Kreitsauce's Musings

Recently I’ve been reading a book entitled Starlight, Time, and the New Physics, which was published in 2007 by Dr. John Hartnett, a professor from the University of West Australia. He has earned a Ph.D. in Physics, and he has published over 120 papers in scientific journals and holds two patents. Shockingly, Hartnett is also a young-earth creationist. The way Darwinists talk, Christians and physicists could never play nice, especially when it came to cosmology and the origin of the universe. What’s funny is that Hartnett has a scientific problem with the Big Bang Theory. Well, actually he has several.

1. Uniformity of Background Radiation- If the universe began 13.7 billion years ago courtesy of the Big Bang, why is the background radiation (the “temperature” of empty space) virtually the same in all directions? Unless Earth really is the center of the universe, or at least very close to it, the temperature of space in one direction of the universe shouldn’t be the same as in the opposite direction. The radiation from each end of the universe hasn’t had time to “blend” or balance each other out, since it should take twice as long (at least) as the universe has existed according to the Big Bang theory for radiation from one end of the universe to make it to the other.
2. Galactic Recession- No, I’m not talking about the results of Obama’s stimulus package. To the surprise of most scientists, a survey of the galaxies shows that they are all receding (moving away from) our own Milky Way. It shouldn’t be true that all galaxies are receding unless the Milky Way really is very near the center of the universe. Of course, this idea is unpalatable to Darwinists, since it would make our home planet seem too “special.”
3. Dark matter- Galaxies shouldn’t be able to hold themselves together without more mass, so scientists have assumed that unobservable “dark matter” must exist. Therefore, of all the matter and energy in the universe, scientists assume that roughly 21% of the matter in the universe is “dark.” This is compared to the 4% of visible matter that can be observed in the universe. Since dark matter is not visible, its existence has been strictly inferred. Some scientists include brown dwarf stars, which are far too rare to account for all the “missing” matter. Others include theoretical supermassive black holes and axions.
4. Dark energy- In 1998, scientists discovered that, contrary to popularly-held belief, the expansion of the universe was accelerating rather than decelerating. In order to explain why gravity wasn’t slowing the rate of expansion, scientists theorized that a phenomenon known as “dark energy” was acting on the universe to increase the rate of expansion. This dark energy is also inferred.
5. Quasars- Quasars are star-like phenomena thought to exist near the edges of the visible universe. The reason scientists believe that they come from near the edges of the visible universe is because of redshift. According to scientists, redshift occurs when light is “stretched” as it travels through an expanding universe, or due to galactic recession. Quasars are extremely red-shifted, which means that- according to the Darwinistic scientists- they came from very far away. That theory hit a brick wall a few years ago when scientists discovered a quasar in the heart of a galaxy only 300 million light years away. That’s way too close for comfort! How can the redshift be so high if the quasar is so close?

These problems- and others- could potentially have been resolved by Dr. Hartnett’s new creationist cosmology. His theory is based on Dr. Moshe Carmeli’s work on cosmological relativity. This theory is an expansion of Albert Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity. The difference between Einstein’s relativity and Carmeli’s relativity is that in Carmeli’s equations, cosmic time (t) replaces velocity (v) as the critical quantity, and observed time (13.7 billion years) replaces the speed of light (c) as a constant. You’ll have to go to the link above on cosmological relativity to see some of the equations, however, here’s the basic idea. Carmeli realized that it is possible that the galaxies aren’t merely moving away from us, but that space itself was moving away from us and the galaxies were essentially along for the ride. Carmeli’s equations treat the velocity of this expansion as another dimension of the cosmos. For him, the three dimensions of space, as well as time and velocity, are all dimensions that have to be taken into account when dealing with cosmological origins- 5D. In his equations, there is no need for dark energy or dark matter; this “stretching” of space would account for galactic mass and motion. His book includes a number of appendices explaining his equations in detail, but I’ve just decided to explain in practical terms what Hartnett and Carmeli are describing. This explanation will take a few posts to cover, but I think the possibility of a Creationist cosmology that resolves the problems with Big Bang cosmology and respects the Biblical Genesis narrative will be well worth the wait!

