Sunday, March 31, 2013

Unassailable Acceptance

"Mark, believer, how sure and unchanging must be our acceptance, since it is in him! Take care that you never doubt your acceptance in Jesus. You cannot be accepted without Christ; but, when you have received his merit, you cannot be unaccepted. Notwithstanding all your doubts, and fears, and sins, Jehovah’s gracious eye never looks upon you in anger; though he sees sin in you, in yourself, yet when he looks at you through Christ, he sees no sin." ~ Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, evening March 28

What we celebrate on this day--Easter--is central to Christianity, and it guarantees our full, irremovable, unassailable acceptance before God. Is it historical? Absolutely. Is it important? Absolutely, for as Paul says, "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Co. 15:17) Christ's resurrection is essential for the completed work of salvation, for an unresurrected Christ still bears the guilt of sin and has secured nothing (1 Co. 15:14-17). As long as He remained in death the righteous character of His work as our federal head and Savior remained in question. Through His resurrection He secured justification (1 Ti. 3:16), adoption (Ro. 1:4), sanctification (Ro. 6:3-11), glorification (1 Co. 6:14), and eternal life (Ro. 6:4-8). Since we are united to Christ in His death and resurrection (Col. 2:12), we have all these things too. Without His resurrection we have nothing.

As Spurgeon says, "when you have received His merit, you cannot be unaccepted." When Paul said, "38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord," (Ro. 8:38-39) he meant nothing can separate us from God if we are in Christ and that includes we ourselves. Nothing means nothing; so you cannot be unaccepted. If you have repented of your sin and accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you cannot make God love you any more or any less by anything you do. You are fully accepted before God in Christ, period. Bask in that truth today and every day, and go live a life of thankfulness to Him for it.

Someone might say, "All of my incentive goes away when I know that my acceptance with God does not depend on my success or failure in obedience." But, if you say that, you do not really know or understand the love of Christ. Let me give you an example. (It is a marriage one so for those of you who are not married, use your imagination.) Husbands, would you cheat on your wife, if you knew that she would love and forgive you anyway? (Wives, think about it from your perspective.) I doubt it. Why not? Because her unconditional love engenders your love and thankfulness, and you would not do that to someone you love, even if you knew for certain they would still love you if you did cheat. You would not bring yourself to hurt them that much for your own selfish gain because their love has engendered your reciprocating love and thankfulness. You would want to show them by not cheating how thankful you are for a love that would forgive you even if you did cheat. Now, if you would cheat, then you do not really understand her love or understand love at all and probably have never understood it.

True believers have been changed by the love of Christ and will want to please Him and show Him their thankfulness. In fact, the only people who get any better are those that know if they do not get any better, God will still love them anyway. Does that mean we will not sin? No, of course not (1 Jn. 1:8). But, we do when we forget the truth of the gospel and go looking for what we already have in Christ in some idol that is smaller than Him. We have hearts that are prone to wander, which is why we need to come back to the gospel over and over again. The gospel is not just the flame that ignites the Christian life, it is the fuel that makes it burn every day. Jonathan Edwards used to say, "The key to the Christian life is letting the gospel filter down into every aspect of your life both rationally and experientially." You need the gospel as much today as you did when you were still dead in your sins. Never forget that, and never forget that you "cannot be accepted without Christ; but, when you have received His merit, you cannot be unaccepted."

By His Grace,
Taylor

Friday, March 29, 2013

Sunday is Coming


It’s Friday
   Jesus is praying
   Peter’s a sleeping
   Judas is betraying
   But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   Pilate’s struggling
   The council is conspiring
   The crowd is vilifying
   They don’t even know
   That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The disciples are running
   Like sheep without a shepherd
   Mary’s crying
   Peter is denying
   But they don’t know
   That Sunday’s a comin’

It’s Friday
   The Romans beat my Jesus
   They robe Him in scarlet
   They crown Him with thorns
   But they don’t know
   That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   See Jesus walking to Calvary
   His blood dripping
   His body stumbling
   And His spirit’s burdened
   But you see, it’s only Friday
   Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The world’s winning
   People are sinning
   And evil’s grinning

