The Ivory Cubicle | Rob Bell and the Riddle of Evangelicalism

Well, there’s been a lot of buzz going around about Rob Bell nowadays, an emerging church thinker whose fame (or infamy) rose greatly upon his publication of Love Wins. Apparently, the book’s controversial trailer alone threatened to uproot the Orthodox Christian conception of hell, reverse two millennia of Church dogma, and generally overturn Christianity as we know it in fire and water (a.k.a. universalism). Whatever shall orthodox Christianity do?

Well, I, for one, was relatively unamused, read the book, argued with a friend of mine for a while, and, in my cynical way, came to the conclusion that Origen had already put forward this heresy way back when and had been smacked down pretty seriously by a Council at Constantinople. Besides, George MacDonald’s version of the heresy was just so much more interesting and I never could dig the sentence fragments that were a staple of Bell’s books.

Seriously.

And here's a picture of Rob Bell and a squirrel.

Because of style. Prose. Legibility.

And coherence.

Nor did I like one word sentences.

Like.

This.

Actually, that was a two word sentence fragment.

With a period separating it.

To make it look like.

One.

Word.

Sentences.

(I think I need to go read some Shakespeare…)

That is, until I was sitting in Jeremiah Lorrig’s office the other day. We were having a friendly chat about some top secret stuff that we’re planning for Generation Joshua to work on next, when I noticed a copy of Christianity Today sitting on his desk. Being a big fan of Christianity, especially as it relates to today. I picked up the magazine, flipped to the table of contents and instantly noticed an article about Rob Bell’s latest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God. More specifically, I noticed the word “epistemology” and, like a sleep-deprived yet highly caffeinated philosophy student, immediately went “ooh, shiny.”

What We Know About God When We Talk About Knowing About God

So, I dusted off my copy of Velvet Elvis from my fling with emerging church theology back in high school and immediately set about writing an eloquent rebuff to Rob Bell’s ever-so-faulty presuppositions. But the more I delved into it, the more I’ve become convinced that Bell’s been wrestling through some pretty thorny issues that are confronting mainstream evangelicalism, and the more respect I’ve been able to develop for the intellectual struggle that he’s going through.

The question that Rob Bell is ultimately getting back to, as Galli pointed out in his Christianity Today article, is the question of how exactly we know God. Do we know him through Scripture? Through personal experience? Through reason?

I had an opportunity to listen to a lecture entitled “The Person as Gift” by Catholic thinker Anthony Esolen a year or so ago, in which Esolen put forward a pretty memorable account of how we come to know another person. According to Esolen “we see the action of love in the structure of knowledge most powerfully when the object of our knowledge is himself a subject, a free being who can choose to reveal himself to us, and upon whose self-revelation we depend, if we are to attain any deep knowledge of him at all.”

How do you get to know a person? In short, by the other person revealing himself to you. I think this way of thinking applies to knowledge of God (after all, He is God in three persons) – we know God insofar as He reveals himself to us out of love. That’s why we call Scripture “divine revelation.”

But with God, the stakes are raised, because he is infinite, transcendent, and inscrutable. So as Francis Chan once put it, when we talk about knowing God, it’s like a bunch of little lumps of clay getting together and trying talking about what the potter is like. His ways are higher than our ways. How could we, finite, limited earthen vessels, dare to declare that we know God? Our only hope is for the potter to tell us himself.

Christ revealing Himself to Paul en route to Damascus

The stakes couldn’t be higher, because our knowledge of God really does comprise our knowledge of everything about, well, everything. As the controversial Swiss theologian Karl Barth once said (and I think we can find traces of his thought throughout Rob Bell’s works), “'God is in heaven, and thou art on earth'. The relation between such a God and such a man, and the relation between such a man and such a God, is for me the theme of the Bible and the essence of philosophy.”

So when the powerful notion of God’s transcendence, infinitude, and inscrutability hits like a ton of bricks, we get the idea that we need God to reveal himself to us in order to have any knowledge of him whatsoever. The next question, then, is how does God reveal himself?

