The final step for new Christians from Brownlow North is:
Never believe what you feel, if it contradicts God’s Word. Ask yourself, “Can what I feel be true if God’s Word is true?” And if both cannot be true, believe God’s Word and make your own heart the liar (Rom 3:4; 1 Jn 5:10-11).
Again, sound advice. If more people applied that rule, then Susan B. Anthony might never have said, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
We, therefore, need an objective measure of truth. Our conscience does a pretty good job at showing us instinctively what is right and wrong. I often give the exampe of my daughter Ashleigh who (at 3) knows that when I tell her to or not to do something, that it is wrong to do the opposite. And when she inevitably does the opposite (show me a 3-year-old who obeys perfectly and I’ll marvel at your ability to create a cool robot–hopefully it follows Asimov’s Laws of Robotics!), she knows she did wrong.
She tries to get out of the punishment–usually no TV or a time out (I’ve spanked before, but I’m not a huge proponent; loss of privileges and time outs work just as effectively). But the point is she acknowledges that what she did was wrong and knows she shouldn’t do it.
Which brings us back to the average person. Knowing and doing are totally different. Everyone knows it’s wrong to steal, yet people are in jail for everything from petty theft to the Enron scandal. Everyone knows its wrong to cheat on your spouse, yet that is one of the main reason couples divorce.
So the conscience is effective at blowing the whistle, but we are equally as effective at ignoring the noise. And, more troubling, is that often we can delude ourselves into believing that God is on our side.
My pastor once told the story of a man who was fired from his job for embezzlement. During the search of his computer, they discovered e-mails proving that he was having an affair. When the boss fired him, he told the man that he was really concerned about the man’s relationship with God. The man told his boss, “I’m fine with God.”
Yeah. Think so?
What about pastors like Rob Bell who are very good at writing theological redefinitions of God that render eternal judgment unnecessary or plain evil, therefore a God of love would never consign someone to it? Instead of “Go, and sin no more” we are being told “Sin boldly, all will be forgiven.” That’s quite different than what Jesus would say, and very different from Paul’s message of grace.
No wonder Susan B. made the statement she did.
So, North’s rule stands. The Bible states “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9).
Let’s not be Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs when it comes to our spiritual well-being. Though the conscience can be an excellent guide, we can ignore it in favor of pursing our own passions. Let Scripture stand as the objective measure by which we know what is right and wrong. Don’t trust your gut.
Churches too often focus on evangelism to the exclusion of discipleship. You confess Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and the Lord of life. You’re done, right?
Nope. I’ve already covered three of Brownlow North’s six rules for new Christians, and I believe they really apply to all Christians.
Rule #4:
If you are in doubt as to a thing being right or wrong, go to your room and kneel down and ask God’s blessing on it (Col 3:17). If you cannot do this, it is wrong.
I like this. It touches on the somewhat instinctual nature of moral duties. Normal people know the difference between right and wrong. My daughter, for example, knows what she is and is not allowed to do. She knows that she has to listen to mommy and daddy when we tell her to do things. She doesn’t, but whenever I get into it with her, she admits that she knows when she does something wrong and understands that it is wrong.
Similar to this would be asking yourself questions like
As Dr. Tom Morris points out in Philosophy for Dummies (yes, I’m reading Philosophy for Dummies), these sorts of questions presuppose a generally good nature. Humans, according to the Bible, are so enslaved to sin that we can often rationalize the most heinous of behaviors. However, since we are made in the image of God, we have (at our core) a smattering of goodness that enables us to know the difference between right and wrong.
Asking whether we could, in good conscience, pray God’s blessing over an intended course of action is a great acid test for the validity of such an action.
We’ve been looking at Brownlow North’s Six Steps for New Christians. I’m pretty sure they apply to all Christians. In fact, today’s step is brilliant:
Never let a day pass without trying to do something for Jesus. Every night reflect on what Jesus has done for you, an then ask yourself, “What am I going to do for him?” (Mt 5:13-16)
I remember once having a conversation with regular commenter Alex and saying something to the effect of “God created the universe, you, gives you life and sustains your existence, sent his Son to die for your sins, and you’re basically asking me, ‘So what has God really done for me?’ Tough room!”
Alex was a bit irritated by that, and said that if I want him to take me or “my God” seriously, then I shouldn’t be so flip.