It’s Friday
   The soldiers nail my Savior’s hands
   To the cross
   They nail my Savior’s feet
   To the cross
   And then they raise Him up
   Next to criminals
   It’s Friday
   But let me tell you something
   Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The disciples are questioning
   What has happened to their King
   And the Pharisees are celebrating
   That their scheming
   Has been achieved
   But they don’t know
   It’s only Friday
   Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   He’s hanging on the cross
   Feeling forsaken by His Father
   Left alone and dying
   Can nobody save Him?
   Ooooh
   It’s Friday
   But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The earth trembles
   The sky grows dark
   My King yields His spirit

It’s Friday
   Hope is lost
   Death has won
   Sin has conquered
   and satan’s just a laughin’

It’s Friday
   Jesus is buried
   A soldier stands guard
   And a rock is rolled into place

But it’s Friday
   It is only Friday
   Sunday is a comin’!
~ S.M. Lockridge's famous sermon, from John L Jefferson, pastor of Del Aire Baptist Church, in Hawthrone CA.

I do not have anything deep to say to go along with this. I just wanted to post this short sermon because it gives me chills every time I hear it. I like to listen to it on Good Friday because it reminds me that Sunday is coming...

By His Grace,
Taylor

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Jesus Loves Me! This I know

"Yes, I can. In the words of a song I learned at my mother’s knee: 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'" ~ Karl Barth

I generally do not agree with Karl Barth's theology, but even so, I must admit that he was a formidable mind, incredibly influential, and did help beat back many of the attacks of liberal "Christian" scholarship. While he was on a lecture tour of the US in 1962, he spoke at Rockefeller Chapel on the University of Chicago campus. During the Q&A session a student asked him if he could sum up his theology in a single sentence, and the above quote was his answer. As much as I disagree with him in many areas of theology, that simple statement is something we Christians can and must always go back to.

Recently, I learned all the words to "Jesus Loves Me." I am astonished that I never knew there are four verses to this most famous of children's songs. And, they are really good! The song was written by Anna and Susan Warner in 1860 as part of their novel: Say and Seal. The words were spoken by the character Mr. Linden for the comfort Johnny Fax, a dying little boy. Very few people have even heard of the novel, but the song is one of the most famous (if not the most famous) children's hymns of all time. Here is the whole thing:

Jesus love me! this I know, 
for the Bible tells me so. 
Little ones to Him belong; 
they are weak but He is strong.

Chorus:
Yes, Jesus loves me. (3x) 
The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me! loves me still, 
though I'm very weak and ill. 
That I might from sin be free, 
bled and died upon the tree. 

Chorus

Jesus loves me! He who died 
heaven's gate to open wide. 
He will wash away my sin. 
Let His little child come in.

Chorus

Jesus loves me! He will stay 
close beside me all the way. 
Thou hast bled and died for me; 
I will henceforth live for Thee.

Chorus

I love those words because they express the gospel in a simple children's song. They even give us the reason we strive for holiness. It is not to make God love us more because if we are in Christ, He loves us as much as He loves Jesus, to which we cannot add anything. Remember that: if you are in Christ--if you have truly repented and confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior--you cannot make God love you any more or any less. Also, the reason is not to avert God's anger because if we are in Christ, Jesus has already done that for us too. It is to show God our thankfulness for all He has done for us in Jesus' work of redemption--"Thou hast bled and died for me; I will henceforth live for Thee."

The truth of the gospel is that simple and that deep. It is like a river where the strong can swim in deep, and the weak and broken can walk across easily. Dive deep into the depths of the gospel every day. Let it soak into every nook and cranny of your life, but on the days when you think everything is against you, remember "Jesus loves me! this I know" and let that be enough.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Naturalism and The Modern Heretic: Thomas Nagel

"Nagel occupies an endowed chair at NYU as a University Professor, a rare and exalted position that frees him to teach whatever course he wants. Before coming to NYU he taught at Princeton for 15 years. He dabbles in the higher journalism, contributing articles frequently to the New York Review of Books and now and then to the New Republic. A confirmed atheist, he lacks what he calls the sensus divinitatis that leads some people to embrace the numinous. But he does possess a finely tuned sensus socialistis; his most notable excursion into politics was a book-length plea for the confiscation of wealth and its radical redistribution—a view that places him safely in the narrow strip of respectable political opinion among successful American academics.
"For all this and more, Thomas Nagel is a prominent and heretofore respected member of the country's intellectual elite. And such men are not supposed to write books with subtitles like the one he tacked onto Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False." ~ Andrew Ferguson, "The Heretic"

Yesterday I wrote about an info-graphic that claims that "science" is opposed to religion and attempts to shame religion. I argued that the graphic has a faulty view of science and that the clash is not between the Bible and science but between philosophical theism and philosophical naturalism. I did not write much about the failures of naturalism itself, however. And, that brings me to today's post.

