One of the main points of the book was to address why we can be disappointed with God, as the title may suggest. He does this by answering three questions: Is God unfair? Is He silent? Is He hidden? Instead of answering these questions and giving an explanation, as we so often do, he takes a different route. he addresses why we are asking these questions in the first place. In asking these things, we clearly have presuppositions in regards to how God should be and how He should act. If we think He is unfair, clearly we think He should be fair. If He is silent, clearly we think that He should speak. And if He is hidden, clearly we think that He should make his appearance known.

Typically, the answer to these questions revolve around philosophy and theology. using wordy responses and scripture references to show that He is fair, is not silent, and is not hidden. But to what use? For those experiencing things that raise these questions, they certainly seem to be legitimate questions. It’s more of a “Why is God not being fair now, why is He not speaking to me, and why do I not feel Him?” You can’t use the answers that we most often give to the original questions and expect people to say, “Oh, that makes sense. Ok. I’ll move on because that eases my pain.”

By addressing our presuppositions about God, we can see why His reality is not matching our expectations of how things should be.

If there are a few things that we can learn from the Bible and human history, they are that God has tried multiple methods of trying to reach out to us, and most have failed. This is not to say that God failed, but rather that we failed Him. He even knew they would fail, but tried anyway. For example, He led the Israelites out of Egypt, into a desert where He fed them every day in a miraculous way, “resided” in a tent and could be felt, and then led them into the Promised Land despite heavy opposition. Did the people continuously praise Him and act according to His will? Not by any means. They complained about the food they were provided, they doubted that they could take the Promised Land despite the fact that they had seen Him part a sea and cause the Plagues. He then tried prophets instead of interacting personally, and what happened? They were killed and hated. Then came the kings, who also failed. And finally the success of Christ. But if He knew that Christ was the answer all along, why try these other, pointless options, destined to fail?

I think He did it to show us that they fail. He wanted to be able to say, when people asked why He wasn’t making Himself clear as day, or not speaking directly to them, that it doesn’t work and that He has tried it before. He is able to say that He has spoken to people and they didn’t listen. In fact, He came down Himself as a person, a human, and we killed Him. Fortunately for us, that was the whole plan. But it still showed us that God is there, and that He does care, and that we need to trust Him.

Jesus suffered not only for us, but also with us. God wanted to be able to say, “I know the pain that you feel. I know what emotional and physical pain as a human is like. I have been there, and I made it through, so can you. Follow my example.” What a God we have that He would exhaust all options so that we could have no excuse, and then He suffered in our place and can say that and mean that, and we can know that in the end, God wins.

I find this to be ludicrous. If it is the case, because it is certainly at least possibly true, then your definition and limits of science are science stoppers themselves. How can you have such things that would potentially give you necessarily false answers. For if it could be true that there are agent causations(which there certainly appears to be and all other fields permit them, just not biology and physics), then you are operating on a concept that necessarily prevents you from finding the true explanation.

I don’t understand why this is so common, and why some of the smartest people in the world think this way. Agents cause things. We know this from experience. How can you then rule that out simply because it is “science” and not something else? If you are limiting yourself from particular explanations because they are “unscientific,” then you have a faulty concept of what science is, because science is suppose to study reality, and the things that take place in it and effect it. If there is a dimension of this that you leave out, you the are no longer doing honest and open science and are bound to have false answers.

Jesus’ Self-Understanding

JESUS AND THE IDENTITY OF GOD

And then I will post this link as well, which is another source for this post:

God Button: The Mind of Christ

I shall try to combine an analysis for the two together.

The first point is that we need to remember that Jesus was a HUMAN. So often we lose sight of this, and put Him in this “other” category so that a)we feel we can no longer relate to him, or b)so that we can rationalize why we mess up and sin and He didn’t. Both are dangerous, and both should be forbidden. Yes, Jesus was God, but His humanity was equally important. It had to be a human that lived a perfect life in order for our sins to be pardoned. It had to be someone who dealt with the same things we deal with, but win them all. It had to be a human so that we could relate in times of need, and turn to Him as a perfect example rather than an idealized concept of how things could be if we were God too.

The reason why I think that these three messages relate is because it all comes down to one thing: Jesus was human. It does not deny His God aspect of Himself, but it refines it. Jesus temptation, if anything, was probably greater than anything we face today. He was put in situations where pressing His “God-button”would have alleviated a lot of things, whether for Himself, or, perhaps more interestingly, for others. He easily could have taken Himself off the cross, in some ways proving His divine power. But in doing so, the necessary sacrifice would have been spoiled. he could have restored the city of Jerusalem to power, but knew His spiritual mission was far more important. How often do we live like this? I think one of the major problems in today’s world is that people think that preventing and fixing problems is what makes someone a good person. To a degree, it is. But there is so much more. Physical support is good, but nothing compared to spiritual support. How often do we focus on people’s physical needs above their spiritual needs?

This is not to say that we should not meet physical needs, but in doing so, there is supposed to be more to it than just that.

I think Jesus life shows how to handle this. He didn’t succumb to the worldly pressure to meet physical needs, but was more concerned with spiritual things.

Back to Jesus and how He saw Himself. It would make sense, that in being completely human, He would have His doubts and questions. We all do as humans, and it would be crazy to set Him apart and think that He didn’t as well. For me, this is a major comfort. He persevered through His doubts and held steadfast in the faith, even when He felt rejected. He may have been unsure of Himself even at times, as we all are, but trusted in the Father and the Spirit to work through Him and provide and win in the end. This is something we all need to learn. This dependency upon God. It is such a danger in setting Jesus apart too far away from us, and lose out on this hope that we can be like Him.

I think that fact that the name “Christian” means “little Christ” is so perfect. I mean, how often do we call ourselves that but not think about it? It has come to mean a follower of Jesus, a God-fearing person, but has lost it’s original meaning, which was to follow in His footsteps. In the name itself, it is assumed that we can be like Him. We can’t be God, but we can trust God and utilize the Holy Spirit in the way that Christ did, and in that sense be like Him. I think this is what we are called to do.

I think our issues have multiple origins. The fact that we put halos around His head in pictures, that we have portraits of Him hung up in some churches. We set Him up high, which is good, but too high to reach. That was the problem of the Old Testament. God was too big and impersonal to be reached and trusted in in the manner that He wanted. Which is why He sent His Son, and the Holy Spirit. They were to be the personal, reachable aspects of Himself. In setting them so far above us, we miss out on some of the greatest aspects of their existence. Our relation to them, both in the typical relationship status, but also in how we compare to Christ. He was human, we are human. If we miss out on this, we miss out on a giant reason for why God did things the way He did. It was more than about just saving us, it was about redeeming us, and helping us live the way we were meant to live. If we don’t think of it like this, we are rejecting our greatest ally and advocate in life, and making it that much harder on ourselves.

Jesus was a human. Jesus was God. We are human, and not God. But in His humanity, we can relate to Him much more closely than we often think. Don’t succumb to this pressure. Yes, He was perfect, but He was perfect to show you how it was to be done, and that it was possible. Don’t reject His example.

No, I’m not saying don’t walk alone on dangerous roads because you might get jumped, though that is true. Rather, it’s much more general. Something I had never thought about were the people who passed the man in need of help. They were good people too, well-respected people with important things to do. Not just that, but if they helped this man, they probably could not do their important things since they would be ritually unclean, and performing rituals was their job. You see, we had a priest and a Levite. Men of the temple. They had Godly business to attend to. It wasn’t as though they merely didn’t want to help, maybe they did but had other obligations. And not just selfish obligations, but stuff that served God…

A friend needs to talk, but we have prior obligations, it would be rude to ditch the other thing for your friend, though, since that came first. And a true friend would understand this and not want to interrupt your prior event. You have a softball game Saturday night, a playoff game, and someone from church asks if you can teach a class because they won’t be able to be there. If you don’t go to the game, your team will have to forfeit because they won’t have enough players. You have to politely, yet regretfully, decline because your team is counting on you.

These scenarios are have quite a bit in common. These aren’t just excuses, these are real reasons, legitimate. We are torn, but in the end stick with the plan. Deviating would be too risky, and it would disappoint too many people.

But yet these are the things that Jesus was criticizing, right? He was showing how Godly people, who were trying to be Godly, had their priorities messed up. We aren’t told what this Samaritan was doing, or where he was heading. I wish we were, because I have a feeling he had somewhere important to be too. And he put that on hold, and attended to this man.

How often have we done this? I wish I could say more. I am guilty of it, and I’m sure you are too at some time or another. We have things that we think are important, and yet Jesus is telling us that we have our priorities messed up.

We are walking on the other side of the road.

Part of this is about avoiding the issue to begin with. When we see something that will be trying or difficult, we often make our way around it, trying to pay it as little attention as possible as not to force us to actually make a decision. That way, we don’t feel bad, and can rationalize that we just didn’t see it or it was out of the way. This seems to me to be what the priest and Levite did. They recognized something that was going to call them to act, to make a decision, yet they avoided it, but for God’s sake.

I think there are 3 points being made here. The first is direct, and that is that everybody is our neighbor, since that was the original question that was to be answered. But I think there was a point to the people and situation that we often miss not being in the culture. Anybody listening would have known that the priest and Levite were on their way to the temple. They had duties to fulfill that the people counted on. So Jesus was flipping this on it’s head. It seems clear that this is a point since Jesus makes it other places as well. People are more important than “godliness.” I’ve heard something similar before, “business is not godliness.” People are more important than doing “things,” even if “important.” People are what God is after anyways, not a clean church, not a great sermon, not an well-said prayer. These things mean nothing if not intended to bring people to God.

The preacher emphasized this. He called us not to “walk on the other side of the road.” Calling us not to avoid stuff if at all possible, and to rationalize our actions.