Rob Bell goes a direction based on the precedent that evangelicalism has set for him – the importance of the religious experience. Bell embraces a skepticism of dogma (after all, you wouldn’t describe yourself in terms of dogma, would you?), and moves towards the depth of feeling that comes about when one has a rapturous experience of joy in a moment shared between two persons of infinite wonder and complexity. According to Bell, “when I talk about God, I'm talking about a reality known, felt, and experienced.”

He stands with the precedent of a long line of evangelicals from a number of theological traditions who appeal to the importance of the individual religious experience, viewing knowledge of God as a fundamentally emotional experience. I mean, after all, Christ is the bridegroom, and the Church is his bride. Why shouldn’t we drink in his reality in deeply and experience the rapturous joy of the love he shows us daily?

The problem is that healthy relationships are never based on emotions alone, and too often Christians are willing to settle for a fling with God instead of a committed marriage. Because if you engage in a fling, you don’t really get to know the person, you’re able to ride the emotions, and, in a sense, project them on to the other person. Instead of getting to know a God who is wholly other that we are, we simply seek emotional satisfaction by saying “oh, God wouldn’t do THIS,” or, “oh, God wouldn’t do that,” with it never occurring to us to sit down and ask him, “well, God, exactly what WOULD you do, anyways?” And since the emotions hit us while we are marveling in the wonder and delight of a God who really does love us and makes himself known to us in powerful religious experiences, we hold them with such deep conviction that it would take a wrecking ball to knock us out of it.

But then the death of a loved one hits us, or a story of abuse, or maybe something so simple, and yet so painful, as our dog dying. That’s when the rubber hits the road, and we’re left to crash from the emotional high, shaking our fists at God demanding an answer “why?”

St. Matthew writing under Divine inspiration.

Fortunately, God knew that we were in for a fall, which is precisely why he gave us Scripture as divine revelation, and it’s why he tells us who He is and what He is doing through the doctrines and dogma contained within. Returning to sound doctrine is like taking the time to sit down and seek the heart of a person, and to ask the hard questions about what he’s like, what he does, why he does it. We need to reverse the order of reasoning we take when it comes to knowing God. Rather than starting with an emotional experience and presuming that we now know him, we need to start with getting to know him and let the experience come as it will. The emotional experience should always push us towards sound doctrine to learn about God through His own words, not through our own emotions.

Here Bell shows his hand as a post-modern. Instead of allying with the dogmas and the doctrines based on Scripture, he elevates the individual experience of God above the experience of the church as a whole, emphasizing the importance of the individual crafting his own meaningful picture of God. Dogmas and doctrines such as the virgin birth and the literal, physical death and resurrection of Christ are worth preserving if they help us in forming our picture of God, but to be dispensed with if they become unfavorable in the popular consciousness (see his trampoline analogy in Velvet Elvis). The reason is that Bell conceives of a God who is not simply transcendent, but has not clearly revealed himself to us. Divine revelation, for Bell, does not come in clearly articulated doctrines put forward in Scripture and discerned through the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout two millennia of sacred tradition, rather, it comes to us in impulses and impressions, allowing us, ultimately, to interpret them as we will and determine who God is and what he looks like.

That’s not to say that God doesn’t reveal himself in the moment of joyous rapture. On the contrary, some of the deepest revelations of God’s love throughout the ages have been in moments of mystical rapture, be it in Julian of Norwich, St. Thomas of Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, St. Francis of Assisi, or countless others. But the lived experience of God must be based first and foremost upon sound doctrine, not an emotional experience.

The problem doesn’t just end at Rob Bell, though. Rather, it points to a problem with evangelicalism as a whole. It shows up when the old Baptist and Methodist revival preachers tell you to “write this date in your Bible, and any time the devil tells you that you aren’t saved, point to this date.” It shows up when the non-denominational churchgoer walks out of a service, replete with otherworldly sound effects and synth pads, feeling distant from God because “I just didn't feel him in worship today.” In its worst form, it shows itself in the Pentecostal doctrine that the manifestation of the gift of tongues is the sign and seal of one's salvation. It teaches us to point back to moments of rapturous experience and build our faith on that.

