Apologetic Articles
A Word to the Skeptic
Paul A Ross
“When you argue with reality, you lose - but only 100% of the time.”
- Byron Katie
DO INVISIBLE THINGS EXIST?
Our universe is bigger and more profound in its physics and structure than anyone ever hoped to imagine. And its existence, and ours, is one of the deepest mysterious that astounds the human mind. Where did it come from? Why does it exist? What is its purpose? These are all questions that haunt our very existence. Why does there have to be a universe in the first place? I mean, why should anything exist at all? If nothing forever existed in the past, then nothing would be the reality now, and we would not know it. However, instead we live in a universe rich and seemingly endless in its beauty, grandeur and design: mountains, the stars, and planets rotating all around us in mathematical precision, sunshine, fresh air… Now, we can only be living in two kinds of universes. A universe created by God, created for a purpose, with a destination in view. Or, a universe that came out of nothing, for no particular reason, with no particular destination in view. Moreover, in this article I’ll be focusing on the existence of God; and I will do this by beginning at the very outset with a definition of His nature as explicitly expressed by Christ when he identified the Creator as a being that is immaterial and non-physical declaring to his disciples that God is a Spirit. Now the dictionary definition for the word spirit refers to a personal being, having no physical body, whose existence is not contingent upon physical parts such as internal organs, brain, stomach, vertebrate or blood for example, but rather an immaterial being, a person, a mind, a presence: In this particular case, God.
Oh yes, agreed, I realise that the immaterial and invisible is a difficult thing to understand but in reality, the physicists will tell us that over 99.9% of all matter is actually made up of empty space. As a matter of fact, 95% of the universe is made up of something that is invisible to the physical eye, known as dark matter. What's more, quarks, which are the very nuts and bolts (building blocks) of all matter, the sub-atomic particles that constitute the very make-up of matter are invisible. Moreover, photons, the particles that make up light, are also invisible to human eyesight, observed not directly but only by their effects. As a matter of fact, all around us, and through us, invisible forces are busily at work. For example, we cannot see wavelengths, magnetism or frequency, gamma rays or microwaves. We cannot touch, or dig up, mathematical facts. We cannot see under a microscope the laws of logic moving in formation or splitting into cell divisions. We cannot freeze, boil, measure or weigh our thoughts intentions or motives. In fact, it would appear that a vast majority of all that we call reality - the things that make living life possible - are things invisible and immaterial in their nature. And yet, do we question the existence of these other things? To me, it appears quite apparent that to reject the existence of God on the sole basis of ones not being able to see Him with their physical sight is only a claim in regards to ones own ignorance.
Moreover, it needs to be stated that our ignorance of certain things is not evidence of knowledge but only evidence of ignorance, and really nothing more. If it wasn't for our five physical senses the world we know and experience would not exist to us. In fact, we only see and experience this physical world because of our five physical senses. Our senses do not determine what is real - they don't create reality - they only allow us to experience it. Remove any one of these senses, whether sight, hearing or smelling for example and reality would still be there. Our five physical senses give us direct experience regarding aspects and dimensions of reality. Without any one of these senses that part of reality would be non-existent to us. Now, should we determine, and arrive at final conclusions, on what is really real and in existence based upon our senses? For example, some people don't believe in the existence of beings such as angels because they can not see them. But what if the whole of reality is made up of aspects and dimensions that cannot be experienced through the limited senses that we possess? For example, if we had other senses that we don't now possess, would we not experience different parts of reality that hereto we have not known? Take for example a digital sound recording device. It can only capture one mode of reality - namely sound. For this device smell, sight and touch are non-existent. OK, stay with me now, I'm trying to draw your thoughts to realities beyond your present senses. However, before I do, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the five physical senses that we do possess are not only partial but also inferior to the senses of some animals. For example dogs and cats can see better and smell better than humans. Many birds can see things twenty times further away than we can. Polar bears can smell a seal five miles away; and whales, dolphins and bats navigate and travel by use of echolocation radar. Some reptiles possess infrared vision that sees the heated parts of moving animals at night. Sharks, bees, turtles, pigeons and salmon utilise magnetic fields; in fact, the list goes on and on. So what is my point? Well, I have highlighted the superior senses of some creatures to demonstrate the poor limitations of the five senses that we possess. Moreover, I have demonstrated that - given our limitations - we are in no position to conclude on what the whole of reality embraces. The more senses we possess the more of reality we can know; so if we were endowed with an extra sense - or senses - we would experience things that hereto we thought did not exist. Therefore invisible does not mean non-existent but rather imperceptible, given the senses that we currently possess.
