footnoting is very sly, I find. Here's Matthew inserting a word or two to send his readers on a trail to Jeremiah where they discover all kinds of exciting discoveries. Here's God using a sort of pottery motif and a mention or two of fields in all these passages to show they're all connected to lead us into exciting discoveries. The point of the potter's field wasn't that it was just an isolated incident in the life and death of a man named Judas. The life and death of a man named Judas was an incident in God's huge plan for the world that involved hope after the Valley of Slaughter, that involved making broken vessels whole, that involved redemption and restoration after the shedding of innocent blood (and that, somehow, through the shedding of innocent blood!).

Anyway, that's what I get out of Matthew's "memory glitch." I daresay I might be reading too much into it. You can ignore all that I got out of it. We can stick to the main point that there really was no contradiction or error in what Matthew wrote. He meant to say, "Jeremiah." All the rest was just bonus.

Most of the supposed contradictions are from the stories about Jesus, especially surrounding the events that all four Gospels focus heavily on: His death and resurrection. The accounts of Jesus' trials, crucifixion, resurrection, and post-resurrection appearances are all snarled together (like all stories told about the same event from different perspectives). The combined result is what you would expect from four different writers writing independently about the same historical event that they heard from different sources. It's not what you would expect from four different writers copying from the same material. With a little care and a pen and paper, they can easily be blended into a timetable, so to speak, and "all movements accounted for." For example:

Jesus had at least two trials: a kangaroo-court trial before the priests and Jewish leaders and His official one before Pilate. Only Luke records that Jesus went from Pilate (the governor) to Herod (the puppet king) back to Pilate. But as Herod was staying in Jerusalem at the time, He very likely made only a brief appearance before Herod as a kind of interlude in His trial with Pilate. Who mocked Jesus and put a kingly robe on Him: the soldiers of Herod or the soldiers of Pilate? Luke says it was the soldiers of Herod. The rest record this happening at His scourging after His trial with Pilate. I can easily imagine that both sets of soldiers mocked Him. Herod's men gave the rest the bright idea by dressing Jesus up so that after all His trials, when they beat Him, the other soldiers carried on with the "fun," hailing Him as king, putting a crown of thorns on Him, etc. Was the robe scarlet or purple? Both are mentioned. Well, if there were two bouts of mocking, there may have been two robes. Or they may have been the same robe. Scarlet and purple were both synonymous with royal colours, and both words came to mean the clothing of pomp and royalty.

Only John records that Jesus was examined first by the high priest's father-in-law before seeing the high priest at His first trial, but John is the one who lays out the most details of this trial which he was apparently watching from the courtyard, along with his buddy, Peter, where Peter's famous denials of Christ happened.

The accounts of Peter's denials of Jesus are called into question, too. Three of the Gospels record Jesus telling Peter that before the rooster would crow, Peter would deny Him three times. In Mark (told from Peter's perspective), we read that Jesus had told him that before the rooster crowed twice, Peter would deny Him three times (Mark 14:72). Doubtless, Mark's was the more detailed record of this incident. The others were approximates. If this was normal, everyday conversation, would anyone pick this apart as being a contradiction? At any rate, it's very possible that Peter had technically denied Jesus three (or multiple) times before the rooster crowed the first time (if he strongly reiterated his denial to the first person), but there were three separate instances of denial to three separate people, and it didn't sink in for Peter what he had done until he heard the second crow of the rooster and remembered Jesus' words.

On the subject of Peter's denials, Matthew records that Peter denied Jesus the first time to a servant girl who had spotted him as being with Jesus; the second time it was another girl who blew the whistle on him to the bystanders — Peter promptly denied knowing Jesus again — and the last time, the denial was in front of an unspecified group (and then, cock-a-doodle-doo!). Mark informs us, the first denial was to the servant girl (and then a rooster crowed); the same servant girl blew his cover to the group, occasioning the second denial; and finally there was another group denial (and then the second rooster-crow followed by remembrance and bitter remorse). Luke has Peter saying, "Woman, I know him not," to the servant girl; then, "Man, I am not," the second time; and, "Man, I know not what thou sayest" the third time (and then the rooster crowing — Luke 22:56-61). John gives us fascinating details such as: how he (presumably John) was the one who got both Peter and himself into the high priest's courtyard in the first place through the pulling of a few strings, how Peter had managed to make himself so recognizable to the high priest's servants, and how it was a cool night and how everyone was standing around, warming themselves by a fire. It has all the authentic feel of an eyewitness report. Interestingly, John doesn't mention Peter going out for a good cry after his denials. At some point while watching Jesus' trial, John had stopped being terribly interested in what Peter was doing or saying or feeling and had other things to think about. Again, the eyewitness slant. The other reports are told much more from Peter's viewpoint. But that makes sense as they would be written from hearing Peter tell his story after the fact. None of the other Gospel writers attended this trial. John, an eyewitness, tells it from his perspective; not Peter's.

Anyway, the confusions of persons to whom Peter actually denies Christ is not hard to overcome. Let's reconstruct it like this: The first servant girl spots him and addresses him to his face as one who knew Jesus. Peter denies it to her. As he seemed to be emphatic in everything he did, no less in his denials of Jesus, he very likely may have repeated that initial denial several times to whomever happened to be listening, thereby effectively denying Jesus three times before the first rooster crow. The servant girl was not idle, however, and went and informed a fellow servant girl who Peter really was, and then the two servant girls were jointly responsible for ratting Peter out to the group around the fire. It shouldn't concern anyone that in this second incident Peter says, "Man, I am not," (according to Luke) even though Matthew and Mark mention it was the servant girls who told on him. After all, Peter was addressing more than the servant girls by the second incident. He was talking to anyone who happened to hear the report the servant girls were circulating. And the third time, the audience to whom Peter made his last denial was unspecified in three of the Gospels except that Luke states that Peter addressed this last denial to a man. John tells us the man addressed here was another servant of the high priest, a relative of the servant whose ear Peter had lopped off at Jesus' arrest.

This is a rather tedious reconstruction, but it gives you the idea how the same thing can be done with all the events surrounding Jesus' last days on earth.

There's the incident of the two thieves. In Matthew, we're told that the robbers (plural) who were crucified with Jesus reviled Him. Luke says that one criminal reviled Him while the other stuck up for Him and even asked to be remembered when He came into His kingdom. Nothing too complicated in finding a reconciliation here, although it's in combining the two versions that the story fleshes out and looks more lifelike. Obviously, if both accounts are true then both thieves started out reviling Jesus, but one had a change of heart and ended up believing in Him. Something about Jesus changed his thinking. Maybe the way He suffered? Maybe His concern for other people all throughout His suffering? Maybe just ... something about Him? From His encounters with people in His time and from His encounters with people in the present, He seems to inspire either hatred and scorn or love and worship. There doesn't seem to be an in-between.

After Jesus' resurrection, Matthew and Mark speak of one angel present at the tomb; Luke and John speak of two.

Too easy! It's one of those normal, everyday conversational kinds of things again. Because there was one angel, does that mean there couldn't have been two? No, but if there were two, that means there was at least one! Remember the old groaner, "Which month has twenty-eight days?" And it's answer, "All of them!" If Matthew and Mark had said only one angel was ever present at the tomb, then we would have a contradiction.

John mentions Mary Magdalene and doesn't mention any other women that went to the tomb that first visit. The other Gospels speak of more than one woman, at least another Mary. Again, normal, everyday conversation, when you've gone somewhere with a group and you tell the story about it, how often do you bother to enumerate every single member of your group every time you tell the story? You include the relevant details. John tells the incident from Mary Magdalene's perspective. It was her story he focused on. She was the one who ran to fetch John and Peter and then went back to the tomb and saw Jesus face to face. Seeing John tells the story from his own experience, and it was Mary Magdalene who ran to get Peter and himself, it's Mary John mentions. For the purposes of John's story, Mary's the relevant detail. If John had said only Mary Magdalene, then we would have contradiction.

I'll give you a little schedule, so to speak, I've worked out to harmonize all the accounts of what happened at Jesus' tomb on the first Easter morning. It's just a sample to show how it can be done. I'm not claiming this is how it must have been. I'm sure there could be many reconstructions, but here's the one I came up with that works. (Check it over for yourself and compare it to the different accounts in the Gospels if you're curious.)

1) A group of women, including Mary Magdalene and another Mary, arrive at Jesus' tomb early in the morning with spices, hoping to get into the tomb to anoint Jesus' body. 2) They see the tomb already open and wonder what's going on. Mary Magdalene runs to tell John and Peter that the tomb is open and presumably empty. 3) The rest of the women, minus Mary Magdalene, go to examine the tomb and find an angel or two inside who tell them that Jesus is risen. 4) The women run off, half in excitement, half in fear. They don't tell anyone the news right at first, but go to see if they can find Mary M. with Peter and John and the rest of disciples (from who-knows-where. The disciples may have been scattered all over Jerusalem at this point). 5) After the rest of the women leave, Peter and John arrive at the tomb, running ahead of Mary M. who was making her way back to the tomb. 6) The men leave the tomb before Mary M. gets there. The angels don't appear to the men. They leave, not knowing if Jesus is alive or not, but John believes He is. 7) Mary M. arrives back at the tomb and sees the angels inside, and talks to them, though they don't tell her that Jesus is risen, and she possibly doesn't realize they're angels. 8) Mary M. turns around to see Jesus (whom she doesn't recognize at first). Jesus sends her to find the disciples and tell them she's seen Him. 9) Matthew gives us the impression that both Marys saw Jesus somewhere in here. The other Mary may have still been near the tomb or may have come back to the tomb while Jesus was speaking with Mary Magdalene, and so the two of them saw Him. 10) Finally, everyone gets together. The group of women meet with the group of disciples to let them know the news, and the Marys inform the rest that they've actually seen Jesus. Most don't believe them and think they're just hysterical women.

