Someone who uses hyperbole to provide clarity to an important theological point for the purpose of effective communication? Yeah I’m good with that. Sensible parents do that kind of thing.
Covered in what I wrote previously; as examples, I specifically mentioned “a human baby born with a hole in its heart, or with additional fingers, or missing a limb”. As for blind and deaf humans, I’ve known a few but none who preferred they had never been born. I give you Nick Vujicic; he does not regret being born. Some people enjoy a challenge.
I don’t believe God is completely absent from our lives. If you’re starting with that premise it’s pretty clear where you’re going to end up.
Actually I find there’s comfort expressed in the Bible, along with a whole lot of warnings about the side effects of the world in which we can exist.
Yep, I agree with that. But God has provided the information and the tools for the parents and scientist to provide the answers. Still, at the end of the day the bare answer to the child’s question is “Cancer is a result of chaotic systems which are critical to the way the universe works, sorry”.
I don’t agree with that. Silence is not evidence of absence.
Nick Vujicic has admitted to praying for arms and legs everyday. As dedicated as he is to not get them, what chance do the rest of us have? Or perhaps no one is able to answer his prayer in the first place?
Nick Vujicic has also claimed to have seen Demons so I don’t know what his deal is. Perhaps he just needs belief in God to be able to get out of bed everyday? Perhaps he has no choice?
But animal tracks not being present in the sand is…
I suppose, the more I learn and discuss the issue, the more I lean toward agnosticism or misotheism as suiting my current level of understanding. While I can see how one can believe God exists. I don’t know that He does and I often find myself agonising over whether He should be worshipped and loved or hated.
Jesus Christ is the only reason I cannot just let it go. I can’t just brush someone like that off.
No. It is a reminder that flying creatures like birds exist and people in flying machines exist. Seriously. Just as Jon explained, “Silence is not evidence of absence”, just as I’m telling you that the lack of animal tracks on the ground does not mean that nothing else is nearby. (If a shepherd found a newborn lamb missing from the flock but no wolf tracks in the surrounding snow, he wouldn’t conclude that the lamb vaporized or simply disappeared. The missing tracks may simply eliminate one explanation and leave room for another, such as a large hawk.)
Yes, it can be very easy to become frustrated and tire at the hidden-ness of God. But not all of us stop at that point and conclude that God doesn’t exist. In my case, for example, I had observed little to nothing in the way of overwhelming, tangible evidence for God by means of “supernatural intervention” until very late in life. Yet, at the same time I know that some of my peers of my generation will never have that same type of experience. Thus, I can understand why Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Belief is indeed a gift, not a mechanical, straight-line path of decisions. That’s why “Seek and ye shall fine.” is meaningful to me.
I’m not trying to sound glib. Not at all. I can only speak for what happened for me. I am convinced that every path to God is its own personal experience. (And that’s also why I very rarely speak of the supernatural experiences I’ve had. If I did share them, a lot of people would seek that same kind of experience—and that would be misleading.)
Frankly, I never felt much comfort from “We walk by faith and not by sight.” Yet, I do believe that is a statement of factual truth. Much like the “messiness” of evolution, it is a reality that might not be my personal preference—but I believe it is reality.
I certainly do hope that your search proves fruitful and that you reach a place of peace and truth.
I understand. Thank you for your contributions. They were very helpful actually. I guess I will continue to seek and hope that I find before it is too late. And if the answer I find is not the one I hope for, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway then…
Ok well I have serious problems with this because I don’t believe in a supernatural satan, I don’t believe that God set up things so He could enjoy watching us suffer, and I don’t believe the description of the ostrich is “a prime example of God’s disregard and lack of care”. As I’ve explained previously, I don’t believe God deliberately wanted to cause as much suffering as possible, I believe that His options for creation were constrained by specific limitations, partly imposed by His ultimate purpose and partly imposed by the medium through which He chose to work. The creation is necessarily sub-optimal.
Why? And where is the acknowledgment of all the joy and goodness which many others have experienced?
Sure, but he doesn’t pray to die every day, or pray that he had never been born.
If I thought God was a celestial vending machine, I’d be praying for a lot of stuff too. I think Nick’s theology is more sophisticated than you’re representing it as, and I don’t think he prays every day expecting arms and legs by tea time. I also know he has a very solid personal theodicy and has reconciled his belief in God with his physical disadvantages.
[quote=“Burning_to_Know, post:22, topic:5431”]Or perhaps no one is able to answer his prayer in the first place?
[/quote]
Yes that’s a possibility. There are other possibilities.
Perhaps you should ask him?
That’s not evidence that an animal doesn’t exist. It could be evidence that a land animal hasn’t been there, or that it was there but the tracks were swept away.
Theodicy is a challenging topic and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I do think it requires a sophisticated treatment, because it’s a sophisticated problem. The key issue is that you need to start with an understanding of God before you can advance to the question of His relationship to evil.