There's no point showing a shark a red cloth like you would to a bull for sharks cannot see colour. Colour to the shark may be non-existent but we know that invisibility is there only because of the imperceptibility due to the senses that it possesses. OK, God has granted some individuals an extra window of sight and experience through senses that are not common. They see and experience things whether, past, present or future that to the normal five physical senses is imperceptible. Prophets were of this kind for they experienced things through an extra sense of vision that allowed and endowed them with sight that the ordinary man cannot see or experience. Seeing through the eyes of God is a totally different mode of experience. The prophets are normally endowed with this extra sensory capacity from birth as God predetermines their lives for His work in this area. We see this in the book of Numbers where The Lord said to Moses: “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will make Myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream” (Numbers 12:6).
Many people struggle with the fact that God is invisible and immaterial. Nevertheless, one does not need to venture out too far from home for a greater mystery to stare at us in the face, and that is the mystery of our own existence. I have spoken about the immaterial and invisible nature of God but there are aspects to our own existences that are not too different from God in this respect. What do I mean? We'll like God; there are invisible and immaterial qualities to our own lives. For example, you would agree, that our physical bodies are made up of matter - as I said a little further back - this matter (regardless of our perception) is over 99.9% empty space. OK! So you do the maths. How much of what we call "us" is solid or concrete? We'll according to the physicists it's less than 1%.
Now, as far as the solid is concerned (the atoms and sub-atomic particles) where in these atoms do we find atoms that are conscious? Where do we locate atoms that think and have thoughts, self- introspection and subjective awareness? I mean if all we are is matter - and matter is nothing more than impersonal atoms - then how did we come to be conscious thinking persons having self-awareness? Molecules that reason and contemplate, write poetry and music? Where in our body is ourselves? Where resides our consciousness and self-awareness? Are these physical properties? Can we observe conscious thinking atoms under a high-powered microscope? As it stands, and without exception, these qualities are all properties that are immaterial and invisible to sight, yet they are realities that we experience and cannot deny. So it turns out that if we reject the existence of God on the basis of Him being immaterial we must also, on this very same basis, reject a large part of our own.
“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.”
- Jonathan Swift
GOD’S STAND ON THE ISSUE
Now at this point, and before I move on, I would like to say a few things in regard to image (idol) worship in the ancient world as it ties in with what I have said thus far, for example, when God revealed himself to the Hebrews through such men as Abraham and Moses, he did so without appearing in any physical form in a time when the surrounding nations all about were carving, moulding, sculpturing and chiseling gods in every possible shape and image the eternal transcendent Creator rejected all such representations of the divine as poorly misconceived concoctions rooted in human ignorance. On top of that, God was not going to indulge mans insecure need to worship something that could be seen and represented through vulgar images of gold, stone and wood; in other words, something false and misleading.
In fact, God, the eternal and immaterial, specifically took upon no concrete body or form when revealing Himself to the early fathers and prophets so as to prevent their slipping into the worship of things visible rather than the worship of a being that is beyond our ability to sculpture, carve, chisel or even comprehend. Nevertheless, God left each one of us with a witness in regard to His presence in the universe and this witness radiates through the manifestation of the natural world (Creation) and also directly and personally through the Spirit and presence of His power to those that sought and do seek after Him. But God who is unchanging and not a part of the decay of the natural world is by very necessity a timeless and immaterial being. Furthermore, He is a being too great and magnificent to be represented by a carved image on a dusty bookshelf or on a vulgar temple stand in some remote village; hence God's commandments against idol image manufacturing, as all such misrepresentations only belittle and undermine His sovereignty and greatness.
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
- Philip K. Dick
When the psalmist David strummed the chords of his harp, he pleased the Lord because he was speaking the language of God and in this language he was communing with the Divine and in the pleasure of God’s glory. Now when I say the language of God, I am not talking in the language of figurative expression but in the language of reality for the whole of the universe is a cosmic symphony, an orchestra of sound. You see, the universe at its base is made up of energy and this energy is vibrating and creating specific and differing frequencies that in turn generate sound-waves that produce for our senses a grand cosmic symphony of sound that manifest not just in sound but also into light and the beautiful universe that we see. Furthermore, our bodies are made up of, and held together, by this very same energy, which in turn resonates with its own frequency of noise, and in the world of science it is called the physics of sound. Yes, as we move along in our discoveries the universe continues to astound us in its magic and magnificence and one does not need to dive into the world of Alice in Wonderland to encounter the bizarre and mysterious one only needs to take a brief sojourn into the world of present day scientific discovery. In the first chapter of The Gospel of John the book begins with the words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God…All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1: 1-3 NKJV). Now what strikes me so profoundly about this passage is that it tells us that the whole of the universe came into existence through the avenue of sound, through the medium of the living eternal spoken Word, who was God, and it told us this some two thousand years ago, long before we ever came to understand the connection between matter, energy and sound. Moreover, if the universe is an orchestra, a symphony of sound, then God is its producer, director and conductor, the maestro of all maestros, and it may well be the biggest performance that we’re ever going to hear or see.
MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS
Ladies and gentlemen, comrades, boys and girls there is a greater universe out there – one outside of the finite corner that we happen to occupy. There are mysteries to which we have yet to understand. We are limited in our knowledge and are therefore, in no position to draw ultimate conclusions through the processes of our limited human understanding. We have not reached the boundaries of all possible knowledge. There are realities that are beyond our present scope of understanding. For example, the Scripture’s refer to the existence of conscious immaterial energies (entities) that are both malicious and kind in their natures and activities? We cannot see them but many of us (the human race) have experienced their presence; experiences both beautiful and truly terrifying. Furthermore, the same Scripture’s tell us that these beings each have their own personality and particular characteristics such as kind and cruel, truthful and deceitful, unseen by human eyes yet manifesting their presence and activities through the agency of the physical world. Christ in his public ministry was endowed with God’s special abilities, moreover, he was accompanied by an unseen host of powerful angelic attendants that watched and facilitated in his every step. In fact, most everything that Jesus did or said was an action or word inspired and revealed directly through his dependency upon the spirit of God; and through this connection he was informed to the true and foundational nature of every circumstance and situation and was therefore, able to see and know as God sees and knows. To Christ the realm of the unseen was as visible as physical trees are to us, and it was this world, with all its mystery, that he wanted us to come to understand. We are spirits that inhabit a material earthly body, or as one song put it: spirits in the material (consciousness in physics) and it is this twofold unification of our existence that allows us to experience simultaneously the reality of these two worlds. Now, what I find totally amazing regarding the research into near death experiences (NDE) and out of body experiences (OBE) is the amount of accumulated data that gives incredible and astounding evidence of human mind and consciousness existing outside, and independent of, the physical body and brain. Moreover, as one reads through the accounts and testimonies of literally thousands upon thousands of sincere and honest individuals that have had these experiences, whether it was through a car-accident or other misfortune that resulted in their death, one is startled to discover repeated first hand testimony of these particular individuals leaving their physical bodies and seeing and hearing factual things around them, close by, and far away, while physically dead and exhibiting no heart rate, pulse, breathing or brain activity and yet experiencing things in a state of conscious existence with heightened senses while not in the body. Moreover, some of the most interesting accounts are from people that did not believe in the existence of an immaterial soul before the experience but after the experience were unshakable in their conviction regarding the reality of an after-life.
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
-Epictetus
THE BOTTOM LINE FOR ATHEISM
It is a fact of reality, ladies and gentlemen, that a purely materialistically dogmatic view of the world reduces all that we call human existence to the freak occurrence of nonsensical and impersonal chemical haphazard processes. Now of course you may believe that your mother or daughter, sister or brother, son or father actually have some kind of real and ultimate significance; and are therefore, accordingly valuable and beautiful but on a materialistic basis such a belief is merely the perception of a specie's delusion as in this worldview we are nothing more than a random collection of molecules in motion that originated out of nothing, for no reason, and are all heading progressively to the universal junk-yard of rack and ultimate ruin. Moreover, on a purely naturalistic platform the value of your loved ones are ultimately no more valuable or superior than that to the value of bacteria or fungus on a piece of pumpkin. Of course we could trick ourselves and console each other with strange notions that something truly meaningful, beautiful and wonderful was at work, in the feelings of love that we feel for those we care for but in a universe that has no person, heart or love, behind it, no such meaning or ultimate kindness would exist at any place or any time, anywhere. In fact, in such a universe the fabled Frankenstein would have a greater degree of significance working in his favour because at least he would be the creation of a scientist that had his personal interest at heart.
What many skeptics seem to overlook is that this whole dogma regarding a pure materialistic universe is based upon many faith assumptions that have to be smuggled in order to support their belief. For the atheist, God and the supernatural are an unnecessary extra because in their thinking, they feel that it is adding to material reality. However, this argument of theirs is based upon the unproved assumption that physical matter is the absolute whole of reality out there - and this is something that non-believers, as bright as they may be, could not possibly know. Moreover, human knowledge is not only restricted by the unlimited magnitude of reality but also by the limited sensory tools of human perception (sensory limitations). It seems to me that we must continually press the point that finite creatures, such as ourselves, have limitations and have no basis for assuming that pure physical matter is the whole show of reality. Consider a tape recorder, it captures only one mode of reality, namely sound and anything outside of this must not exist, right? Wrong! Only God can see the whole of reality. God transcends all dimensions, and therefore, sees everything as one whole, complete and correlated. Mankind, being confined to the limitations of three spatial dimensions, sees only in part. In fact, there is no place that a person can stand, so to speak, and look and see all reality in the whole, no more than an ant can understand the law of gravity or even the laws of fine pastry cooking.