As I said in a previous post, I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Hugh Ross entitled Why the Universe is the Way it Is. Dr. Ross has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is the president of Reason to Believe ministries. He’s spoken at over 300 colleges and universities. While Ross’ book is by no means exhaustive, it does an excellent job of helping the reader realize how very, very, VERY unlikely it is for us to exist without a Creator. A disclaimer: Ross does seem to believe in some form of theistic evolution, at least to the extent that God allowed the universe to evolve and then stepped in to make humans several billion years later. I prefer to believe that God either created the entire universe with the appearance of age (since He did so with Adam and the rest of life on earth) or that- thanks to general relativity- God’s act of creation actually did some really cool things to the flow of time. I tend to go with the second option, but I’m not going to explain the whole theory in detail at this time. I also see some value in studying whether or not light itself could be slowing down.

Below you’ll see a few reasons why the earth is not only uniquely designed to support life, but also to allow mankind to view the heavens. God wanted us to discover His universe.

• For starters, there’s the atmosphere. It’s clear. If you read up on the atmospheres of other planets, you’ll notice that very few of them have clear atmospheres. If it weren’t clear but still breathable, we’d have no idea what space looked like.
• Then there’s the moon.Where else in the solar system can you witness a complete solar eclipse? Where else can the sun’s corona become viewable to scientists thanks to a perfectly round moon that regularly eclipses the sun? Earth is the only place this is possible because the distance between earth, moon, and sun, as well as the size and shape of all three bodies, is exactly right!
• In spite of how bright it appears, the moon actually only reflects 7% of the light the sun’s light. By comparison, the earth reflects 39%, Jupiter and Saturn’s moons reflect 60-90%, and Neptune reflects 73%. If the moon reflected more light than it did, we would have a hard time seeing much of the universe for most of the year!
• In a similar vein, the other planets are just so positioned that they don’t hinder our view of the night sky. Mars only comes close to earth once every 26 months and reflects only 15% of its light. Venus reflects 65% of its light, but because it lies between the earth and sun, we see very little of its light. If Mars and Venus were switched, Venus would be ten times brighter all night long, and we’d have a hard time seeing anything near its position in the sky. Switch Mars with Jupiter, and viewing distant galaxies would be impossible.
• The dust cloud from the galactic spiral arms that- as  I mentioned in the previous post- shield our solar system from lethal levels of radiation also block out much of the light from the rest of the galaxy. Other galaxies are made visible to us.
• Nebulae in our galaxy are relatively dark and very far from us. Things could have been very different. The Orion Nebula (located in Orion’s sword) is the closest “star nursery” to earth, and it blocks out a patch of sky the diameter of two moons. If, however, the Orion Nebula were switched, say, with the Tarantula Nebula, a full quarter of the night sky would be blocked out, and the nebula would be bright enough to cast shadows! We’d have a hard time seeing much in that case!
• Our galactic cluster is small and spread out, ensuring our ability to see many light years beyond our own galaxy.

As I hope you’re beginning to see, God not only cared about our ability to survive on our home planet, but He also wanted us to be able to witness creation. Of course, if you don’t believe that God made it all, all you’re left to say is: “What a wonder that we dwell in a galaxy in which we can see all its wonders!” But who believes in us getting this lucky?

Recently I’ve been reading Hugh Ross‘ book Why the Universe is the Way it Is, and it has certainly opened up my eyes to the incredible fine-tuning of our universe. Dr. Ross has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is the president of Reason to Believe ministries. He’s spoken at over 300 colleges and universities. While Ross’ book is by no means exhaustive, it does an excellent job of helping the reader realize how very, very, VERY unlikely it is for us to exist without a Creator. A disclaimer: Ross does seem to believe in some form of theistic evolution, at least to the extent that God allowed the universe to evolve and then stepped in to make humans several billion years later. I prefer to believe that God either created the entire universe with the appearance of age (since He did so with Adam and the rest of life on earth) or that- thanks to general relativity- God’s act of creation actually did some really cool things to the flow of time. I tend to go with the second option, but I’m not going to explain the whole theory in detail at this time. I also see some value in studying whether or not time or light itself could be slowing down.