None of the Gospels include all of these incidents. Matthew, Mark, and Luke leave out the part about Mary going to fetch John and Peter. Matthew and Mark leave out the part about John and Peter running to the tomb. Luke mentions only Peter. John doesn't say anything about what the rest of the women were doing while Mary was running to get him. That could be because he doesn't mention the rest of the women at all. They all leave out some parts (just like I leave out parts when I tell Shirley about my weekend out of consideration for Shirley), and the order the events happened in isn't clear from all the Gospels. (Matthew 28:2-4 is doubtless background information to let the reader know what had happened before the women got there.) But there are no contradictions in these accounts. Not if I can account for them all.

Okay, this is a taste. I'm sure there are more perceived contradictions in the entire Bible than we've tackled here. But these are all I can think of for the moment and probably more than you have time and patience for. Generally, for these perceived contradictions, reconciliations are not hard to come by. And for true contradictions, reconciliation must be impossible. So I stand by my answer to, "Does the Bible contradict itself?" I say, "No, it doesn't," and if you want to stand by your objection, you'll have to search out your own contradictions. All the ones I can think of, I'm satisfied aren't. Even I can reconcile all the ones I know, and I'm not terribly clever.

Of course, just the fact that the Bible doesn't contradict itself doesn't make it true, either. A convincing liar can tell perfectly non-contradictory stories if he's smart enough. Strangely, no one ever seems to be smart enough. Sooner or later, if a person tells enough lies, they start to look like lies, especially where there's more than one person telling them. It's hard to keep track of all the lies in the end. So all on its own, the fact that the Bible doesn't contradict itself is not proof positive of its truth, but I think it would be fair to admit that fact as one more piece of evidence for its truth.

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1 — In biblical chronology, the writers record events in the order they happen to remember them. One incident reminds the writer of another incident, and so those incidents get lumped together thematically rather than chronologically. Really, the only time you see perfect chronology is in fiction stories. In true stories, we write how we remember, and our memories are only approximately chronological. A difference in sequencing in alternate versions of the same story is no evidence of contradiction — for instance, in the accounts told in the Gospels. The writers of the Gospels usually make no claim to be telling all the events in any particular order.

Chapter 16

Objection # 2: "Science Contradicts the Bible."

Does science contradict the Bible? Nope! Next chapter ...

At least that's my conclusion, having read the Bible. But this objection is alive and well, and I suspect it's because a lot of people haven't read the Bible.

Or maybe it's because people believe in Darwin's ideas of evolution. If what is meant by, "Science contradicts the Bible," is really, "Darwinism contradicts the Bible," then quite right! It does. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I believe science contradicts what we've been taught about evolution. Hence, science has no problem with the Bible, and the Bible has no problem with science.

"But can't a person believe that God created through the process of evolution? Can't I believe in evolution and the Bible?" Sure you can! Especially if you've never read it. It's once you start to read it that you run into problems. It takes a pretty good imagination to make the Bible fit with what we're told about evolution, and it creates more problems than it answers. Sure, a person can believe the Bible and Darwin at the same time. They just don't need to.

We touched on the subject of evolution earlier, so I won't hit it hard here. There is such a plethora of layman-friendly materials out there, presenting the scientific, non-evolutionary side which do a far superior job than I ever could by people who actually know what they're talking about, that I'll leave it to them. If you're interested, do your own research.

Materials presenting both sides of the debate abound. But unfortunately, the side of the science majority refuses to accept any challenges and take any opposition seriously. This is a shame because we never get to hear if there are actually any refutations against the creationist side of the argument. The only refutation against the creationists' arguments I ever seem to hear is that their arguments are a joke and no true scientist could be a creationist. Not finding that refutation particularly convincing, I'm disappointed that there isn't more focus on the issues. I'm not all that interested in what, oh say, Dr. Humpenschlinkel thinks about Dr. Creation Scientist personally. I would be very interested to hear what Dr. Humpenschlinkel thinks about the issues that Dr. Creation Scientist raises (although I am also very interested to notice how emotional and heated the subject gets. Seems like the real issues for both sides have stopped being purely scientific ones).

But let's examine the creation account in Genesis 1 as the first passage that the Dr. Humpenschlinkels of the world would point toward when they make the objection that science and the Bible disagree. Is Genesis 1 scientifically inaccurate in any way?

If we discount the (in my opinion) already-scientifically-discounted Darwinian theory of evolution, then I can see no scientific error in Genesis 1. There are several puzzles in the narrative, but none that science tells us are impossible.

Here's the first of the question marks in my mind: When did God create the sun, moon, and stars?

In Genesis 1:1, we're told that... “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (“the heaven” meaning, the sky, the universe, the cosmos). This verse comes before the creation of light in 1:3 (light in what form we're not told). In 1:3-5, God speaks light on the earth into existence, separates the light and the darkness, and calls the light “day” and the darkness “night.” All this was Day 1.

Scientifically speaking, this was what happened (as far as I can tell). God spoke, and light appeared on the earth. Half the earth was in light; half in darkness. (Picture the separation of day and night that you may have seen in pictures of the earth from space.) And the earth was set to turning its usual twenty-four-hour rotation. “And there was evening, and there was morning. Day 1.”

Then in 1:16 (which comes after Day 3), we read, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” This verse falls in the middle of 1:14-19 which is the record of what God did on Day 4. In that case, what was the “light” from Day 1 that God called “day” if not the light from the sun?

This is a puzzle or a paradox; not a scientific inaccuracy. What this puzzle tells me is that this account was not written by a primitive person with no scientific knowledge, making up his own version of a creation story. Do you think such a person would have made up two separate creation acts: one for light and one for the sun's light? Doubtful. What could he have meant by it?

Nor would a primitive person with no knowledge that a day is simply one complete rotation of the earth on its axis make up this account. I don't know how the creation of light in Genesis 1:3 differs from whatever happened in Genesis 1:14-19, but if it's true that God didn't make the sun until Day 4, the earth had three full days before the sun was created. The primitive, unscientific writer would hardly “create” days apart from the sun's existence.

Then, in fact, what did the Author of Genesis mean? When were the sun, moon, and stars created?

Let's start with Genesis 1:1 and 1:14-19. If we take Genesis 1:1 — the declaration that God created the heavens (or cosmos) and the earth — as occurring chronologically in the narrative, why would God re-create the cosmos on Day 4?

Here are some possibilities that suggest themselves to me: 1) When God created the heavens and the earth in verse one, He created the earth and empty space. He created everything that inhabits outer space on Day 4. Or...2) Genesis 1:1 is an introductory statement. It explains in general terms that... “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth...” and what follows is the detail of how He did that. Or...3) Genesis 1:16, stating that God made two great lights; the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night (and by the way, the stars, as well), is not part of the chronology of Genesis 1. It's a side note, explaining the function and purpose of the “lights” as they relate to earth. 1:14-19 is the record of God instituting on Day 4 what role the lights He had already created would play in life on earth.

Then let's take Genesis 1:3 and Genesis 1:14-19. What does it mean that God created light on Day 1, but again in 1:16, it says that He created the two great lights and the stars? What was the light on the earth if not the sun's light? How did God separate day from night if that light of day was not the sun's light?

Again, here are the answers that come to my mind: 1) God created light on Day 1 (in some form) but hadn't embodied that light in the sun, though that light was visible on earth. Or...2) When God created the atmosphere on Day 2, it was opaque in some way, so when God set the “lights” in the atmosphere on Day 4, He was simply making light visible on earth again, making them shine through our atmosphere. (And again, 1:16 would be side note; not chronologically the time of the creation of the sun, moon, and stars.) Or...3) Same as 3) above. 1:16 is side note (the sun, moon, and stars were already created), and 1:14-19 is the record of God instituting on Day 4 the roles of the sun, moon, and stars.

None of these possibilities defies what we know about science. The puzzles are puzzles and not scientific errors.

But many would take issue with God creating the sun, moon, and stars on Day 4 if the days of Genesis 1:1 are literal, twenty-four hour days. Doesn't science have something to tell us about the age of the universe? The universe and all that fills it couldn't possibly be only a few twenty-four-hour time periods older than all life on earth, could it? There are issues with distant starlight, visible on earth, that I won't attempt to take on here that call into question the age of the universe as it's portrayed in Genesis 1.

Let me again just suggest a few possibilities: 1) Some take the route of seeing each of the “days” in Genesis 1 as eons. (I personally can't buy into this one and still read Genesis 1 as a factual account. Elsewhere, the Bible tells us that “[...]by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin[...]” (Romans 5:12). Humans were not created until Day 6. Plants were created on Day 3. Water-dwelling creatures and birds were created on Day 5. If the creation of plants and animals was separated from the creation of humans by eons and death had not entered the world until the sin of “one man,” this would force every other form of life to live on for millions of years before humanity arrived on the scene. I do read Genesis 1 and the rest of the Bible as a factual account for reasons already given, so I personally reject this explanation.)

Or...2) There are other ideas that allow for a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 while acknowledging the universe to be very, very old. Exodus 20:11 states that God made the heavens, the earth, and all in them in six days, but we have no way of knowing how long Day 1 was. If a day is simply the completed rotation of the earth on its axis, then Day 1 included the entire stretch of time from the initial formation of the earth until it had completed one rotation. God may not have set the earth turning at the beginning of Day 1 but waited eons and eons from earth's perspective. A similar idea says that those eons may have been only twenty-four hours from earth's perspective though eons and eons of time elsewhere in the universe because we really don't understand much about the nature of time and how it works from God's perspective.

Or...3) Some question the eons and eons that most scientists believe to be the age of the earth and the universe. The dating methods are seen as highly suspect. There's no objective way to know if the methods work or not. A result like “...five hundred kajillion years ago...” is necessarily a little hard to prove empirically.

As far as the methods for dating earth's rocks, they all contain unproven assumptions. And the contradictory results they yield suggest they don't work they way they're expected to.

I don't know the solution to the apparent contradictions between the dating methods that seem to indicate the universe is billions of years old and a literal rendering of Genesis 1. Just notice that there are possible reconciliations.