Every family has its particular stories to tell; moments and events in the past that leave their indelible impressions on the individual and collective family depository of memories; happenings that we as families, from time to time, recall to mind when gathering together. One such story involves my younger brother who was then around five years old being accompanied by our mother as they walked to the shops. While enjoying the morning sunshine they happened to walk past an aged man that was in possession of everything he owned strapped to his back and while my mother proceeded to pass him my five year old brother, without warning or any announcement, came to a halt and reached out and held the homeless man’s hand quietly voicing that God loved him. Now, had this been an evangelistic endeavour on the part of a calculated enthusiastic urban missionary it could have turned out quite differently, but the pure compassionate intent of my little brother's action disarmed this poor man’s deeply entrenched defenses leaving him reachable to a higher kind of power under which he began to cry. Now, what is the point of this story? Well, the point of this story is the underlying message of dignity; the kind that is inferred upon every single living human soul; a sacred God-inferred dignity that a god-less universe would know nothing about, neither could it care less. For in a god-less universe this displaced street bum would just be an unfortunate old man dancing to the tune of his DNA.
Now of course, the disbeliever can, and does, express human acts of kindness, and to suggest that he couldn’t or doesn’t, would be an outright wholesale lie. In fact, he or she would be unable to act any differently - no more differently than a computer program could go against its programming, or more to the point … its programmer, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. In other words, you and I, the unbeliever and believer alike, would not be under the compulsions of such moral drives if the universe at its base, source and essence had no such realities at work expressing these realities through nature - and in nature, manifesting themselves through everyday people like Bob and Mary down the road. In short, the atheist has nowhere to hang his moral hat (there is no ontological hook) - the atheist in a god-less universe is unable to account for the transcendent existence of moral human value and dignity, because nature (blind and impersonal) sees no intrinsic difference between life in the vomit of a man to the life of the man himself - and in an impersonal senseless universe, consisting entirely of energy and matter, we should not expect it to act any differently.
THE FOUNDATIONAL OUTWORKING BETWEEN THEISM & ATHEISM
Now, contrast this kind of philosophy with the teaching of Christ, who spoke of the immeasurable value of one single human soul. To God a life is sacred and therefore, the sacred command against murder and cruelty. Charles Darwin's whole philosophy as put forward in his book, The Origin of Species was hinged upon such concepts as: The survival of the fittest and nature being red (blood spilling) in tooth and claw but Christ spoke of loving thy neighbour and demonstrated this love in reaching out to the alienated, hopeless and disadvantaged. Furthermore, each worldview invariably leads down two different paths and ends up in two different places. Darwin’s, Nature red (blood spilling) in tooth and claw (aggression) is no doctrine of love. In fact, every honest atheist admits that aggression and domination are, in themselves, good things, because, at the least, they ensure the survival of the fittest. Furthermore, Darwin in his book, The Descent of Man, clearly ranks races like the Aryan and the Asiatic in terms of their proximity to the apes. In fact, the racist elements in Darwin’s work are subjects on which the anti-religious are strangely quiet about.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
- George Orwell
For example, atheist Thomas Huxley asserted that, “No rational man, aware of the facts, believes that the average Negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man” and H. G. Wells expressed that the inferior races’ such as the black, the yellow man, etc, would just have to go because the world is not a charitable institution. Furthermore, Huxley, to support his views argued that biblical morality was unscientific. Now, where did these gentlemen get these kinds of values? Contrast these, for example, to some of the values of The Bible - such as the protection for the weak, especially those who lacked the natural protection of family and land (namely widows, orphans, Levites, immigrants and resident aliens); justice for the poor; impartiality in the courts; generosity at harvest time and in general economic life; respect for persons and property, even of an enemy; sensitivity to the dignity even of the debtor; special care for strangers and immigrants; considerate treatment of the disabled; prompt payment of wages earned by hired labour; sensitivity over articles taken in pledge; consideration for people in early marriage, or in bereavement; even care for animals, domestic and wild, and for fruit trees - and you’ll see that two different kinds of worldview branches emerge.
Case in point, Darwin’s survival of the fittest and Christ’s moral pressing to defend and protect the weak, such as in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, have led to two different kinds of social politics, the former pulls down the wall of sanctity that defends the weak from the strong and has spawned history’s most savage movements such as the French terror, the Stalinist purges to Hitler’s warrant and justifications for the social eradication of Jews, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses and the naturalistic justification for the elimination of those with genetic failures such as the disabled. Further case in point, Hitler’s personal secretary, Traudi Junge said that if the laws of nature were Hitler’s religion, he could reconcile his dogma of violence better with nature than with the Christian principle of loving your neighbour.