How often do you walk on the other side of the road? At work? At school? Even at home? Can you say that you have dropped what you were doing, though seemingly important, to help someone in need?

If yes, keep up the good work. If no, work on it. It’s important. People matter more to God than anything else, it should be the same for us as well.

First, the sermon merely reflected what it meant to submit to God, which seems so obvious to us, yet so hard to actually do. The whole “Your will be done” idea, not my will. The video was something that merely popped into my head in the middle of the sermon that had a similar effect on me in remembrance as it did the first time. It’s a short animated clip of a boy who has the most awesome house ever, a mansion, with so many cool things inside. One day, he sees a giant ninja statue, and just has to have it, knowing that his house will always seem incomplete without it. He tries to get it in, but it just won’t fit. He can’t find a way to get it in. Instead of giving up his hopes of having it in his house, he decides that this statue is so important, that he will destroy his house and rebuild it around the statue. This is submission to God.

If it isn’t clear, which it didn’t stand out right away for me the first time, or at least not the huge impact it has had on me since, let me explain. God is the ninja statue, not in an idolic sense, but merely in an metaphorical sense. God doesn’t just fit neatly into our lives, it just doesn’t work that way. It’s a “nice” theory, to adapt a lifestyle that has God in it along with other things, since family and work and friends are important too, and they need attention and space as well. But in practice, it leads to a mere nominal Christianity, one that isn’t very Christian at all when you compare it to the “Christianity” that Jesus was asking of us. I put this in quotes because it’s not about the religion or the things that we do. In fact, this was part of the sermon that I thought fit so well into this. Doing the right things just simply isn’t enough.

This requires some more explanation as well. We were left with a question to ponder when it comes to making decisions, “Is this consistent with my call to be a disciple of Christ?” Everything goes through this filter that we say, do, etc. This is where the video comes back in. The tearing down of the house was the radical change that is required for a Christian in their lives. Everything changes. Rather than having some God in one’s life, their life should be built around God. Everything is for Him.

And then comes Steven Curtis Chapman, one of my favorite music artists. He recently released a song called “Do Everything.” The chorus goes like this:

Do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you
Cause He made you to do
Every little thing that you do to bring a smile to His face
And tell the story of grace
With every move that you make
And every little thing you do

It’s this idea that we should go about every aspect of our lives for God. Eating in thanks, working in praise, doing homework for His glory, playing sports to honor Him, everything. You can’t be a Christian and do these things for yourself, and only go to church or pray for God. It’s a life for God, not a moment or part of your day for God.

So tear down your “nice” houses and rebuild around God. If you find this hard, pray for it. You can’t do it on your own. You need God’s help. Don’t be afraid to ask for it.

God doesn’t fit in my life, your life. We fit in Him.

Psychologists and the like today tend to say that spanking a child is bad and can lead to them being abusive when they are older and mal-developed. I tend to disagree, but I’m no expert I guess. Apparently looking around at behavior exhibited by Gen Y that wasn’t reared what I call properly compared to that of the behavior of Gen X and prior isn’t enough to show these “experts” that they are wrong and that if anything it leads to children being defiant, stuck up SOBs. Yeah, I said it. 50 years ago, no kid would have ever dreamed of calling his mother an inappropriate name because he knew mom would slap him in the face, make him eat soap, and then wait til dad got home, and that was worse. Now, not only is it not uncommon, but I’m surprised if I go to the mall or grocery and I DON’T see it happen. But for some reason the parent takes it in stride and simply gives them a verbal warning, followed by more name calling and back talking from the child, and yet another verbal warning ensues. Effective, eh? Not really. Now that is just one example, and while I don’t have any hard and fast studies to quote here, I reckon that crime in the teen age group as well as behavior and grades in school have dropped as well, and while there may be more than one factor for these, I would bet quite a bit that how children are raised has affected this.

But where does orthodoxy and belief in Hell come in? How about right here. What the child ends up believing is that punishment is evil, and that a parent should never hit a child, and if they do, that’s abuse, and EVIL. What this leads to is the belief that God surely couldn’t punish people if He loves them, right? That’s evil and unloving, and God is supposed to be benevolent and all loving. So while the problem of evil doesn’t concern us quite as much, because this is within the Christian camp and they affirm God exists, and whereas in the problem of evil, we know evil exists and can’t simply deny that to get around the problem, here, we don’t have “evidence” of Hell. Teaching that punishment, that justice, is evil is ludicrous. Its almost as if we are taught that only the REALLY bad people deserve punishment. So murderers and rapists and terrorists, right? But the idea of justice isn’t just that great people get great things and horrendous people get horrendous things, but that decent people get decent things, not so great people get not so great things, etc. You get what you deserve, you reap what you show, you get out what you put in. And this is across the board, and not just for extremes. Otherwise the petty thief shouldn’t be punished because he’s not THAT bad.

This is the world infiltrating Christianity. Let me explain a bit more. In Christianity, a little sin is a big sin. One sin, and you are no longer perfect. It doesn’t matter whether you raped and murdered a child, or whether you disobeyed your parents when they asked you to help clean the dishes. They both separate you from God. That’s the nature of sin. This is not to say that the degree of sin is unimportant in the end, because I think it is since God is perfectly just. But just as a petty thief gets punished some, and a murderer gets punished more, hopefully in a somewhat proportional manner, I would think something along those lines would occur when it comes to sin as well, though I do not have the knowledge to say how it actually works, but I trust that it does. But either way, there is in fact punishment even for menial sins if they are not repented of. Its one and done in God’s eyes if you are outside of Christ. Christ is the only second chance.

And we can also play up emotions to make people think that Hell surely doesn’t exist. Rob Bell likes to do this, he asks if we really think God won’t win in the end, that He won’t get what He wants. Its easy to think that of course He will, He is God. But what Bell doesn’t tell you is that God doesn’t want sin now, or ever, and by giving us free will, He already has relinquished getting completely what He wants because He wants us to choose. And if I choose and God doesn’t, that argument fails.

Certainly nobody likes the idea of Hell and nobody wishes it upon another. But I don’t like that fire causes pain, or that gas costs $4 a gallon, or tests in school, or etc., but that doesn’t mean that that is not the case and that I am better off acting as if they are not the case, because all that would get me would be burned, in prison, and flunked. And in the case of Hell, its eternal, and not something I can possibly fix. Jesus/God said it was real, and that is enough for me. I don’t have to go there to believe in it. So by teaching kids that they should not be punished for bad behavior in the home, that they should not be punished in school, that things should be changed so that they can succeed, they start to think that that is how the world is. It isn’t. God doesn’t change for me. I change for Him. Hell isn’t designed for me and He doesn’t want me there, but I get to choose. If I don’t change, well…

Proper child rearing, therefore, not only leads to better behavior and more respect of others, it will lead to more orthodox beliefs in things like Hell and justice. So spank your kids… for God. It will do them good.

This seems fine and dandy to some degree. It may mean not lying, not being self-deceptive, accepting our faults and mistakes, etc. But there are a huge problems with it even within secular society, and even more in Christian culture. In a secular worldview, while one may accept their faults, being true to ourselves means merely accepting them at times, and may discourage us from trying to improve upon them. From this, angry people stay angry, selfish people stay selfish, etc. And not only that, but they justify their behavior by saying that it is just the way they are, implying that they have to be that way if they are to be “true to themselves.” So it can give people reasons to not improve themselves and be better people, and may even increase some faults as they become more “true to themselves.”

On a Christian worldview, this becomes an even bigger issue. That is because true human nature is sinful, and we should certainly not be “true to sin.” Paul calls us to crucify ourselves and be alive in Christ, no longer living for ourselves but living for Christ, not only this, but that Christ live in us(Galatians 2). He also says that we should be dead to sin and alive in Christ(Romans 6). So the message here seems to be saying that we should not be true to ourselves at all, but rather, allow Christ to live in us, that is, be true to Christ. This seems very contrary to the message that society is giving us, so when Christians adopt it, they are making very dangerous assertions that can be extremely harmful to themselves and other Christians. We end up with a similar result as the secular world, where people justify sin/bad behavior by saying its who we are, whereas for a Christian, that is the whole point! We are bad people by our nature and need to get out of it!

There is a song out there by MercyMe that says it quite well:

Well if I come across a little bit distant
It’s just because I am
Things just seem to feel a little bit different
You understand
Believe it or not but life is not apparently
About me anyways
But I have met the One who really is worthy
So let me say

So long, self
Well, it’s been fun, but I have found somebody else
So long, self
There’s just no room for two
So you are gonna have to move
So long, self
Don’t take this wrong but you are wrong for me, farewell
Oh well, goodbye, don’t cry
So long, self

Stop right there because I know what you’re thinking
But no we can’t be friends
And even though I know your heart is breaking
This has to end
And come to think of it the blame for all of this
Simply falls on me
For wanting something more in life than all of this
Can’t you see

It is only when we recognize that this self needs to be gotten rid of and that we should not associate with it at all that we become Christlike and Godly, and our relationship with The One, God, grows by leaps and bounds when we do so. But if we cling to any part of ourselves, God cannot do all that He wants with you. And when we are “true to ourselves,” this leaves no room for God at all and we live in sin and separation from God.

So Christians, please discard this idea entirely from your life and beliefs. For everybody else, you too. While you may not believe in God, surely improvement should be preferred to stagnation, and justification of bad behavior should be frowned upon, that is exactly what we get when following this doctrine to its core. Yourself is not a “higher power,” so don’t act like it. You can’t submit to yourself, for submitting to yourself is the same thing as living for yourself and requires nothing different than if you did not think in such a manner but just lived according to your whims.

Rather than being true to ourselves, let us be truthful to ourselves, and recognize that this is a stupid idea and that it is a terrible way to live and that this world would be even worse if we all lived in such a manner.

