The Daily Devo with Steve

This is the last full chapter of thought, and Brooks makes a clear point - Christianity is growing here in America, and around the world, and it is really interesting; nominal Christianity (traditional and rigid religious practicing Christians) is actually shrinking, but evangelical Christianity (faith based on wisdom, truth, passion, and philosophy) is growing.  Another way to say it would be, faith that is based on ‘the Bible says’ is shrinking, but faith based on research and thought is growing.  This is a good thing; the growth side at least.  The problem is that those with a faith based on ‘the Bible says’ is hollow and brittle, and these people are a victim of an institutionalized faith that hasn’t prepared her people well.

There are countless stories of people coming to faith in Jesus, and there are so many different paths people have taken to great there.  But what we seem to miss are the volumes of people that come to faith through examination.  That is, there are many people who actually come to faith through science, through philosophy, and through which the very lines of argument that many ‘the Bible says’ Christians leave.

The takeaway for me from today, and kind of pulling the contents of this book together as a whole, would be that faith based on research and science and investigation is strong and is it is achievable and even reasonable.  It just requires some effort on our part.

Chapter 9 Summary: http://www.stevecanderson.com/journal-entries/gods-not-dead-rice-brooks-chapter-9

Today’s reading is really more about the Bible itself.  It is looking at some of the textual criticisms that have come up over time, and some of the common critiques of the Bible that people use in justifying their antithetical position as it relates to its validity.  The thing is, this is an easier chapter in my opinion, as any kind of a real study of the Bible’s origins and assembly leads to one reasonable outcome - this collection of writings is a miracle in-and-of-itself.  There just aren’t great arguments that the Bible, as a whole, isn’t a very reasonable representation of historical and revelational events.  People can and certainly will always argue about the spiritual element of the Bible, the fact that there is a God and there are supernatural themes and events, but no one has been able to bring a credible argument against the work as a whole.  All of the issues that arise in such a critique are fleshed out with just a little textual criticism...in fact, most people who are skilled in textual criticism have accepted that the Bible as a whole is pretty well defended.  Rice presents great arguments in this chapter about seeming contradictions one finds in scripture, about the assembly of the Bible, about timelines and history and all of that - it is really good.  For me though, I have spent a lot of time resolving this particular issue in my personal studies.  If you haven’t, this is a great, great read, and a chapter well worth the time.

My big take away from today’s reading is more reflective...I am moved this morning; moved by the Bible itself, and that I am able to sit here and admire it, hold it in my hands, read it and gaze back into time by opening this thing up.  It truly is a miracle that is often overlooked.  I mean, when we understand all that had to happen for this thing to be right here in my hands, it is amazing.

Great reading this morning.

This chapter is really on the validity of Jesus’ story from the Bible - did Jesus exist, did He do all the things that the Bible says He did? Was He a man, myth, or Messiah?

Ironically, this is the most easily confirmed historical truth from the Bible - that Jesus was a man who lived on this earth starting around 2020 years ago, that he was highly influential on the people with whom he associated and who later became proclaimed disciples of his, he was eventually hung on a cross and died the death of a hardened criminal by the Roman authorities under Pontius Pilate, and he was seen a few days later by numerous people...numbering in the hundreds.  To all of that there is very little debate anymore.   And the irony is that THESE truths are rarely the center of discussion when it comes to debating the existence of God and the validity of the Christian faith, and they are ultimately the only points that REALLY matter.

Anyone who takes the time to really look into the life and death of Jesus with truth in mind can’t help but come to the conclusion that the story of Jesus is real.  It isn’t really up for debate at this point.  We can debate the identity of Jesus I supposed, we just can’t debate the authenticity of the factual elements from scripture...history corroborates the places, the people, and the timelines.  That leads to another thought - if history corroborates the places, the people, and the timelines, what does that mean of the people who wrote the Bible (the over 60 authors, 7 or 8 of them from the New Testament after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection); were they all crazy?  They are the ones who claim these events from history that we can’t deny, and they draw the conclusion from these events that Jesus’ is God’s Son, in a sense, God Himself...are they nuts?   That hundreds of people claimed to have seen the risen Jesus and go along with their claims, when there would have been a VERY easy out on the grounds of not seeing Jesus, is amazingly strong evidence of the resurrection.  What else explains the resurrection?  That’s a question atheists really have to contend with and answer...and arguing that Jesus never died doesn’t fly; history refutes that too strongly and non-Christian scientists concede that point as well.  But what then?