But here's another apparent scientific error in Genesis 1. In Genesis 1:6-8, we read that God created some sort of expanse or "firmament" to divide "the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." Then God calls the firmament “heaven.” In old English, the word "heavens" or "heaven" could be used the way we use our word sky. We sometimes mean our atmosphere, and we sometimes mean outer space. We see the same sort of thing in Genesis 1. God created the "heavens and the earth," (meaning the cosmos), but He also created a "firmament" and called it heaven, too. This “firmament” is undoubtedly our atmosphere.

Now look at Genesis 1:14-19. Here we read that God made a great light for the day (sun) and a lesser light for the night (moon) and set the lights in the firmament of heaven to give light on the earth. Now, in light (oops!) of all that discussion on what the "firmament" is in Genesis 1, isn't this scientific error? After all, God didn't put the sun and moon in our atmosphere, did He? Isn't this clearly a scientific error?

Not when you read what is actually written. Genesis never says that God put the sun and the moon in the firmament. It says He put the lights from them in our firmament. It's interesting that nowhere in Genesis 1 does it even mention the words sun or moon, as in, the bodies themselves. It just talks about the light from them and what purposes their lights serve as far as the earth is concerned. Because only the terms "greater light" and "lesser light" are used, Genesis 1 is strictly scientifically accurate.

It does seem from a casual reading of Genesis 1:14-19 that the sun and moon are the major bodies in the heavens, and everything else is negligible. But you have to remember where the perspective is at this point.

We're not told what God's perspective was while He was creating the cosmos. Nor are we told what He did before His creation of earth. We're told what concerns us. And from Day 1 of creation on, the perspective is earth's perspective.

And from earth's perspective, the light from the sun is the major light in the heavens, and the light reflecting from the moon is the only other light of any importance in our sky, and all the rest of the light in the universe is miniscule. Genesis 1:14-19 is talking about light and how it appears on earth.

Science does tell us that the sun, moon, and stars weren't put in our atmosphere, but that's okay because the Bible doesn't tell us differently. Just that the light from them was put there.

In fact, you can go through the entire creation account and illustrate the beautifully simple narrative of the text with all the modern scientific knowledge we have now about what it might have looked like from a scientific perspective, and the two are entirely compatible. The only piece of Genesis 1 that causes some head-scratching is the order of the creation of the cosmos, the creation of light, and the creation of the heavenly bodies, but those aren't scientific problems, and any of the explanations I've heard are all scientifically possible.

Now, there is no way to prove the creation account in Genesis scientifically, and we can't expect to find scientific evidence to support Genesis 1 (other than the evidence we see all around us every day). Nothing about the method God used in creating the world according to Genesis 1 would have left traces of empirical evidence. He spoke, and it happened. That's what we're told.

But there is a story in Genesis that did leave traces of empirical evidence. This is an account that scientists who accept Genesis as a factual history focus much of their time and attention on.

I should leave Dr. Creation Scientist to speak for himself, but I'll just say that the empirical evidence — the geologic facts — I've heard are explained much more simply and neatly by Dr. Creation Scientist with his theories of a worldwide catastrophe (such as a worldwide flood) than they are by Dr. Humpenschlinkel.

Take, for instance, the existence of a fossil record. How could fossils have been formed except through some extraordinary, catastrophic means? Organisms buried gently in the earth in the ordinary way do not turn into fossils. They decompose and turn back into earth.

The same goes for the massive deposits of fossil fuels found. Plants and animals buried naturally do not turn into coal or petroleum. Some exceptional process must have buried large deposits of flora and fauna to turn into coal and petroleum.

Or what about the sedimentary rock found covering the entire earth in which the fossils are found? Sedimentary rock comes from sediment; sediment comes from water.

Then there are the mass extinctions the fossil record bears witness to. A worldwide catastrophe like a worldwide flood explains the disappearance of the dinosaur in a much neater fashion than hypotheses about comets and worldwide dust bowls (though theories about a worldwide catastrophe like a worldwide flood could incorporate comets, asteroids, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, fault lines, plate tectonics, glaciers, climate change, etc. very nicely into their frameworks. A worldwide catastrophe, such as a worldwide flood, would be, well...catastrophic!)

The geological facts speak strongly to a worldwide catastrophe such as a worldwide flood. So does Genesis 7-8. I encourage you to read the passage if you never have before. The devastation it describes fits the facts of the geologic record perfectly.

You, of course, are welcome to believe that Genesis has nothing to do with it. I still say that admitting to a worldwide catastrophe (such as a worldwide flood) makes the most sense of the geologic evidence. You don't have to bring Genesis into it at all. You could just believe the geologic record and believe in a worldwide flood. (Of course, if you do that without bringing in some kind of ark story, you would have a hard time imagining how anything survived a worldwide flood, and if you bring in some kind of an ark story, you might just as well believe the Genesis one.)

Of course, scientifically speaking, both evolutionary theories and worldwide catastrophe theories (such as a worldwide flood) will have to remain theoretical. We weren't there. Nothing can be proven scientifically about how the evidence we see in the geologic record came to be there. So what we have are theories, and you have to decide for yourself which one fits better with the evidence.

I'm no scientist as I readily admit, but taking the basic, clear-cut facts as I've heard them, I myself would say that science and the Bible look very compatible.

There are a couple of other reasons, as far as I've been able to discover, that people persist in believing that science disproves the Bible. I have to admit that they don't look like very good reasons to me, but we'll talk about them.

Some people object to the view of the universe as seen in the Bible. They say the Bible is terra-centric. They take issue with the fact that the earth is microscopic compared to the rest of the universe but that in the Bible it seems to be central as a focus of God's time and attention. "Obviously," they say, "whoever wrote that book had no idea how mind-numbingly huge the universe is." Actually, whoever makes that statement has no idea how mind-numbingly huge God is. The universe is small to Him. The microscopically tiny and the mind-numbingly huge are both alike to Him. He can concentrate His attention on earth all the time if He wants to. He doesn't live in time, and He never runs out of attention. He can do whatever He wants.

As to why the Bible is so nearly exclusively focused on earth: Well, hey! Earth may not be the centre of the universe. But it is to us. The Bible is a book for us. It's written to humans. We're not told a bunch of stuff that's none of our business, like, how God runs the rest of His cosmos. We're told what's relevant to us. Sure, Genesis 1:16 tosses off casually, "Oh, by the way, He made the stars, also," (my translation), but you have to understand something. Making the stars was no big deal for God.

If we keep reading a little farther in Genesis, we soon learn that the stars are innumerable (for us, that is); that they're like the sand of the seashore or the dust of the earth in number (Gen. 13:16, 22:17). The Author of Genesis knew that the universe was big and that there were a lot of stars.

There are emotional reasons for objecting to the Bible as scientifically inaccurate on the basis of the size of the earth just as there are emotional reasons for reacting to the idea that God could possibly notice us at all on the basis of our own smallness, but these emotional reactions are not very rational objections for saying that science contradicts the Bible.

Maybe this whole objection stems back to a spot of bother Galileo had with the church of his day. A lot of damage can be done by people who don't read the Bible but think they have. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the earth is the centre of the universe or of the solar system or that the sun revolves around the earth — except in our ordinary sense as a manner of speech.

Again, cut the Bible the same slack you would cut any normal, everyday conversation. I admit, the Bible does talk about the rising and the setting of the sun, and yes, technically, these are not scientifically accurate terms. But when was the last time you talked about "earth-turn" instead of sunrise or sunset? If the biblical writers had used scientifically accurate terms for this phenomenon, they would have been every bit as unintelligible to their readers back then as I would be to my readers nowadays.

I have to admit, the Bible also talks about the sun coming out of his chambers like a bridegroom and mountains and hills skipping like rams or lambs or some such woolly animals and trees clapping their hands and so forth. But if you happen to be a robot as you read this and this kind of language does not compute and appears to be scientifically inaccurate, then for heaven's sake, don't read any poetry or, for that matter, any works of literature. You would surely find scientific inaccuracies everywhere. Again, in normal, everyday conversation we understand poetry and figures of speech when we hear them. It's not likely the biblical poets imagined the sun was getting married or that the mountains and hills had hooves and horns.

Probably the other reason people insist that science contradicts the Bible is because of its miraculous elements. On the one hand, we have stories that sound mythological because they're certainly out of our everyday experience (like, talking snakes and floating zoos and so forth. We discussed it briefly way back in Chapter Seven). But what does all that have to do with science, anyway? Obviously, science can have no say as to whether these stories are true or not. When people make statements like, "The Bible is full of myths," meaning, “The Bible is full of stories that are hard to believe because they're so unlike what we experience,” how could they possibly appeal to science to prove for them that these stories are myths? All they really mean is, "We live in a day and age where we think science can explain everything. The people who wrote these stories in the Bible obviously didn't have that same mindset. Therefore, science has proven that the Bible is full of myths." I don't know if you spotted it or not, but there was a distinct lack of logic in that statement. The fact that we live and breathe in a somewhat stifling atmosphere of scientific domination doesn't prove that people who had a bigger view of reality were incapable of writing true stories. And the writers of them did consider them true, historical accounts as did the other writers of the Bible. We can see that by the genealogies included in these accounts and the genealogies elsewhere in the Bible, listing the characters from the supposedly "mythological tales" as ancestors of undoubtedly historical characters (Gen. 5, 10-11, Luke 3:23-38).

On the other hand, there are stories in the Bible that are not anything like mythological and are written as prosaically as yesterday's leading article, but WHAM! Suddenly in the middle of one of these accounts, a miracle appears, and everyone in the story is completely taken aback by it. We can't appeal to our superior, stifling, scientific atmosphere on this one either. "Yes, but in this day and age of scientific discovery, we know that miracles can't happen!" Well, but the people in those stories appeared to be breathing the same atmosphere. They knew that miracles couldn't happen. That's why they were so taken aback when one did.

I remember, one time, reading a statement made by a scientist who didn't believe in miracles (as far as I could tell). He said that as soon as we start talking about miracles, we've just put the lid on science. I'm glad he could see that. He seemed to think it was a bad thing, though. But I think there are times when science needs to have a lid on it. There are times when science needs to keep its nose in its own business. It needs to acknowledge its limitations.