I have taken advantage of this site quite a bit. Recently bought a DVD on The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, as well as the book. Awesome stuff.

Here is a shirt that I am thinking about getting soon as well. Revelation V-Neck

Check it out, let me know what you think.

If you like to design things, check out http://www.canvasthreads.com/ where you can submit and vote on t-shirt designs. If you are selected, your design will be sold in the c28 store.

These are both blogs by Mike Gantt, cool guy, has a great name(like me), and always gives a good discussion and thought provoking posts.

But let’s address this issue from the bottom up. CFA is an Evangelical Christian owned company. Its founder is of such background and wanted his business to be the same. They are closed on Sundays, they ask if they can “serve” the next guest as opposed to “help,” they have passed out various Christian toys, similar to the toys in a Happy Meal, such as Veggie Tales, Christian children’s books, etc. This is something they they are adamant about, and many CFA fans know full well.

And this is not the first time that they have been in the news for a political type issue. A former employee, who was a Muslim, sued saying that his religion was the reason for his firing after he refused to partake in an employee prayer. The suit was settled outside of court on undisclosed terms.

And now this. While legal action is not being pursued, it is possible that this will be more harmful than other issues since it is more public. But I just don’t get it. What’s the big deal? I don’t know of any anti-gays that refuse to go to Starbucks because they have donated to pro-gay organizations, and I know a lot of coffee drinkers! First, its food, if you like it, eat it, if not, don’t.

But second, let’s break this down into what it really is. Pro-gays are bigots and act like they aren’t. And here’s why: When someone speaks for Christian family values, they blast them for being evil and bigoted and homophobic. Its not like this someone even had to point they’re finger at gays as people, but that is what they get in return. Rather than a heated debate on the issues, which would be somewhat pleasant to see, what they get in return is the typical political ad hominem arguments that attack the person holding the belief rather than the belief himself. This is not to say that no proponent of Christian family values has never done the same to a gay rights advocate, but merely that it is less public and seems to be more rare. So the tolerance tends to be on the side of the Christian family values, as given in my Starbucks example earlier. Even mere support for any contrary belief is taken to be a jab at gay rights and they declare homophobia and intolerance. It is important here to note that this is quite wrong. To support one idea is indeed to reject its contrary, but that does not mean that to support one idea is to reject the people that hold the contrary. But this is the way the gay advocates portray it, specifically Perez Hilton. But what is really going on is that the side claiming tolerance, the gay right supporter since it is “about equality,” is being intolerant of the actually tolerant, since they don’t want to allow the opposition to support their own beliefs that are actually more idealistic than personal attacks upon homosexuals.

I think it is a fair comparison to communism of sorts here, where a certain side wants to repress any expression of a contrary view, but this is much more…. refined. That is because in this case, it is the minority that is suppressing the majority, since this country has given so much power to the minorities as to not upset them, often with the result of ignoring the cares of the majority. That is why this story is not surprising. But that is also why this story is sad. In the country that claims to be the land of the free and home of the brave, the country who boasts free speech, yet we have this. Where a private company can’t donate to who they please without negative repercussions in the media.

So in the end, I will continue to go to Chick-Fil-A, and continue to love and respect what they do and their firm stance as a Christian company.

So Hell proper seems mostly to come from a select few passages in the Bible where Gehenna is used, or where eternal damnation is mentioned, and then a few instances in Revelation, though I will not mention those here due to the nature of the book that is so hard to interpret. The main “proof texts” for Hell as eternal punishment are Matt. 25:41, Matt. 25:46, Jude 7, which actually don’t even have the word Hell in them, but merely speak of eternal torment or punishment. In Matt. 3:12, Matt. 5:22, Matt. 18:8-9, Gehenna is used in conjunction with sin and the punishment for that sin, so in conjunction with the other passages mentioned, the doctrine of Hell is established.

So what does that mean about Heaven? Well, we clearly see that in Hades in the Lazarus and the rich man story, that there is a divide between the righteous and the unrighteous. [On a side note here, the doctrine of imputed righteousness(often associated with Reformed Theology and Protestantism) or infused righteousness(often associated with Catholic Theology) has to be mentioned, since Christians do not claim to be righteous of their own accord, but that as forgiven people, are given the righteousness of Christ.] And if there is a divide in Hades between the righteous and unrighteous, and we combine this with the idea that some will receive eternal torment, it would make sense to say that these people will be the unrighteous. The other option would be to say that there is some sort of purgatory, or that Hell is like purgatory, insofar as Hell would be finite according to the punishment fit for one’s sins. While this may be the more likable idea, since then all would be saved and this seems more just than eternal punishment, it seems impossible to me to get this out of the Bible, especially given that we know that some will in fact be punished in an eternal manner with “the devil and his angels.” To me, this seems impossible to get around. I will concede that some passages are ambiguous about Heaven and who gets there, but these passages hat talk of eternal punishment are impossible to coincide with the idea that everyone could get into heaven, because if that were the case, then surely this would not have been said in the first place.

Laying out some of the alternatives for Hell:

Annihilationism: God destroys the souls of the wicked so they do not have to suffer eternal torment in Hell. To me, this sounds a lot like euthanasia. The purpose of this idea is that God prevents eternal suffering by taking one out of existence entirely. But is that really a better option? It seems that if one is abhorrent, the other would be as well.

Universalism: There are basically two types of universalism. Contingent and necessary. Necessary is more problematic in that it says that it is impossible for anybody to go to Hell, which would seem to fly in the face of a just God, and it also implies that no matter what one does in their life on earth, it has no affect on their afterlife.

Contingent universalism seems to be the nicest view. That while it is possible for some to go to Hell, none in fact do. The problem here seems minor, but ends up with the same problem that it was trying to solve, mainly, that God would not send anyone to Hell due to His goodness. What the universalist wants to say is that God can’t send people to Hell, that He won’t has no affect on His ability to, and it is His ability to that they have to object to.

Second chance: Many views here, but the main point is that while some go to Hell it is finite. Problem here: the passages listed earlier mention eternal Hell, and this is not compatible with that.

For some interesting comments regarding Hell and Heaven and the problems with annihilationism and universalism check out http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heaven-hell/#1.1

The objective or goal here is to have an internally consistent doctrine of Heaven, Hell, and God. In my opinion, the traditional view that Hell is eternal, some people will go there, Heaven is eternal and Good, but both only come about after the Final Judgment and mass resurrection of both good and bad, and that before then, we all go to Hades but that the righteous are with God in a good realm, while the wicked are separated in some manner from the righteous. I would go as far as saying that for an infinitely good God, that in order to maintain that attribute, He cannot be in the presence of any sin or unrighteousness, which is why forgiveness and imputed/infused righteousness is necessary for salvation and entrance into heaven. And those only come about after repentance and wanting to be forgiven. It is not that forgiveness apart from wanting to be forgiven is like rape by any means, but rather that it is a two way street, the main aspect being repentance and recognition that we are sinful and need to be better, and the sincere effort to improve and try to be good. This would allow for some non-Christians who recognize that they fall short of being perfect, yet strive anyways, and honestly seek truth to get a pass. Now, not being God, I do not say who fits in this category and who doesn’t. If someone is agnostic or atheistic and is 100% honest and pure in his seeking, then they may get in since God can see into out hearts and our thoughts. I do believe more certainly that this allows minimally for those who have never encountered the Gospel to begin with to get in if they fit into this category.

The people of the program seemed to be reading way too much into Mark, as they said that his Gospel was actually an answer to the fall of Jerusalem. I find this to be odd, since he never mentions the fall, as one might want to say what they were answering in such a work.

So how about my idea of the dating and how I think it went down, which maybe you should take with a grain of salt, but it seems pretty logical to me, and much more plausible than the dates that this program laid out.

Acts: Before Paul and Peters deaths, which were mid-60s. The entire book of Acts pretty much follows Paul’s life, chronicling many of his journeys, as well as his trial and his trip to Rome. Yet the book seems to end rather abruptly, as it does not mention the verdict nor the sentencing that Paul received, which we know to be beheading. Now this would seem extremely strange had Acts been written in the 90s or the second century, or even the 70s or 80s for that matter. Why include so many details into Paul’s life and leave out his death? As for Peter, we hear of Stephen’s martyrdom, as well as other seemingly minor figures compared to one of the main apostles, so why would the martyrdom of Peter not be mentioned. Another interesting part of that is the story usually associated with Peter, that he was crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy of Jesus death. So I say around 63 or so, since it includes Paul’s initial trial and his trip to Rome to stand trial there, but nothing more.

Luke: Before Acts. This is pretty obvious, as I know of nobody who says Luke was written after Acts. The typical dating is about a decade before, but lets play nice and say 5 years, which would put Luke around 58.

Matthew: Before Luke. Sticking with the seemingly consensus order, Matthew comes before Luke but after Mark. Again, often placed, as seen in frontline, a decade preceding Luke, but again we will say 5 years, placing this Gospel around 53.

Mark: The earliest Gospel by most accounts. We will again use our 5 year formula, placing it in the late 40s, maybe 48 or so.

John: Difficult to date John, given its much more abstract and yet concrete writings. Much more up front than the others about Christ’s divinity, which makes sense if Jerusalem has fallen and such claims would not result in such consequences as death somehow or another by Jewish law-keepers, much like Jesus. So I am comfortable saying after the destruction of the temple, and I like to be nice, so we can say around 85 for John.

Paul’s letter: Often dated in the 50s or late 40s, this would seem highly unlikely if Mark was written in the late 40s. So I think we can pretty safely say, given our dating of the other Gospels, that Paul’s first letter was written in the mid to late 30s, given his many journeys and the timescale he himself gives and that Luke gives in Acts.