Today’s reading starts off by talking about the meaning of life...and this is really one of those readings that can make your head hurt if you really think about it hard enough!  Then Brooks turns to evolution, which is where I am going to start, and then I will spend the majority of the time commenting on the meaning of life stuff...Brooks comes back there in his writing as well.

Here is the bottom line on the evolution thing - there are a lot of similarities between various species of animals, including man and ape, but there are still some very different elements and, from what Brooks is saying, and credible scientists will admit that there is a genetic leap to get from one species to the other. It LOOKS like evolution might explain the difference, but there are a few pieces of the puzzle that just haven’t been found and can’t be explained.  He explores several of them, and this is one of those chapters that I would categorize as GREAT to read and to have ready - you won’t remember everything, but you will remember that you were thoroughly convinced that evolutionary science is a long way from being explanatory about human life.  And I have to say, sometimes that is the key with this apologetics stuff...finding a place where you can find truth, and being able to simply return to it later when you have questions.  It is like building a library for your faith.  Great stuff.

Now, turning to the topic of “meaning”...he makes a good point, is there any coincidence that the great selling book of all time, apart from the Bible itself, is Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”.  Just think about this for a second...why is that?  There is a cynical answer - that there are enough Christians in the world who have, as a population, purchased the book in large enough numbers to make that happen, and that is surely part of the explanation.  But I know several people who are not practicing Christians, even atheists, who have read the book...it is an easily-approachable book, and it has a lot of great principles that are fairly easy to take and run with in life, and it makes for a great surface level exploration of the Christian faith.  I am positive this book has impacted the world as a first step for people to test the waters on the Christian faith.  But again, the question, “Why?”.  It is clear, people live life in a quest for meaning.  And, there is no way around the fact that my two COVID-kittens aren’t doing the same thing, neither are yours, and neither are any other animals.  Love, beauty, emotion, religion, meaning, purpose - these are either all human fabrications or we have had these placed into us by a creator.

And, let’s just grant, for the sake of argument, that Darwin was right and that all animals were evolved from a single organism, a single cell.  There is still a problem, in fact, a problem that Darwin himself cited and didn’t even claim an answer to - “Where did that first cell come from?”

Imagine getting a text from someone random...you’ve gotten one of those before.  It looks like this: “aiojernasroineaoneandepomamd”.  But imagine the text you got looked like this, “Hey, guess what, I won the lottery.”  What’s the probability that you would get THAT text randomly?  And I don’t mean someone sent it to you by accident, meaning to send it to someone else...I mean, you got that text because someone was sitting on their phone and it sent that...how random would THAT be?  Well, that’s something like a billion times more likely than the probability our DNA formed just like it in order to make life happen.  Think about that for a second.  Said another way, from the book Evolution from Space by Hoyle and Wickramasingle, the probability that life could originate out of nowhere with all of the right combinations of chemistry and physics would be similar to a tornado blowing through a scrapyard and piecing together a Boeing 747, gassed up and ready to fly.  That’s funny to think about!  Mathematically, the probability is something like 1 to 10^40,000,000,000th.  I don’t even understand that number.

Irreducible complexity - destroys the argument that evolution slowly and methodically pieced together life by proving that there are many organisms that can’t exist without multiple irreducible minimums in terms of complexity.  Think about this...you go to Ikea and get a new piece of furniture, which you will know has to be brought home and assembled by you...a joy of Ikea shopping.  What’s the likelihood that that you could ditch the directions and randomly piece things together and take them apart and try a new order for this process each time, and then end up at the final product?  And you have to remember this...you can’t do this with a sense of knowing that this is a book shelf, of a chair, because this is random.  You would have to do this with absolutely no sense of the end game.  It might be easier to think of it this way...imagine you were given all of the parts of that Boing 757 and you were told to put it together, no instructions, no computer or Youtube for help...go.  That just isn’t going to happen.  And, in your assembly, when you recognize that your 100th decision used a piece that you later figured out needed to be used in your 2,000,000th decision, you’d have to take it all apart and start over again.  I mean, come on...that’s the same argument that naturalism is making.