Below you’ll see a list of facts to support the anthropic principle, the belief that the universe exists specifically to support complex life forms:

• If the protons and neutrons (parts of an atom) were packed less densely in our universe, nuclear fusion would take place much more slowly or perhaps not at all. Anything heavier than helium- carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sodium, potassium- wouldn’t form. If they were more densely packed, all of the hydrogen in the universe would fuse into elements at least as heavy as iron. The elements necessary for life wouldn’t exist.
• The center of the Milky Way Galaxy- or any galaxy for that matter- is the home a massive black hole and countless supernova remnants that spew forth lethal levels of radiation. Additionally, gravity from other stars would disturb the orbit of any planet significantly. Nothing could survive within 20,000 light years of the galactic center. On the other hand, if we were much further from the center of the galaxy, our planet wouldn’t have any of the heavy elements needed for life. I guess we’re “lucky” we live on a planet that orbits a star at just the right distance from the center of the galaxy.
• Even Earth’s location- 26,000 light years from the center- is not free from radiation from the rest of the galaxy. Only by virtue of the fact that our planet exists on the galactic plane between two spiral arms are we shielded from radiation. Furthermore, unlike most stars, our sun doesn’t “bounce” up and down on the galactic plane, so we won’t ever move above or below the spiral arms.
• In spite of what the picture above shows, the solar system is not within a spiral arm of the galaxy. We are actually between two spiral arms, which is fortunate for us since the stars and dense clouds of space emit more radiation and could unleash a severe dust storm, which would be sure to ruin our time on earth.
• Most of the time, anything lying between the spiral arms of the galaxy are eventually overtaken by another spiral arm. Our solar system lies very close to the co-rotation distance. At this distance, our solar system rotates around the center of the galaxy at almost exactly the same rate as the arms on either side. Fortunately for us, we aren’t exactly at the co-rotation distance. If we were, we would be buffeted by gravitational resonance and flung out of our sanctuary in the universe. Not a good experience!
• Of course, we’re also fortunate that the area of our galaxy that makes life possible also overlaps the co-rotation distance. I don’t think that’s a coincidence either!
• Most clusters of galaxies contain 10,000 or more closely-packed galaxies. Ours has only around forty. Little is a good thing, since galaxies tend to collide. We haven’t had a collision with another galaxy (something that can’t be said for our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy), and unlike most other galaxies, we don’t have any giant or supergiant galaxies for neighbors. If we did, we’d get blasted with deadly radiation fairly regularly.
• Our own galactic neighbors do help contribute to the stability of our galaxy. The Milky Way is fed gas and dust by a number of nearby dwarf galaxies. This gas and dust keeps star formation high, which helps reinforce the spiral arm structure. Without it, the spiral structure would collapse.
• If the earth had no moon (click link to hear Patrick Stewart [Jean-Luke Picard] narrate), our axis- and therefore our climate-  wouldn’t be stable. Our rotation would be faster, making weather patterns less even. You think global warming is bad! Tides wouldn’t exist, meaning that coastal toxins wouldn’t be removed and nutrients wouldn’t be brought in. Click here to check out a book on this subject.
• The four outer gas giants in our solar system- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune- act as a defensive team to shield the earth from collisions with comets and asteroids, since their gravitational pull deflects or absorbs impacts. On the other hand, the other inner planets nearest to earth work to break up gravitational resonances from the gas giants to keep earth from changing orbit.

Truly the heavens declare the glory of God.

Next: A Room with a View!

On at least two occasions that I am aware of, Rob Bell has made some very telling blunders when dealing with history.

In the first case, he often interprets what Jesus says in light of the rabbinical writings known as the Talmud and the Mishna. The problem with this is that neither set of writings were codified until around 200 years after Jesus’ birth. In other words, Jesus didn’t say anything in light of either set of writings, and the attitude of the rabbis had most likely changed significantly after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Moreover, neither document is known for being historically accurate concerning the 1st century or the Old Testament. Bell’s misunderstanding of history taints his understanding of Scripture, which is dangerous.

Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, Bell twists the facts- intentionally, in my opinion- in one of his videos. Here’s a Youtube clip of the video in question:

I take special issue with Bell’s explanation of Caesar Augustus’ claim at deity. Most people doubt he actually thought he was a god. Furthermore, I’ve never read that Augustus himself called his birthday celebration “Advent.” Well, I should say that I’ve never heard that said by anybody who wasn’t quoting Bell. It was Virgil that referred to the celebration as adventus, which simply means “coming.” Virgil believed that Augustus would usher in a golden era for the Roman empire. The celebration wasn’t so much about Caesar’s birth as it was about his reign. As for Christianity, Christians didn’t start formally celebrating Advent until the 4th Century. It seems to me that makes all of this a moot point.

Here’s what Ethelbert Stauffer, whom Bell is referencing, says in his book Christ and Caesar concerning two coins in honor of Caesar:

The symbolic meaning is clear: a new day is dawning for the world. The divine saviour-king, born in the historical hour ordained by the stars, has come to power on land and sea, and inaugurates the cosmic era of salvation. Salvation is to be found in none other save Augustus, and there is no other name given to me in which they can be saved.

Notice Stauffer says this writing as a 20th-century believer. He isn’t saying that people believed that and would say that in precisely those words. That’s his explanation of the inscriptions on two coins. To say that Christ and Caesar had this much in common is either a terrible error or twisting the facts to make a point. Bell spins a yarn at the cost of the truth, which is never a good thing.

Just turn me loose,
Let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western sky.
On my cayuse,
Let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.
I want to ride to the ridge
Where the west commences,
Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses,
Can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences,
Don’t fence me in.

My grandparents and parents both listened to old cowboy songs when I was a kid, and while I didn’t really like most of them, this one really stuck out to me. It’s about not wanting boundaries, a concept I think most of us can appreciate. Of course, there are some boundaries that are good. We live our lives safely because of them. Unfortunately, some postmodern believers are of the opinion that fences aren’t very good for faith. In other words, some of those Bible teachings aren’t as big of a deal as we make them out to be.

Rob Bell makes it obvious that he’s of this persuasion in Velvet Elvis, where he makes the following assertion:

“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?…If the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?”

While Bell also affirms that he does believe in the virgin birth, he makes it obvious that the virgin birth really isn’t essential to the Christian faith as far as he is concerned. Then there’s Tony Jones, who makes his position very clear. He’s the “theologian-in-residence” of Solomon’s Porch and an outspoken writer for the Emergent Church movement. In an interview with Relevant magazine, Tony said:

Statements of faith are about drawing borders, which means you have to load your weapons and place soldiers at those borders. you have to check people’s passports when they pass those borders. It becomes an obsession- guarding the borders….I don’t want to spend it [his life] guarding borders. I’d like to spend it inviting people into the kingdom. Statements of faith don’t do that.

In that same interview, Jones went on to say that he doesn’t see a reason why a lesbian pastor and a conservative couldn’t get along in the same church. I beg to differ, Tony.

Fences do more than create borders to defend. They protect from attack. God’s Truth and God’s people should be defended from attack. Christianity as a faith and Christians as individuals called to holy living don’t exist without fences. There’s another way of looking at this, though, and I wish Tony would take a step back to consider it. Perhaps it isn’t that Christians are choosing to fence themselves in as if they were in a zoo. Perhaps Christians are instead called to the wide world of orthodoxy (right faith) and orthopraxy (right practice.) The fences exist to separate the evil on small reserves outside of the wide world of the Christian faith. We are on the outside, and evil and error are fenced in.

God’s Truth as revealed in His Word must be revered and defended if necessary. Paul insisted that there was a difference between right belief and wrong belief, even if wrong belief is appealing, when he wrote Galatians 1:8: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” He instructed pastors to be well-trained in Scripture so that they could defend the faith in Titus 1:9: “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.”

Christianity isn’t simply a way of life. It is a way of life that is founded on faith in the Truths of God’s Word. Anything that is precious and unique and special is worth protecting and preserving. As J. Gresham Machen wrote nearly a century ago:

When men talk thus about propogating Christianity without defending it, the thing that we are propagating is pretty sure not to be Christianity at all. They are propagating anti-intellectualistic, nondoctrinal Modernism; and the reason why it requires no defense is simply that it is so completely in accord with the current of the age.

