Physicalism: the metaphysical position that everything which exists has a physical property; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things.

While contemplating the opening salvo of The God Delusion, I started thinking about the ideas of naturalism, materialism, and physicalism in relation to the scientific search to disprove the existence of God. After a while something was nagging at me…it just didn’t fit, logically.

Many people argue that the basis for Christian belief is circular. See Ryan’s second comment on my God Delusion chapter one post. The explanation I’ve heard most often is that the Bible says God is real, and since the Bible says it’s God’s word, it’s true. If all you’re basing your belief on is blind acceptance that the Bible is the truth, then it is quite circular.

But it finally clicked for me yesterday that this crusade undertaken by Richard Dawkins and many other scientists, to effectively disprove the existence of God through science is equally circular. (continue reading…)

One of the hardest things about being on the conservative/traditional side of a Christian theological debate is dealing with statements like this:

Rather, I see the grand statements about Jesus – that he is the Son of God, the Light of the World, and so forth - as the testimony of the early Christian movement. These are neither objectively true statements about Jesus nor, for example in this season, about his conception and birth. To speak of him as the Son of God does not mean that he was conceived by God and had no biological human father. Rather, this is the post-Easter conviction of his followers.

In this paragraph Marcus Borg, of the Jesus Seminar, states these things as fact: Jesus did not say he was the Son of God or the Light of the World and the statements about Jesus’ divinity are not true. He states this as fact and it’s accepted as fact by many. The problem? It can’t be substantiated. (continue reading…)

I’ve been reading Donald Bloesch’s A Theology of Word & Spirit, the first in the Christian Foundations series. I chose it at random of a shelf at Mardel, and I’ve been very impressed. Of course, how could I not be impressed by the level of scholarship necessary to write such a substantial theology text?

The thing I’m really surprised about is how faithful Bloesch’s theology is to both the Word and the Spirit. He fleshes out some ideas that make thing so much clearer for me…some that I already believed but couldn’t articulate, and some that I’d never thought of before. (continue reading…)

As I mentioned in The Supremacy of Christ, Adam at Pomomusings has some issues with Mark Driscoll. In his own words, he ‘just [doesn't] get this guy.” I think there’s more to it than that. It looks to me like he just doesn’t get the Gospel.

He states three problems with Driscoll’s chapter. First, he cites too much Scripture:

Mark apparently thinks that the number of Biblical citations is directly proportional to how faithful his chapter actually is to scripture? Seriously, he has 176 footnotes, 174 of which are practically lists of Bible verses for a 14-pg chapter.

Why is that a problem? A Christian pastor who’s been asked to lay out his theology should be backing up everything he has to say with Scripture. Part of my problem with progressive Christian theology is that it is moving away from the Bible as its source. Beyond that, comments like this imply that, not only is it alright not to use much Scripture, but a person who uses a lot is somehow deficient.

His second problem, the one that inspired my earlier post (and the title of this one), is that Driscoll is overly concerned with showing that Jesus and “the Christian revelation of God [are] distinct from and superior to all other views of God” (26). Adam calls this an “unhealthy need for power” on Driscoll’s part. But whose power is he talking about? Christ’s.

That’s what the Apostles taught:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:15-20

Our purpose is to glorify Christ. How can we do that without pointing to him as superior to all? Should we pretend that we believe him to be equal to others, just a different choice? Of course not!

Adam’s third problem is that Driscoll calls Jesus’ death the most important part of his life:

There it is - Jesus’ life, ministry, care for the poor - nope. Let’s focus on the most important thing: Jesus’ death.

There’s an easy explanation for Adam’s emotional response to this: he doesn’t understand the Gospel. The Gospel is not about healing and caring for the poor. Not as a first tier priority. The Gospel is about us being reconciled to God. How does that happen? God tabernacles among us, lives a sinless life and goes to the cross to bear the burden of our sin. The good news is that we can now be reconciled, regardless of our past, through the death and resurrection of Christ.