These “conservatively” liberal dates, I say this because it would be very easy to stick with the general liberal framework of a decade between each piece, end up putting Paul’s writings within 10 years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which is pretty significant. However, I do find it plausible that some version of Mark was floating around in some areas as early as the early 40s and that Paul didn’t hear about it due to geographical restrictions, and similar concepts can be applied to the other gospels as well.

Where does this leave us? First letters in regards to what is now orthodox Christianity are written within 5-10 years of Jesus death, which means Paul was preaching before this, which means the hymns and such that he quotes are earlier than the beginning of his ministry, which would put these within a year or two of Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension. So in contrast to the liberal frontline idea that there were many ideas of Jesus and many Christianities rising in different regions that wouldn’t be “set straight” until the second or third centuries, we see a unified Christianity from the outset, and while some were saying other things, Paul, the apostles, and the original disciples were correcting these as they came about, and not simply corrected at some council in the third century.

So not only is this important in dispelling the myth of there being many versions of Christianity that were quite unique, it also gives credence to the historicity of the New Testament writings as they inch closer to the dates of what they are giving accounts of.

More to come on the Frontline special, and here is the link to watch it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/watch/

But while string theories seem promising, they still don’t do what Hawking says they do. He makes the claim that given M theory, there would be 10 to the 500 possible universes and that this constitutes a multiverse. And that given M theory, gravity would actually “cause” the universe to be created out of “nothing.” And at first glance, he seems to present a decent case. But upon further investigation, the “nothing” he refers to is really a quantum vacuum, and that is not the “nothing” that philosophers have defined. But early on in the book, he makes the claim that philosophy is dead, so it seems that he is quite content with his ignorance of the philosophical side of things that defines that terms he uses.

Much of the book is quite technical, but interestingly, despite saying philosophy is dead, he gives his own shot at philosophizing and saying the way he thinks things are. These turn out to be quite inconsistent with his own views. He seems to espouse some sort of anti-realism of sorts, as well as determinism to the extreme. Given his view of how things really are, it seems that his model is simply his way of organizing his sense data, and that given determinism, he was determined to organize them in this manner, which would discredit them entirely.

In the end, he seems to me to be getting more and more desperate to justify his own disbelief, this being the latest step in that process.

First, it follows from the ontological argument. This argument “proves” the greatest of all beings, so omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. But after some thinking and a sociology class, I came to the realization that the trinity would be a necessary attribute of the perfect being. And here is why: The most stable relationship is a three person relationship. This is common knowledge in the field of sociology. This perfect being must be self-sufficient, we all know that a truly lonely person is not very sufficient, is quite lonely, and many times unstable. So it makes perfect sense to see this perfect being as having three major separate, yet connected parts.

Second is on how we can understand the Trinity. Some mistakenly think that it works like the situation of a father with one sibling. He is a son of his parents, a father of his son, and a brother. Three identities, one person. But that is why it is wrong. Still ONE person. We need three. So with the help of C.S. Lewis and a few others, I have a different concept of it. Think of a triangle. Three individual sides, yet one shape. All connected to each other. We can even imagine somewhat the aspect of ourselves in regards to the trinity and why it is so difficult to comprehend. We can imagine ourselves in a one-dimensional world, whereas the triangle is obviously in a two dimensional world. We could try to grasp how this triangle looks, and prove it mathematically to be consistent on some level, but we could never come close to a full comprehension of it. That is the situation we find ourselves in now. God is so other, so infinite the out finite minds can’t comprehend Him, especially not in this life.

Third, how does the Trinity affect us? Well, it shows us that if we are not worshiping the Trinitarian God, we are not worshiping the right God. Which means a lot of people have it wrong. It is one of God’s major attributes that has a huge impact on His reality, and not just ours, so it is a very important doctrine to be preserved. It shows us that God truly IS love, as He demonstrates perfect love and perfect relationship.

Along these lines, I began to realize the answer the my sociology professor’s question to our class in regards to human relations. His question was that if a three person relationship is the best kind, should be practice polygamy? Some people sort of conceded the point, but I knew that that was going to be unstable because there are only two sexes, and the concept of the perfect relationship would be between three DIFFERENT types of persons, not just three different people. You would always end up with 1 male and 2 females or 2 males and 1 female, which are both lopsided in some manner. I brought this up and assumed, correctly, that God was this third person that would make our relationships better. But what I missed out on was how perfect this really was. Who better to have in your marriage than the creator of marriage, of humans, and the perfect lover? He would give the best possible advice, literally. He would be the perfect mediator. And the perfect friend. Not to mention, He is part of His own three person relationship that is perfectly stable, and we all know how we become more like those we are in relationships with. And who better to become more like than God?

In the end, I have been left with this feeling of awe, in how God has made things to work in harmony so perfectly. It’s almost as if He knew exactly what He was doing, almost… Obviously, I am still nowhere near fully understanding Him in this aspect, but I am trying. My way of trying to love Him with all of my mind.

But in spite of what we are told about Jesus, what are the possibilities of who He really was given our knowledge of Him? I would say we have three options. One, He was who He said He is, viz. God in the flesh, the Son part of the Trinity, the Messiah, and that He did miracles to show God’s glory, including defeating death for our salvation. Two, He was a lunatic that was off his rocker. He made claims, as many have, to be a god, yet like the others, failed to show it. Finally, He could have been the devil, or some demon, who wanted to lead people away from God, doing miracles in the name of the devil, rather than God. Interestingly, the Christians take the first view, many atheists take the second, and often Jews take the third. But notice, the Muslim view, and the popular view are not options! That is, that He was a good moral teacher, with good advice on how to live in harmony with others and how to be a good person, yet that He wasn’t who He said He was.

And that’s the problem. If we accept His moral sayings and life advice, which we find in the Bible, we must accept His other claims as well, which is that He is God, the Messiah, our Savior, etc. I don’t see anyway around this. Even the Jews seem to attest that He made such claims, since they denied His claims and said He was the devil or at least a demon working for the devil. You can’t say He was a great prophet, yet not accept His claims to divinity. You can’t say He was a good teacher, because He taught that He was the only way to heaven, and that He was God.

This is why I could never be a Muslim in the orthodox way. It is also why I could never be the naïve atheist and say that He had some good things to say but that He wasn’t really claiming to be divine. He did not leave those options open to us, and He did not mean to. He wanted to be polarizing, where you were on His side or against it, 100% either way. You can’t accept part of Him and leave the rest.

Where does that leave me? Well, a Christian right now, and probably forever. But I will never be an orthodox Muslim, or follower of the moral Jesus but not the God Jesus. Those options aren’t on the menu, and for some reason, people keep trying to order them anyway.

If we consider something beautiful, then there must be a scale of beauty that we are using. Sometimes it seems like a personal scale, other times not. Why is it that most people find sunrises and sunsets beautiful? Or are attracted to similar people? Or think that a blue sky is wonderful? I think there is a beauty scale that is subjective but matches up somewhat with others, like when we compare the outward “beauty” of people, but something totally apart from us when looking at nature.

I don’t think I could ever have called a day in my life ugly, at least not the nature part, since I sure have messed up a few myself. But I don’t think I can honestly say that I have looked outside and said, “What an ugly day today.” I know I have said it when I wanted to play baseball and it was raining, or golf even. Or if I wanted snow on Christmas and it was 60 degrees. But that was merely because the weather was not in conjunction with my wishes for the day, and had nothing to do with the actual beauty of the day. On the other hand, I have watched storms from balconies and porches and sat in awe at the rain, lightning, and thunder. I have sat in the grass and watched blue skies hang there, and possibly watch a few fluffy white clouds go floating by. Its really a remarkable thing that we so often take for granted. Maybe we should all make a habit of thanking God for such a beautiful day each time we wake up. It might brighten up our days.

But even if we don’t go that far, though I think we should, there is still something to be said for the beauty of a mountain with the sun shining on its snowcap. Or an ocean as it shines in the sun as far as the eye can see.

Speaking of mountains, I find them certainly to be a sign from God that He is there. First of all, the whole mountain points up to him, and so do all the trees on it. The base is often dirt based, while the top is white with snow. Not many people get to the top, but those who do experience something we can’t possibly imagine. Now compare that to Christianity. God is on top of all things and is perfect. We are along the base, covered in sin. We can assume that since the path to heaven is narrow, not many people will get there, but it will be a wonderful experience for those who do. Its like a micro-Christian world all in one mountain.

But certainly we all acknowledge that there is beauty of sorts all around us. In animals, trees, flowers, the sky, the solar system, the universe and its fireworks of exploding stars. Awe-inspiring. And I know that God was its creator, and that He must be beautiful as well.

I have mixed feelings being from Ohio and a James fan. Part of me is upset that he left his hometown, and showed that maybe he wasn’t as loyal as some thought. On the other hand, he showed that in fact, winning means more to him than money. He is losing a ton of money by going to Miami. The Cavs could have given him about 125 million over 6 years. He won’t be able to sign a max contract in South Beach due to Wade and Bosh, and they can’t max out the salary cap with those three because they only have 4 other players on contract, and two are draftees. So it wasn’t about money for him, but about winning. This was certainly his best shot at winning multiple championships.

And for those who think 1 championship in Cleveland for LeBron is worth more than 6 someplace else, what planet are you from? If Michael had won just 1 in Chicago, is he who he is today? They didn’t have a major history of championships in Chicago, just like Cleveland. Baseball, football, basketball all were struggling to get there. LeBron needs 7 or 8 rings to show that he’s better than MJ, otherwise, he’s still in MJ’s shadow.

