Resident Evil

I’m getting ready to do a talk on Theodicy soon: that most difficult of questions perhaps – if God is good and all powerful, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world? I’ll put some links to it on the blog as and when – but evil’s not just a philosophical problem, it’s something we all have to deal with.

Just before the September 11 attack on America, a Newsweek cover story focused on the human capacity for evil. Author Sharon Begley wrote:

“In their search for the nature and roots of evil, scholars from fields as    diverse as sociology, psychology, philosophy and theology are reaching a…chilling conclusion. Most people do have the capacity for horrific evil.”

Psychologist Robert I. Simon, director of the program of   Psychiatry and Law at Georgetown University School of Medicine, says,”The capacity for evil is a human universal.”

Dr. Billy Graham once famously declared, “I know my own heart and its deceitful power. I know that outside of the restraining grace of God, there is no evil act I could not commit within thirty minutes of leaving the platform.”

We all condemn the evils of world terrorism, global greed, environmental destruction- rightly so. But what about the evil resident in our own hearts?

The film Nuremberg, is about the infamous trials of former Nazi leaders by the International Military Tribunal. In one powerful scene, Nazi defendant Hans Frank attempts to explain his actions to an Army psychologist.

“I tried to resign as Governor General of Poland. I did not approve of the persecution of the Jews. Anyone reading my diaries, they will know what was in my heart. They will understand that such things I wrote about Jews, the orders I signed, they were not sincere.”

“I believe you, Frank,” says the Doctor, “And yet, you did do those things. How do you explain it? I don’t mean legally; I’m not a lawyer or a judge. I mean how do you explain it to yourself?”

“I don’t know,” replies Frank. “It’s as though I am two people: the Hans Frank you see here, and Hans Frank the Nazi leader. I wonder how the other Frank could do such things. This Frank looks at that Frank and says, ‘You’re a terrible man.'”

“And what does that Frank say back?”

Frank replies, “He says, ‘I just wanted to keep my job.'”

Whenever I hear political leaders pontificating on ‘evil dictators’ who must be ‘rooted out by any and all means…” I recall that Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

It’s a strong word isn’t it? Evil. Some will read this post and say, “Speak for yourself, I’m a good person.”

Now if I were the standard of goodness – you’re probably entitled to say that, but what if the standard is the holiness of God? A God who is perfectly holy, whose holiness we cannot exaggerate? A God who commands our love and obedience together with self-sacrificial love for our neighbour? A God who has put himself on record as declaring that if you or I break just one commandment once, it’s as though we’ve broken them all!

For a prank, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote to several of his friends the note, “All is discovered! Flee while you can!” All but one left the country.

Despite all this, we can know a God who passionately loves us, completely forgives and sacrificially restores us. Do you know him? A God who went to a cross himself to pay the price for every wrong or shameful thing we’ve ever done, thought or said. Do you know him?

A God who knows us at our worst – yet loves us best! Better than any human being ever loved us. The only God who can give us strength to resist temptation, deception, fear and guilt. Do you know him?

Someone said, “Jesus didn’t come to rub sin in, he came to rub it out!”

He doesn’t wait to condemn you. He wants to love you. Just like so many ordinary people in our community who are discovering these truths, I invite you. Come and know him

FAITH in God is reasonable. Faith in atheism is not. (John Lennox)

Notes from lecture at RZIM by John Lennox

Reasonable Faith.

When he started at Cambridge – someone said to him, ‘Oh you’re Irish, you all believe in God, and fight about him.’

He started to engage more with non believers. Has done so in unusual places. Eg communist atheism.  Russia. More recently debating eg. Hitchens and Dawkins. Comes from the conviction that Christian faith is not only helpful, but TRUE. And if we do not stand up, secularism or atheism will appear to win.