Well I, for one, prefer a more solid foundation for my faith, and it’s based in doctrine, not experience. Namely, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved,” and “what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”

Wow. That was really long. Ah well. As usual, questions, comments or objections are greatly appreciated.

Posted by Nick Barden.

Pictures:
1). From gbrenna on flickr.
2). The Conversion of St. Paul by Michelangelo Carvaggio (1600).
3). Saint Matthew and the Angel by Michelangelo Carvaggio (1602).

The Last Consequence of Learning: A Letter to Graduates of the Class of 2013

Dear Graduates,

You, and your parents, have accomplished something worth recognizing.

You have achieved, or maybe you would prefer to say survived, a high school education. You now have a basic knowledge of what you need for life, mathematics, science, reading and writing, current events, history, civics, a decent appreciation for literature and the arts, and, most importantly, a relationship with God.

You are about to move forward to into the world and take the next step in a life seeking to do what God has for you. But before you do that there is one last topic we need to cover.

Your parents know this, but it is very possible that you do not.  It is that there are consequences to learning.

Knowledge and the ability to learn are resources, talents as it were, that are given to us from God.  He expects us to use them, and that comes out in three ways.

The first is that learning must change you. If learning doesn’t change the way you live, then it is pointless. I would encourage you to take the time to think through the truth that the subjects you learned have taught.

When you studied history you met people capable of both great evil and great kindness. You learned that life is valuable and that vigilance is necessary to restrain evil.

When you studied mathematics, you found a world that, though fallen, has order and rules, set down by our Creator.

When you studied science you learned that our world and our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made. 

When you studied current events you discovered there actually isn’t anything new under the sun, just new ways to do things. 

When you studied civics you discovered nations only last when people take responsibility for their government.  Just as you must do in ours.

When you learned to read you learned to travel to places, worlds, and times beyond our own.

When you learned to write and speak you learned how to tell people about those places, worlds, and times, and how to inspire them to go on that same journey with you. 

As a result, we are responsible for using the knowledge we have gained. If we do not it is a waste of the time and effort in the learning. 

This is not a negative consequence, this is the privilege and duty that all who know truth must carry. 

The second consequence is that, as those who have learned what is true, you have a solemn duty to share it with the world around you.

You are being placed into a time in history that is ripe for change. Our society is fractured. Political partisanship, competing ideologies, divergent understanding of truth, and competing faiths tear away at us. The nation we live in is looking for guiding principles to direct its action and for men and women willing to serve it through leadership.

Parts of our nation will reject that truth, they will reject our God and they will reject you, but that is not why we act.  We have been given a sacred trust by God to share the truth He entrusted us with to our nation and our world. 

Your parents and your education have armed you with these divine truths. 

The truth that life is a gift from God and worthy of protection and reverence.

The truth that rights come from God and not government, government is to defend those rights, but does not grant them.

The truth that all are men are equal before God and the law, and that our Lord commands us to seek justice.

The truth that each of us are fallen humans, prone to fail, and that we are commanded to show mercy to each other.

Micah 6:8 says it best

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God."

As homeschool graduates you are uniquely suited to do that.  It is my privilege to help train over ten thousand high school students each year.  As my team and I work to equip them to change the world, we are consistently impressed by the skills, academic accomplishments, and hard work that they achieve.  You have been given an education that is one of the best in the nation, and I see it demonstrated in the thousands of homeschoolers I meet each year.   I know of no other group better prepared to change the world around them.

My world has been one of striking contrast the last few days.  Two days ago I was standing in Arlington Cemetery at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with 96 World War II veterans from my home town of Spokane, Washington.  They were part of the Honor Flight, and organization dedicated to ensuring that each of the veterans of World War II are honored with a trip to our nation’s capital to see the monuments, memorials, and tributes raised in their honor.  As their generation closes, it is a privilege to learn from them, listen to them, and marvel at the quiet courage that made a generation of humble Americans heroes to the rest of the world.