And for those who think that if he wins a handful in Miami, the superstar trio takes away from it… nonsense. Magic had a Hall of Fame roster in LA, same for Isaiah Thomas, Larry Bird, hell, Jordan had quite a team too, so much so, that they couldn’t afford to keep them all together because they got so big individually. LeBron went through a list of the teams to win multiple titles, and all of them had 3 or 4 star players on them. He understands that championships are about the team and depth. He carried the Cavs by himself for 7 years and Cleveland and always fell short. Yes, Jordan didn’t win it all for a while, but he won in his 7th year, LeBron didn’t. And it didn’t seem like the Cavs would be adding any players to the mix, and none of the ones they had were up and coming, like the Bulls had in Horace Grant and Pippen, notably. So LeBron would have had to wait for jamison, Williams, Verajao, etc. contracts to expire since they were overpaid and limited cap space tremendously, which is another 3-4 years. That’s now 11 years and no rings for LeBron if he stays, where Jordan had 5 by then and on his way to a 6th if you don’t include his first year of retirement. LeBron had to do something now if he was going to make a run at surpassing Jordan’s legacy, and this was the right move for him. Obviously not for Cleveland, not for his fans, but for him. It was his decision, and it was about making him happy and realizing his goals, and not about what any fan wanted him to do.

If LeBron wins a few here in the next 4 or 5 years, we should be happy for him, because his decision will have paid off, even if that meant that Cleveland was left heartbroken.

On another note, talk about “fair weather” people in Cleveland. Gilbert really ripped “his” former star after he made his decision. If my biggest fans were going to turn on me as soon as I put winning at the forefront of my career, staying would have been a big mistake. Cleveland fans have a right to be sad, yes. Very sad indeed. They weren’t able to keep the most amazing physical specimen the NBA has ever seen in his hometown, with no fault due to themselves. Rather, it was the management who decided to overpay good, but not great players, good, but on the decline players, rather than chasing young, developing talent, or true seconds. Did you notice how Gilbert said that their motivation and determination which reach new heights now? That means that they WERE NOT trying as hard as they could have to bring a championship to Cleveland with LeBron as they claimed. Maybe if he had said this 3 years ago, it would have happened. Or if he had said this after the loss in the Conference semis, LeBron may have stayed. But he announces it after LeBron leaves, not a smart move. It proves to LeBron that he was right to leave, that Gilbert wasn’t really going for a championship, but was taking his King for granted, and was worried about filling seats. Cleveland fans should be mad at the front office for not doing their job and simply hoping LeBron could do it on his own. That’s the saddest part about this whole thing. LeBron wanted to stay, but how could he if his front office was half-assing it, and not as focused on his goal as he was. I found it interesting that even in one of his answers last night, he said that a championship was only reached when everybody, from the fans, to the coaches, to the players on the court, to the front office, to the ticket salesmen, to the custodians all had that as their goal. I think this was him saying that no matter how much he and his teammates wanted the ring, it wasn’t going to happen because a link or two was missing.

But let’s get this straight, Cleveland fans have no right to be angry at HIM. Not for wanting to win a title, which he so much deserves for having flipped that town upside-down. Which he so much deserves for renewing the interest in the NBA since his rookie season. Which he so much deserves for being LeBron, and MVP’s, and putting Cleveland on the map, and making Mike Brown look so good. Not for wanting to be a part of something bigger than himself, which was all he was in Cleveland. Not for wanting to change the face of basketball like MJ did. Not for wanting to surpass MJ’s accomplishments, and place himself at the helm of the NBA’s greatest. In fact, for a true basketball or simply a true sports fan, one wishes him the best, and does not wish him to limit is potential if by doing so means he stays in his hometown. If they are going to be angry, it should be at Gilbert and the front office for waiting until AFTER James was gone to become so focused on a championship. His letter should have read, “We did our very best, not just to keep him here, but to win a championship for Cleveland. Unfortunately, it was not enough, and we will have to find another way to bring one to this city.” Instead, he threw the hometown hero under the bus, taking no blame upon himself, and telling Cleveland fans that they deserve better. But let’s get something right, Cleveland fans have, for the most part, only been fans for 7 years. Cleveland basketball was nothing before LeBron. If anybody deserves a championship, its the Chicago Cubs. Try over 100 years of loyal support and no ring. Boston was the same way until a few years ago. But Cleveland? Really? The fans there are only fans if the team is good, which wasn’t very often in any sport. So to say that they “deserve” better is truly funny. Really, LeBron and his teammates deserved better. Better treatment from the front office, and clearly, better treatment than the fans, as a true fan would not go burning his team’s savior’s jersey even if he went to another team. Cleveland should be thankful for the time that they had with LeBron, and not upset. If he had retired in Cleveland without a ring, would they be upset for him retiring? Or would they feel stupid for making him think that he had to stay at all costs, even if that meant never realizing his ultimate goal?

I am a huge Griffey fan, and he played here in Cincinnati for 8 years, and while I was sad to see him get traded to the White Sox, I was also glad to see him have a shot at a ring, something that did not look promising here at the time. This is a similar situation. Sometimes, we have to be big people, grown ups, and make decisions that are about us for a change, and not about others. Griffey stayed in Cincinnati through some bad years, even when fans turned on him! That’s loyalty. So was he betraying the city of Cincinnati by leaving? Of course not, he was pursuing his dream. The fans in Cleveland loved LeBron. He was the hometown kid, just like Griffey. he was expected to be the missing piece, just like Griffey. It didn’t work out, so should we hate him for leaving and trying his hand elsewhere? Again, no.

At least he didn’t pull a Joe Johnson, and take the money to lose out on a chance to win. At least he didn’t go to New York, where Amare was all they had to offer him. At least he didn’t go to Chicago, where he would always be in MJ’s city, in MJ’s shadow, literally, as he walked past the Jordan statue on his way to and from every game. At least he didn’t go to Kobe’s city, where the Clippers would have pulled him down like they did every other star to go there. At least he didn’t go to the Nets for a part owner friend in Jay-Z, and no team. Rather, he went to the team that truly gave him the best chance to win now, and in the future.

But now the pressure is on, right? He has to win 3 in the next 4 years, or this was a failed move, right? It’s all on him, now, to make good on this decision, right? Well, maybe not. He has two other options now. Two helpers. Hence, the trio. He has help, somebody, to be exact, who can help him carry the pressure. The added pressure is on the Heat as a team, not LeBron himself. This is an open relief for him. The weight on his shoulders has been lessened.

WIll he have to share the ball a bit more? Yes. So he could now legitimately average a triple-double this year. Will he score a little less? Yes, so he won’t win a scoring title this year, but I bet he takes a ring over that any day. Will he have to heave up ridiculous shots while doubled teamed and falling out of bounds to keep his team in the game? No, he can dish it off. Let’s look at it this way. If there is one team you don’t want to have to play in the finals in 2011, who is it? It’s the heat. You don’t want to have to hope that all 3 hit a slump for 7 games. You don’t have 8 defenders to double team each one and guard the other two men on the court. You don’t want to not have a clue whose hand the ball will be in the closing moments of a game. You don’t want to have 3 major scorers, rebounders, and defenders to worry about and know where they are on the court the whole game.

We thought the mid 90′s Bulls were possibly the greatest team ever, right? They had Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman at their core. How about a bigger, stronger, faster Jordan, a taller, more athletic, higher scoring Rodman, and a faster, better passer, higher flying Pippen? Does that sound ok to you? Throw in Pat Riley to rival Phil Jackson, and we have an eerily similar team, if not better team, will we get an eerily similar, if not better result? Only time will tell. But keep your eye on this team for the next 6 or 7 years. If they sign 5 year deals, 4 or 5 titles in a row may not be out of the question. And without a mid-career, in his prime retirement, with LeBron deciding to try his hand at wide receiver in the NFL, he could catch up the Jordan and Kobe in a hurry. And then who would question this decision?

Ken Griffey Jr. has been my favorite baseball player for as long as I can remember. I live in Cincinnati, but I loved him before he ever came here. I have followed his career from the moment I was able to. I had his batting averages, hits, home runs, RBI, slugging percentages, etc. memorized for every year of his career. In 4th and 5th grade I wrote books about him, even sending one to him through his cousin, who happened to live up the street from me. Later that year, he had his cousin give me a copy of his autobiography for my birthday. Its a bit tattered now. I’ve read it over 100 times, and used to even sleep with it under my pillow. I have more than 40 baseball cards of him. I saw him play in Cincinnati about 50 times or so. When he was traded to the White Sox, we made a trip to Chicago specifically to go see him. We recently had a trip planned to see him in Cleveland this year, but that has been called off, for obvious reason.

He was drafted in 1987, on June 2. He made his big league debut on April 3, 1989. I was born in August of 1990. June 3 was the first day of my life that Griffey was not a professional baseball player, but rather a former one. I couldn’t sleep the night of the 2nd. I found myself up until 3 or so watching videos of him in the field, at the plate, with his dad, doing interviews. What a player…

He finished his career with 630 home runs, 1,836 RBI, 2781 hits, and a lifetime batting average of .284. He is pretty much a guaranteed first ballot Hall of Famer. But the most remarkable thing about his career? He was never, ever, EVER associated with any steroids or Human Growth Hormones. Despite playing in the Steroid Era, where Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, A-Rod (the other big names of the era) playing on steroids, racking up home runs like never before seen in history… Yet there was Griffey, right there with them. Did you know that he had 56 home runs in ’98, without steroids? And in ’97 too, when he won MVP. Did you know he was on pace to break Maris’ record in ’94 before the strike? Again, no ‘roids. So what makes him so remarkable is the fact that he played with the guys on steroids, without them. It’s like the kid in school who aces every test because he cheats, and then the kid across the room does the same, but did it honestly. The first diminishes the accomplishment of the second in many cases. And this was true for much of Griffey’s career. But here at the end, looking back, we are amazed to see it. And his career now means that much more.