A lot of people try to make science do things it can never do. Science may be able to determine the time of death from the body of a murdered man. Science could not tell us why the man was murdered. Science may have some voice on whether a painting is a genuine Rembrandt or not. It can't tell us a single thing about whom Rembrandt painted and why. We would need historical evidence for that. True science is not the be-all, end-all of all knowledge possible as many have tried to force it to be. True science admits its limitations, and in areas where it can have nothing to say, it keeps its mouth shut, its nose in its own business, and its lid on.

For instance, has science ruled out lake monsters and sasquatches? Science may be able to show how all the supposed scientific evidence brought forward for their supposed sightings has been fabricated. Science could say that much. But science could have nothing to say on the eyewitness stories. That evidence would have to be evaluated other ways than scientifically.

We could form the hypothesis that some of the supposed sighters of Nessie and Yeti are glory-seekers, hoping for their fifteen minutes of fame. Or we could form the hypothesis that the imagination is a powerful thing and people can convince themselves to see whatever it is they're looking for. Our hypotheses may cover the present facts pretty well. But what would happen to our hypotheses if all those supposed eyewitnesses stuck to their guns under torture and died gruesome deaths for the sake of their stories?

There's a historical evidence for miracles that's hard to explain any other way than that they happened the way the eyewitnesses said they did. Science can have nothing to say on the subject. It's a question of history.

Miracles don't contradict science any more than, say, apples contradict oranges. They can both co-exist quite peacefully as long as one doesn't try to make oranges the only fruit allowable.

By “miracle,” we mean any supernatural interference into nature, or maybe, simply, anything we have no scientific explanation for; something completely beyond our experience. Well then, everything natural is the result of the original Miracle. The laws of thermodynamics show us that. If nothing inside of observable nature can create or destroy energy, and energy must have had a beginning as shown by the fact that it's heading for its end, then something outside of observable nature created energy. Without Miracle, there would be no science. Science studies the effects of that first, giant Miracle of the existence of everything. Science can explain everything except ... everything.

Some scientists are affronted by anything outside the realm of science. I find this an irrational position when most of the things that make life worth living are beyond the realm of science.

I can't come up with any other reasons for this objection. I think the evolution one is the big one. The others I discount by virtue of their being emotional rather than logical. I don't want to downplay the evolution one, though. I would encourage you not to downplay it, either. I'd encourage you to do your own research. I'd encourage you, also, don't, in a fit of emotion, automatically write off as a moron anyone who doubts evolution (and vice versa to the other side: Don't write off anyone who believes it as a moron), but honestly evaluate the evidence from both sides.

On the flip side, not only would I challenge anyone to find a biblical statement that contradicts science (other than, say, talk of the sun rising or setting and talk of the hills skipping like lambs), I'll throw out for your consideration some biblical statements that are scientifically ahead of their time. The Bible isn't a science textbook, but it does make some bang-on scientific statements that have only been confirmed with the advent of the scientific age.

Let's start with one that came up when we were discussing Genesis 1 and the creation account: the "firmament" or atmosphere. How did the writer of Genesis know that there was any such a thing as an atmosphere? I mean, pre-scientific age, how could someone have known that an atmosphere was anything at all? That there was anything surrounding the earth, separating us from outer space? From our everyday point of view, it can't be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. Yet there it is described in the book of Genesis as a special creation of God.

I'll run through a few more examples. You can look them up on your own to verify.

As we noticed in Chapter Eight of this book, the Bible knew about the second law of thermodynamics long before science did.

In the law God gave through Moses, the health and hygiene laws were far ahead of their time when people knew nothing about germs. These laws must have looked like nothing more than priestly mumbo-jumbo for the people to whom they were originally written, but from our perspective, there is solid science behind many of these laws. There were laws dealing with the disposal of body waste and dead bodies (no cholera or typhoid, thank you very much), dietary laws, and infectious-disease-quarantine laws. (1—Deut. 23:12-14, Num. 19:11-22; 2—Lev. 11:1-23; 3—Num. 5:2-3.)

The Bible tells us the earth is round and that space is expanding (or that God stretches out the heavens). (Isa. 40:22).

Job also tells us that God hangs the earth on nothing (26:7) and that the earth is molten under its crust (or that underneath it is turned up as by fire) (28:5). And also from the book of Job, we learn about the hydrologic cycle (36:27-28).

Again, the fact that the Bible seems to have some insider knowledge in some scientific areas that the human writers of it probably didn't have doesn't prove that the Bible was written by God. But I would like to submit it as one more piece of evidence for that case.

Chapter 17

Objection # 3: Miscellaneous Objections

This chapter could be called "Other." This chapter is a collection of objections that didn't seem somehow to merit an entire chapter apiece, so I've lumped them together into this one.

The first is a little dated, but it's still at large out there, floating around somewhere in the atmosphere, and so needs addressing.

1) Religion is a crutch.

Good! We're getting somewhere. If this is an objection you've ever made, we've found something we can agree on. I think religion is a crutch, too. I even think Christianity is a crutch.

You know, I saw the funniest sight the other day. I saw a man walking down the street with two perfectly good legs and no sign of a limp, dragging a pair of crutches along behind him everywhere he went.

Okay, I lied. I've never seen that, actually. Probably, you never have, either. I have seen people badly in need of a crutch, hobbling along, trying not to limp, pretending they have two good legs, without any crutch at all other than foolish pride. I've been that person myself. My point being: people are much more likely to deny they have any need of a crutch when they should have one than they are to cling to a crutch when they don't need one.

I think in looking at our world it should be obvious to any casual observer that this is a world with two broken legs. If the Doctor has provided a crutch for us and told us the only way for us to be healed is to follow His orders, why are we so reluctant to take advantage of the remedy He provides?

Along the lines of the "Religion-is-a-crutch" argument is the theory of the origin of religions proposed by Karl Marx with his famous, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." The idea is that the ruling class came up with religion in the first place and used it to pacify the non-ruling class, and those who accept it accept it because life is hard and we need a little something to make ourselves feel better.

But there is a difference between an opiate and a crutch. An opiate is supposed to help a person feel better. A crutch is supposed to help a person get better. I could agree that religion (at least Christianity) is a crutch. I couldn't agree that it's an opiate.

I have a question I'd like to ask Karl Marx. "Have you ever read the Bible?" I could see some religions as being opiates. I could see the smiley-face Christianity preached in some churches as being an opiate. Even the New Testament, I could see possibly having a "feel better" quality to it. At least, as having medicinal properties, though I wouldn't quite call it an opiate. But the New Testament starts off with the Old Testament, and no one could read the Old Testament with all its graphic descriptions of judgment just waiting to fall, often directed toward the rich and the ruling classes, and come up with this "opiate-of-the-masses" theory. No one could accuse the Old Testament of having any kind of opiate quality. If all religion started from a desire either for some people to drug other people or for some other people to drug themselves into a state of euphoria, then why would anyone write a religious book like the Old Testament?

Not only that, but from personal experience, I see a lot more people eager not to believe Christianity than people who are trying to drug themselves with it. Most people would rather drug themselves with anything other than Christianity.

It may be quite true that life is hard and we like to find ways to make ourselves feel better. Some may feel some kind of psychological need for religion. That doesn't go a long way to disproving the truth or falsity of any particular religion, though. We might be better off asking, "Why do we have these deep-seated psychological needs that only seem to be met by some sort of spiritual experience?" Is it because at some level we all recognize the problem of our own bad leg? It does look to me as though people generally prefer to walk around with two broken legs than to give in and use the crutch the Doctor provides, but unless we use that crutch, we'll never be healed. And the bad leg won't bear our weight forever.

Let's move on to the next objection; one I've heard aimed at me personally. If we could agree on the first objection raised this chapter, I'm afraid I won't be able to agree with you on this one if you would also like to aim it in my direction.

2) You believe the way you believe because you were raised to believe it.

Now, if there's one objection I'm qualified to answer categorically, this would be it. After all, we're talking about me here. I'm the only expert on me.

Do I believe the way I believe just because I was raised to believe it? No, I don't. (Was that categorical enough for you?) How do I know I don't believe the way I believe just because I was raised to believe it? Because of all the people I know who don't believe the way I believe although they were raised to believe it.

When I look back to the kids I knew raised by Christian parents who sat in the same little, wooden chairs and the same church pews every Sunday that I did, more than half of them never professed to believe what we were taught (at least when there were no adults around) and don't profess to believe it today.

And then there are all the people I know who do believe the way I believe though they weren't raised to believe it. Why? What made the difference? Why are these people practising Christians but not most of the kids I grew up in the church with?

We can see that we all make our own choices. The "why" is unanswerable? Why do we make the choices we make? Only God really knows. And only God knows what that looks like to Him. But we know what it looks like to us, and to us, we make the choices we make just because we make the choices we make.

Since I've started writing this book, I've spent a lot of time thinking about why I believe what I believe. I've tried to imagine what I would be like if all my life's circumstances had been different. What would I believe if I hadn't been raised to believe the way I believe? I grant you, likely, I wouldn't believe the way I believe now. So we might be able to agree that if I wasn't raised to believe the way I believe very possibly I wouldn't believe it. But that's not the same thing as believing what I believe because I was raised to believe it. The way I was raised explains how I had ample exposure to the beliefs I hold now. It doesn't explain why I accepted them as true. It follows that if I'd never heard about them, I'd have a hard time believing them (and that runs into the next objection we'll talk about), but it's an unanswerable question to ask why I do believe them.

The closest I can come to seeing an answer to the question of why anyone believes what she believes is to say that, for whatever reason we make them, we do all make our own choices. There's that old matter of the will again that stumps us when we try to understand the "why"s behind the way we are.

But putting the question of that “why” aside, let's look at this one: Why was I raised to believe what I believe? Parents don't usually intentionally brainwash their kids to believe things they themselves know are false. Generally, parents teach things to their kids because they think they're true things. So even if it's true (although it isn't) that I believe what I believe because I was raised to believe it, all that goes to show is that my parents believe it. Why do they believe it? And if we trace it back to their parents and then again to their parents' parents and so on, we can only trace back so far before we discover that somewhere in my family history, someone rebelled against the way they were raised and turned Christian. Then the whole process starts again, trying to discover what it is that causes us to make the choices we make.