There are a lot of important books written that address (in varying degrees) the failures of naturalism: C. S. Lewis, Miracles; Richard Taylor, Metaphysics; Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea; Kenneth Richard Samples, A World of Difference; and Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, to name a few. However, I think the book mentioned above in Ferguson's article "The Heretic" (please do read that article)—Mind and Cosmos—will prove to be one of the most important of our time. I say that because of who Thomas Nagel is. The above quote should be enough to give you a taste of his prestige in the philosophical community and why a book on the failures of naturalism by him is so frightening to men like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and many others.

Alvin Plantinga has written an excellent review of Nagel's book. If you plan to begin your education on the failures of naturalism, start with Plantinga's review of Nagel's book. Then, once you understand Nagel's good and bad points, go read Nagel's book. If you are a Christian, you will not agree everything he says (particularly why he rejects theism) but you will enjoy his devastating critique of naturalism. Then, go read one of the other works I mentioned above.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Theism vs. Naturalism, NOT Bible vs. Science

"These days naturalism is extremely fashionable in the academy; some say it is contemporary academic orthodoxy... Still, naturalism is certainly widespread, and it is set forth in such recent popular books as Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and many others. Naturalists like to wrap themselves in the mantle of science, as if science in some way supports, endorses, underwrites, implies, or anyway is unusually friendly to naturalism." ~ Alvin Plantinga, "Evolution vs. Naturalism"

You may have seen the above info-graphic floating around the Internet lately (click on it to view the larger, readable version). It presents six stories that explain how the world was created, and it is essentially designed to shame any religious creation account (in particular it is aimed at Christianity, for how many books do you see written about the Hindu, Shinto, Chinese, or Norse creation accounts' scientific viability?) by implicitly asserting that they are irrational, "anti-science," and only have their sacred text as evidence for their account. "The text just says so, so it must be true," is how they present those who adhere to a religious creation account. It presents "science" as the sixth alternative and attempts to make it look obviously superior to the Bible's creation account (let's just cut to the chase, shall we?) and in complete opposition to it, as if there is a Bible vs. science battle. There is a lot said in the popular media today that characterizes the debate over evolution, embryonic stem research, etc. as "religion vs. science" (as if the two are mutually exclusive), and this info-graphic is another attempt to convince the reader that the Bible is opposed to science. It characterizes the Bible and Christians who advocate its worldview as "anti-science" de jure (as a matter of law), which also labels them as "anti-reason," "anti-evidence," and just plain ignorant. However, like most info-graphics floating around the Internet, it presents a straw-man, reductionist, and logically fallacious argument that crumbles when some simple observations are made.

Is there a battle between religion and science? Does the debate really lie there? Are Christians "anti-science"? Well, if we are honest we have to admit that at times and in isolated incidents this is true. I have met Christians who think that science is opposed to Scripture, thus making it their enemy, and I have made it one of my goals to show Christians that this is not the case. Christians can choose to make science an enemy; scientists can choose to claim that religion and science are like oil and water, but it is not necessary to draw that conclusion. That kind of thinking comes from a faulty view of science (why I put it in quotation marks above) and the idea that philosophical naturalism (i.e. physical nature as the sole reality) has the monopoly on the scientific enterprise. These two interrelated fallacies lie behind the conclusions and pejorative remarks in the above info-graphic.

