Monthly Archives: March 2009

Theology

Can Theology Teach Us Anything Useful?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Many Christians cringe in horror when they hear the word theology.  They think of complex and boring doctrines that just don’t matter to the average Christian.  After all, they think, I have the Bible and that’s all I need.

But what is theology?  Theology, in its simplest meaning, is a rational discourse about God.  Theology covers a broad range of topics: the Bible, creation, sin, salvation, end times, the church, and the attributes of God.

That last topic, the study of the attributes of God, is known as theology proper.  But why bother studying theology?

There are several good reasons why we should study carefully the attributes of God.  First, as A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”  According to Tozer, “No people has ever risen above its religion.”

Second, “The mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God.”  Since God is the ultimate being in existence, then our concept of Him will necessarily be the highest conception of anything we can conceive of.  Sh0uldn’t we get this conception right?

Third, “There is scarcely an error in doctrine that cannot be traced back to false beliefs about God.”  Every heretical offshoot of Christianity is characterized by incorrect conceptions of God.  It always starts there.

Fourth, “Until a man sees a vision of God high and lifted up, he cannot understand the gospel.”  Why is that?  Because the gospel proclaims that Jesus had to die to reconcile us to God.  The reasons Jesus had to die are God’s total moral perfection, holiness, and justice.  If you do not understand these things about God, then the atoning death of Jesus makes no sense.

Fifth, we cannot recognize false gods until we know the true God.  There are numerous religious groups out there claiming to be Christian or claiming to be compatible with Christianity.  How can you tell which are and which are not?  You must understand who the God of the Bible really is, and that is what theology teaches you.

Sixth, and finally, you will never find ultimate satisfaction in anything less than the Ultimate, who is God.

For all of these reasons, I commend the study of theology to you.  If you truly want to know God, then what are you waiting for?

General Apologetics, Intelligent Design

Interesting Comment This Morning

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I attend a Referral Network group every Tuesday morning and this morning a local Chiropractor gave a short presentation on her business.  This wonderful lady (who is a great Chiropractor by the way!!) made a few comments which amused me – in a good way. When talking about the human body she kept referring to “it’s design”.  In speaking about the kidneys, she said they are “designed” to rid the body of toxins.  She also referred to the marvel of how the body is “designed” to heal itself and warn us when something is wrong.

I always find it interesting how even in the most secular of business settings people can, perhaps unknowingly, marvel at the greatness of our Creator.  For referring to the body as something “designed” rather than “evolved” implies a Creator – if it is designed, who designed it? 

I had a huge smile on my face realizing that even without knowing it we praise our great God and Designer, Jesus Christ!!  It was a wonderful way to start off the day.

Darrell

Free Will, Philosophy, Theology

Does Man Have Free Will?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Let’s define free will first.  I define free will as the human ability to make contrary choices or decide between multiple options.  Free will is the power of self-determination.  It gives human beings the power to make real moral decisions.

Some Christians deny that humans have free will because they say it diminishes God’s sovereignty.  If humans have the ability to choose, then God cannot be in control of human choices, they argue.  But this is just not so.

God could have created humans with the power of free will, and also have known from the beginning of time exactly what humans would do with their free choices, because everything that humans will do pre-existed in the mind of God “before” it was actualized by God.  God wrote us in as characters in a cosmic drama, but as characters who make real choices.  We are not rocks or robots, but people with free will.

Since God is the cause of free will in humans, then he absolutely has complete control over it in the sense that nothing has happened or will ever happen without his knowledge and determination.  God knowingly determines and determinedly knows every choice we will ever make.  Does this take away free will?

No.  Throughout church history, the majority view has been that God is sovereign over everything and that man is free.  During the Reformation, some of the reformers took the position that man cannot be free because it necessarily follows that God is not sovereign, but as we’ve seen, that is not true.  God is still in control, even with free creatures wandering around.  Even today, most Christians still hold that man has free will.

How exactly does God have control over everything, but humans possess free will?  Bottom line: we don’t know exactly how this works because we are dealing with a being, God, who exists outside of time and space.  God’s interactions with humans will necessarily remain mysterious, but the Bible clearly teaches both the sovereignty of God and man’s free will.  A sound Christian theology will retain both of these teachings.

General Apologetics

Empirically Test The Existence Of God?

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In my conversations with atheists and agnostics some have made the statement “the only way we can know if something is true or not is through empirical testing”.  Many then follow by saying this “disproves” the knowledge of the existence of God… saying “since we can’t empirically test the existence of God we cannot know for sure He exists”.  While this line of reasoning may seem logical in a society dominated by the philosophy of Naturalistic Materialism it has one severe problem… it is self-defeating.  For you cannot empirically test the statement “the only way we can know for something is true or not is through empirical testing”.  Therefore, turning the statement against itself we cannot know if it is true!