After spending half my life trying, I don’t think I CAN understand God. My limited intellect and Human emotion just makes me want to treat him like a bad biological father… With resentment and anger at His lack of involvement, ultimately causing undue pain.
The Bible says that God will reward the one who diligently seeks him. I’ve known many people who suddenly reached that goal of finding God after a process of seeking. And they found him----and then found that God had drawn them all along. Dr. Francis Collins has a salvation story that fits that seek-and-find culmination after one of his patients got his attention.
I do hope that you will keep seeking just as you have been doing here. (And I hope that the theists who bristle and “push back” in response to your penetrating questions will not frustrate you.)
Can I ask what your biblical interpretation of Satan is? I agree that this being is limited, that he cannot be in every Christian’s ear at once, whispering deceit, as majority of people I talk to claim (this is why they avoid asking the questions I ask, they fear it is the Devil trying to trick them into losing their faith, how convenient aye?). If this were the case, that would make Satan omnipresent. But he does seem to be described as a being. An Angel. And aren’t they supernatural?
I have to agree here.
Evidence is always physical. Even if it is a written statement. It was still caused through physical process. God’s existence cannot leave evidence by itself, as God is spirit (in the case of the animal, you rightly proposed a flying creature which wouldn’t leave tracks), but the evidence for God can still be found by studying His actions in the physical. Like the forming of this intricate Universe…
Still, it’s not much of a help when dealing with Theodicy.
On my long list of things to investigate, I’ve wanted to learn more from Wm Lane Craig’s statements about the Theodicy Problem being thoroughly addressed by philosophers (both theistic and atheistic) around a century ago. He keeps reminding me that what is considered major problem on the popular level simply isn’t in the academy. I have no difficulty believing that (because I worked through the Theodicy issues long ago), but I want to learn more about the philosophy academy’s treatment of it.
So you may find Dr. Craig helpful on the topic. (I am not always a fan of Craig’s conclusions but I greatly respect his work and I always have had great respect for Bill and Jan and their approach to parenting, though our paths diverged and I’ve lost touch during the years in which their kids grew up and became adults. I ought to add to my list the task of seeing what sort of careers their children have pursued.)
@Burning_to_Know thanks for sharing on the forum. I think you are onto something when you consider Jesus. I think he is the source of the confident faith for which you are looking.
I think we encounter God through Jesus, both as we read about Him Scripture and eventually encounter Him alive in our own lives too. Jesus is our path to confident faith in God. The Bible teaches that God makes Himself known to the world is through the bodily resurrection of Jesus. This is the “one sign” (quoting Jesus) that God offers to prove that He exists, is unimaginably good, and wants to be known.
Of course there is evidence for God’s existence in nature (as you have seen), but without Jesus it is hard to fully understand that God is also good and wants to be known. As good as the evidence in nature is for God, compared to Jesus, it is weak.
Remember, the Resurrection is a “sign:” a miracle with public evidence to which we can point (both inside and outside the Bible) when we ask “why” we know our faith is true. There are over 100,000 relevant texts. There is a whole academic field devoted to studying 1st Century Palestine. There are a few holdouts, but even those that reject the Resurrection agree that there is compelling evidence for it. It is without doubt the most substantiated ancient miracle. For example, look at this remarkable dialogue between NT Wright and Sean Kelly (chair of philosophy at harvard) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsKv9uX8rwE. I really reccomend NT Wright’s masterpiece “the Resurrection of the Son of God”. And for those with short attention spans, this article: http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Historical_Problem.htm.
A more simple book on the topic is More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell and Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (though NT Wright is much better). Of course, you could just dive in and start reading the Gospels (I’d start maybe with Luke?).
I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite scientists, Blaise Pascal,
We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator, all communion with God is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who have claimed to know God, and to prove Him without Jesus Christ, have had only weak proofs. But in proof of Jesus Christ we have the prophecies, which are solid and palpable proofs. And these prophecies, being accomplished and proved true by the event, mark the certainty of these truths and, therefore, the divinity of Christ. In Him, then, and through Him, we know God. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary mediator promised and come, we cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right morality. But through Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, we prove God, and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is, then, the true God of men.
I wish you blessings on your journey. Thank you for sharing it with us. If you get a chance, I’d love to hear more about how you are thinking of Jesus.
Thanks. I’m familiar with William Lane Craig. I’m currently reading John Lennox atm though. I find Mr. Lennox to be very similar to C.S. Lewis. Really genuine and down to earth. He has clearly been heavily influenced by him.