I’m not the scholar to explicate this, but they’re out there. Driscoll is one of them, though he’s mainly drawing on the work of others (which is fine). The atonement is important. It was big in the OT and the NT, and should be to us. Many came before and after teaching and preaching good works and care for the poor and outcast. The Passion and Divinity of Christ is what separates him from the others.

Many progressives choose to ignore that, and I don’t really know why. Can’t you be progressive while still acknowledging the basics of the Gospel?

I used to be paralyzed by fear. Not in all ways, but in some.

As a college student I was so afraid that God might not be real that I refused to hear any arguments against him, in case they were really convincing. I was also afraid that my perspective on the Bible was totally wrong, so I avoided any positions that might be convincing.

Well, after reading both positions for and against God, and Biblical positions I agree with and that I disagree with, I realized that my fears were unfounded. Since then I’ve dived in and pursued every differing position I could (that seemed worth the time).

Why did I lose my fear, you ask? Because of quotes like this:

There are two ways in which scripture might be a source of morals or rules for living. One is by direct instruction, for example through the Ten Commandments, which are the subject of such bitter contention in the culture wars of America’s boondocks. The other is by example: God, or some other biblical character, might serve as - to use the contemporary jargon - a role model. Both scriptural routes, if followed through religiously (the adverb is used in its metaphoric sense but with an eye to its origin), encourage a system of morals which any civilized modern person, whether religious or not, would find - I can put it no more gently - obnoxious…

In any case, despite the good intentions of the sophisticated theologian, a frighteningly large number of people still do take their scriptures, including the story of Noah, literally. According to Gallup, they include approximately 50 per cent of the US electorate. Also, no doubt, many of those Asian holy men who blamed the 2004 tsunami not on a plate tectonic shift but on human sins, ranging from drinking and dancing in bars to breaking some footling sabbath rule. Steeped in the story of Noah, and ignorant of all except biblical learning, who can blame them?

He follows the second one with some lines about people who have blamed natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, on sin. That’s a good argument against religion, particularly Christianity: the fallibility of humans. We always claim that all Christians are perfect, therefore anything a Christian says or does that is wrong, such as blaming natural disasters on the sin of those who are affected, reflects the beliefs and positions of the whole of Christendom.

Uh, no. And, though he asserts it to be true, the system of morals found in the Bible is not something that “any civilized modern person…would find…obnoxious.” In response I assert that no intelligent or well educated, civilized, modern person would take seriously a book about religion written by a (pop) scientist with no theological training. Particularly if said book has a shiny silver cover.

Here’s another:

“You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it’s wrong to say therefore we don’t need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don’t need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There’s an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there’s not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it.”

Why is the burden of proof on the believer? The belief existed first, so, logially, the burden should be on the one questioning the established belief. We see this over and over within Christianity where the burden of proof is on the challenger of the traditional position. Those, like Luther, who have Scriptural evidence succeed; those who do not, like Marcion, fail.

Dawkins also asserts that by showing the possibility of God to be very very small, he creates an argument that is indefensible. But someone tell me this: what are the odds of random elements combining in a pool and spontaneously becoming life? Is it repeatable? Seems pretty unlikely.

These are all reasons I’m no longer afraid.

Fear drives us. What I think drives a lot of people like Dawkins is a fear that God may be real. They worry about what will happen to them or their friends if God is real and they don’t believe, so they go into denial about the possibility. The same could, of course be said of believers, but that doesn’t bother me. The real difference is found in a personal encounter with God. If you’ve never had one, you’re almost incapable of understanding why someone would choose belief over unbelief.

But since I’ve had encounters with God, and have a relationship with Christ, I understand the choices I’m making. The difference between the two is as stark as the difference between Saul overseeing the stoning of Stephen and Paul sweeping across Macedonia proclaiming Christ.

Peter Berkowitz has more to say.

Adam’s Blog reviews a book, The Minor Protection Act, about what could result from the new new atheists crusade.

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