Leaving that unanswerable question unanswered ... Even if I do believe the way I believe because I was raised that way (although I don't), so what? I was also raised to believe that people should eat their vegetables because vegetables are good for a person. Because I was raised to believe a thing, does that make it false?

"Yeah, but if you were raised by Hindu parents, you'd be a Hindu. If you were raised Muslim, you'd be a Muslim. So how could God judge everyone who doesn't embrace Christianity? How could God judge a person because of where they were born or how they were raised when they had no choice in the matter?"

Now, for starters, you don't know what I would be if I were raised Hindu or Muslim. I don't know what I would be. We just don't know. Not everyone that was raised Hindu is Hindu. Some are Christian. Not everyone that was raised Christian is Christian. Some are Hindu. We can see that probably the majority of Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists or what-have-yous were raised Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or what-have-you, and that may very well be true for Christianity, too. Possibly, maybe even probably, the majority of Christians were raised Christian. Does God judge people for where they were born or how they were raised? We're going to attempt to look at that question with our next objection, but for now...

To go back to the vegetable issue, I was raised (forced, actually) to eat my veggies whether I liked it or not (and I didn't). A lot of kids aren't raised that way. A lot of people are unhealthy, a lot of people's children are unhealthy, because their parents didn't raise them on the truth that veggies are good for people and people should have to eat them. Could we say that God is judging these people or their children?

You see, the assumption behind this objection is that Christianity's doctrines are just an arbitrary set of manufactured beliefs. Or even if they happen to be true, that God could and should be able to suspend the consequences of not believing them if He wanted to. But truth is truth, and there's no getting around truth. If we want to be healthy, we have to eat our veggies (or use our crutches). If it's true that Jesus is the only way to God because He is God, then anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn't want to go to God through Jesus doesn't want to go to God at all.

What do you expect God should do about this state of affairs? Just because we would rather eat chips and candy than peas and carrots, should God be expected to make chips and candy good for us? Why should He, when He's already made peas and carrots good for us? All we have to do is eat the peas and carrots.

If we trace back into my family history far enough, we'll find whoever it was that first turned Christian. But the same thing is true for anyone of any religion. If we trace back into anyone's family history far enough, we'd find that first person who turned Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or what-have-you. When God gave humanity a freedom of will, it was part of that reality that what a man would choose would affect not only himself but other people, too. Sometimes many other people. Sometimes generation upon generations of other people. If a parent decides that it's too much bother to force the kids to eat their veggies, that decision is going to affect the kids. That's just how it is.

If the Bible is true, then at one time, everyone on earth knew and believed in the One True God. When our ancestors decided that they didn't really need to believe in that particular God, that they'd rather come up with their own ideas about their own god, that they'd rather explore some other options, then that decision unavoidably affected their offspring. That's just how it is.

The comforting truth is that God is still in control of the world. He had a plan back then; He has a plan now. And it's a whole lot bigger and includes a whole lot more people than just those who were "raised" to believe in Him. For whatever reason we make the choices we make, anyone is free to choose Him (I mean, those who have heard of Him. Those who haven't can wait till the next section). Anyone is free not to choose Him, though, too. But when we choose not to choose Him, we have to expect that choice to affect more than just ourselves.

All this leaves open the question of those who have no opportunity to choose Him because they've simply never heard of Him, but that's our next objection.

3) What about those who have never heard?

With # 2, my underlying assumption was that we were talking about those who at least have some opportunity to decide for themselves what they believe about Jesus. If a person has never even heard the name, how could she decide what she believes about Jesus? A minute or two ago I asked the question, "Does God judge people for where they were born or how they were raised?" I'm going to say, "No."

This one I can't answer categorically because, whereas I might be the expert on me, I know I'm not the expert on God. Bottom line: I don't know how God judges people. I would imagine that He doesn't judge people because of where they were born or how they were raised, but I would also imagine that He judges people because of what they do with whatever knowledge they have about Him. This isn't exactly comforting because it seems to me that unless God does some special work in us, none of us does very much with whatever knowledge we could and should have about Him. What is comforting is that God is in the business of doing special works in us. The bottom bottom line: grace. It's got to be His grace that saves us.

We see this from the Old Testament. People who lived before Jesus were saved by grace through faith and still saved through Jesus (Acts 4:12), even though they'd never heard of Him. They were saved by accepting God's provision for sin even though they didn't know the name of the Provision.

I also see from biblical example that God was very concerned that His grace should be extended to people who had no knowledge of Him by sending them some knowledge of Himself.

In the New Testament, there's a revealing story about a nameless Ethiopian man (Acts 8) and another about a Roman one named Cornelius (Acts 10). In these stories, we see that here were two men who did quite a lot with the little knowledge they had of the One True God. I say these stories are revealing for this reason: God didn't leave them in their state of little knowledge. He did some very special work to send them some more knowledge of Himself. (It could be argued that the reason they did so much with the little knowledge they had to begin with was because He had already started a special work in them.)

I say these stories are revealing because they show me some things about the way God works. He wants people to know Him. It's not His plan for people to live in ignorance of Himself. And He already knows how each person will respond when given the chance to know Him. And then, it is His plan to work through those who already know Him to pass on that knowledge.

In Acts 10, an angel was sent to Cornelius while he was still in a state of relative ignorance about God, but that angel didn't preach the gospel to him. The only message the angel gave him was to tell him how he could get hold of a man who could preach the gospel to him. For some reason, God has left it largely up to His people to spread the knowledge of Himself. (He left His book, of course, but how or why would any person read that book unless some other person brings it to him to read in his own language?)

This is awesome but scary. Remember that the choices we make don't only affect ourselves. Jesus left a commission for His followers to carry out before He left earth, and it will get carried out, but He left it up to them individually to obey it or not.

I can catch only the faintest glimpses of God's plan for the world. He tells us what concerns us, not what everybody else's business is. As to how He judges those who've never heard of Him, He doesn't tell me that, exactly. He doesn't need to. I've heard of Him. He tells me what my business is. And my business is to do something so that those who've never heard of Him can hear of Him.

I don't know exactly what God did in all the world in times past. I don't know exactly what God is doing all over the world today. I don't know how God judges. But there are some things I've been convinced of: 1) However He judges, His judgments will be just. 2) His salvation comes only through His own revelation (whatever form that revelation takes), on His own initiative, and then only through His Son, Jesus, and ... 3) In present times, He's taken the initiative by giving His people the responsibility of spreading the revelation of His Son, Jesus. So don't be mad at the poor missionary, corrupting and ruining the natives and disrupting their culture and beliefs. (Maybe you can get a little mad if the poor missionary dresses them in suits and ties, but realize he's probably sincere though misguided.) You may think the whole effort from start to finish is misguided. But you have to realize the missionary thinks he's just following orders. It's not his idea at all.

For myself, I'm selfish. I really don't have much of an emotional reaction to distant peoples I don't know and don't love going to hell. It's those I know and love going to hell that bothers me. Intellectually, I can tell myself that even those in hell should have to admit in the end, "Yes, God is fair. This is what I asked Him for." But that doesn't comfort me much. The point is, I love the people I love. I want to be with them for eternity. That's those I know and love.

It helps me see things more from God's point of view and care more about those who've never heard when I realize that God knows and loves them, too. How it is for me and those I love — that's how it is for Him and those He loves. He wants to spend eternity with them, too.

It's slightly comforting to know that no one in hell will be able to say, "God, you're not fair. I didn't know what I was choosing." It would be more comforting to think that maybe someone's not going to hell because I did as I was told.

Chapter 18

Objection # 4: "What If a Person Just Can't Believe?"

With this objection, the assumption is that we're talking about a person who has some general knowledge of the Bible. That person's knowledge may not extend beyond hazy visions of angels in tinsel halos and shepherds in their dads' bathrobes, but at least such a person has the opportunity to know more. Those who have no opportunity at all we talked about last chapter. Besides, I know you're not one of them, and it's you I'm talking to this chapter.

Now, if you're the one asking the question, “What if a person just can't believe?” I'm guessing you're not asking the question for your own sake. It's stated as though it's a question of concern. I mean, it sounds as though the person asking this question has tried to believe the whole thing but just can't, and now he or she is worried. "What about me? Will I be 'lost' just because I genuinely couldn't make myself believe it?"

And the reason I say that no one would be asking this question on his or her own behalf is because if he or she just can't believe, then he or she just plain doesn't believe, and he or she is not worried at all about what happens to the person who just can't believe. He or she doesn't believe anything will happen to him or her. If you're concerned, it's because you already believe it and so are concerned about someone else who doesn't believe it.

In this chapter, I won't worry about the person who already believes and is concerned about someone who doesn't. I'm not concerned about him or her. I'm in the position of the one concerned about those who don't believe, and so they're the ones I'll be addressing in this chapter.

If you're asking this question as one who doesn't believe, then it's not really a question at all. It's a challenge. It would be better stated like this: "It's stupid to believe in a religion where a person is 'saved' or 'lost' based on what he believes or doesn't believe. After all, people can't force themselves to believe something they simply can't believe, something that just doesn't seem reasonable to them."

Now, on the face of it, this looks like a very good objection. I mean, if a person finds that she simply can't do a thing, how could she be judged for something she just can't do? It would be like telling me that unless I can force myself to grow another six inches, I'll be eternally condemned. And if someone told me that the only way to grow another six inches was just to believe that I could do it, well, there's just no way to test that one out. Because I just couldn't make myself believe it.

So I have to agree. If there were such a religion that condemned people for not doing something actually impossible for them to do, such a religion would be a stupid religion and I would probably just not be able to believe in it (which is probably why I just couldn't believe in a religion, if there is one, where a person has to perfect himself or save himself or make himself righteous). So because I take the position that Christianity is true and, therefore, not a stupid religion, I'm also forced to take the position that the person who just can't believe it doesn't exist.