1 Peter 3.13 Can anyone really harm you for being eager to do good deeds? Even if you have to suffer for doing good things, God will bless you. So stop being afraid and don’t worry about what people might do. Honor Christ and let him be the Lord of your life. Always be ready to give an answer when someone asks you about your hope. Give a kind and respectful answer and keep your conscience clear. This way you will make people ashamed for saying bad things about your good conduct as a follower of Christ.  You are better off to obey God and suffer for doing right than to suffer for doing wrong. Christ died once for our sins. An innocent person died for those who are guilty. Christ did this to bring you to God, when his body was put to death and his spirit was made alive.

This passage’s context = FEAR! We all contend with it. Subtle, peer pressure. Looking the odd one out. Not knowing your stuff. PC.

We are told to ALWAYS be ready to give a DEFENSE.

A REASON – a logos…

In the context of fear – nevertheless, get on and do it.

Apologetics is not a subcategory of philosophy. It is just what Christians have always been supposed to be doing. To clear up misrepresentation, misunderstanding. Not just to say WHAT, but WHY. To engage with our society and give REASONS.

Number 1 reason in survey why people don’t come to church = ‘They are not answering the questions we’re asking.’

The precondition for giving a defense is not how many books you’ve read. It’s ‘in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord.’ That requires WORK.  Sanctify him,’ set him apart.’ Then you get the courage to break through the fear. When we start doing this, we’ll get into trouble. In Acts, the gospel is on trial time and again. The apostles were put on trial. Laws these days from Europe etc are looking to outlaw anything that looks like an exclusive claim, we’ll have to contend that Jesus is THE way.

Paul’s answer when under pressure? He described how he encountered the risen Christ. He was NOT a believer, but then he met Christ. So he stands before Agrippa (who accuses him of being under the God delusion – this is not a new challenge!) and gives his testimony and then says, ‘I’m not insane, what I am saying is TRUE and REASONABLE.’ Our world resembles Paul’s world more than any other age has, politically, philosophically and socially.

FAITH in God is reasonable. Faith in atheism is not. Atheists don’t regard what they have as faith. They think faith is an evil. Dawkins damns it, ‘Faith not based in evidence, is the principle vice of any religion.’ The clamour is for the eradication of religion because it doesn’t want to look at the evidence.

The claim of new atheists goes like this:

Faith = belief nor based on evidence

Science = belief based on evidence.

Many accept that without question. But Faith can be evidence based.

We have to look at terms. Dawkins definition of faith is wrong! Oxford English Dictionary. Faith = from Fides. Trust at its heart. Pistis (Greek) = trust. Faith = “Belief = trust. Confidence. That which produces belief, evidence and trust in it.” And this is how we usually think of the word. People used to believe in banks. But they showed there is not much basis to trust them with your money. If you are going to trust anyone, you have to have evidence or you are a fool.

Faith/trust/ belief. The Question is – what’s the evidence for it?

People say, “I won’t believe anything unless you can prove it.’ But in a mathematical sense? Logical? You’ll have infinite regress. It’s ONLY available in pure maths. Nowhere else is proof in that narrow sense. Not certainty. But in ordinary life, we have trust enough to put our life on it. Cf Flying a plane. Trusting your wife.

When you leave your field of expertise, you must check with the experts. What Dawkins/ Hitchens call and dismiss as faith = what we’d call ‘Blind faith.’ And that is of course dangerous, especially when linked with autocratic religious structures.

Is the faith required by the Christian system unreasonable?

Why was gospel of John written? In order that belief can be BASED on it. These statements are based in historical reality.

Paul at Mars Hill did not offer the resurrections as PRODUCT of faith, but a REASON for it, a basis. The resurrection as a fact is the basis on which the Christian can trust in Christ as the Son of God. Not a leap in the dark, but a step into the light, based on evidence.

It’s useful to notice that we use faith followed by  THAT or IN.

Faith in my wife

Faith that London is the capital of England.

One = faith in a fact. One = in a person. You usually need more evidence to trust a person than a fact.