If we don’t take our Christianity seriously and consider it worthy of protecting, maybe our faith isn’t really Christianity at all. The faith once delivered to the saints needs to be protected so that it doesn’t spoil, but it’s not about fencing it in. It’s about fencing evil  and error in so that we are truly free.

When I was in college, the experimental theater class would occasionally put on small productions entitled “Tell Me a Story.” They didn’t have a huge budget, but they would dress in costumes generally and spend an evening performing short dramas, usually around a particular theme. After a night titled “Tell Me a SCARY Story”, I remember watching my fellow students dart to their dorms in groups thanks to the night’s fare and thinking to myself about how drama is such a powerful method of communication.

In fact, anything involving the use of narrative seems to exert a good deal of influence over us. Perhaps that’s why so much of the Bible is made up of narrative. Some Christians believe that the Bible should be understood strictly as narrative, especially since our postmodern society leans heavily in this direction. I don’t have anything personal against my brothers in Christ, but I definitely have a problem with limiting God’s Word to a narrative whose story must be consistently reinterpreted.

On this subject, Rob Bell said in a 2004 interview in Christianity Today that he and his wife were in the process of “discovering the Bible as a human product.” In his view, the Bible is more like a member of his church community with stories to share about a variety of topics. Bell’s desire is to avoid the mistake of placing the Bible on the dissection table and forgetting to look into and be changed by “the Perfect Law of Liberty.” Brian McLaren is even more transparent when he writes:

When we theological conservatives seek to understand the Bible, we generally analyze it. We break it down into chapters, paragraphs, verses, sentences, clauses, phrases, words, prefixes, roots, suffixes, jots, and tittles. Now we understand it, we tell ourselves. Now we have conquered to text, captured the meaning, removed all mystery, stuffed it and preserved it for posterity, like a taxidermist with a deer head.”

It’s a tragedy that people would analyze God’s Word without it applying to themselves, and it happens all too often. I suspect that the emergent church is more of a reaction against modernism than it is a return to right thinking. McLaren would tell us that intensive Bible studies are the result of the Enlightenment, I would ask him to peer further back into the past. In doing so, he would see the Bereans, apostles, church fathers, Reformers, Puritans, Methodists, and Baptists all involved in this very sort of Bible study. Christians have always believed that the Word of God is worth studying by whatever means necessary.

It’s true that the Bible includes a good deal of narrative. However, the Bible is also almost entirely made of propositional statements. In his book The Post-Evangelical, Tomlinson ironically states: “Post-evangelicals are less inclined to look for truth in propositional statements and old moral certitudes and more likely to seek it in symbols, ambiguities, and situational judgments.”

One has to wonder where the animosity toward propositional statements came from. After all, we make use of them every day. Every time we state a fact, we are making a proposition. We don’t have to be right about the fact we are stating, but a proposition is made nonetheless. “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” “I love artichoke hearts.” “My cat’s name is Olivia.” Whether it’s an account of David vs. Goliath or Jesus’ assertion that He is Way, Truth, and Life or Paul’s teaching on salvation being by grace instead of works, propositional statements are all over the Bible. To be honest, I have no idea why emergent church leaders even bother writing about this. After all, their own claims and assertions are themselves propositional statements!

It seems the postmodern believers are quite fond of the “good fences make good neighbors” mantra. You must either adhere to one extreme or the other, and never the twain shall  meet. It’s either propositions or narratives, being informed or being transformed, knowing what to believe or knowing the Lord of those beliefs. The Bible doesn’t put such burdens on us, fortunately. We can boldly proclaim the truths of Scripture when they are stated outright, and we can also enjoy and learn from the narrative of Scripture.

So go ahead. Tell me a story. Just make sure you get your facts right, and make sure there’s a point to it all.

The new Star Trek movie has revived the sci-fi lover in me. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything Trek that I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I guess I’m a nerd, but that’s not really a shock to anyone. Anyway, I remember growing up thinking how cool it would be to fly a spaceship through the universe and see all of those heavenly bodies up close. I also remember thinking how dangerous it would be to fly blind through a nebula. Picard and company always seemed to have a hard time with that. Nebulae were dark, mysterious lonely places where it was easy to get lost and you never knew what new danger the crew of the Enterprise would find.