It is said that my grandfather’s generation brought hope to the entire world with 4 simple words.  “The Americans are coming.”

Societies, towns, nations and peoples persevered through unimaginable hardships and agonizing totalitarian brutality because of on one simple hope – the Americans are coming. 

It was a hope that changed the world.  The idea that a group of people were dedicated to being liberators – people who defended the innocent, opposed tyranny, honored God, and loved each other. 

Our nation and our world needs that today.   

The final consequence of learning is that, when you have truth, you are responsible to make sure that you pass it on. 

Our nation needs not only yet another generation willing to stand up for what is right, but it needs one, like you parents’ generation, that is willing to not only make sure that they can defend it but future generation can as well. 

You have the vast majority of your life ahead of you,  You may go to college, get married, become fathers and mothers, be doctors, lawyers, pastors, statesman, professors, senators, or even president. 

But remember this, the job you hold and the title you wear are meaningless unless the truth you know changes you, changes your world, and is passed on to the next generation.

This life I challenge you to live is not easy. It will take sacrifice, and it is not safe.  But it is good. Our King has called us to it and I have no doubt that you will honor his trust in you.

God bless you graduates!

By Joel Grewe

The Ivory Cubicle | Mark Driscoll, Stuff Burning, and the Environment

Warning: Since I'm writing on the environment, I'm gonna be posting random nature pictures everywhere.

While at a conference in Texas a couple of weeks ago, Mark Driscoll tossed out an off-hand quip about the relationship of Christians to the environment, saying “I know who made the environment and he’s coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV.” A reply was shot off by Pastor Nate Pyle of Christ Community Church in Indiana, and the comment was picked up on by the progressive Christian and atheist watchdog bloggers committed to combating the evils of SUV driving and failure to recycle rampant in the nether reaches of right-wing Christianity.

Driscoll clarified his comment on his blog yesterday.

For the record, I really like this planet. God did a good job making this planet. We should take good care of this planet until he comes back to make a new earth, like the Bible says he will. So at the Driscoll house we recycle a lot; we organize our lives to drive very, very few miles in a vehicle; we buy local organic produce; and we do other things that would make a hippie happy.

So..... Driscoll: 1. Liberal Christianity: 0? (there, Glenn, that one was for you).

Burn, Baby, Burn

Anyways, the problem wasn’t so much Driscoll’s driving an SUV (though one might disagree with his take on everything burning), but the flurry of tweets and comments and stuff afterwards that make it quite evident that disposable-environment Christianity is still quite popular (Stuff Christian Culture Likes: Not Environmentalism), based largely on the thesis that “it’s all going to burn anyways.”

There seem to be two ways that a Christian can treat the environment. The first is as a consumer, the second is as a steward (there’s technically a third, and that’s as Gaia, but we’ll not delve into the neo-pagan fringes of progressive Christianity at the moment).

The first mentality is all wrapped up with a bunch of the self-determined, self-centered hedonism that has characterized Christianity in the 20^th century (Joel Olsteen, anyone?). This mentality is based on a philosophy that has denied the old-school conception of human nature, namely, that there is one, that it’s relevant at all places and times, that it can be observed in the world around us, and that we ought to live in accordance with it. Instead, the self-determining Christian sees limitless possibilities and rallies around a bizarre conception of sola Scriptura that would make Martin Luther turn over in his grave, declaring “if it ain’t in the Bible, it don’t matter.”

For the self-determining Christian, Scripture is a list of dos and don’ts given by God that we have to follow in order to get our fire insurance. In its worst form, it’s an opportunity to loophole, using the finer points of hermeneutics and exegesis to ask “did God really say?” on, well, everything. The self-determining Christian goes straight for the “all things are permissible” point of Paul’s teaching, side-stepping the “but not all things are profitable” point (1 Cor 10:23). If there isn’t clear Scriptural prohibition, it’s fair game.