Except that it’s true. God has done a lot for humanity, even though we don’t deserve it. So, to echo North’s sentiment, and to paraphrase JFK, let’s ask what we can do for God instead of always asking what he can do for us. He’s already done plenty.
The focus of this blog has been on getting you to the point where you can intellectually accept that Jesus and God are very real, and that you can commit in good faith to a relationship without surrendering your intellectual integrity. I’ve gotten mixed reviews on my ability to do this; people open to the possibility are generally convinced, but hardcore skeptics think I’m deluded beyond even psychiatric help.
Once you’ve actually made it to the point where you accept Christ (or rededicate your life to Christ, in the case of one recent e-mail correspondence I had), what do you do? Well, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life worked for me.
Warren’s simple 40-day devotional gave me a great introduction into what it meas to be a Christian. It helped turn the five New Testament purposes for a church into
Shorter and better, however, are Brownlow North’s Six Short Rules for Young Christians. These aren’t just for young or new Christians–these will work for any Christian, no matter how far along in his or spiritual journey.
First:
Never neglect daily private prayer; and when you pray, remember that God is present, and that he hears your prayers (Heb 11:6).
Short and simple, and something that I think many people forget. Being omnipresent in our reality, God is present during your prayers and he hears your request. This doesn’t obligate him to answer affirmatively, but he is present and he does hear you.
That’s simple, yet very deep. Let’s just think about that for today, and I’ll have more to say on this issue tomorrow, because this rule combined with rule #2 will have a profound effect on the life of the Christian.
“Human beings are never neutral with regard to God. Either we worship God as Creator and Lord, or we turn away from God. Because the heart is directed either toward God or against him, theoretical thinking is never so pure or autonomous as many would like to think.”
— Ronald Nash
Is it moral because God says so or does God say so because it’s moral? False dilemma. It’s moral because that’s the way God is. — William Lane Craig
I think that this an excellent and adequate response to the Euthyphro dilemma. I believe that the answer is rooted in the ontology of God as perfectly good.
However, I don’t think that the skeptic would ever be convinced by such an answer.
He’ll just ask how we know God is good, and when we way “the Bible,” he’ll mention that the Bible also says to sacrifice turtledoves to “clean” women during their menstrual cycles, confirms the existence of unicorns, and prohibits football.
Now, all of those things are hyper-literal readings of the text and have simple responses. My point here is that the skeptic doesn’t accept the Bible’s description of anything, let alone God.
To illustrate, archeologists give the benefit of the doubt to ancient documents when a site contradicts a document. The thought is that the ancient writer was closer to the events and probably knows better than we do thousands of years later. Not to mention that its possible that a site might have been altered, destroyed, rebuilt, or built upon between the composition of the document and our discovery of the site.
However, when that ancient document is the Bible, then the error is automatically assumed to be with the Bible, and not assumed to be one of a myriad of possibilities like the ones I just mentioned. To recap, random ancient document contradicts a site: “There’s probably an explanation. Let’s assume the document is right and find out the reason for the contradiction.” The Bible contradicts a site: “Bible’s wrong, it’s complete fiction, God doesn’t exist. Three cheers for freethought!”
While I think that the answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma lies in God’s ontology, I think that in order to get the skeptic to see that, he must be willing to step out in faith and trust the Bible. However, given all of the skeptical attacks on the Bible (despite it previously thought to have been very reliable), there’s a long way to go on that.
By the way, I’m not the only one that sees this. The Bible has yielded much good archeology in the past, and if we would continue to rely on it I have faith it will produce much more good in the future. However, there is a serious prejudice against the Bible not only in archeology, but in every academic discipline.
History and archeology aren’t my thing, but I hope that other apologists who feel called to that area work hard to counter some of this anti-Bible sentiment in those fields. If the Bible can be believed again as a reliable ancient source of history, then we will have taken a good step toward resolving some of the theological questions being raised as well.
I really have to stop letting these accumulate. Answering them is never as bad as I seem to think it will be. And, often, I learn something.
First up, on my post on how Twitter breeds shallow reasoners, Boz thinks that the Twitter users I mention are misunderstanding proof, which he says is:
1) Provide strong evidence for; Demonstrate. I can prove that Morphine is addictive.
2) Show to be true with 100% accuracy. I cannot disprove solipsism.
I agree on both counts, and I also believe Boz is correct that the Twitter users I’m picking on don’t get what proof really is. Nor do they understand that one cannot disprove solipsism (which is why they resort to ridiculing me).