I have a confession to make. I've never read James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. I read Dubliners once and quite enjoyed it, but I think that was all the Joyce I might ever need in my life. I don't know that I ever will read Finnegans Wake. The brief glance I had into it once didn't beg me to keep going.

However, if a friend told me that I just had to read Finnegans Wake, that it was a life-changing experience, or, worse, that my eternal destiny hinged somehow on Finnegans Wake, I might not believe her, but I wouldn't be able to claim honestly, "I just can't read Finnegans Wake." That wouldn't be true. There's nothing actually and truly stopping me reading Finnegans Wake. I'm not completely illiterate. I have struggled through War and Peace and other imposing works, so I know it's probably technically possible that I could struggle through Finnegans Wake. I think my local library has Finnegans Wake. I could probably get my hands on a copy. I still might not be able to make myself believe that reading Finnegans Wake could hold some sort of key to my eternal destiny, but this one I could test out. I could try reading Finnegans Wake. At least, by reading Finnegans Wake, I could see if it was possible to believe that something in Finnegans Wake held some kind of key to my eternal destiny. You don't know if a thing's possible or not unless you try it.

And how can a person try to believe something? He can't know whether he can believe a thing or not unless he checks it out.

If I chose not even to try to read Finnegans Wake, and, terrifyingly, it did end up holding some kind of key to my eternal destiny, then not only would I not be able to use the excuse that I just couldn't read Finnegans Wake, I also couldn't hide behind the excuse that I just couldn't make myself believe that reading Finnegans Wake could have any bearing on my eternal destiny. I never bothered to check it out at all, so I would never know whether I had the ability to believe such a dogma or not.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you? How open-minded are you? I'm not worried about Joe Blow down the street who read the Bible cover to cover and just couldn't believe it. I'm not worried about Dr. Joe Blow who was a minister for years and realized suddenly one day he couldn't believe what he was preaching. Don't you worry about Joe Blow. He's hypothetical. Neither you nor I can crawl into Joe Blow's mind to know what Joe Blow could or couldn't do. It's you I'm talking to. It's you I'm concerned for. Have you ever tried to see if maybe there was a possibility you could believe it? Have you ever even checked it out? Have you ever read the Bible, not with an eye to picking it apart and seeing how unbelievable the whole thing is, but with an eye to seeing if maybe it could be believable?

In other words, are you willing? Are you willing to believe it if you found that it was believable?

If you've got this far in this book, your mind must be a little bit open. (Either that, or you've been having a field day with all the things you could pick apart in this book.) Never mind this book, though. You really need to check out the Source before you can decide whether you can believe it or not.

If you've never tried swimming, but you're standing on the edge, and there's someone in the water yelling at you just to try it; that anyone can swim and you can do it, too... well, there's really only one way to know. Get wet!

If you want to prove to me that you just can't believe, that means you're going to have to try and believe it first. You're going to have to get wet. Check it out and see what happens. Nobody's asking you to "try, try, and try again if at first you don't succeed" to choke down mindlessly something that makes no intellectual sense to you. I don't think God ever asks that of people. (He will often ask those who already know Him to trust Him and do things that may make no intellectual sense to them. But that part comes later.) He just asks you, if you don't already know Him, to check Him out. He says, "O taste and see that the LORD is good" (Ps. 34:8). He also says, though, "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Heb. 11:6). In other words, if it's going to do you any good, you'd better approach the whole thing with an open mind. You have to be willing to believe it if you find it believable. (Now, as a matter of fact, I know of people who have read the Bible with an eye to picking it apart and proving it to be a pile of rubbish who ended up going away from the experiment as firm believers in its truth. So I'm not saying you'll be safe from it just as long as you keep your mind closed. I'm just saying an open mind is probably a better way to go. Less crow to eat in the end.)

In my experience, so much in life comes down to this matter of the will. And I see it so clearly when it comes to what we believe. It comes down to what we want to believe. It's what we will to believe. I know that for myself. I believe what I believe not only because it makes sense to me but because I'm willing for it to make sense to me. I believe what I want to believe. But I think it's the same for everybody. We all do.

As much as I can judge (and I can't, you're right, but for the sake of the argument, let me finish ...), as much as I can judge, I've never personally known anyone who tried and tried to believe and found he just couldn't. I've mostly known either those who believe or those who would simply rather not for one reason or another. Some are outright antagonistic, but more often, most would just rather not have to bother thinking about it at all.

Now, of course, I can't know that. I'm not qualified to judge for anyone else, but you know what? Neither are you. So let's stop talking about "a person" who neither you nor I are qualified to know about. Really, the question isn't, "What if a person just can't believe?" The only question is, "Can you?" You're the only one qualified to know the answer to that question. I've decided on the answer to that question for myself. You must decide it for yourself. Are you willing to believe what the Bible says? Or if you don't believe it, is it because you're just plain not willing?

When all's said and done, I can't help thinking that we'll end up discovering that there was no such thing as "can't believe." That it was ever really only "won't believe."

Chapter 19

Objection # 5: "But Does It Work?"

We could subtitle this one: "What about all those hypocrites in the church?" If Christianity makes these grandiose claims to change lives and to turn people into new creations, how come so many Christians go around looking so old and unchanged? Or in even worse shape than those who lay no claim to being any kind of new creation? If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, what's wrong with Christianity?

Under this heading will fall all those horrific, historical events done in the name of Christianity — events like the crusades, the inquisitions, the native residential schools, and the list goes on.

Also under this heading will fall all those events that may be part of your own personal history — harsh, unloving Christian parents; the pastor of a local church who ran off with his secretary; the Christian guy at school who sleeps around and has a mouth like a sewer; or the Christian girl at work who's nice to your face and stabs you in your back when it's turned. These kinds of events are part of everyone's history. Sooner or later, everyone will let you down, and sooner or later, one of those people will be someone calling himself a Christian. If you know anyone calling himself a Christian, sooner or later, he'll let you down.

Just being let down by someone, that's not quite the same thing as hypocrisy, though, is it? I mean, a hypocrite is a person who pretends to be someone he's not. I don't think you'll ever meet a Christian who claims to be perfect. More than any other group of people I've ever met, Christians are open about the fact that they're not perfect; even somewhat obsessed with their failings.

Nor does the Bible teach that anyone can be perfect in this life. The Bible teaches that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new person. The old person is dead. But not dead and gone. The old man's still there. It's amazing how much trouble that old, dead guy can be when you have to carry him around with you all the time.

And the Bible also teaches that this new spiritual life has to be fed and grow just like any new life when it comes into the world. Some new lives have problems growing and developing like they were meant to. That can be a sad thing physically or mentally. It can be a tragic thing spiritually.

The long and short of it is, no one gets to be perfect in this world. But it's not just the fact that Christians aren't perfect and don't claim to be that's the problem, is it?

There are certain lines crossed where we'd all admit, Christian and non-Christian alike, that a person who calls himself a Christian doesn't live up to what he says he believes; like the historical events, public and personal, listed above. There are failings found amongst those who claim to be Christ's followers which are so out of tune with what Christ taught that we would all have to admit the hypocrisy of them.

It's true that at times everyone will be a hypocrite to some extent. Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, will occasionally say something she doesn't really believe or put on one face with one group of people and a different face with another group. It's part of that whole not-being-perfect thing.

But that's not what I mean by a true hypocrite. A true hypocrite claims a way of life that isn't, in fact, his own. A true hypocrite says she believes something she doesn't believe. A true hypocrite is someone pretending to be a Christian who isn't.

So if you ask me, "Why is the church so full of hypocrites?" what you're really asking me is, "Why is the church so full of people who aren't Christians but pretend to be?"

For one thing, I'm pretty sure the church isn't so full of hypocrites. It is full of imperfect people, and if that's what you mean by a hypocrite, then I suppose, to you, it's full of hypocrites. But as we've seen, a hypocrite isn't just an imperfect Christian. So the church probably isn't as full of hypocrites as you think.

That there are hypocrites who sit in pews every Sunday, I grant you, but the reason they're there is because of the open-door policy of the church. The church (in theory) welcomes anyone (hypocrites included) because it welcomes anyone who needs a life-change (hypocrites included).

There are different reasons there are hypocrites in the church. Some may be there because they're forced to be there (like most of the kids I was telling you about that I grew up with in church).

And doubtless, some hypocrites are very sincere and have no idea they're hypocrites. Some people still believe that going to church makes them Christian.

But for whatever reasons there are hypocrites in the church, it's not up to me to tell the hypocrites from the true Christians. That's not my job. True Christians can be very imperfect and look very messy. Hypocrites can look very good.

It is up to me to be as clear as I can whenever I communicate what a true Christian is so that those who are hypocrites and just don't realize it can realize it and become true Christians.

Maybe I shouldn't generalize (I'm going to do it, anyway), but I believe that, by and large, it was hypocrites, not Christians, who were responsible for the horrific, historical events we spoke of a minute ago. There have been times in history where the done thing was to call oneself a Christian. If one didn't, one might not only get to be unpopular; one might get to be, well, dead. (That's what I call being forced to go to church. With a vengeance.)

A person didn't have to know the first thing about what the Bible teaches about being a follower of Christ. A person didn't have to know the first thing about Christ. A person just had to call himself a Christian in order to be one by society's standards at that time. In that kind of a society, no wonder there were a lot of things done in the name of Christianity that had nothing to do with being a follower of Christ. People calling themselves "Christian" without any understanding of what that word means have done a lot of damage to Christ's true church.

But does this prove that the entire church is a crock? On the contrary. The accusations of hypocrisy come up because everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, can look at these public, historical events or personal, historical events and see a clear contrast between what Christ was like and what Christ taught and what's been done in His name. If there have been things done in His name that were so just, plain wrong and so contrary to His teachings, aren't we tacitly admitting that His teachings were right?

Then we could get drawn into that same argument we covered at the start about where our ideas of right and wrong come from. And if there is no absolute standard of morality, then how could one person's standard be better than another's? In that case, what right would anyone have to call any other one a hypocrite, if everyone is free to live by his or her own standard, even if it happens to be a double standard?