First, the graphic claims that science gives a creation account that starts with the Big Bang, continues through the evolution of all life on earth, and ends up with humans evolving from hominids. That, however, is not strictly a claim of science. You see, the graphic works from a faulty definition of science that changes it from a tool to a worldview. Science is an epistemological tool that helps one gain knowledge about the physical world around us. It is a methodology by which we can gain knowledge about the physical world through observation and experimentation. The graphic, however, lists "science" along side five other worldviews and treats it as if it were another worldview. In the second row it gives a fairly random list of a few pieces of data about which science has given us information (the so-called "evidence") and in the first row, an interpretation of that data that is based on a purely naturalistic worldview. It does all this under the heading of "science," and yet only the second row properly fits under the heading "science." The first row is scientific data absorbed into and interpreted by the naturalistic worldview (i.e. a philosophy). So the graphic labels the sixth column as "science" but only because it is working from a faulty definition of science.

This leads us into the second fallacy. The graphic treats science as if it and naturalism are the same thing, identical. It merges science, which is a tool, with one worldview (naturalism) and then makes the implicit claim that other worldviews are opposed to science. It treats science as a worldview, but science is not a worldview, it is a tool to be used by worldviews. The graphic treats science as if the naturalistic worldview has the monopoly on its methodology and all other worldviews are left with only hear-say. Now, naturalism does make science its exclusive method for discovering truth, but that does not mean that science is the exclusive property of naturalism. What should really be at the top of the sixth column is "naturalism," not "science." Naturalism gives the explanation of "how the world came to be" that the info-graphic lists in the first row of the sixth column. Certainly, it uses the scientific tool, but it interprets the data within its worldview, and it is not the only worldview that can validly use the tool of science. The data they list in the evidence row under the heading of "science" can easily be interpreted within the Judeo-Christian worldview, and in fact it merges well with the Bible's creation account (which is in many more places in Scripture than just Genesis 1-2) and can be used as evidence for it as well. You see, the graphic attempts the frame the debate as a clash between Christianity and science when the debate is really a clash between philosophical theism and philosophical naturalism, and science is a tool readily available to both worldviews.

Here lies a major problem with the way the term "science" is sometimes used today. Many atheists, like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, would have us believe that science is opposed to religion, but that is only because they make a philosophical commitment to naturalism first and then claim exclusive rights to the scientific enterprise. They commit to naturalism as dogma before they even look at the evidence, and then they claim their interpretation of scientific data (within philosophical naturalism) is the only valid interpretation. I am not the only one to notice this, and even some atheists point it out this problem. Some have admitted the failures of naturalism and others may not go that far but at least admit their commitment to naturalism de jure. Harvard Geneticist (and atheist) Richard Lewontin admits this in his review of Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark in the NY Review of Books:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
Do you see the admission? "It is not that the method and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world... we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes... that materialism is absolute...."

When the commitment is absolute, one could even call it a "religious" commitment to naturalism (or materialism). Do they know naturalism to be the absolutely true worldview? No, they simply want us to take their word for it and make the same dogmatic commitment they have made. If one put naturalism in the sixth column of the above graphic, which is what belongs there instead of "science," then the "it says so" line would be in the evidence row for it too. Why should we believe that nature is the sole reality? Naturalism (or materialism) just says so. Why should we believe there is no uncaused personal Creator who brought universe into existence? Naturalism just says so. Why should we believe the cosmic constants, which are finely-tuned for life, just popped into existence? Naturalism just says so. Why should we believe there is no God, spiritual realm, or anything beyond the physical? Naturalism just says so. Why should we never let a "Divine Foot in the door"? Naturalism just says so.

Do not be fooled by info-graphics and arguments that attempt to frame the debate as the Bible vs. science. The clash is not there. The clash is in competing worldviews, and naturalism does not have the monopoly science.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Monday, March 11, 2013

Dr. Fazale "Fuz" Rana in Atlanta

My friends, you have seen me write a number of posts about evolution, science and religion, Adam and Eve, and icons of evolution. It should be quite clear by now that I do not believe the scientific data supports an evolutionary view of our world's history, and I am not the only Christian with a science background who thinks this. On Thursday, March 21, 7:30 pm at Perimeter Church, Dr. Rana from Reasons to Believe (a man with far more knowledge in this area than I) will give a lecture on science and the biblical account of creation. It would be well-worth your time, if you can make it.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Sin, a Little Thing?

"Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Savior, and you will see it to be 'exceedingly sinful.'" ~ Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, morning March 11.