The self-determining Christian is a consumerist because he views the environment as a means for getting what he wants out of life. He creates his own value, and if that value doesn’t correlate with what’s best for the environment, well, too bad for the environment. The mentality is actually built into the word environment itself – which means “the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded.” In short, it is the surrounding circumstances considered apart from mankind, splitting reality into the categories of “us” and “everything else.” If you have an elevated view of man as privileged and free to craft his own little world, “everything else” quickly turns into “that which can be used up and exploited at a whim.”

St. Francis of Assisi enjoying nature.

The second mentality, that of stewardship, appeals to the old-school theory of human nature and traces its way through the works of St. Thomas of Aquinas, Martin Luther, and pretty much any healthy theology today. It says “Hey, wait a second, maybe God wasn’t just giving us a bunch of dos and don’ts to restrict our freedom and self-expression. Maybe everything that was said in Scripture was said to tell us what it actually means to be human and how man relates to God, others, and the world around him.”

I heartily agree. And what we see in Scripture about the relationship of man and the world is that it is integrated. Man was created, just like everything else, to be a part of a complicated and intricate natural world, just like everything else. The difference, of course, is that man possesses spirit, and is made in the image of God himself, which gives him an exalted place in the created order. But that doesn’t change the fact that man was supposed to live as a part of the world. It actually raises the stakes by telling us that he is also supposed to care for it. In fact, the first job that God ever created was that of a gardener – one who tends and keeps the ground and stewards it in a two-way relationship. Adam’s interaction with the environment improved it, and it was by caring for the environment that Adam’s needs were met. Man takes care of the environment and the environment takes care of man.

This two-way relationship is often missed by Christians. We tend to emphasize either our role in sustaining or the environment’s role in sustaining us. We don’t get the balance. We don’t get that if you have a large family and are planning on driving around in mountainous, it’s okay to have an SUV, while paper waste actually is a problem, and recycling probably isn’t that bad of an idea.

Anyways. Longer post for today, sorry for making you wait, feel free to post any questions, comments or objections below.

Posted by Nick Barden
Pictures pretty much all from Wikipedia.

Also, check out this picture of Mark Driscoll punching John Piper in the face.

just kidding, he's really fist-bumping Matt Chandler

The Ivory Cubicle | The Question of Force-Feeding at Guantanamo Bay

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned an op-ed by Guantanamo Bay prisoner Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, highlighting a couple questions raised by the current situation at Guantanamo bay. The first concerns whether it is ethical for the government of the United States to be holding prisoners at Guantanamo bay without charge and without trial. The second concerns whether it is ethical for the government to force-feed prisoners on hunger strikes via containment chairs.

I addressed the first two weeks ago, so this week, it's my intention to tackle the second one (to the best of my abilities).

The situation is unbelievably messy, largely due to miscarriages of justice in other places (as I talked about in my column last week), and I don't have any clear answers. So instead of giving the analysis of an amateur ethicist, I'd simply like to flesh out a few relevant ethical principles that frame the discussion and pose the question to you.

1. Life. The first principle that comes to mind is the protection of life. Obviously, the United States government has motivations for keeping prisoners alive, based on both political expediency and as intelligence resources. But more fundamentally, we believe that the lives of human beings, by virtue of being human beings, are intrinsically valuable and that their lives ought to be protected.

2. Autonomy and Political Expression. The rejoinder to the life principle is that of autonomy -- the ability to make one's own free, rational decision. Life ought to be defended, even, it would seem, up to the point of defending someone's life from themselves. But the situation surrounding hunger strikes is a bit complicated. The prisoners participating in hunger strikes are not actively trying to take their own life. They are trying to use one of the few methods of public expression available to them to bring public attention to their situation. Does a person have a personal right to deprive themselves of basic necessities, even to the point of death, as a form of expression?
   
   
   There is precedence for accepting hunger strikes as a legitimate means of protest. Mahatma Gandhi participated in hunger strikes while protesting the British rule in India. A number of Cuban prisoners have used hunger strikes as a means of speaking out against an oppressive regime. It seems that, when it comes to hunger strikes, we often applaud those we agree with but refuse this form of expression to those we don't.