WAR ON THE FRONT LINES
I’m of the opinion that if I changed the subject at this point I would have left a lot unsaid so therefore I’ll further hone in on this whole topic a little more, you see, it has been my personal experience when talking with particular opposers of the Christian faith that they almost always passionately launch into a moral attack against Christianity by pointing out the historical misconducts of certain Christians and they do this so as to undermine Christianity’s credibility and thereby deem it to be fundamentally wicked. I’m personally surprised how many particular individuals (in their talks, debates and books) have launched into these kinds of emotional attacks against certain historical crimes of history such as the Christian crusades, the inquisitions and the Salem witch trials while remaining virtually silent in regard to the atrocities committed by movements and individuals that have championed an atheistic agenda. Ok! So let’s look at the recorded facts of such Christian atrocities, for the facts are not as grim as played on by the opposition. For example, the infamous Christian crusades were made up from a large group of individuals that pledged no allegiance to Christ on any personal level but were simply a motley crew of struggling peasants and farmers that were hired by the Pope to take geographical positions of land for wages. Moreover, the inquisitions that went over a space of four-centuries killed up to a maximum of two-thousand individuals that panned-out to around five people a year furthermore the Salem witch trials were responsible for the killing of 20 individuals. Now while all these things are truly horrible, if not embarrassing, for the present-day Christian, they are merely fairy-floss and child’s play in comparison to the terrible brutalities perpetrated upon individuals through the schemes and political systems by the hands of atheistic tyrants and dictators; for all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to murder as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.
That’s right over 100 million people were killed in state authorised purging’s from a long line of atheistic leaders: 65 million people killed in China, 20 million in the former USSR, 2 million in North Korea, 2 million in Cambodia, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in Vietnam, 150 thousand in Latin America by leaders such as Mao, Stalin, the Cambodian communist leader Pol Pot, the Albanian communist leader Enva Hoxha, Prime minister of Cuba Fidel Castro, Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu, Kim Jong ill, Brazna… on and on the list goes. However, and to be expected, atheists that are not at all comfortable with these facts of modern history shy away from such conclusions and tell us that the evils done by such leaders were, in fact, merely secondary to their atheism, and not because of it. In other words, the fact that these leaders happened to be atheistic (a brute fact) the evils that they perpetrated upon the church going were secondary and unrelated to their atheism; at least this is the false and deceitful claim that Richard Dawkins champions; and it is an argument without any basis or grounding in history but is rather pure atheistic fictional fundamentalism.
The brute truth of history stands, unchallenged and unmovable, all these regimes and leaders listed above were under the direct influence of the ideas of Karl Marx and were driven by a grand vision to impose an ideological package over the whole world and part of that package included the eradication of religion and this translated to systematic atheistic materialistic indoctrination in all state schools and to the closing down of all places of worship and the subsequent pursuit and state arrests of all enemies of the state where torture/death was awarded to them. Religion, according to Karl Marx, was a crippling mass delusion that impeded social progress. Marx proclaimed that religion and God were the “opium of the people”, and that it made the masses passive and stupid, blinding them to social injustice and therefore, preventing the advancement of civilization. To Marx, the solution was simple: religion had to be eradicated and torn down so that the creation of the new man and the new utopia, freed from the shackles of God and religion, could be birthed, leading into the great liberation and advancement of civilisation.
THE DEVIL’S HANDMAIDEN
You see, the enforcement of atheism had to be implemented at all cost and religion was deemed illegal, paving the way for relentless waves of political state killings. The leaders of the communist fraternity justified the blood-bath by declaring that the ends justified the means. Accordingly, they could do whatever was necessary to bring about a “workers’ paradise”, a cherished saying that was shouted by prison officers as they beat, tortured and murdered the God-fearing. It’s plain to see that these Christians were a really bad thing for they stood in the way to atheist-communist utopian expansion. Moreover, the Christians were considered fully conscientious class enemies of the state and the congress declared unrelenting war against them; coupled with anti-religious education to be instituted from the first-grade up even among pre-school children. Marx wrote that the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of man is a requisite for their real happiness and in his famous poem, Invocation of One in Despair, he wrote: “I wish to avenge myself against the one who rules above” and further on… “I shall build my throne high overhead” In another poem called the player, Karl Marx wrote: “See this sword? The prince of darkness gave it to me” and the darkness continued as atheistic regimes treated religious believers as subversives and abnormal and relegated them to psychiatric hospitals and death camps.