The point is that argument can suffice in place of empirical proof. Provided one can show a belief is rational by logic and argumentation, then empirical proof isn’t necessary. There’s no empirical proof that an external world or other minds exist, and we can’t say for certain (therefore) that we aren’t living in a computer simulation (a la The Matrix).
But we are rational for accepting the existence of the external world and the existence of other minds without evidence. So I also argue that, because we can argue rationally and cogently for the existence of God, that we are justified in accepting it as true in the absence of empirical evidence.
Really, it all boils down to treating God as we would any other belief. So, then, I’ve asked the atheist to provide good reasons to not accept the existence of God. No one has stepped up, and Boz reversed it on me: provide rational reasons for not believing in Amun, the Egyptian god of creation and the sun.
Challenge accepted. First:
As for Amun:
I think that these three points nicely demonstrate the superiority of God to that of Amun-Ra.
I was listening to EWTN radio this morning and I heard a fascinating phone call. The caller asked the DJ (maybe the guest, I tuned in and only heard this call) why he needed to receive a sacrament of Penance before receiving the sacrament of Confirmation.
I was floored, to say the least.
Catholic theology teaches that the sacraments are containers of God’s grace. When you receive a sacrament, you are essentially taking an outpouring of God’s grace. The sacrament of Confirmation, however, is more than that.
In Confirmation, the Holy Spirit descends upon you, and bestows his gifts chosen for you to be a faithful worker in God’s kingdom. Though it isn’t strictly necessary, biblically speaking, I think it is an excellent idea to invite the Spirit to take residence in a clean temple.
I stole that from the DJ or guest, because I liked it.
Now, why didn’t the caller already know that? You think he would. I knew the answer right away. True, I was raised Catholic, but it wasn’t on my Catholic upbringing that I drew for the answer. Consider the words of Paul regarding the receiving of the Supper:
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Cor 11:27-32)
I should think that anytime we receive a measure of grace from God, we ought to do such a self-examination. Just because grace is an unmerited favor that God shares with us, we still ought to accept it reverently and with as clean a heart as we are capable of. Never should we just take it lightly, or we are taking judgment on ourselves.
For the Catholic, that means confession to a priest, and completing a penance for absolution. That is so small considering the gift of the Holy Spirit that is about to fill you; greater peace and grace isn’t possible here on earth.
But, is this only a Catholic problem? Nope. The whole church, Catholic and Protestant, has done an awful job of educating people of the first step of the gospel of our Lord–that we are sinners in need of a Savior. The world teaches us that we are basically good; we are evolving toward something greater. Our evolution is merely incomplete, so it’s not our fault when we behave like roughians.
I blame the world for teaching that. I blame the caller for buying into it, and not submitting to the teaching of the Church and the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is one example among many of how far we as Christians have to go to get the gospel message out to a world that needs it now more than ever.
When I was in eighth grade, we started learning algebra. The teacher told us that variables stand for numbers, and we either solve for the specific number the variable represents, or treat the letter as if could be any number.
When a particularly astute student noticed that x, y, and z were always used as variables, he asked if any other letters could be used.
The teacher said any letter would work, but told us to avoid i. We asked why, and he replied that it could be too easily confused with 1.
But, math wizards, that’s not really why we don’t use i, is it? It’s actually a mathematical constant, defined as the square root of -1.
Like a good teacher, my math teacher gave us what we could handle. Later, those of us that either read the sidebars in our algebra books (because we’re extra geeky) or took calculus learned the real reason why we don’t use i as a variable. Clearly, eighth grade students learning the basics of algebra wouldn’t have been ready to learn about imaginary numbers.
My eighth grade math teacher didn’t lie. He just didn’t give us information that we weren’t ready to have. Later, a fuller revelation of the facts would be realized.
This is the reason that God gave the Law. Not because he was lying or misleading us. And he didn’t “edit” things or change his mind later. He gave us the system that our feeble brains could handle, and now he has fully revealed the purpose and meaning of the Law, freeing us from its tyranny to live by grace in Christ Jesus.
The Law was but a shadow of the perfect reality to come (Heb 10:1). Now that the perfect reality is here, we may rejoice in him (Jesus Christ) rather than having to follow the Law.
Guess who had an adulterous affair, divorced, remarried !
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