My other passion involves a good mystery. I enjoy a whodunnit?, conspiracy theory, or whatever. Anything with an excellent plot is sure to make me happy. I think that’s key, though. There’s got to be a good plot, a train of thought or order of events I’m supposed to follow.

It seems to me that there is some tension in modern Christianity as to whether or not we’re supposed to treat our faith- propositional truths and experiential reality- more like a nebula than like a good mystery novel. Mysteries can be understood and followed. They serve a purpose. Nebulae, well, at least Gene Roddenberry’s conception of nebulae- seem to be unsolvable and ultimately unknowable. That just doesn’t seem to be the kind of faith Jesus wants us to have, yet such a perspective persists.

Some in Christianity have taken on a post-modern perspective on faith and emphasized the journey over the destination. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is something of a journey involved in Christianity, and it’s one to be enjoyed. My point is that the journey must have purpose. There must be progress made. There must be a sense of compulsion to move onward, and, while a humble expression of humility is refreshing, to simply say “I don’t know, but let’s talk about it” ad infinitum just doesn’t seem to be what Christianity is all about.

This perspective effects every area of the postmodern (some say “emergent”) Christianity.

1. Evangelism- According to Dave Tomlinson’s book The Post-Evangelical, “Evangelism should be seen as an opportunity to ‘fund’ people’s spiritual journeys, drawing on the highly relevant resources of ‘little pieces’ of truth contained in the Christian narrative.” (Which pieces of the Bible aren’t truth? Do people ever reach the destination of their spiritual journey?)
2. The Bible- Tomlinson also writes in the same book: “To say Scripture is the Word of God is to employ a metaphor. God cannot be thought of as literally speaking words, since they are entirely a human phenomenon that could never prove adequate as a medium for the speech of an infinite God.” (Funny. That’s not what Jesus means when He says “My words shall not pass away.”)
3. Salvation- In his book How (Not) to Speak of God, Peter Rollins says that “we need to be evangelized as much, if not more than those around us.” (So we never finish being evangelized? When can a person be defined as a Christian?”
4. Apologetics- Rob Bell says in his popular book Velvet Elvis: “You rarely defend the things you love. You enjoy them and tell others about them and invite others to enjoy them with you.” (This is just plain ridiculous. I don’t know that it’s within the scope of this post to talk about Bell’s statement, but I thought it was too crazy to pass up. Who doesn’t defend someone or something they truly love when it’s necessary?)

And that’s just a start!

In the postmodern (emergent) view, God ceases to be knowable, because you have emphasized the nebulousness of faith and even God and de-emphasized the point of the journey. God’s infinity swallows up His knowability. Salvation must be pieced together, and we may never fully arrive. This isn’t the way Paul spoke though. On Mars’ Hill he said: “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” It sounds like a mystery worth solving to me!

Mystery does not remove human responsibility or the importance of theology and knowing God. Didn’t Paul chide the Jews for having zeal without knowledge in Romans 10:2? Didn’t Jesus chide the disciples for being of little faith in Matthew 14:31? Doubt may be a part of the Christian life, but it isn’t the emphasis of the Christian life. Uncertainty is not proof of humility.

In the end, such postmodern believers insist that the Christian life is all about examining ourselves more and more deeply and not so much about examining the details of doctrine. I would say that postmodern believers simply need to grow up. Yes, there is value in finding our own weaknesses and being honest about failures and hurts. Maturity, however, requires us to stop being so fragile. Spiritual maturity demands growing in grace and in wisdom, laying aside weights and sin, and making Christ our everything. Love covers sin, and we would do well to fall so in love with Jesus that we don’t fall into the temptation of glorifying past failures.

What our world needs is authentic Christians (not transparent Christians) who are willing to – as a friend of mine says- enter the Mystery and abandon themselves to God. But the Mystery need not be nebulous.

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” -Jesus, Matthew 16:24-26

Are Jesus’ words simply a command? Oh, I have no doubt that He is telling us what we ought to do. It’s just that it seems to me He is also describing reality for us. He’s stating a fact. He tells us that self-denial is required if you and I want to experience the abundant life. It’s like me telling my students that they have to learn their vocabulary and grammar lessons well in order to become an effective communicator or to master the English language. I’m not simply commanding them to work. I’m explaining to them “how to get there from here.”