Moreover, the state that envisioned this grand new world, (the new utopia, freed from the shackles of God and religion) recruited a mass of volunteers also including party members, members of the Komsomol Youth Movement and army veterans to absorb themselves in anti-religious persecution and harassment bearing the slogan: The struggle against religion is a struggle for socialism and marching under this banner atheistic groups such as the Society of the Godless, The Union of Belligerent Atheists, The League of the Militant Godless, The Union of the Godless, The Young Pioneer Organisation and others were involved in nationwide atheistic propaganda and acts of terror, although of course it had nothing to do with atheism or a godless new utopia…yeah right! Don’t be duped ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends; communism was an explicitly atheistic worldview. In Article 37 of the Albanian constitution (1976) for example it stated: “The state recognizes no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people”. Jesus cautioned against such political abuse when he stated emphatically to Pilate, the Roman governor: “My kingdom is not of this world”. Jesus was making it as clear as possible that his kingdom would not come about through political enforcement or via ethical legislation. The Scriptures’ remind us that true Christians are aliens, whose ultimate citizenship is not of this world (Phil. 3:20; 1 Pet. 2:11). The non-nationalistic, multi-ethnic church is now called to live as salt and light in this world, revealing by lives of love, peacemaking, and unity that they are Christ's disciples (John 13:35). The Jesus of history is just as much against the inquisitions and crusaders as any contemporary respectable person would and should be today.
Furthermore, all acts of brutality and cruelty, according to Jesus, have nothing whatsoever to do with his message of love and all those that commit these atrocities in his name will face the harshest of judgments on that great day. Atheists today like to smear Christianity but are blind, dumb and deaf when it comes to their own dark history and, almost always, confuses Christianity with the actions of radical Moslem's. But if Christianity is so evil than where today is the Christian Bin Laden? Where is the Christian Saddam Hussein? Where is the Christian Hamas or Hezbollah? Where is the Christian Palestinian Islamic Jihad or the Christian PLO? Where is the Christian nation today that runs along the lines of Iran or the Iraqi bath party or North Korea? Where are the Christian Suicide bombers? But instead all that we have are a list of over 400,000 Christian charitable organisations worldwide that make it their full time occupation attending to the worlds needy, desperate and poor in the name of Christ; bringing medicine, fresh water and building hospitals in the remotest parts of the globe.
“The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.”
–
Herbert Sebastien Agar
THE BIGGEST ARGUMENT AGAINST GOD’S EXISTENCE (OUCH)
I’ll now turn my attention to the issue that evokes the greatest of human passion: human suffering and pain. However, I’m not referring to the suffering at the hands of a nagging spouse or meddling in-laws, although those could be definitely included on the list of things most inconvenient to our happiness. I believe the argument regarding human pain and suffering is the most challenging of arguments, and the one most likely to engage the heart and mind in serious discussion; however, for some (not all) no such discussions are desired, but rather rage and more accusations. For many opposers of the Christian faith these kinds of tactics (rage and accusation) are employed to incriminate and invalidate the existence of God thereby providing themselves with the necessary license and justification for the preferred philosophy of self-rule over, and against, the rule of God.
Moreover, people that use such tactics all have one particular and convenient oversight in common and that is they champion the issue of evil and suffering as evidence for God's non-existence, but say nothing (or it slips their minds) in regard to all the good, the true and the beautiful things in the world as evidence to the contrary. For some unknown reason, the skeptic in his/her attempt to disprove the existence of God conveniently skips over any good found in the world, at any place or any time. Surprisingly, and under suspicious circumstances, the scales of good and evil are grossly tipped to the evil side making it appear as though evil, all by itself, is enough to prove the non-existence of God. Now, the problem with this shady kind of double dealing is that the scales are tipped and weighted on one side; furthermore, this kind of false imbalance only prevails by ignoring all the good in our world and should, as a standard of measurement, be rejected by all thinking people. In reality the issue under scrutiny here, such as the existence of suffering and tragedy in our world, does not at all disprove the existence of God any more than termites in a house disprove the existence of an architect.
The fact is we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle on the table when were dealing with this issue furthermore we are out of our depth when attempting to comprehend the true unfolding nature of reality as can only be seen, known or understood by God. However we can be certain that creating creatures such as ourselves with free independent will has its challenges, nevertheless for God such a fact would have been incorporated into the outworking of His overall plan and we can rest assured that whatever plan it may be its divinely destined unveiling will be no surprise to God. However, as it stands, given our free will and our moral power of choice, in a universe created with fixed moral principles that run according to consistent natural moral laws we are going to experience quite a degree of pain and suffering. Why? Because, we are free to choose against the true and the beautiful and become the sole authors of a new kind of world. Even if it is a choice that has its bent in the perversion of reality or the corruption of the fundamental reality.