3. Martyrdom. Some raise the objection that allowing prisoners to starve themselves to death leads to them becoming martyrs for their cause. But martyrdom doesn't just occur when the martyr dies. A person who is living under treatment that is believed to be unjust and who is suffering in an attempt to bring awareness to the issue is likely to viewed as a martyr already. Given the op-ed we've seen above, if the prisoners are going to be viewed as martyrs for their cause, it's probable that they're being viewed as such already.

4. Torture. The United Nations has recently condemned the practice of force feeding as torture. The World Medical Association also has a standing document from 1975 condemning all force-feeding as unethical. The claim to torture is tied up with a number of other principles, in part, the fact that it infringes upon the prisoner's autonomy. More fundamentally, though, it inflicts excruciating pain upon the subject, as is described by Moqbel in his op-ed.

Having articulated that handful of principles (though the list is by no means exhaustive), let me hear your thoughts on whether or not the United States government should continue force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Posted by Nick Barden.
Photo: Guantanamo Bay

The Ivory Cubicle | The Question of Justice at Guantanamo Bay

Last week, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Guantanamo Bay prisoner Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, bringing to light a couple of questions posed concerning the operations of this controversial prison camp in Cuba. The first is one we’ve been asking for a while, is it ethical for the United States government to be holding prisoners at Guantanamo bay without charge and without trial? The second is whether or not it is ethical for the United States government to force feed prisoners on hunger strikes via containment chairs, IVs and feeding tubes.

As is to be expected, the blogosphere, twitterverse, and various other social media sites lit up with questions and opinions concerning the issue. Much of it concerned whether or not the government was obligated to extend Constitutional rights to non-citizens. As a friend of mine asked on Facebook, “Are the Bill of Rights fundamental? If so, should the American government recognize them even for non-citizens?”

The answer requires looking beyond the framework of our Constitutional government to a basic question of human dignity. After all, the Bill of Rights is not just because it is a part of American government. It is a part of American government because it is just, and our founding fathers had enough sense to recognize it. So the question isn’t really “are prisoners entitled to the same rights as American citizens?” Rather, we ought to be asking “is it just to hold men captive without charge or trial?”

But there’s another layer of the onion to peel back. Typically, we’ve justified holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay because they’re enemy combatants. Theoretically, enemy combatants don’t require a trial because they were apprehended in the act of waging warfare against the United States. Rather than being brought before a just legal system, they can be simply held as prisoners of war until the end of a conflict.

The question, however, is what kind of conflict are we fighting? We’re not fighting a conventional war. The prisoners we take are not obviously uniformed, and it’s often unclear whether they were even engaged in acts of violence. Furthermore, there is no clear objective to this war (the eradication of terror is not a clear objective because it can never be accomplished this side of heaven), so there is no idea when the conflict will end and the prisoners will be released (as POWs would). Some of the current prisoners have been held for 12 years already.

Once we phrase it that way, the answer becomes obvious. Due process of law is enshrined in our American legal system because we believe that if a person’s guilt is not clear, they should not be deprived of liberty without first being convicted before a just court of law. Once the question is answered, we are bound by justice to rectify the situation.

Posted by Nick Barden

The Ivory Cubicle | Responding to Boston

In the wake of the Boston tragedy on Monday, our country is likely to be faced with a series of hard questions. Salon magazine released an article by liberal author David Sirota on Tuesday entitled “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American,” suggesting that once the bomber is discovered, his ethnicity will drastically alter the way we discuss post-attack security measures in the United States.

Sifting Through the Rhetoric

He has a point. Sort of. Navigating the wake of a tragedy is a messy task, and conversation is likely to center on race, religion, ideology, and security. I share his cynicism of the American populace's ability to conduct that conversation well. I differ with Sirota, however, because I believe that racially driven dialogue itself is intrinsically dangerous, and his article only serves to exacerbate the problem. His confusion of race and religion throughout the article was singularly unhelpful, and his decision to drag them to the center of the discussion cannot serve to clarify the issue, but only heighten existing tensions.