We can either live our lives for contemporary happiness (pleasurable feelings) or classic happiness, a life of righteousness, wisdom, peace, and goodness. Philosophers call this “the good life.” Jesus says: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” He calls this very same sense of classic happiness “the abundant life.” A pleasurable life is completely dependent on external factors- health, wealth, success, money, power, fame, beauty- while true happiness is the result of the internal working of God’s Word and God’s Spirit in a person’s life. It’s the result of a life of conformity to the way God meant life to be lived. This is why Jesus said that those who live out the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 will be “blessed.” That word we translate as “blessed” is the same word that is elsewhere translated “happy.”

How much better is the life of a disciple than the life of a person who is addicted to themselves? If pleasure is the holy grail, then you and I have no choice but to run forever, chasing the next adrenaline rush, the next calorie-filled binge, the next romance, the next purchase, the next sexual encounter….maybe even the next inspiring or energy-filled church service. Since none of these things work well as ends in themselves, we end up like T. S. Eliot’s Hollow Men.

Discipleship, in contrast to narcissism, brings true satisfaction with life, because life gains a whole new sense of meaning and purpose. We have real freedom to do what is right, to live a life of intimacy with God. This life of discipleship and self-denial does not mean living without desire or without anything that brings pleasure. God does not call us to the monastery but to live life in the world but not of the world.

Living the life of the disciple, rather than being a difficult one, is actually quite liberating. There’s no stress from being constantly consumed with the need to feel happy. There’s no need to be in control. There’s no need to keep up with the Jones’ when it comes to possessions, or to mask feelings of emptiness by living vicariously through celebrities. Where would our twisted form of capitalism be without Americans’ codependence on material things and spiritually-bankrupt celebrities? Gary Sinise notwithstanding, that is.

Jesus said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Is it possible that self-sacrifice, self-discipline, and yielding to Christ is actually easier than the path most people take? Perhaps God intended for us to live this way, and the initial difficulty in being a true disciple of Christ is merely the same difficulty with forming any good habit. Perhaps it is that a life is discipleship is something you and I can actually get “good” at, a skill that we can learn.

Maybe just as one gets better at soccer, singing, or math, we can get better at the art of discipleship, the art of self-denial.

Hosea 4:6 says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”

Notice that God doesn’t say that His people don’t have faith. He says that they have rejected the knowledge necessary to grow faith. Knowledge requires a combination of reason and experience to interpret reality, and Christians need to learn to be confident that the Bible explains reality very well. When we say “belief” these days, do we mean “I hope it’s true”? Do we think of “faith” as being inferior to “fact”? I hope this isn’t the case, because that’s not how Christians have behaved historically. In some cases, faith and fact are identical. This is what I mean when I say that there is a difference between faith and “blind” faith.

While I don’t agree with everything that Michael Green believes, his book Evangelism and the Early Church is quite interesting. It’s a short history of the first four centuries of Christianity and how early Christians evangelized the lost. One of the three factors that he states is one that is largely missing in today’s church: a persuasive theology. We have theology and we have persuasion of various sorts (evangelistic meetings and ministries, apologetics, etc.), but we don’t combine the two anymore. When is the last time you heard someone bother with theology in a salvation presentation?

Our emphasis today is very different. In every other area of knowledge, we exalt professors and professionals, but in Christianity we exalt the megachurch. These pastors- many of whom teach very little doctrine- are invited to interviews, write books, and produce “teaching” material, but they are simply not qualified because of their lack of doctrinal teaching and training to speak authoritatively on Christian matters. Popularity supersedes quality.

On the other hand, there are some who are adamantly against using reason and theology (apologetics) to make a case. How different we are from Justin Martyr who wrote in his First Apology this attempt to persuade Emperor Hadrian to convert:

Reason requires those who are truly pious and philosophers should honor and cherish the truth alone, scorning merely to follow the opinions of the ancients, if they are worthless. In these pages we do not come before you with flattery, or as if making a speech to win your favor, but asking you to give judgment according to strict and exact inquiry- not moved by prejudice or respect for superstitious men, or by irrational impulse.