REAPING THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
For according to God, evil is a deviation from the way that things ought to be. However, there cannot be a deviation from the way that things ought to be, unless there is a way that things really and truly ought to be (if that makes any sense). Moreover, from this path of deviation, evil and suffering are really only the consequential out-workings of the individuals’ self-governing free will. Teeth are made for chewing, but they would suffer the consequences of misuse if they were used to climb up trees. In short, God is the author of human freedom, but He is not responsible for humans abusing that freedom. You see, the atheist, by raising this particular argument against God digs a ditch for himself, because if God does not exist, then neither does evil. What do I mean? Well, if we are just the mindless chemical by-products of an impersonal origin then ultimate reality could not care less about our feelings of good and evil or right and wrong because such a universe would be neither conscious nor alive in any sense that we understand living and all such terms of expression (like right or wrong, good or evil) would be meaningless words and would therefore, all be equally and ultimately illusory.
I would very much like to expand on this point a little further as its truth often escapes our attention even though every single one of us, in everyday situations, consistently draw upon moral currency just as much as we draw upon mathematical truths and principles of logic, in fact, without these realities our society and individual lives would plummet into chaos. You see, we all operate from a moral framework in our day-to-day lives. What’s more, every single one of us appeal to, and invoke, moral standards; especially when we – or someone we care about- is the victim of some injustice. But, to the point, we can’t condemn certain acts as acts of evil or injustice if fundamentally the universe we live in is nothing more than the accidental unintentional by-product of impersonal mindless forces; for to assert that certain actions are evil, cruel or unjust we must assume that such things as injustice and evil exist. In other words, one must appeal to, and invoke, a real moral law as a standard to distinguish between good and evil to make the warranted and necessary denunciations. But here's the rub, if there is no Creator that set the universe into place with moral principles, then there is in reality, no moral standards at work in the universe. So, in raising the argument of evil to disprove God's existence, one is, in fact, assuming the existence of God to provide ones moral objections validity and a real moral grounding outside of the individual’s subjective opinion.
“To some the truth is an insult, to others life from the dead.”
- Gary Amirault
Moreover, one cannot ultimately point to evil and suffering as evidence of God's non-existence without first invoking His very existence to give ones moral judgments an ultimate anchor, in reality. If God does not exist, then all such cries against evil, suffering, injustice and pain are merely products of a mental and perceptional illusion that have no basis or grounding in ultimate reality. Now, some may find themselves emotionally and mentally disagreeing with such a dose of sobering realism. However, in a mindless impersonal universe, your thoughts are, after all, just irrational electro-chemical impulses; simply the responses of a brain that is in no way at all governed by the laws of logic or rationality. However, we are made in the likeness of God; we are morally hard-wired and so find ourselves in violent reaction against evil and injustice. On account of that reality individuals all over the world and in every culture and society cannot help but live out from a moral context; individuals can no more cease acting this way than a dog can help barking or fish can stop swimming. Notwithstanding, our early parents (ancestors), in spite of their inclination towards moral conviction, failed in many respects to do what they felt to be right (not too different from us today), in fact, not too long after God created our early ancestors, it is said, that He become saddened in regard to the crooked path that they were taking towards the wrong, the false and the corrupt. Moreover, on many occasions, God, in His wisdom, warned particular individuals, and societies, throughout history that there would be distasteful consequences if they continued to use their freedom to pursue the impure, the untrue and the corrupt. Consequently, we should not be all that surprised when everywhere around us we observe with our eyes the tragedy and carnage from the collective culmination of a generation that makes a mockery of moral principles and virtue.
THE COMING STORM
You see, the Scripture’s tell us that the whole fabric of the natural world is directly affected by how we live. For all around us, and in all parts of the world, nature is reacting to our collective unethical choices. God through His prophets, on hundreds of occasions, told us that our rebellion to His moral decrees would return to us in ways most undesirable. Moreover, such disasters and calamities serve to awaken society and individuals to certain moral realities long forgotten and discarded. What’s more, such misfortunes also serve to awaken us to the fleeting and transitory nature in regard to our weak and frail lives, ever reminding us that we are neither invincible nor indestructible. In the beginning humankind was given dominion over the earth and entrusted with the stewardship for its responsible management. However, in our departure from the true, the beautiful and the holy, a whole new world of chaos and disorder came into the equation and, as a direct result, even nature, the sole refuge of our physicality, would now become the source of our pain, fear and uncertainty. What was originally meant to be our home has now become our unrelenting foe. For people, in their departure from God, would no longer be able to hide in nature, because now even nature itself would rebel in its elements. Nature would be at war with us in our war against God, ever reminding us of our finality, limitation and mortality. That being the case – and according to the Biblical prophets- it is not about to get any better, in fact, the cosmos will become more intensely hostile and increasingly catastrophic in its behaviour as the day of God's rap-up for mans rule approaches.