There's something else I'd like you to think about. In historical events like the crusades and the inquisitions, we can see hypocrisy. We can see people doing things that are contrary to what they say they believe. We see people claiming to be Christ-followers and not living at all like Him. He taught that the greatest among His followers would be the servant of all. And in His example, "[...]he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor[...]" (2 Cor. 8:9). The fact that His alleged followers don't live up to His example doesn't change what He was like.

Now, on the other hand, in historical events like the Holocaust and Communism, we see non-hypocrisy. We see people living perfectly consistently with their professed beliefs. We see fleshed out for us in living colour the philosophy that there is no absolute standard of right and wrong, except the standard that might makes right. One person's ideas of right and wrong are as good as another's. So whoever happens to be strongest wins. Quite the opposite of Christ's teaching and example. Which do you prefer? Just something for you to chew on.

Fortunately, I haven't had much experience with hypocrites (not that I know of). I've spent a great deal of time in Christian circles, seeing what people are really like in them, and I'm happy to report that most people's lives there match up to what they claim. All of us claim to be flawed, all of us admit we fail, all of us sin. There's bickering and fighting sometimes and new denominations started occasionally because we can't agree on issues and that kind of thing. But by and large, the Christians I know are what they claim to be: a little, er ... different.

Well, honestly, if you know many Christians, don't you have to admit that most of them are a little...different?

You might not think that's a good thing. You might not like those differences. Being that I am one of them, I tend to really like the Christians I know, differences and all. By and large, they're good folk. Not good in that absolute sense, but, you know, just good folk! Flawed, imperfect, failing, good folk. That's my experience. But we are a little... different.

Ask any Christian you know. I think probably all of us would tell you the same. We are different. I mean, we're different from the people we used to be. In some mysterious way, our Christian beliefs have changed us (probably because Christianity is not just a set of beliefs but a relationship with a living Person).

Rather than writing off Christianity because of hypocrites or because of Christians who are imperfect, maybe you need to re-examine it in light of all the people whose lives have been changed.

For those whose lives you don't think look any different than they were, what are you basing your judgments on? Do you really know what that person was like before he or she became a Christian? And do you know how slowly growth may happen? However, if a person has never experienced any change in his life due to his Christianity, he needs to re-examine his Christianity.

You know, I'm afraid I'm not the most sympathetic person at times. Like when I think someone's handing me an excuse. (I'm pretty sympathetic with my own excuses; just not with other people's.) I think this objection that there are hypocrites in the church is often (and I say "often" not "always") a dodge.

Let me warn you, God is also not the most sympathetic Person when someone's handing Him an excuse, and He always knows it.

But you know it, too, if that's you. If you're pointing the finger at Christians only because you don't want to become one, stop looking at Christians and start looking at Christ.

Where this objection isn't born out of the desire to excuse yourself from doing something you'd simply rather not do but is born out of genuine hurt, I'm sorry. So is God. So is His Son. But again, the solution is the same. Stop looking at Christians; start looking at Christ. He's the One who can heal those hurts. He's the only One who will never let you down in the end. Whether a Christian who's imperfect has hurt you or whether a pretend Christian has hurt you, you'll find that Jesus isn't quite like us.

I wish I could say that if you want to know what He's like, just look at His followers, but I'd be afraid to say it. I hope in every one of His true followers, you will be able to see a little of what Christ is like. However, if you really want to know what He's like, you'll have to check Him out in the stories about His life. I don't think you'll find much to disappoint you there. Maybe surprise and startle you but probably not disappoint you.

But, ultimately, if you really want to know if the thing works — if believing in Jesus is the kind of life-changing experience it's cracked up to be — there's only one way to find out.

Chapter 20

Objection # 6: "I'm Afraid It Might Work."

We could also label this objection, "Christians never have any fun." For a lot of people, I think this is a big obstacle to seriously considering the claims of Christianity. They're afraid the whole thing might actually work — that it might end up being a life-changing experience — and they don't like the idea. They're afraid it would cramp their style. They're afraid of all the things they might have to give up that they enjoy. They're afraid of change, in other words. I have a healthy fear of change myself, so I have a lot of sympathy for this objection. Maybe because it's an honest one. Now we're getting down to it.

This chapter I'll be addressing those who may be half-convinced already. It's a chapter about what to expect if you're willing to go all the way and commit.

If you're considering taking the plunge, you might be wondering, "What does life really look like from your side? Is it pretty scary?"

Let me tell you up front, yes, it's scary. So is anything worth doing. It's just not quite as scary as not doing it.

Your life will change one way or the other, anyway. Bound to. If it doesn't change in this way, it will change in some other way. If you don't want to become a Christian because you don't want to give up partying, then you'll just get old and give up partying. One way or the other, most people find they have to give up partying.

The one thing I don't want you to think is that Christianity is a list of dos and don'ts. Christianity is a living, growing, breathing creation of God within you — a new person. One capable of getting to know and to love God. That's what Christianity is.

The other thing I don't want you to think is that Christianity will never involve any dos or don'ts. As the new person you've become gets to know God, the things that He hates — the sin that hurts His much-loved new creation — will begin to look unattractive to you because you'll find yourself beginning to love God. (No one ever needs to give up partying, by the way (unless you get too old for it), but your ideas of partying may change.)

I'm not going to lie to you. If you decide to become a Christian, your life is going to change. As a whole new person, I don't think it's possible not to change. Although day by day, a person's life might not look dramatically changed. Some will. Some won't. I became a Christian when I was very young. I didn't see a lot of drastic change. I was hitting the bottle pretty heavily before I was three, but most kids kick that habit sooner or later, anyway, so I don't think I could say mine was a visible, obvious conversion. Looking back, however, I can see slow growth. I think this slow growth is the general Christian experience — both for those Christians who saw obvious, dramatic changes right off and those who didn't notice much of anything at first.

So what does the Christian life look like? Will it cramp your style? No, but you might find a whole new style. I'm not saying bad haircuts and funny clothes are mandatory for Christians. (I just choose them because they're cheaper.) Nor have I ever found it written in Scripture anywhere that "thou shalt" homeschool thy kids or vote conservative. Nor will you have to listen to dorky music. Also optional. Nor do Christians have to give up their senses of humour. You might find your sense of humour changing, though. (The Christian sense of humour tends to be stranger than your average, everyday sense of humour. When you aren't allowed to have fun in all the normal ways, you have to get creative.)

So what do you have to do to be a Christian? What does a person do to be saved? Go to church? No, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Read the Bible and pray? No, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Be baptized? "Go forward" at an altar call? "Say the sinners' prayer"? No, none of those things saves a person. Just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is it that saves a person? On His part, the life, death, and resurrection of God, the Son, for our forgiveness and salvation. On our part, a simple acknowledgement of and a dependence on that fact. That's what saves a person. That's all God requires of us in order for Him to begin doing His work of creating a whole new life in the person who trusts Him for salvation.

So what about all the rest of those things I listed off that we think of as typically Christian behaviours? (I don't mean the bad hairstyles and funny clothes. That was my Christian sense of humour coming out.) A person doesn't have to "say the sinners' prayer" to be saved? Nope. "The sinners' prayer" in the Bible was only seven words long. "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." But that's all it takes when the person saying the words means them. "The sinners' prayer" is just a way of letting God know that you believe in the work He did on the cross for you. It's just a way to say, "Thank you. I accept." It's no magic formula, and it's not what saves a person. Ditto to "going forward" at an altar call.

Does a person have to be baptized to be a Christian? No. Just to be an obedient Christian. Baptism is a command for Christians, but it's not what makes a person a Christian. Biblically, baptism was that first step of obedience in the Christian walk. It was, in the real sense of the word, a church membership ceremony. It was the time when a person who was deciding he was going to follow Christ and become part of His church (that worldwide body of all those who believe in Him) stood up and made it public. Made it official, so to speak. It's become a confused issue nowadays, but it's still a command to all Christians.

Does a person have to read the Bible and pray to be a Christian? No. Just to be a growing Christian. You don't have to pray and read the Bible. Not unless you're interested in getting to know the One who made you, the One who loves you and gave His life for you, the One you'll spend eternity with, the One in whose presence is fullness of joy. But other than that, there's really no reason to read the Bible or pray.

Despite how it looks, I'm not trying to guilt you into doing anything. Guilt is a bad motivator. But there are certain aspects of growing up as a Christian that will take a little discipline, and reading the Bible and praying are two of them. If you decide that these are two disciplines it's worth your while investing some time in, it will take conscious decision to do it. These things don't usually happen automatically. It might help to be convinced that they are worth doing.

Again, there are no magic formulas, and there's no "right way" to practise these disciplines of the Christian life. You'll find what works best for you. Here's a little advice for you, though. Don't have your expectations too high. Don't expect the Bible to make perfect sense all at once. Don't expect communing with the Maker of the Universe to be exciting every day. Granted, He's always exciting, but I'm sure not. It may help to know, though, that prayer doesn't have to be a high-pressure endeavour. Prayer is simply conversation with God, a little talking to Him and a lot of listening, waiting for Him to talk to you. Just time spent with God.

Don't aim at something burdensome in these areas. Aim at something do-able, or you'll get discouraged and quit. It's better to keep on doing some Bible-reading and praying a little here and there when you can than to decide you won't do it all unless you can do it "right." I will tell you, even though it often feels like work and I get lazy and I'm not as regular as I'd like to be in my habits, it is immensely rewarding in the long run. Stick with it!

Does a person have to go to church to be a Christian? Again, no, but it's very hard to be a strong, solid, growing Christian without some support system. Becoming a Christian means not only that you are a new person, it also means that you've become a member of a larger person, so to speak — the body of Christ. It's pretty hard to make it in this world as a dismembered arm or leg. As Christians, we just need other Christians.