And recognize that there is a difference between evolution within species and evolution from nothing...I mean, people seem to be getting taller, and animals around the world are adapting to changes in the climate and the world...that’s totally fair, but that is different than saying no life evolved into some life and we are just the 100 trillionth iteration of that process.

Both the evidence from the telescope and evidence from the microscope point to the evidence of God.

The bottom line for today is this - there is no credible evidence that points to the fact that there is a common ancestor vs. a common designer; it is perfectly scientific and reasonable to be a believer in God and in the story of Jesus.  You can rest in that conclusion firmly.  And, if you want to feel more secure in your faith, you can do so be leaning into science; you don’t have to run away.

Quick pause in our reading of God’s Not Dead, just for today, diving back in tomorrow morning.  Today I wanted to get into God’s Word directly, so I am picking up where we left off in Proverbs.

We see 3 distinct themes and sections in these few verses - a command to honor your mother and father, a reminder that the adulteress lies in wait and ready to pull us into a trap, and a sobering reminder of the trap of alcohol (pun intended).  It feels a little like a punch in the face this morning!

I loved this verse, 23 says, “Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” . What a great reminder as to the value of wisdom.  Likewise, it places a value on honoring wisdom as well...leaning into it, applying it.  Very strong.

And then the reminder that adultery is a trap...it is rampant in our society, or at least it seems so.  The best part of these 3 verses is the 1st verse, “My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.”  It sounds to me like the father is saying that the son shouldn’t follow our societal advice, which is to ‘follow your heart’, which has to be about the worst advice ever...or, at least, the worst advice if you want good relationships.  Multiple places in the Bible tell us that following our heart is a bad idea, and that our hearts lie to us.  Our hearts can be great guides in aggregate, over time, and when measured against God’s truths.  But our hearts as a compass...bad idea.  I love that the writer starts with ‘give me your heart’, aka, let me be your guide, and then moves to wisdom about the issue, basically pressing this issue as a wisdom issue and something that isn’t a ‘feelings’ issue.  Strong stuff again.

And lastly, the writer addresses the ‘drunkard’.  I have written in here, a few weeks ago, that had fallen into a pattern of overconsumption and that I was committing to being free of it for a period of time.  I did that, and I realized that God must have been leaning in on me, because I got the message.  Moderation really is an important thing.  Most things require moderation to remain good things...it is just one of those things about life that seems to re-prove itself time and time again.  For some people, this is a ‘flee’ issue, for others, moderation.  The most important thing is to know which of those two you are, and then being comfortable with that reality.

Some great truths today...strong stuff!

Blog Entry

Here is the reality confronted in this chapter - that evil exists.  We all know it does, so that’s not a secret or a revelation.  The struggle is to understand the tension between evil in this world and an all-knowing, all-loving, life-creating God.  But there are a couple of bedrock ideas from this chapter that I think really stood out to me, and that I want to reiterate here in my journaling.

First is the reality that without God, and I mean a god of some kind here, then there is no good or evil...morality isn’t a social construct, it is a theological one.  Or think of it this way, there is no ultimate good or evil unless it is termed that from a being outside of this life...because, otherwise, your good is yours, your evil is yours, and mine is mine.  At best, if good and evil aren’t arranged from a being outside of this life, then good or evil is simply a product of ‘might makes right’.  And think about this...if we all do what we want, when we want, with whom we want, we all ultimately destroy this world.  Order and peace can’t exist without submission to a truth that we should serve the greater good...that we should love others.  Without God, evil and good are opinions.  Just look at nature...nature operates purely in this fashion, and it is held in balance by this very reality.  You would have to admit, in your heart of hearts, that you have something in there that is different, that you have a vision for your future, a sense of ought and ought not, and a yearning to and longing for ‘more’ from life...the existence of that very sense (which is often what we term ‘the spirit’) is a fantastic argument for God, and by extension for moral order under God’s rule of what is good and evil.