Bearing all this in mind, such knowledge, from the divine perspective, should foster humility regarding our relationship with God, thus leading to the logical steps towards wisdom and personal redemption. Some people only use the argument of human suffering and evil as a justification for rejecting God. However, in so doing, they lay a philosophical trap for themselves. For whom do they blame for all the good in our world? From where comes the light? From where comes all that which is true and beautiful? Jesus made it quite clear that our eighty or ninety years of life are going to be punctuated with difficulties, problems, ordeals, troubles and hardships. In actual fact, struggle is the very sign of life. It's a battle. Life is not hassle-free. A living animal struggles; a dead one knows no such thing. Mere existence implies complication; it guarantees difficulty. Jesus never guaranteed us a problem-free life; His very own life on earth was highlighted with trials and difficulties. However, He did not leave us in the dark concerning the true cause of why we suffer. But many of us, not willing to look into the light, have struggled in our blindness and ignorance, misunderstanding at every level the true nature of human evil and pain.
A FINAL WORD ON THE MATTER
In my opinion we as individuals can never get to the root of the problem until we take individual and collective personal responsibility for the things that make a large degree of evil and suffering possible. What do I mean? Well, if there's anything wrong with the world, it's us. When we look at the mountains, the sea, and the stars in the night sky, we see only the beauty and grandeur of God’s handiwork. Everything around us moves in wonder and mathematical magnificence, from the flowing tides to the revolutions of the planets - all things bear witness to the stability and serenity of our Creator. Is there pollution? We created it. Are there wars? It is we who are fighting. Is there hunger? It is we who are withholding. Is there cruelty? It is we who are uncaring. Are there divisions? It is we who are not united. Is there self-centeredness? It is we who are self-serving. In a short space of time, we have conquered the world and plundered the earth. Like a virus attached to the planet, we have disfigured that which is graceful and corrupted the sacred with the profane. We are the generation that fights for clean rivers, but cares not for clean hearts. We are the generation that sends our pets to obedience school, while allowing our children to run wild. We are the generation that gives our lives for the conservation and survival of baby koalas, while simultaneously defending our moral right to dispose of our own unborn. We are the generation that places a high premium on the pursuit of education, while denying the value of purity and morality. Our astronomers are reaching further outward, while our families are falling further downward. We are the generation that seeks greater freedom, while in our towns are seen to be installing more bars, gates and locks. Oh yes, we are free, my God, as free as the plague.
Finally, sisters and brothers, comrades and friends, it should be plain to see that in resisting God, we fundamentally embrace all that which is contrary to His nature - and all that which is contrary to His nature is in opposition to the way things really are. Of course, we might not like this, but we cannot escape from its reality without incurring moral and spiritual ramifications. As much as we may disagree with God's arrangement of things, we can no more erase and smudge out the moral reality than we can any other governing law - whether it is the law of gravity, entropy, motion or electromagnetism. Now, we may really believe that we have got away with a whole lot of things unnoticed and therefore we place no priority or importance on how we live. However, it would be foolish of me not to mention in passing another governing law and that is the seed that is sown will continue to grow long after the sower had forgotten the sowing. Jesus made it perfectly clear that there will be a day of reaping, a day of settling accounts, and going over the books. We may be crossing our fingers that we have got on the train unnoticed and without a ticket (metaphorically speaking), but let us remember the journey has not yet ended - we are still on the train and it would be a premature celebration indeed for us to claim our escape before the last platform came into view. We may continue to resist God and occupy ourselves with the many diversions and distractions that this present world provides while treading underfoot that still, small voice of truth. But, like the pilot who continues his course while ignoring his plane's warning lights, we too will be heading for an inescapable collision if we continue to proceed on our journey in disregard to the whispers of God.
“Truth is not determined by majority vote.” -
Doug Gwyn
Reproduced by permission. The above extract is from Paul's soon to be released series "The Case Against Skepticism"
Author Profile
Paul Ross
Paul Ross, author of "The Case against Skepticism", is a Christian apologist (defender of the faith) and has spent the last 20 years researching and engaging in intellectual arguments for the faith. Paul’s unique - signature style - of incorporating the revelatory gifts of the Holy Spirit; coupled with the punch of intellectually persuasive reasoning skills makes him a formidable opponent against the elements of deception in a society and culture that has largely rejected God. Paul is a strong family man, and the proud father of two lovely daughters. He currently lives in Brisbane, Australia and is in a position of leadership in a local Brisbane church. Paul’s emphasis and passion in ministry is to encourage Christians everywhere to dedicate their lives to purity - and the power of a life in the manifested presence of the resurrected Christ.
“Paul’s words have the potential prophetic impact of that of a modern day St Augustine in their contribution to the present body of faith literature.”
- Wendy Sargeant (Award-winning author &Information specialist for, Australian National University.
Website:www.heavenlywhisper.com
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