That’s the kind of faith Christians need to have: Faith based on Reason. The Bible is a reasonable Book. Our worldview must be reasonable as well. Our interpretation of experience must be based on reason. It isn’t that I believe that man’s reason is the measure of all things. I simply believe that it’s time we realized that the knowledge of the Holy truly is understanding.

If that’s the case, what are the implications for us if we reject knowledge? Could it be that our nation and American Christianity are both on the path to destruction simply because we refuse to seek knowledge and a faith made firm by reason?

There are two basic questions in life that you and I have to answer:

1. What do I know?
2. What can I know?

When it comes to these two questions, the skeptic and the down-to-earth person with good, old-fashioned common sense are forever at odds. Skeptics believe that anyone who claims to know something to be true has to prove that he can’t be wrong. This is because- to the skeptic- there is no good solution to either question above. They believe that you and I can’t answer one question without knowing the other. If I try to explain how I know something, I also have to explain how I know that I can know it, and vice versa. Life must be very confusing to the skeptic, which is why most become methodists for all practical purposes. I don’t mean the Christian denomination of Methodists. I mean the philosophical sort of methodist. These methodists believe that you have to know what can be known before you can know that you know something. For example, methodists tend to believe that you can only know things if you can observe them with the five senses. (Naturalism, by the way, is a favored perspective for methodists.) Of course, limiting knowledge in this way assumes that you can know things using the five senses, and it requires you to have knowledge of the five senses first. That means they accidentally answered the first question first and have yet to tell us how they knew something without answering the second question. Now they’re confused and embarrassed!

Skeptics also have a strange belief that asking “How do you know?” repeatedly without offering a reason for being skeptical about something is the ultimate endgame for a debate. I’ve stopped answering simple “How do you know?” questions if there’s no argument that follows. They don’t have any substance to bring to the discussion at this point, since they can’t explain how they don’t know!

Skeptics can also try to force a person into becoming a methodist by asking that some “How do you know?” question. They try to get their opponent to answer that second question first. The problem here is that you can know some things without having to necessarily explain how you know it. We teach children many things without explaining how we know they are true. Skeptics don’t see life that way. They would rather avoid error than embrace truth. If there’s a chance you might be wrong, you might as well not believe it. To their mind, the skeptic must be refuted (proved wrong) before they will accept something as knowledge

I prefer using plain old common sense. For those who believe in common sense, there are some very specific things that are simply true whether I know how I know them or not. I know many things- that I ate sushi just before typing this, that I am using a laptop, that 2 + 3 = 5, that kindness is a good character quality, and so forth- without wondering how I knew them or if I really knew them. Are the five senses being used in these cases? Yes, but the five senses are only partially helpful in establish what sushi (especially the sort that isn’t labeled) and laptops are, whether or not numbers are concrete or abstract, or who is kind. My point is that in all of these cases I never answered the second question (mentioned above) first. I simply know them and experience them without “proving” that I can know them. In the end, common sense will help me in establishing “what I can know” built on the platform of “what I already know.”

This isn’t just a philosophical argument with no bearing on the world of matter and energy. What I’m saying has far-reaching implications and illustrations to even the world of science. Scientists must sometimes observe what IS happening without knowing how they know it happens or why it happens. Take, for instance, the discovery of superconductivity by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a Dutch physicist. While he was the one who discovered superconductivity in 1911 and awarded a Nobel Prize for it in 1913, it would be another 50 years before quantum physics would begin to explain why and how this occured. Even science does not completely avoid knowing something before proving something.

For the person who practices common sense, the possibility of being wrong is not the same thing as being wrong. Fear of being wrong isn’t a motivating force, and the possibility of being wrong isn’t a good enough reason to label something as “unknowable.” People with common sense are more focused on finding Truth than avoiding anything that can’t be known 100%. The person with common sense doesn’t have to refute a skeptic; he just needs to demonstrate that the skeptic hasn’t proved that his skepticism is true.

In short, I’d rather know what I know and build on from there (common sense) than assume that I don’t know anything (skepticism) and not be able to prove it.