Overall, I think he was the best center-fielder to ever play the game. Yes, better than Joe D, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, etc. I am so grateful to have grown up, admiring him, watching him, mimicking him, and am so appreciative of the work that he put into his game, without cheating.

So in a few years, when he walks across that stage in Cooperstown, New York, I will be on my couch, possibly in tears, because of the player, the man, that was such a huge part of my life.

This leads me into the topic of this post, reading the Bible.

I enjoy some of Greg Koukl’s work, and recently his essay on never reading a Bible verse. The title is catchy. It seems un-Christian-like. But he goes on to explain that both critics and proponents of certain views take verses by themselves, which leads to them being taken out of context, and getting wrong ideas. A new idea in the evangelical sphere is to read the Bible and allow the Holy Spirit to call up a personal interpretation for what you are reading. And this is where I am left on the dock. They have set sail into this dangerous, misguided style of interpretation that leads only to confusion and ruin, while I am left standing on the dock trying to tie up as many ships as I can, trying to keep people from making this grave mistake.

The authors of the Bible had a specific purpose for writing what they wrote. It is supposed to be personal, and affect your personally, but while the effect may be different from person to person, the meaning NEVER changes. There was an original intent, and it needs to be preserved. This destructive path that these ships are sailing towards is often liberalism. This is where doctrine becomes wishy-washy, loses the Christian essentials, and allows for personal interpretation of sacred texts. Now this is a fine line in a way. In no way do I espouse, nor should you, the idea that lay people should not be able to read the Bible and ponder on it themselves, for, when done correctly, this is extremely fruitful. This is the route that some have gone, saying that only priests or ministers or those who are “qualified” can interpret scripture. This leads to grave results as well, like people being prohibited from rational thought, and basically being brainwashed (how about some of them JW’s).

So what can we learn from this? Read a passage in its entirety. No one would start right in the middle of a page in the 10th chapter of a 30 chapter book and expect to have an idea about what is going on. And we should not approach the Bible in this manner either. If Jesus is talking in some end times language, what prompted this talk? Was there a question, or two, that he is answering? When Paul is speaking of the dead rising, why is he addressing this issue, since he is writing letters to a church, and he is addressing worries and issues that church has. How should a prophecy be interpreted? What is the context? Context is oh so important, and losing it causes everything else to become worthless.

I think that if Christians all approached the Bible in this manner, there would be far less disagreements, far less controversy, and a lot more love and encouragement in the Church. So the next time you see/hear someone taking a verse by itself, ask them how it is being used and what point it was meant to address, and you could have a very fruitful discussion on your hands.

So here it is in the Papers and other Documents page.

The Bible seems to speak against homosexuality. We look at the Old Testament and see in Leviticus that a man lying with another man as he would a woman is a sin. We also see homosexuality condemned in Romans and in 1 Corinthians. But what does this mean? And how does it apply today?

Obviously, there is no way getting around the fact that the Bible seems to have condemned at least some aspect of homosexuality at the time it was written. It was applicable to the Jews, as well as to the first Christians. Given this, I think that whatever was meant by these verses holds true today, as it lasted from the Old Covenant into the New Covenant. So I am not one who says that this can be regarded as a cultural taboo, but is now acceptable. It seems pretty straight forward that this was considered sin and always would be. Especially in the Corinthians passage, where it places homosexuality in the category of stealing,coveting, idolatry, adultery, etc. These are all considered wrong to this day, so why would Paul have included this with these if it did not have this in common? It seems like he wouldn’t have.

So if this still holds true today, what does it mean? I actually agree with some of the homosexual community that the Bible does not really reference homosexual orientation. Rather, it refers to the action. And the action, being sexual, is condemned on merit not only of its homosexual nature, but the fact that it is sexual relations outside of the marriage relationship. The Bible is pretty clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, and if I, not being married, participate in sexual relations, this is sin. I am held to the same standard that a homosexual is! This is not hypocrisy, as some have claimed. It does indeed go both ways. However, I, a male, can marry a female, and have sexual relations without sin. But I cannot marry a fellow male and do the same, as this is not the marriage relationship that the Bible speaks of.

So where does this leave us? There is some evidence that some homosexuals are such not so much due to choice, but to genetics and/or experience. They can’t control this, and should not be expected to change. Having said this, I am not an advocate of trying to force a homosexual to become heterosexual. If they want to try, by all means they can. But failing to change should not be held against them. But if they wish to practice their homosexuality, this should not be permitted. That would be sin, and sin needs to be dealt with if possible. This would be an unrepented sin. So I do think one can have a homosexual orientation and be a Christian. The Bible does not condemn the mentally handicap for not being able to learn like others. And in a way, a homosexual is “handicapped” in a at least somewhat similar way, in that they are different, and should not be condemned for merely being so. But this is not to say that their are not responsible for their actions. Sex outside of marriage is sin, whether heterosexual or not. And this is the aspect of homosexuality that is condemned and is in fact sinful. And this needs to be known to all, so that morality does not slowly deteriorate as some continue to give in to being “politically correct” and “today” rather than focusing on the unchanging and immutable.

I started Loftus first, as he came highly recommended. But through the first 4 chapters, I’ve actually been disappointed. He had a rough time that cause him to fall from his “faith,” but wants to entirely attribute his “deconversion” as he calls it to his intellectual fallout. But it surely appears, at least at face value, that it was in fact the emotional problem he had that aided his intellectual disbelief. For those of you who don’t know his history, he grew up a nominal Christian, and knew of nothing else. He got into drugs, but then found Jesus, who became his new high, and that was in fact how he preached it. He went to Bible college, got a few Masters degrees, even one under Bill Craig, and went into ministry as a pastor. He succumbed to the openness of a co-worker and had an affair, and instead of the Church rallying around and supporting him through his sin, they condemned him, and not his actions, and even though he repented, that wasn’t good enough. This was just the beginning. He continued to find problems at other churches, and eventually he started to stop attending.

Now as one can see, it is indeed a sad story. He found redemption in Christ and lived as best he could to please Him, and we all fail at this, and when he failed, his church did not treat him very well at all. In their correspondence, Norman Geisler apologized to Loftus for the church’s behavior, and does not at all blame him for his reaction. So while the church messed up and surely didn’t follow Christ’s example. Indeed, it is a heart-wrenching story that one, as a Christian, hates to hear. But this was not the part that I was disappointed by. This was actually eye-opening, because all I had known before hand was that Loftus was trying to follow in the footsteps of Paul Copan and become an apologetic leader for the church, and then the next thing we knew, he was promoting atheism. So this story was moving and enlightening, as I realized it wasn’t that he just looked into it and doubted, but had other reasons to doubt as well. And not only this, but that he went down kicking and screaming, for 13 years nonetheless.

The part that was disappointing was the chapter on morality. He attacks Divine Command Theory(DVC) by proposing the Euthyphro dilemma, and says that this puts the proponent of this theory in a tight place. He quotes Craig as biting the bullet. Yet, as a former Christian, it seems he should know that many theologians consider this a false dichotomy. There is a third possibility, viz. that God commands are good because He is good, that it is part of his nature. And in the same way that we are human, and can’t act apart from our human nature’s, God is good and can’t act apart from that. His response is that this begs the question, since how is God good if there is no good other than God to compare his good too? But this can be applied to us being human as well. How do we know what human; is apart from ourselves? We can call it whatever we want, the name is arbitrary, but the proposition or state of affair that hold for one to be “human” seems to be just that, the state of affairs such that one is “human.” So to say that “God is good” is more of an identity statement rather than an attributive statement. He is the measure of good, just as we are the measure of human.

But then he goes on to basically dismiss the natural law theory of Aquinas in less than a paragraph, which he admits is the most popular view in Christianity today, that says that morality is innate to us, that God has “put it on our hearts” and this is our intuition of right and wrong. He simply states that this does not make Christian morality superior to any other morality, and that if this is true, anyone can grasp it. Well, this seems to be a straw man. I know of no proponent of multiple objective moralities, so either Christian morality is true or it isn’t. There is no better than or worse than, it either is or isn’t. I also have never heard anybody say that you must be a Christian to be moral. Usually the argument from morality says that we all observe objective right and wrong, not that only Christians do. So it seems he is surely attaching a straw man.

And this is what disappointed me, and I hope improves as I continue reading. As a former Christian, I hoped that he would only look at the real issue, rather than attacking fake versions of it to make his arguments seem strong, the way Dawkins and Haris and Dennet and Hitchens often do. But that is exactly what he resorts to when speaking of morality.

So… more to come on the next few chapters. I will try to do a post per topic that he discusses and some thoughts on it.

• Human intelligence
• Appearance of design
• Appearance(intuition) of an immaterial soul
• Outside world matching up with thoughts in head
• “Beautiful” theorems and laws
• Rapid spread of belief after Jesus resurrection
• Bible matching up archeologically and historically
• Evil (due to free will)
• Good sometimes coming from result of evil
• Religious experience
• Appearance of “miracles”

There are more, but this you get the idea. There are certain things we would expect to see if it were indeed true.

So what about this? Do we see this? It seems we do see these things, ALL of these things. Dawkins admits that things appear designed, physicists are saying it seems like somebody monkeyed with physics, Einstein found his formulas by looking for beautiful theorems, we find ourselves able to think of these things, and so on. So is it a coincidence that what we would expect to see we do indeed see? It doesn’t seem so to me. It seems like this is decent evidence for the Christian view. It matches up.