Second, Brooks makes this argument that I think is really awesome, that what God did in the beginning was to create love.  And God created love by giving us a choice...a choice to love or not to love.  Because, think about this, you can’t be forced to love someone, or to be loving...you can DO loving things, but to love experientially, we have to have freedom to choose NOT to love.  What is ‘not loving’?  Well, not loving could simply be termed - evil.  Evil is the antithesis of love.  So one way to think about all of this is that God didn’t create evil so much as he named it.  But the bottom line is that we all are benefited by love and we desire love...it is a human thing to want to experience love.  And, I am not talking about just romantic love here, but love in general.  Joy, happiness, satisfaction, and all of those good things can all generally be rolled up under the term ‘love’.  Love is the thing that makes all positive emotions possible.  And love can’t exist without the opposite, just as light can’t exist without darkness.  So it is short-sighted and one-sided to say that God created evil...God created choice, which is the characteristic unique to human kind, and in doing so He created the opportunity for us to choose love or evil.  The evil in the world around us is our own doing.  And God is working a plan to redeem the world from this evil.  That’s what history and Jesus and the Bible all teach us.

And that brings us back around to the idea that you and I can complain that God isn’t redeeming the world quickly enough or in the right way, but that’s like telling Leonardo de Vinci that he improperly painted the Mona Lisa.  It just stands to reason that the God that created the universe would probably understand how best to redeem it...and your opinion, my opinion, about that topic likely isn’t highly useful.

What a great chapter this morning...my head hurts!

In chapter 2, Brooks really starts taking aim at the notion that science and faith are direct competitors in terms of explaining how life came to be.  He says, and I would certainly agree with this, that atheists tend to really try to lay claim to ‘reason’ - meaning, there is a notion that is embedded in culture that ‘intelligent’ people tend to flock towards science, and that it is ‘cute’ to cling to faith, but that there really isn’t any explanatory power in faith in terms of how the world and the universe came into being.

Side note, there is a great documentary called “Is Genesis History” that I would recommend watching, it is really good, and it punches holes in this idea some as well.

The reality is that science hasn’t (and I believe can’t) answered all of the questions we have about creation and the universe.  In fact, as time has gone on, big holes have been punched in the widely accepted evolution narrative.  I would go so far as to say that it is deteriorating in many ways, whereas history is daily being made and discovered in the world of Christian faith.

But, besides that...one thing that I think is SO important, and that Brooks may get to in the coming chapters, is that we ground our faith on the right thing.  We can chase these arguments down into various rabbit holes, and that’s fun and all...but we have to keep the main thing the main thing.  What is THE main thing?  We profess to believe that a man named Jesus came to this earth about 2000 years ago, that He lived a blameless life, that He was falsely executed as a  criminal, that He was placed into a tomb and 3 days later was seen walking around in living form by hundreds of people.  We believe that this proved that He was who He said He was...the Son of God.  That’s what we believe.  So, as fun as it is to play with this creation stuff, we have to remember that THAT is the main thing.  And science has had an incredibly difficult time refuting that...it has had no luck.  The best arguments science has produced against THAT narrative is like the turtle analogy from yesterday, basically, “Well, we know the turtle was alive (ie, we know Jesus came and went), and we can’t deny that he is now sitting atop the fence post (ie, and we have a hard time refuting that people saw him after His death), but we are going to assume that something other than the obvious happened (ie, we are going to try to come up with ways to refute whether or not Jesus was ever actually dead, or that someone was pretending to be Him and tricked everyone, or everyone who saw Jesus was hallucinating, etc.)...we can’t deny the turtle was on the fence post and we can’t deny that Jesus came back, but we CAN come up with various explanations that don’t involved someone putting the turtle on the fence post or Jesus actually being the Son of God.  And heck, if you give people long enough (like 2000 years), they will come up with some creative solutions to this puzzle.

Bottom line - our faith isn’t blind faith...there are elements that can’t be seen, sure, but there are plenty of rational, historical, and scientific elements as well.  And, besides that, is it really reasonable to assume that all reasonable people are atheists and that all religious people are fools?  That’s a very egotistical position for an atheist to take.

Just because we don’t fully understand how something works doesn’t mean there isn’t a creator.

Science isn’t opposed to God.