As a matter of bringing the bomber to justice, the important questions concern whether or not the terrorist acted alone or as a part of a larger organization, what his motivations were, how his actions fit into ongoing terror investigations, and so forth. Race is not an issue, and unless he is a part of a particularly violent religious subgroup, neither is religion.

The bigger question, though, concerns what measures our nation should take in response to the attack. A crisis is always an opportunity for ideologues to advance their cause. The muddled issues that are involved present many opportunities for polarizing rhetoric, name-calling and blaming. It is also an opportunity for radical expansion of state power, and once power is given to a state, it is rare that citizens get it back.

My chief concern is that the American people will once more decide that it is worth handing over liberties for the sake of safety. Our founding fathers generally considered that a bad move, with Benjamin Franklin going so far as to say “they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

It’s often hard to keep our feet grounded with all the heated rhetoric flying around though. It’s especially difficult in a nation that has already experienced considerable losses due to terrorism and has its soldiers deployed in a number of military operations over issues related to terrorism.

So in the aftermath of this crisis, let’s be sure not to be swayed by the rhetoric of fear, wrath or vengeance. Let’s pray for swift justice to be brought to the perpetrators of the attack, for God’s comfort and peace to rest on the city of Boston, and for wisdom in the decisions that now face our nation’s leaders.

Posted by Nick Barden

The Ivory Cubicle | Faith Seeking Understanding

The contemporary way of looking at God seems to be exactly upside down. Traditionally, it has been held that God, being omnipotent, creator, sustainer, and lawgiver, was the judge and we were the ones on trial. Now, it seems that we, being good self-made modernists with a healthy dose of skepticism and hard-nosed questioning, have put ourselves on the bench and God on trial, doubting His existence and libeling His character (“if God is good, how could he let such and such happen?”).

Needless to say, if God actually is the one in charge, and we're...well...not, then we should probably give him back His spot.

"Proving" God

I think, therefore, I am. I think...

The problem with so many well meaning Christians today is that we agree to start at the wrong place in reasoning our way to God. We begin with doubt and set off on a path to knowledge that seeks to satisfy our objections and fit within our paradigm. This mode of thinking can be traced back to the philosophy of Rene Descartes, who resolved to empty himself of all preconceived notions about God and reality and reduce philosophy down to one irrefutable statement – “I think, therefore, I am.”

The problem with beginning at “I think, therefore, I am” is that it starts with man rather than God. It argues that man's existence is the fundamental starting point for all inquiry, and that God is something to be “proved” and added to man's understanding of reality. If man, for whatever reason, decides that the “proofs” for God's existence don't jive with his particular conception of reality, he can expel it from his worldview.

In short, Descartes, though well-intentioned, attempted to derive the existence of God from his own existence, a project that was destined to fail (especially since, as hard-nosed naturalist philosopher Bertrand Russell pointed out, his basic premise was flawed – Descartes can technically say no more than “thoughts are being thunk”). Given that Descartes is considered the “father of modern philosophy,” it's safe to say that modernity is pretty much hosed.

But there is another option. St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the 11^th century, adopted the motto of “faith seeking understanding” in his apologetics. For St. Anselm, man starts with the self-evident truth of God's existence, and then seeks to understand himself as he relates to God. Philosophy is the handmaiden of theology, it exists to illuminate the truths of a world that is founded on the reality of God. It starts by accepting the truths of Scripture in faith and works its way outwards from there. 

In a culture of religious pluralism like we have today, such a way of thinking about God is a bit more difficult, but not quite impossible. When defending the faith, we should be wary of the non-believer who wants to start with a blank slate and work his way up to God from there. We need to be open and honest about the fact that all of our reasoning is inextricably bound up in the reality of God. Our task is not to start from ground zero and build a case for God. Our task is to help take off the blinders that unbelievers have constructed in their resistance to God. We demolish arguments that set themselves up against the knowledge of God, so that a reality bursting with His glory and handiwork can shine through.

Posted by Nick Barden