"But church is so boring!" So find one that's not. Or if you can't, begin to see that boring church full of imperfect people with different ideas from yours as the instrument of God to build character into you and to teach you patience and forbearance and to help you learn from those different ideas. I'm convinced that is one of the reasons God has for putting us into a body — as a lesson in learning to love those who irritate us.

I'm not going to dictate to you what form your support system has to take. Maybe you can find a good Bible study. Maybe just a good group of Christian friends you can get together with. People with whom you're able to practise those Christian disciplines for growth. Nothing can replace those times of getting to know God better in private all by yourself, but neither can anything replace those times of getting to know God better with a group of Christians. We all need both.

What other weird and wacky behaviours will God be asking of you if you do this thing? You'll have to ask Him. He'll let you know; mostly through (yeah, you got it!) reading the Bible and praying.

There are some general, across-the-board kinds of things you'll find from reading the Bible that God asks all His kids to do. Like, love the rest of His kids. That's a big one. And forgive all those who have wronged you. Those kinds of things. But fortunately, we're allowed to grow in those areas, so don't panic. He doesn't do overnight perfection. But it's His work in you, and He'll do it.

And that's an important thing to know. The Bible tells us that when a person becomes a new creation in Christ, the One doing the work of creating that new creation is God, through the Person of the Holy Spirit, who moves right on in and takes up residence in all those who trust Him for salvation. (It's not as creepy as it sounds. It's not creepy at all, in fact.)

The Bible talks about “love, joy, peace...” and a whole list of other really good things that come along eventually as a result of the Holy Spirit's work, and it calls these things “fruit.” Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).

Have you ever seen an apple tree work and writhe and struggle and strain, till finally, POP! It pops out one little apple on its branches? No, you haven't, and neither have I. Fruit-bearing is God's work. It's the same in the Christian life.

Understanding that all growth is really God's work in your life is key to growing as a Christian. Then and only then you'll know why the Christian life is supposed to be one of freedom and love and joy and peace. When it's you trying to produce those things in yourself, the Christian life is one of struggle and strain and worry and guilt. Just work on getting to know Him better. Everything else flows out of that.

Beyond those "fruits-of-the-Spirit" kinds of things, what else might God ask of you? He may send you as a missionary to Borneo (wherever that is!). That's up to Him. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

What else to expect? There's one thing that I wish everyone who's considering becoming a Christian was told beforehand. I wish everyone was told right from the start that, in becoming a Christ-follower, he or she will gain an enemy and will be under attack. Of course, the enemy was always your enemy, but as long as you were on his side, you were no threat.

You can expect to get beaten up by doubts. "Are you really a Christian? Did anything real happen? Aren't you supposed to feel something? How could you really be a new person?" You may not instantly see the changes you thought you'd see. You can expect to have times of doubting that you even “did it right.” At those times, go back to what the Bible tells you. If you're believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, then you “did it right.” There's no right way to believe other than to believe. Hang on to verses like John 1:12, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (NRSV). Or John 6:37, “[...]anyone who comes to me I will never drive away” (NRSV), says Jesus. Or 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (NRSV).

You can expect that life is going to get harder in ways. You'll have to trust me on this one, but you can also expect that it's going to get better.

It won't be easy. Don't do it as some kind of an emotional reaction. Don't do it because of some felt need you think it will answer. Don't do it unless you've been convinced of the truth of it. Then you can have all the emotional reactions you want, and you just might find that it meets your felt needs. (You only really have one ultimate need, and that need will be met, and this way is the only way it will be met.) But faith must be based on fact. If you're convinced of the truth of it, then you'll keep on hanging on to what you believe even when you don't feel like it or it doesn't look like it's meeting your needs.

Jesus warned any potential followers of His to count the cost before they signed on. Know what you're getting into.

He also told people they would have to take up their cross every day to follow Him. On the one hand, following Him means death. It means little, daily, minute-by-minute doses of death. Death to the old you. Death to your rights. Death to what you want and what you think and what you feel. Death to that old voice shouting, "ME, ME, ME!" You're not the one in control of you anymore.

On the other hand, not following Him means death, anyway, so take your pick.

And following Him also means life. The only real, lasting life possible.

So, I warn you, yes, it does work. And you're right to be scared. It won't be easy. But then again, if the whole thing is true, what are your options?

Closing Statement

To the Second Edition

About five years ago when I finished writing this book, I added a closing statement and said, “Now that I'm done, I'm still left asking myself, 'Why did I write this book?'” In my closing statement then, I came to the conclusion that, if I didn't write this book for anyone else, I wrote it for me. I had no idea at the time how true those words were.

I jokingly tell myself that I should have subtitled this book, Every Thought I've Had Over the Past Twenty Years. It wouldn't be far off. The process this book has undergone (counting this latest edit) has taken at least fifteen years — ten to write and five to sit and distill. For the past few years, I knew I needed to revisit this book with editor-scissors in hand, but I dreaded the task. Elsewhere, I've written the disclaimer that this book doesn't come with a warranty (“The views expressed in this book may not necessarily be those of the author.”), and I told you that my views were likely to change over time — though hopefully not about the basics presented in this book. I had no idea what life was about to hit me with in the intervening years after I finished this book.

I suffer from depression, and I'm just now emerging (at least, I hope I am) from the most serious depression of my life; a three-year bout of it. I tackled the editing of this book now only because I'm in a situation at present where I have spare time on my hands and because I ran out of any other writing work and because knew I needed something to occupy my mind. This was not a job I would have taken on if there were other jobs to take on. I could remember most of what I'd written here. I could remember the smugness with which I'd written it — the tone of cocksure assurance. And I knew I didn't feel smug or cocksure anymore. About anything!

I'd just endured three years of a faith-shaking like I'd never endured before. I felt sure that nothing of what I'd spent off-and-on ten years writing would stand the test of time and the fires of the past three years. It seemed like just so much “leaning on my own understanding.”

I'm writing this closing statement now and giving this explanation here partially to apologize for the tone of smug, cocksure assurance contained in this book (that I couldn't entirely manage to leave on the cutting-room floor) but mainly to say (in astonishment) that I still largely believe what I believed and what I wrote all those years ago. (Anything I found too terrible on this run-through you'll never know about because it did hit the cutting-room floor — the benefit of doing one's own editing.) I'm happy to report that, for me, “the basics” I wrote about in this book have held.

Looking back, I now see the preparation the writing of this book was for the three years of fire. I know, in reality, it was God's hand holding me that brought me out with faith intact. And He did need to kick out from under me the broken reed of my own understanding where I'd been leaning all my weight on it. But I also realize now that He used some of the arguments I presented in this book in His sustaining work.

I'll quote again from my original closing statement, a statement I now find almost prophetic:

And on the days when my faith is tossed by every little breeze, then these straight edges of mine help me remember why I believe what I believe. When I'm wrestling with something, I look at my alternatives. Is there a God? Well, if not, then where would everything have come from? Oh right! There must be a God. Is the Bible true? If not, then where could it have come from? Oh right! It must be God's book. No other alternative makes much sense. When my faith is weak, the Bible may not be the place where it gets itself strengthened. Sometimes, the Bible raises more questions than it answers for me. But when my faith is really weak, I look at my alternatives. I look at all the arguments against my belief. The shallowness of these arguments stands in stark contrast to the piercing, unapologetic cry, like a voice in the wilderness, ringing down through the ages, that I find in the Bible: "Here is truth!"

Ultimately, in my weak times, when I find myself offended at some of that piercing, unapologetic truth, when I'm even offended at God, what really helps is to know Him. And to know His Son. To hear and hold on to the eternal life in His words. Then when He turns to me sadly to ask, "Would you leave me, too?" I can only answer, "Where else would I go? Who else has the words of eternal life?"

Bibliography and Recommended Reading

Chesterton, G.K. All is Grist. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, Inc., 1932, 1967.

Chesterton, G.K. The Everlasting Man. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1993.

Green, Michael. Who Is This Jesus? London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990.

Kubicek, Frederick, C. Evolution; Guilty as Charged. Shippensburg, PA: Treasure House, Destiny Image, 1993.

Lewis, C.S. God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970.

Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1984.

Lewis, C.S. Miracles, a Preliminary Study. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1978.

Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1973.

McDowell, Josh. A Ready Defense. San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, Inc., 1990, 1992.

Sayers, Dorothy L. The Whimsical Christian. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1978

Sproul, R.C. Reason to Believe. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2004.

Yancey, Philip. The Bible Jesus Read. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999.

Yancey, Philip. The Jesus I Never Knew. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.

Recommended Viewing

Mount St. Helens - Explosive Evidence for Catastrophe, Steve Austin, Ph.D. Institute for Creation Research, Jeremiah Films Inc., 1993.

A Question of Origins, Eternal Productions, 1998.

Unlocking the Mystery of Life, Illustra Media, distributed by Focus on the Family, 2002.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Opening Statement

BOOK I THE STRAIGHT EDGES

PART I The First Part

Chapter 1 The Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 2 Is It Absolutely True There Is No Absolute Truth?

Chapter 3 Pain and Pleasure and Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 4 Pain and Pleasure and Philosophies and Perceptions

Chapter 5 "In the Beginning, God Created

Chapter 6 "God Is Love."

PART II The Problem

Chapter 7 "You Will Be Like God

Chapter 8 Suffering and the Second Law

Chapter 9 Whiffs and Glimpses (or Suffering and Glory)

Chapter 10 Of Mice and Men and Mosquitoes

Chapter 11 When Mortality Puts on Immortality

PART III The Solution

Chapter 12 The Writings

Chapter 13 The New Writings (or the Greatest Story Ever Told)

Chapter 14 What Does God Look Like?

BOOK II “OBJECTION!”

Chapter 15 Objection # 1: "The Bible Contradicts Itself."

Chapter 16 Objection # 2: "Science Contradicts the Bible."

Chapter 17 Objection # 3: Miscellaneous Objections

Chapter 18 Objection # 4: "What If a Person Just Can't Believe?"

Chapter 19 Objection # 5: "But Does It Work?"

Chapter 20 Objection # 6: "I'm Afraid It Might Work."

Closing Statement

Bibliography and Recommended Reading

Recommended Viewing