While empirical testing is a wonderful tool, to say it is the only way to know truth is vastly overreaching.  Of course we can know truth without empirical testing.   We do it everyday using the process of induction – drawing general conclusions through specific observation.  For example, if someone were to tell you they have a friend by the name of Henry who is a 4 legged reptile, you would logically determine Henry is not a man.  Every man you have observed in your life is a mammal (most with 2 legs… none with 4!), therefore, Henry cannot be a man. 

Can induction be used to determine the existence of God?  Absolutely!  We investigate God the same way we investigate other things we cannot see around us (i.e. gravity) – by observing their effects.  We will touch on this in future posts.

Darrell

About the blog

10,000 Hits and Growing!

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We just passed a major milestone in our short blogging history: 10,000 hits!

Our readership has steadily grown since we started this blog four months ago, and for that we thank God.  I know that many of you come back to the blog regularly – some daily, some weekly.  Darrell and I have been truly awestruck by the wonderful response we’ve received from all of you.

We will continue to write blog posts that we wish others had written when we were searching for answers in our lives.  We will continue to keep the posts short, and to the point.  Our goal is to pass on important information in as few words as possible.

There are many other blogs and websites out there that deal with Christian topics, but we believe none of them focus like a laser beam on giving you answers to tough questions about the Christian faith in a compact and concise form so that you learn what you need to know quickly, without having to read lengthy posts or articles.  There is, of course, a need for lengthy, detailed treatments of the issues we cover, but that is not what we do.  We will leave that to others, many who do it extremely well.

What can you do for the blog?  If you enjoy the blog, please keep coming back and commenting on blog posts.  We love feedback, even from those who disagree (those who disagree really keep us on our toes!).  Second, if you enjoy the blog, please tell people you know about the blog.  Spread the word.

If you are interested in some other stats for the blog, here are a few:

Total number of posts: 113

Total number of comments: 642

Average daily hits:  37 (in Dec 2008), 75 (in Jan 2009), 96 (in Feb 2009), 150 (in Mar 2009)

God bless all of you and thanks again for your support!

Essential Beliefs, Mormonism, Religion

Thoughts On This Past Sunday

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We had The Lord’s Supper this past Sunday.  For the Mormons reading this, the Lord’s Supper is essentially the same as partaking of “The Sacrament”.  It was a wonderful experience!  We started the service by Baptizing several new members/believers and the Spirit of Christ filled the chapel the entire evening.  Some close friends and their children were among those baptized… it brought tears to my eyes!!

Our Pastor shared some thoughts I found to be particularly significant in light of the common Latter Day Saint claim all Christian denominations are in disagreement with one another.  At the beginning of The Lord’s Supper he said:

“This is not Cornerstone’s (our church) table or the Baptist’s table.  This is Christ’s table.  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, no matter what denomination you belong to, you are welcome to partake.  For we are all one family… all of us who are believer’s in The Lord Jesus Christ.  This is His meal.  Please feel free to partake.”

We, meaning all believer’s no matter what church you attend, are all one family! 

I had a similar experience a few weeks ago while attending a Methodist Church.  I, as a Baptist, was invited to speak to a Sunday School class (sounds like disagreement, huh!!) and decided to attend their service as well.  They were having The Lord’s Supper and, while blessing the bread and juice, the Minister expressed the exact same view.  Knowing I am a member of another denomination he freely gave me The Lord’s Supper with a smile on his face.  It was wonderful!

My being invited to teach Sunday School at a Methodist Church as well as the thoughts shared by both of these ministers are in direct contradiction to the Mormon claim all Christian Denominations are in disagreement and fight against one another.  In my personal experience nothing could be farther from the truth!  The Church I attend does not profess itself to be “God’s only true church on the face of the earth”.  Instead we, as members of  Cornerstone Baptist Church, profess ourselves to be part of Christ’s Global Church…  which consists of all who confess Him as Lord and Savior –  whether they be Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Non-Denominational, etc.  

Many Mormons fail to understand that while the denominations may disagree on minor, non-essential issues, most of us are in agreement on the essentials –The Nature of God, The Nature of Man, Deity of Christ, Salvation By Faith Alone, etc.  These are issues which effect salvation and which unite us all as Christ’s Body of Believers.  Other minor, non-essential issues (whether to partake of The Lord’s Supper Weekly or Monthly, Baptism by immersion or sprinkling, etc) are of no consequence to salvation and thus we grant liberty in these areas.  In contrast, the reason we cannot accept members of the LDS Faith as Christian is precisely because they are in disagreement with us on the essential issues – those which do have an impact on salvation.