Jesus is definitely someone I can relate to. I’ve read the New Testament front to back and find no fault in His character. His incorruptibility, compassion and mercy means the World to me. As does His sacrifice. Without Him, I couldn’t possibly identify with, grasp or have any sort of relationship with God (Though I know Jesus IS God). Were the Old Testament all we had I’d have thrown it in the trash long ago. But Jesus Christ is like the glimmer of light you see in someone you love when they’re just making you miserable, the reason you can’t give up on them.
I admit I have trouble reconciling the person of Christ with the Old Testament. The OT God feels tyrannical and cold, but Jesus is truly king-like. Someone I would bow to, no questions asked. I only wish I had the opportunity the people of His day had to see and KNOW it’s all true.
It’s no surprise then that my biggest issues with theism are because of the OT. I can’t even finish it. I end up angry and puzzled. I truly dislike what I read about God in those books. But I suppose that’s natural, considering my rebellious nature.
Third, if God created through law, why did He use such a painful and at times dysfunctional mechanism as natural selection? Interestingly, no less than the High Priest of the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins, has answered this one. Running through the various evolutionary options — Lamarckism (the inheritance of acquired characteristics), saltationism (evolution by massive jumps), and others — Dawkins points out that either they are false (Lamarckism) or they fail to account for adaptive complexity (saltationism). In Dawkins’s own words:
My general point is that there is one limiting constraint upon all speculations about life in the universe. If a life-form displays adaptive complexity, it must possess an evolutionary mechanism capable of generating adaptive complexity. However diverse evolutionary mechanisms may be, if there is no other generalization that can be made about life all around the Universe, I am betting it will always be recognizable as Darwinian life. The Darwinian Law … may be as universal as the great laws of physics.
(This is from an essay that Dawkins wrote back in 1982, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Darwin.)
I think that’s a remarkable insight, especially from an atheist philosopher (Michael Ruse).
I agree, to a certain extent. However, the biblical teaching is that the best is yet to come …
This is equal parts funny and sad. My observation is that if you’ve already spent half your life pursuing a knowledge of God through intellectual means and have failed, it’s probably time for a different approach. I say this because you obviously want to believe, but you have not been able to cross the threshold into a full-fledged faith. Knowledge of God cannot be achieved by the unaided intellect, as you’ve discovered. If it could, it would become a source of pride in our own achievement.
You are not alone in complaining about God’s seeming lack of involvement. This is a constant refrain in the Psalms and the prophets. Ps. 13: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” Ps. 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.” Habakkuk: “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” There are many, many examples, but the interesting thing is that this is the cry of God’s people throughout history. You are not alone.
We are in the same position as the people of his day. Witnessing a sign from God did not guarantee belief in those who saw it. Hearing the words from Jesus’ own lips did not guarantee that those who heard believed. Even some who saw the risen Lord doubted (Matt. 28:17). In fact, most of the Jews of that generation did not believe. Why? Primarily, in my opinion, because Jesus did not fit their expectations of the Messiah (Christ). They were expecting an earthly kingdom ruled by an earthly king like David who would destroy Israel’s enemies and rule the world, an expectation based on a literal reading of the prophets. Since Jesus did not fit their preconceived notions of what he should be and do, they rejected him. In short, their faulty, literal interpretations of prophecy blinded them to the truth about Jesus. Let us not make the same error.
I love your simile of Christ like the glimmer of light. Your feelings here remind me of Philip at the Last Supper, when he said, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough.” Exasperated, Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long, and you still don’t know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
My suggestion is to leave off all your philosophical reading and thinking. Continue to seek God by following Christ. Resolve to repent of your old ways of thinking and acting. Read and meditate on the gospels, focusing on the glory of God the Father as revealed in his Son. Consider that all of Jesus’ first followers were Jews, whose only “Bible” was the OT, yet who were convinced that Jesus was “the image of the invisible God.” Those who were closest to him saw no contradiction between the YHWH of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jesus whom they worshiped as God. Perhaps they had more insight than us? Pray for the gift of faith. Humble yourself before God. In short, if you want to become a Christian, begin to act like one, and you will soon find that you are one. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. His own brother, James, said as much,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."
@Burning_to_Know, I commend you for sharing your difficult trek with us and I really appreciate everyone who has contributed to this very worthwhile (and continuing) thread. We’ve all wrestled with these issues and, unfortunately, I know of so many churches where this kind of candor and questioning just doesn’t get tolerated—even though we can find plenty of “Why God?” agony in the scriptures.
I hope that critics of Biologos and this entire website will eventually recognize the value of these types of discussions.
Interesting, I suppose I haven’t read any specific text in the Bible that clearly claims Satan is an Angel. I always assumed based on his behaviour and the Book of Job when he comes before God with the other Angels.
I was always bothered that Satan was able to tempt God into testing Job.
I suppose I can understand why some of the questions posted thus far by Burning_to_Know sound that way----but surely there can be value in both testing and exploring Biologos. It has made for an excellent, meaningful discussion topic.