So as Christians we don’t just have faith in a theory, or a worldview (it is all that) but its faith in a person.  A husband on wedding day has faith enough to trust in his wife, without knowing everything. We don’t know everything about God, but we have enough to get started – and as the relationship develops, so does the trust.  Trusting in relationships is multi levelled. Shared interests, etc – multi-orbed. Faith in God is too. There is evidence of all kinds. Can be built up. So the first thing that’s wrong with thenew atheists view of faith is that wrong.

Dawkins has said in discussion with Lennox, “Atheists have no faith.” The answer to that? “So you don’t believe it then?”

Hitchens says: “Our principles are not a faith, our beliefs are not a belief.’ Hmmmm….

They put all religions in the same pot, because they are all dangerous aberrations. That’s a failure of scholarship, because it’s obvious that not all religions are the same.

One of the main accusations new atheists make is that God is communicated out of the barrel of a gun, leads to violence etc. How do we answer that?  Look at the stance of Christ. Jesus was accused of terrorism by Pilate. That’s why his trial is so important. And he was exonerated. ‘My kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my followers would fight.’ The message you can’t defend with a gun is the one where you command them to follow the Prince of peace.

They also point out the unreasonableness of Christian faith, and say atheism had nothing to do with the massacres of Stalin, Mao etc., blame everything on God and nothing on atheism. We need to know our history!  Dawkins says he cannot imagine an atheist who would bulldoze a cathedral. Well Stalin used dynamite. Beware revisionist history.

Lennox endorses David Robinson’s book ; The Dawkins letters.

Also http://www.publicchristianity.com/historians response, the new atheists are outside their area and trying to rewrite history.

Dawkins says, “We are all atheists with regard to Odin and Zeus. It’s causing no problem to be A-Woden, what’s the problem with A-theist.’  He says its a negative and so can’t harm anyone. It’s no accident that he concentrates on A-Theism, denial of God, because he has a naturalist agenda.

In terms of the unreasonableness of faith he calls in the psychologists. However, Andrew Sims (President Royal college of Psychiatry) has written, “Is faith delusional?” and states that religion doesn’t damage but greatly helps mental health!

Freud saw faith = projection of your longing for a father.

Manfred Lutz says, ‘If there is no God, the Freudian explanation is spot on. But if there is a God, Freud will also show that there is in atheism a great desire for there NOT to be a God!’  That doesn’t deal in any case with the question, ‘Is there a God or not?’ For that, we have to look at EVIDENCE.

The idea that faith does not appear in science is wrong. All scientists are believers. They have to trust. They are commited to the idea that the universe is rationally intelligible, otherwise science is useless. The one incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible ‘ (Einstein).

So it’s not science vs religion. It’s materialism vs theism. Dawkins wants to argue science must lead to materialism. Not so!

Some say our brains are end product of a mindless process. From that, we get beliefs. Why trust that proposition? Logically incoherent to say that. You can’t do any science until you believe there’s reasonableness. it’s that belief in God which has inspired modern science.

Ford Car or Henry Ford. Which do you believe in? Choose! (that’s what the atheists want to say)

Ford car = laws of combustion.

Ford = designer and maker.

Two different categories!

The old chestnut is, “Who created the creator?” and so on…

Well you are there thinking about a created God, by definition. You are thinking of a created being to start with.

We agree, created Gods are a delusion. (idols). But there is an ETERNAL God.

You can choose to disbelieve that there is an eternal God.

You believe the universe created you? Who created your creator?!

The materialist’s ultimate reality – mass energy created everything. We believe God did it. Look at the evidence.

The Semi-Circle; Work from rest!

God made time. Planets. People, Porpoises. I love the way Genesis just adds in, “He also made the stars.” Easy peasy! It’s all his Creation!

And you’re never more like the Creator, than when you’re being creative! You are creative! All little kids are creative! But life can put out that spark…

Scientists have been trying to be very creative recently. Last week the news was full of Stephen Hawking’s comments and the scientists who made the LHC. Did you read about that?

For those of you who are less technically minded – basically they wanted to smash some particles together at nearly the speed of light.