Surrounded by sin, continually committing them, and being in a world that only cares about sin when they fear punishment means that Christians can start to become familiar with it, and by degrees we begin to regard sin as less than what it is--an affront to a holy, sinless God. We all do this, myself included. It's easy to think of sin in relative, worldly terms, and in that way it does not look so bad. The "white lie," the flirtation with lust, the creeping bitterness, the slowly building disinterest, the "small" bouts with impatience, the covetous desires, the racist thoughts we "never act on," or any other sin we may take lightly, they all nailed Jesus to the cross and all deserved an eternity in hell. Even if they were to be the only sin we ever committed, they deserve an eternity in hell, separated from the holy, sinless God. No matter how we might feel or the degree to which we might become used to sin, we must remind ourselves of the heinousness of sin--all want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

What then do we do? Do we then punish ourselves for them? By no means, for Jesus took that punishment and it cannot be repeated! Do we let them go? May it never be, for they brought God's wrath down upon His Son on the cross. We take them to Him, we confess them, we repent of them with gospel-driving repentance, we acknowledge their evil, we ask His forgiveness, and we then bask in His glorious grace to those who are in Christ. We take sin seriously and acknowledge it for what it is, yet we do not wallow in our guilt over it. We take it to the cross and rest in the grace that has saved us from its punishment and freed us from its power.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Friday, March 8, 2013

Much Ado About Nothing: More Adam and Eve Genetic Discussion

"If we take into account that, again, the difference is calibration, this result is compatible with all the other results that have been generated with regard to the y-chromosome data, and that data, I believe, supports a biblical understanding of human origins. So, I don't see this study as a challenge to our model or a challenge to the previous work that has been done. So, this is 'much ado about nothing,' in my opinion, all due to differences in clock calibration." ~ Dr. Fazale "Fuz" Rana

You may have seen articles like "African-American's Y chromosome sparks shift in evolutionary timetable" or "Don't call him 'Adam': South Carolina man’s genes help date first man" in the popular news in the past few days. These articles discuss some recent research based on the y-chromosome (y-c) of a South Carolina man, which appears to be genetically very different from the y-c's of most other men in the world. The difference of his y-c from the rest of ours pushes the date for modern humans back more than 200,000 years earlier than all previous studies have estimated. At least, that is what the researchers claim in their report on their findings.

Since I have written about the genetic research with regard to Adam and Eve in past articles (here and here) and argued for the historicity of the biblical account, I had planned to get the journal article on which these news articles are based and check out the data myself. However, a scientist whom I greatly respect--Dr. Fazale "Fuz" Rana--and who works for Reasons to Believe has already reviewed the data and reported his take on it in this podcast. I just finished listening to his evaluation of the research, and I think it is sound. I probably could not improve on it, so I recommend you go listen to what he has to say about it (the podcast is about 27 minutes long).

In sum, the crux of the whole issue is how these researchers calibrated their molecular clock analysis. (I have explained how molecular clocks work, and also discussed their failings, here.) They used a different calibration from every other bit genetic research that has ever been done. As a result, their research and date look significantly different from everyone else's. In addition, their date does not match the evidence from the fossil record, which is also a significant strike against them. If they had used the same calibration that everyone else uses, their date would have turned out to be slightly older than all previous research (and the fossil record evidence), but it would have agreed with all previous research within acceptable margins of experimental error. They argue that their calibration is superior, but they have no basis for making that assertion since there is no benchmark against which to measure molecular clock analysis except the fossil record, with which their date does not agree. What they have done is analogous to changing the calibration of your speedometer in your car and then trying to tell a police officer that you were not speeding based on your calibration. Neither he nor a judge is going to accept that your calibration is more reliable without hard, proven evidence. We should not accept this research unless it can show sufficient reason for overturning all previous research and the superiority of their calibration. Listen to Dr. Rana's podcast for a much more detailed explanation. It will be worth your time.

So, as Dr. Rana states above, this is really just "much ado about nothing." Until these researchers can prove with much more data the superiority of their calibration of molecular clocks, they have not overthrown the more generally accepted dates for Adam and Eve. Now, of course, evolutionists will say that those dates do not prove Adam and Eve at all, but I have argued elsewhere that the scientific data can be validly interpreted within a biblical framework that supports the historicity of the Genesis 1-3 account of human origins. No appeal to evolution is necessary to maintain a consistent view of the data, and this result does not change that.

By His Grace,
Taylor