On the other hand, what about atheism? Do we see what we would expect? Does it appear that things happened by chance? Obviously not if they appear designed, since something can’t be appeared to be designed by chance (this is not saying that evolution by natural selection is wrong, just simply that one may not say, “Oh yeah, just looking at this it looks like it was entirely unplanned and random.”). Is there a natural explanation for everything? Not yet at least (origin of life, origin of universe…). Why would self-sacrificial religion be so prevalent (some religions may benefit survival, but ones like Christianity that lead to selflessness and possibly self-sacrifice would not be too beneficial)? Purely natural evolution would not explain such a thing. If atheism were true, we should expect religious stories to all fall into the “myth” category and not have hardly any evidence that any such religion is true or has any trace of fact in it. Such things like the Greek and Egyptian myths of gods impregnating humans to form demi-gods like Hercules (Heracles), or fighting each other to form night vs. day, and dying and rising with the changing of the seasons. There are no evidences that would support these being held as facts about the real world, but are rather stories that helped explain events that otherwise had no explanation. And this is what one would expect to be true of all religious stories if atheism were true. But…

There is great evidence for Christianity in the Bible. There are cities and civilizations that were dated correctly by the Old Testament. The same for the New Testament, not to mention the life of Jesus. We have more biographies written within 50 years of his death than almost every ancient figure including Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. He is mentioned also by Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Seutonius, and Tacitus, not to mention the Talmud. The events in the New Testament are historically accurate on nearly everything spoken of, and even some of the so-called “errors” may be reconcilable. But is this what one would expect if atheism were true? That one religion would have any evidence, yet alone this much supporting it, on top of what is mentioned earlier about finding what one would expect to find if this religion (Christianity) were true? The answer is no, this is not what one would expect to find given atheism.

1 in 3 people are Christians, and 62% believe hold to a form of theism, while only 2% claim to believe in no gods, and 8% are atheist/agnostic/humanists. These don’t seem to be the numbers one would expect to see if there were no gods, and yet the numbers are what the Christian theist would expect. Should we really have to be so counter-intuitive, explain away so many facts, in order for atheism to be rational? One would think that if atheism were true, that religion would be counter-intuitive, or at least be discarded by natural selection once it was no longer useful. But religion, Judeo-Christian belief in particular, has weathered every storm, assault, and come out with 1 in 3 people in the world believing it. Not what atheism would seem to promote.

Now by no means is this definitive of anything, but simply is a point that should spark some thought. This is at a glance, since this is by no means delving too deep into this idea, the concept of expect to see vs. actually see supports the Christian theists view, and not the atheistic view. Think about it.

The first reason will be more controversial I believe, and that is this. Beliefs are not entirely subject to genes, but other factors as well. If free will is true, then this is even more true. Even if not, one could argue that the setting we find ourselves in shapes our beliefs, even if genes make one more predisposed to believe something, it does not follow necessarily that they will believe that, since both/either free will and/or the environment can determine this. Given that natural selection, defined as “A process in which some individuals have genetically-based traits that improve survival or reproduction and and thus have more offspring surviving to reproductive age than other individuals, (Berkeley)” can only operate on genetically-based traits, and beliefs are not genetically-based, it therefore cannot effect them. This is not denying evolution, just evolution of the mind as we know it, that can entertain beliefs.

The second reason goes more along the lines of the EAAN, except not as radical. Let’s grant that evolution can effect beliefs. And let’s say that Plantinga is wrong that evolution may not select true beliefs. I actually am torn on this issue myself, since I find it plausible that it could select false beliefs that “promote” survival, but I can also see that somewhere along the lines, a false belief would be less beneficial than a true one. So let’s say that at least some beliefs can even be rationally thought to be guided by natural selection since they are true. But what about beliefs and concepts that don’t have any survival aspect whatsoever? People lived for thousands of years without calculus and physics, so were they promoted by natural selection? I can go two ways here. The first undercuts the idea that it could from the beginning. Natural selection cannot effect learned behavior of any sort, simply by definition. But even if we grant this, how does knowledge of the law of gravity increase my chance of survival? I don’t have to know anything about the law of gravity and it’s equation and how it works in order to know that if I step off a cliff I will fall. What about math? Does knowing 2+2=4 promote my survival? Do I live better by knowing that earth is the third planet from our sun? Do I have a better chance of living longer and producing more offspring if I know that a bachelor by definition is not married? I see no reason to think so. Based on this, natural selection cannot effect such beliefs since they have no survival value.

So what does this mean? Can we know or at least infer anything from this? I think that we can see that something else is needed to explain why we can apparently accurately detail laws of math and physics and concepts of biology, everything that we consider “intelligence,” if it doesn’t increase our chance to survive. What is this explanation? Even more, why is it that the ideas in our heads match up perfectly with actual world? Why are the laws of the world mathematically simple yet perfectly explanatory as well? Many have called this beauty, and finding beauty for these formulas seems to be an efficient way to find new laws. So what is the explanation for this? Yes, it could be chance. But what are the chances? I feel that this is simply not satisfying as an explanation at all. My proposal is that it is an extremely smart Being that did it all on purpose, for ease and beauty, and a small sign that allows us to find a small aspect of Him.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 NASB

So my question is… When are we justified in saying that “God did it” or “We may figure out in the future?” Because I do believe that there are situations when this IS merited.

When other ideas fall into the same category. What I mean by this is simple. I will use the example of DNA, since it is information that is read, translated, and rewritten in the cell. We know that books are read, translated, and rewritten, and we know that humans “design” or wrote the books and programs to copy, translate, and paste the book as well. We are intelligent creatures. It then seems merited to infer that an intelligent something rather or another “designed” or wrote DNA, since it bears a great resemblance and is actually more in-depth than a book. This also applies to the future theory, though both are pretty subjective, since it is really an inference to the best explanation, but what is best to me may be different than your view of best.

Many people don’t like this concept. They say it is worthless and is never necessary. The inly problem is, this is how we operate in our everyday lives. We don’t usually have a deductive logical argument for the best course of action to take, or how someone will respond to an action, but rather we infer based on previous knowledge and assumptions. So are we stupid to do this? It appears not, as we are able to function quite well in this manner. And if it is highly successful in our day to day lives, why not in this situation as well, when there doesn’t appear to be a very strong deductive argument ether way.

(More to come on inference to best explanation)

Check out the video.
Parts

This should be all the related parts, the rest can be found in related videos on youtube.

Whole (sometimes won’t load all the way through)
http://www.veritas.org/Media.aspx#/v/315

Craig shows how Smith’s view of how the universe began, if true, would actually prevent motion as a cost. Plantinga then throws in the idea that the universe is not in fact entirely explained. Gale actually disagrees with Smith, causing a short comical period.

I ended up finding the book pretty enjoyable, though most books tend to be such for me. There were moments of frustration, but I stuck through it. Ehrman raises some good points throughout the book, but nothing that should shake one’s faith. One can believe in God and Christ even if the Bible is not inspired or inerrant in any way, since then the books would be treated as historical biographies anyway (which is really one way they should be treated anyway), and that the information could still be largely trusted. His points merely force one to think about what inerrancy is. In a previous post, I discussed this, but will do so a little bit once again.

Ehrman came from the belief that there was not a single error in the Bible, not even a misspelling or misuse of a genitive or dative or perfect or aorist word. This was shattered given his findings, and it was really the first step towards his “conversion.” The issue here is that his doctrine seems to have been flawed. There is a lot of literature on the topic of inerrancy, but if you are interested in possible views, I recommend listening to Parts 5-7 of William Lane Craig’s Defenders Podcast. In short, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is at least that the Bible is inerrant on what it teaches and affirms. The historical facts are “allowed” to be wrong on this view, though many can be reconciled in plausible ways. For example, Ehrman spends some time on the story of Jesus cleansing the temple at the end of his ministry or at the beginning. But what he fails to mention, and being a historical scholar would know, is that the ancient historical biography was not usually listed in chronological order in the way we do so now, nor were quotes direct quotes, but rather, the author was given some leeway to place events in order of importance, and quotes would be used to summarize what was said. Chances are, Jesus sermons consisted of much more than what we find in the Gospels, but that the gist of the sermon could be summarized and still be considered what had been said.

So while Ehrman does point out some difficulties that are indeed hard to reconcile, one need not throw out entirely the doctrine of inerrancy, and even if one finds necessary grounds to do so, it by no means diminishes that historicity of the books as historical works rather than religious works.

Ehrman discusses some of the contradictions that can be find in the Bible, which are mostly minor and do not cause any change in doctrine no matter how you look at them, and says this is reason to believe that the Gospels are all wrong and contrived for evangelical purposes only, and not for writing an accurate history. But for some reason, most scholars agree that when stories are too similar to each other with no variation, this is a tell-tale sign of them being forged because it shows that the authors were probably collaborating. just like if I were to ask 20 who saw a crime to describe the suspect was and they all said 6’4″, about 250 lbs, white male with a blue shirt that had an outline of a woman on it and he was wearing white Nike’s and some straight leg Hollister jeans, I would be pretty naïve to think that it was merely a coincidence that they all said the exact same thing. So some variation is necessary to be considered legitimate…

But wait a sec, isn’t that what Ehrman is complaining about? Some slight variations? At one point he even discusses how they used different wording of what Jesus said. Duh? Can we really expect them to say verbatim what He said based on their memory or even a witness’ memory? And if they used the exact wording, surely he would jump on that and say that they were working together and that they are therefore unreliable. Please people, get your heads on straight and quit being so obstinate. You can’t have it both ways.

Now that’s what I call having your cake and eating it too, which would be nice if you could, but you can’t, and we (atheist and theist alike) need to point this out when anybody tries to do so.

Check back for more.

On the other hand, there is emergentism. The idea that the sum is greater than its parts or at least that some property/properties of the sum are not identical to that of any of its parts. So lets take the brain. We have an entirely physical entity made of matter. And then the soul/mind/conscious (which I will use interchangeably), which is non-physical, if I may, or immaterial and seemingly not made of anything (I will not resort to substance dualism). This mind seems to have intentionality, or the ability to “be” or think “about” things that matter seemingly cannot. We can see that these differences seem to emerge from nowhere and simply are.