As Augustine said…

“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”

All praise be to Christ!

Darrell

Creation

Are Scientists Persuaded by Evidence for a Young Earth?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Young earth creation organizations have written many books and published numerous articles over the years presenting scientific evidence to prove that the earth is young (6,000 – 10,000 years old).  Several years ago, when I read these books and articles, I found many of them to be convincing.

But, I wanted to hear both sides so I started reading opposing viewpoints from scientists who believe the earth is older (4.5 billion years old).  Inevitably, these other organizations who believed in an old earth countered and refuted virtually all of the young earth arguments.  Now, this wasn’t surprising, and you could always go back to the young earth side to find refutations of refutations, and so on.

Although I have a degree in electrical engineering, I am not an expert in radiometric dating, geology, astronomy, astrophysics, or any earth sciences.  But what I found is that the virtual unanimous consensus of all branches of science that study the age of the earth and universe agreed that the earth is old.  This included Christians and non-Christians.

I realize that truth is not determined by a vote, but to have so many different disciplines agree on the age of the earth is something to think about.  But I still figured that maybe they were all wrong, until I heard something that surprised me.

If the scientific arguments of young earth creationists were truly persuasive, then they should have convinced at least some scientists, apart from the Bible, of their viewpoint.  After all, scientists will eventually listen to presentations of strong evidence.  But according to young earth creationists, no scientist, as far as they know, has ever been convinced of a young earth by scientific evidence alone.

According to Dr. John Ankerberg, who was a young earth creationist earlier in life:

When I was arguing for the young earth view in the early years of our television ministry, I remember when my friend Dr. John Morris, the President of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and one of the world’s largest young earth organizations, was being interviewed on KKLA radio in Los Angeles. He was asked, “Had he or any of his associates ever met or heard of a scientist who became persuaded that the universe or earth is only thousands of years old, based on scientific evidence without a reference to a particular interpretation of the Bible?” Morris’ answer was no, he had not.

Ankerberg continues:

Later, Duane Gish, also of ICR, was asked the same question. I was interested in his answer as I had invited Dr. Gish to be my guest in the very first debate I held on science and the Bible. I had arranged for him to debate Dr. Vincent Sarich, who was the Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Berkeley and an evolutionist. When Dr. Gish was asked if he knew of any scientist who had ever been persuaded by the scientific evidence that the universe or the earth was 6,000 years old, he also said no.

My conclusion from these statements is that the scientific evidence for a young earth is significantly weaker than that for an old earth and that the refutations of the young earth evidence by old earthers is probably more trustworthy.

It seems that unless you start with a 24-hour interpretation of the “days” in Genesis, an interpretation that is highly disputed among conservative evangelicals and other conservative Christians, you will not arrive at the young earth position by studying science alone.

The science just does not back up the young earth position, and until young earthers are able to convince scientists based on scientific arguments alone, their position will remain less convincing to me.

Creation, Evolution

Does a 4.5 Billion Year Old Earth Prove Evolution is True?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

No, even though I often hear Christians talk as if it does.  Many believe that if you interpret the “days” in Genesis to be long periods of time and you accept the current scientific consensus that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, then you are “siding” with evolution.

The ironic thing is that when scientific evidence started showing that the universe is only billions of years old and not infinite, some bemoaned the fact that there just wasn’t enough time for the Darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection to work.  They had been assuming a practically infinite amount of time.  Billions of years was not a boon to evolution; it was a serious problem!

In fact, one of the greatest challenges for Darwinian evolution in the fossil record is the Cambrian explosion, where over 95% of known animal phyla suddenly appeared over a period of 5 to 10 million years.   According to the fossil record, evolution had to work in an extremely short period of time for these animal phyla to appear, so the situation is even worse than billions of years – they have to deal with only millions of years!

Bottom line: whether it is thousands of years, millions of years, or billions of years, it doesn’t matter.  The random process of Darwinian evolution needs far more time to manufacture the biological complexity and diversity we see on earth.  Whether evolution is true or not has little to do with the age of the earth being 4.5 billion years.

When thinking about creation, learn to decouple evolution from the age of the earth.  They are two completely separate issues that need not be considered together.  It absolutely does not follow that a 4.5 billion year old earth or 13.8 billion year old universe lead inexorably to the truth of Darwinian evolution.