You know how all atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and croutons? Well they were spinning them round in a big tunnel trying to recreate the Big Bang!

Who put that desire there– the need to be creative like the Creator? It’s just like kids copying Dad isn’t it? We are meant to be creative!

What stops that? What stops us being creative like Him?

We don’t act like him in two ways ;

1) We don’t stop to celebrate a job well done.

Read through Genesis 1.

Many of us –we don’t know when to say, “That’s good.” Maybe we never think it’s quite good enough? But God kept saying that whenever he created.

But God works, then He says, “I have worked. Now that’s good work!”

He stops, draws a line under what he’s done, and celebrates. He doesn’t just rush on to the next thing on the list. Nor does He try to cram it all in one day – notice that? He just does what needs doing that day, then stops.

2) We don’t get rest (and then wonder why we’re stressed!)

We don’t take rest like he patterned for us on the 7th day. When God was creating, when he was working – do you think he was fully engaged in that? Do you think he was working intently and in a focused way? I should think so. He was DELIGHTING in his work! But when he’d worked. He stopped.

That’s a pattern for the wise to follow – of being fully ON – and fully OFF.

That’s my major learning from the Semi-Circle; the next in out LIFESHAPES that we looked at yesterday in church.

Rather than my life following the tick-tock unceasing rhythm of the clock, God wants my life to be in time with the pendulum that swings from being ON and OFF.

FATIGUE is one of the greatest barriers to prayer and spiritual growth & victory. It’s hard to be like Jesus when you’re sleep deprived!

Let me ask, in the era when we take our Blackberry on holiday: when the average working parent spends twice as long answering e-mails than playing with her children…

How good are you at being fully on and fully off?

God set us a pattern here –He didn’t need to rest (our God does not get weary!) but Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man… so we’d know how to live best – with rest.

The Great Hyacinth Mystery

IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth. (Amplified Bible).

Thus starts the beginning of the book of the beginning, Genesis 1:1. All kinds of theories exist about how that happened, but the problem the theorists have is that however clever they are, they’re not eye witnesses – they were not there at the time when time started.

Just next to my house is a field. In the field is a patch, 40ft square, where the most beautiful hyacinths are just starting to flower. Driving past, like many visitors to the village, you might wonder why this patch just happens to be there in a farmer’s field. How did that come about? Who planted them?

What you won’t think is, “That ‘just happened.’ ”

In the words of physicist/ cosmologist Paul Davies, ‘….the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.’ Not just matter and energy, but physical space and time came into existence at the Big Bang. You either believe that Someone created everything out of nothing (ex nihilo), or, as Gerald Coates contends, you can believe that nothing created nothing out of nothing!

Atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen wrote, ‘Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang, and you ask me, ‘What made that bang?’ and I reply, ‘Nothing, it just happened.’ You wouldn’t accept that. In fact you would find such a reply quite unintelligible.

Well, what’s true of the little bang is also true of the Big Bang. It must have been caused. From the very nature of what was made, this cause would have to be uncaused, immaterial, changeless, timeless, and enormously powerful.

But we have to go beyond looking at the creation and acknowledging there was a Creator, that’s doesn’t require faith – just a lack of ignorance (Too harsh? look at 2 Peter 3!).

Going back to the hyacinths, I happened to be walking by that field last year when I saw a man digging rows in a field. The ex policeman in me was suspicious! I went over and (nicely) asked what he was doing. Wiping his brow as he had been digging away in the heat, he told me. Seems some rare hyacinths were likely to be doomed as a result in the change of the landscape in a different part of Britain they naturally grew in, as a result of the awful flooding around the Cheltenham/ Gloucester area.

This near neighbour I hadn’t met before, is an expert on hyacinths, and discovered this particular field is perfect for them, he was preparing the ground for the bulbs reception!

It didn’t just happen!

Someone made it happen!

I met him!

He communicated!

He cares enough about creation – to do whatever it takes to rescue it!

And that, by the way, is the gospel.