I don’t really know if I support this idea entirely, as then one could be led to a mind-brain type identity theory that minds are not really anything more than brain processes, but that from the processes the mind emerges. For I want to espouse the idea of an immortal mind that is indeed separate from the body but is able to interact with it to a degree.

I would say that inerrancy does indeed mean that the Bible is free from errors. But yet I just denied this, right? The Bible IS free from errors, but doctrinal errors are the ones I speak of. Jesus did die and rise for our sins, we are to remain abstinent until marriage, we are to submit our lives to God, heaven and hell are BOTH real, many people will not be saved, etc. Does the misspelling of a word change its meaning? If I said “Chalk is wite.” Would you knwo what I meant? Did you notice I misspelled “know” too? So if it doesn’t change the idea of a sentence, it surely wouldn’t affect the doctrine associated with it. So even with scribal errors, we can still figure out the original wording in nearly every case, and for sure at least close enough to preserve the point and idea of the sentence of passage.

But some wish to say that since God is omnipotent, that He should have been able to preserve the original texts and words and prevented any errors at all. He could have prevented humans from making human mistakes, right? I would say yeah, he could have. But saying that He would have done so if He could seems very presumptuous. How do we know what He would want? For someone who often accuses the Christian of claiming to know the mind of God, what would they call this? So why involve humans at all? It seems that the God of the Bible wishes to interact with humans and allow us to be, well, human. In doing so, it may be necessary to allow them to make minor errors here and there in the texts, although it wouldn’t change the meaning or message of the texts. He seems to actually value us for what/who we are, you know, the way a relationship is supposed to be, rather than trying to change us into something we aren’t. Given this, it seems very plausible that He may really want to involve us to a degree that would cause misspellings or incorrect grammar here and there. But being God, he made sure the message stayed the same through and through, and we receive inerrant ideas in this manner.

So maybe the only ones who did write accurately about it ended up having their biographies of Jesus being selected into what is called the New Testament today. What we have to realize is that what we call the “Gospels” are really intended to be historical biographies. So we must treat them in that manner. They were histories before they were the four Gospels of the NT, not the other way around. Given that they are intended to be histories, what does this mean? It means that this man, Jesus, had four biographies written about Him within 60 years of His life (I would say death but obviously that would stir up a controversy). Now that’s what I call impressive! Julius Caesar had only one secular historian mention him till nearly 150 years after his life. The five main histories we have about Alexander the Great weren’t authored until 400 years after his life. And last time I checked, nobody wonders why Julius Caesar only had a few people that had a vested interest in him wrote about him.

Enough background info. The only times Jesus is mentioned outside of the Gospels is about stuff that concerned the parties writing. Like the fact that he “suffered the extreme penalty under the reign of Tiberius..”(Tacitus). So while the answer seems so simple, it really is. Jesus had more histories written within a shorter period of time than most figures of antiquity. And these sources happened to be canonized into the Bible and are now often considered unhistorical because of this.

Yes, Joseph Stalin. Possibly the most murderous man in human history, but that part wasn’t in his history book. It didn’t mention how Stalin killed possibly 60 MILLION people. We hear all about Hitler and the Holocaust, but do you realize that Hitler killed less than 1/3 of the people Stalin killed? Whoa, crazy right?

Did you know that I’ve never heard much about Pol Pot during my entire academic career? Did you know that he killed nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population?

What about Mao in China? Did you know that he is responsible for the deaths of nearly 40 million of his own people? I have never heard him mentioned in the classroom.

So we all think of Hitler as the most evil man… but these there’s two that top him and one that comes close. The reason this is important for us today? All of these men were Communists of some sort, and that seems to be the biggest, but not the only, cause for the mass murders. So maybe, just maybe Communism/socialism isn’t a great idea, right?

And to see where this country is going…

Why Obama’s lieutenants love Mao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiBDpL2dExY

So why is this stuff not taught? I already said why it is important, so what’s the deal? Some say that there’s too much history to cover it all… so hit the big things, and these seem to jump out as some of the biggest. Others say its not necessary. But a fool is one who doesn’t learn from others mistakes as well as his own, and we can prevent another Stalin or Mao if we see what happened the first go ’round.

I could get all conspiracy theory about how the government this and the government that, but I think its the simple fact that our politicians, of all parties, want us to be out of the loop so that they can tell us what we want and need. Why would they do this? Again, refraining from the conspiracy ideas, I would have to say they are selfish and power hungry and don’t care what they have to do to get what they want. “Knowledge is power,” right? So if we have no knowledge, we have no power.

Comments encouraged, especially about the video, which I honestly thought was faked until looking into it a little more. HA, Mao as a role model? That’s ludicrous.

1. If a perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.

2. Evil exists.

3. Therefore, a perfectly good god does not exist.

or more complex:

1. God is all-good and all-powerful.

2. If God is all-good, He would prefer a world without evil.

3. If God is all powerful, He could make any world He wanted.

4. Being able to make any world and preferring one without evil, God would make one without evil.

5. There is evil, therefore, God is not all-good and all-powerful.

or even more:

1. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.

2. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.

3. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.

4. An omnipotent being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence and has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.

5. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.

6. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.

7. Evil exists…

However, running through the arguments, there seems to be a big leap into the mind of God. Do we know if He would necessarily desire a world without evil? If so, how do you know that? Because in order for this to be a sound argument, then it has to be necessarily true. So there can’t even be a single possible situation in which it is not true.

But I can name one right now, and that would be that God may have a desire for us to become dependent on Him, as the Bible claims, and that the best way to do this would be to make a world with evil and suffering so that He could show them that they need Him and can’t fix things on their own.

Ir if you don’t like that, maybe He has another reason to allow evil, such as knowing that a certain amount of evil can lead to a higher quality of good than in a world without evil. Now this one is speculative, yes, but is it possible, yes. What if He desires quality over quantity?

But let’s say these examples don’t work. Let’s say He does desire a world without evil. What if He can’t do it based on His other attributes. He must allow free will, and if there is free will, what if he can’t prevent evil. But this seems to contradict premise 1 of the latter two arguments, right? Or does it? It depends on how one defines “omnipotence.” Is it the ability to do anything, or just the ability to do anything logically possible? Can such an entity make a round circle or a married bachelor? Well, common sense would say not. But let’s throw out common sense. Why does that seem impossible, even for an entity that can do  literally anything? Well, by definition, the two terms in each set of words are contradictory. A square is a shape with 4 congruent sides and 4 right angles, while a circle has no sides and no angles and all points equidistant from its center. And to be married means… to be married, and a bachelor is an unmarried man… So that seems to be a problem. But why can’t an omnipotent being produce such a thing? Some will say that this shows that an omnipotent being is itself contradictory, as the idea is paradoxical to say it can create anything but can’t create some things. So maybe we could use the word “omnipotence” to simply mean “maximally great,” as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it.  So yes, it is semantics, but this is where the whole thing seems to hinge if we accept that God wills there to be no evil. For an entity that really can do anything can make people freely do things, which is a contradiction of terms and is therefore not something a maximally great entity could bring about. So while it may be possible to have a world without evil, it may not be plausible, in the sense that it can be actualized.

Having said this, I think we have great grounds to throw out the logical problem of evil from our category of “evidence against God.” And if someone wishes to use it as such, they have the burden of proof to show that none of these things are even possible.

At one point I would have agreed that it was finite and that those there would have their souls destroyed. But after some recent thought, I have come to the belief that it is eternal, just as heaven is, and that people will continue in their sin there and continue there torment at only their faults. This is an idea many are uncomfortable with, as nobody likes the idea of Hell, and we often try to make it seem as nice as possible. But that does not seem to be the case. It really is a bad place, and should make us uncomfortable, that seems to be the point.

So the million dollar question is, does a finite sin demand an eternal consequence?

There are many answers, and I am tempted to say that when it is against an infinite God, then it does. But that seems to easy to say. I think it would be wiser to think of it in more practical terms. Would someone who had rejected God their whole lives really want to bask in His glory and Worship Him for eternity? Or would they rather keep to their ways and be apart from Him? I think that answer is fairly self explanatory. So let’s say that is the case. That would mean that they would continue in their sin after death on earth, and therefore increase their punishment ad infinitum, making the question of finite sin meriting infinite punishment trivial and unnecessary.

But what if there are some people who truly would change and want to worship God after seeing Him in His glory, what happens to them? Are they still damned, or are they allowed into heaven? This is where it gets really tricky. Because being the loving person that I am, I would like for them to spend eternity in a perfect place rather than an evil place, and I would hope God would wish the same. But, unfortunately, what anyone wishes has no effect on its truth value, and in this case, what I want doesn’t matter. It will be the way it will be no matter how I feel about the issue. And having read the Bible, I find nowhere where it says there will be a second chance for repentance after death. So I firmly, and reluctantly I must admit, affirm the notion that they are screwed if they didn’t respond to God’s revelation, whether special or general accordingly, they don’t get to come in.

I guess my favorite analogy would be a marriage, and I have used it before on friends. Let’s say you are dating someone (God in this case), and He proposes to you. If you ignore Him or deny Him, are you still engaged? Of course not. Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say you say yes, but on your wedding day you run off with another man. Are you married to the man you had previously had said yes to? Of course not. So to analyze my “parable,” we can see how the non-Christian is the “proposee” and God the proposer. And then we see the Christian turned non-Christian as the one who ran off, leaving God behind. In both cases, the non-Christian does not receive the reward of marriage, although that was the goal of some sort. Just as they do not get into heaven.

So where does that leave us? Hell being eternal due to our stubbornness, not God’s lack of love, for He wants everybody to come to know Him, no second chances after death, and “born again lost again” people getting the same sentence as never found people.