These were originally posted September 26 and 28, 2008. I combined them into one entry here. Hopefully this will be the last of the reruns.
If I doubted my faith, it wouldn’t be due to scientific evidence or philosophical reasoning. The most compelling arguments against my faith are the practical ones, the arguments based on things that can be observed rather than those that can be reasoned.
Christianity is a last resort for desperate people. Most high-profile conversions, like Brian Welch from Korn a few years ago, are due to a person reaching the end of his rope. Alcoholics Anonymous uses a belief in God as a starting point for overcoming an addiction. And many who are terminally ill will turn to religion for the few months they have left. People use the idea of God as a psychological crutch because they are weak and they need something to help them cope with the darker side of life.
Christianity is not rational. It is an unnecessary cure for a fabricated disease. Sin can easily be explained in purely natural terms as our survival instinct. Animals are greedy, promiscuous and even murderous, and we don’t call it sin. We don’t really need to be “saved” from anything – we just need to abandon the concept of sin and quit feeling bad about what we do.
The Bible isn’t very distinctive from a literary standpoint. In the Old Testament, the poetry is often dull, the prophecies incoherent, and the narrative awkward. Parts of it are wonderful, but maybe 75% of it is skippable. If God wrote a book, couldn’t he have done a better job?
The Christian view of the world is too narrow. Christians set up camp on a hill overlooking a valley; the intellectual elite—scholars, leaders and artists—are always climbing higher up the mountain, and from that vantage point they can see that there is much more to the world than that valley. To them, the Christian worldview is something to be passed through, not stopped at. In other words: those who are inside the box of religion are afraid to go outside, but those who make it outside never want to go back in.
How do I answer these objections? The poem in Philippians 2 is the key to everything:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
If our faith isn’t always rational, consider that it wasn’t rational for the Creator of the universe to die for his creations.
If our faith is especially attractive to the lowly and weak, consider that when the God of the universe became a baby, he could not even hold his head up on his own.
If the Bible is not distinctive, consider that Jesus was born to poor parents in a filthy stable in an unimportant town in an oppressed nation.
If our faith is not taken seriously by the rich, the powerful, and the intellectuals, consider that Jesus’ birth was announced only to a group of shepherds.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
”I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE,
AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.”Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
The word kenosis comes from the Greek word for “emptiness”, and it refers to the idea that Jesus emptied himself of his divine glory and dignity in order to be incarnated as a human. He gave it all up so that he could become what he wanted to save. Even apart from his words and actions, the very nature of Jesus Christ’s incarnation shows us how we should conduct ourselves as Christians.
We follow a foolish faith. We are fools for believing it. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise! His wisdom is above all others, but it is not merely an enhanced version of our own; it is altogether different.
And God, in his wisdom, engineered a world in which faith and trust are valued above all else. He will never allow his existence to be proven; he’s given enough evidence to satisfy those who already believe, but not enough to convince those that do not, so that it is impossible to reach him without faith.
If you require proof in order to believe, you will never find it, but if you believe first, you will find that you have all the proof you need. And this is foolishness.
