Examined Christian Faith 'Take it or Leave it' 2.6 What is Christainity

Atonement, that’s where I left off, on the previous post, really there has only been one perfect atonement, one perfect surrender and humiliation; that which was undergone by Christ.  Perfect because He was God, and humiliation because He was a man.   Christians believe that if they somehow share in the surrender and humiliation of Christ then we will also share in His conquest of death and find a new life after we have died, and in it become perfect and perfectly happy.   So when will this next step in to something beyond man happen?  When is the next step in the evolution of mankind?  Christians believe it has already occurred, in Christ a new kind of man appeared, and a new kind of life which began in Him is to be put into each of us.  But how?

Just as you came into this world with the natural birth, so we Christians are born again in Christ.  Not in the natural sense, but by baptism, repentance and actions.   But do not confuse those three things as something that can replace the Christians individual attempts to copy Christ, because that is what we strive to achieve.  

However, just as your natural life is derived from your parents, that does not mean it will stay there if you do nothing.  You can lose your natural life by neglect or suicide.  You have to feed your natural life, and take care of it, but remember you are only keeping it, your parents made it.  In much the same way a Christian can lose the Christ life which has been put into him, if he does not make efforts to keep it.  Just as a live body in not one that does not get hurt, but in fact is one that can to some extend repair itself.  Likewise a Christian is not someone who will never go wrong, but is instead a person who repents and begins over again after each fall.  It is the voluntary death to self, the willingness to surrender and accept humiliation (a kind of death) which Christ enables him to do, that propels the Christian forward. 

It is this idea, of Christ being in him, which is the driving force when a Christian admits that any good he does, comes from the Christ life inside him.  A Christian does not think that God will love us if we are good; but rather that because He loves us, He will make us good.  I think I need to be clear on this point that when a Christian speaks of being “in Christ” it is not something merely mental or moral.  They mean Christ is actually in them and operating through them, that they are simply part of a much larger organism, the body of Christ.  That they are the fingers, legs and arms of Christ.  Which explains why this new life can not be simply baptism, or baptism and repentance, but it also includes bodily acts as well.  It is not just the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution upwards.  

I have heard on numerous occasions (frequently from those questioning Christianity), how could this new life be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the simple truth is that God has not told us what His arrangement is for the other people.  We do know that no one can be saved except through Christ; but we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him. 

My advice to those who worry about that; is that if you are worried about the people on the outside, the most illogical and unreasonable thing to do is to remain on the outside themselves.  If you want to help those on the outside, it is best done from the inside.

The other “question” I hear is if this is enemy occupied world, why did God land in disguise.  Why didn’t He just land in force?  Why this sort of underground society to undermine the devil?  Christians believe He is going to land in force, He has said He will, we just do not know when.  But I can guess at why He is delaying … He wants to give us the chance to join His side freely.   It is not a matter of if, but when will God invade.

However, I wonder weather people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world today, really realize what it will be like when He does.  When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over.  When that happens, it is the end of the world.   What good will it be to say you are on His side, only after He has invaded?  When you see the whole natural universe melting away and something else, something none of us can even begin to imagine comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some and so terrifying to others, then none of us will have a choice left.  God will not come in disguise, and His coming will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature on earth.  It will be too late to choose your side; no one can in all honestly claim that they are choosing to lay down when it has become impossible for them to stand up.  

No, that day will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, weather we realized it before or not (and I fear a great many of us are in for a horrible surprise).  No one is promised tomorrow; today, this hour, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.  God is holding back to give us the chance to choose His way; but He will no delay forever.  We must take it or leave it.

Examined Christian Faith 'Getting Out of the Hole' 2.5 What is Christainity

All this leaves us with a frightening alternative.  Either the man I have been writing about was and is exactly who He said He is, or he is a lunatic.  It seems obvious to everyone that he is not a lunatic, so however strange, unlikely or terrifying it may seem, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that He was and is God.  God in-fact ahs landed on this enemy-occupied planet in human form. 

But why?  What was the purpose of it?  What did He come here to do?  To teach us, to correct our view on numerous, far and wide ranging issues.  However, you can not escape the current that runs through the New Testament, that always there is the discussion about something different - about His death and His rising again.   Christians believe that the primary point of the story of Jesus lies right here.  The main reason He came to earth was to suffer and to be killed and in the process His death somehow gave us a fresh start.  His death put us right with God once again.  

Christians believe that the death of Christ is that one moment in human history that something absolutely unimaginable from outside the universe shows through into our world.  We struggle with trying to picture the atoms of which our world is constructed, how can we possibility grasp and picture something like this?  We can not possibility understand it, and that is exactly the point, if we could then it would show that it was not what it professes to be – the inconceivable, the one thing that wasn’t created, the thing beyond nature and our universe, striking down into a broken world like a bolt of lightening.  But we do not have to understand it fully, just as I eat dinner every night without fully understanding how that food nourishes me.  A person can accept what Christ has done without knowing how all of it works.  How His death, gave me a fresh start with God.  

We are told that Christ suffered, was tortured and killed for us, that His death has washed our sins away if we believe and obey; that by dying He disabled death itself.  That is Christianity.  But if God was prepared to let us off, why didn’t he just do it?  What possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead?  I can’t see any, if you think of punishment in the sense of police –court- prison sense.  On the other hand, if you think of it more as a debt, there is a huge point in a person who has assets paying it on behalf of someone who does not.  

This is just my viewpoint, my picture of how this works.  Think of it like this, a person who has gotten themselves into a hole, usually needs a friend to get them out.  That is exactly the sort of hole that we got ourselves into.  We tried to set up ourselves; we behave as if we belong to ourselves.  In short, we are not a creature who needs improvement, but instead we are rebels who must lie down our arms.  This is where it gets tough, laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, admitting you are on the wrong track and are ready to start over again from the ground floor – that, that is the only way out of the hole we have dug.  This process is what Christians call repentance. 

Let’s be perfectly clear, repentance is no fun at all, surrendering your will to His will, shifting your direction into full speed astern is much, much, much harder than merely saying “I’m sorry”.  It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have trained ourselves into, it means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.  In fact, it takes a very good man to repent, and that’s the catch; only a bad person needs to repent, and only a good person can repent perfectly.  The worst you are, the more you need it, and the less you can do it.  The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person- and he would not need it.  

Keep in mind that repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back, it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.  If you ask God to take you back without repentance, what you are really asking Him is to let you go back without going back.  It can not happen, no matter how much you what to pretend it does. 

The same badness that makes us need repentance so much is exactly what makes us unable to do it.  Can we do it if God helps us?  Yes, but we need God to lend us a little of His reasoning power, a little of His love.  God loves and reasons and holds our hands while we do it.  We need God’s help in order to do something that God, in His own nature never does, to surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die.  Nothing in God’s nature corresponds to this process at all.  So the one road we need God’s leadership most of all is the road that God, in His own nature has never walked.  God can only share what He has: this thing in Hi sown nature, He does not have. 

But suppose God became a man, suppose that our human nature which can suffer and die was combined with God’s nature in one person- then that person could help us.  He could help us, He could surrender His will and suffer and die, because He was man, but because he was also God, He could do it perfectly.  Thus you and I can go through this process only if God does it in us.   Just as our thinking can succeed because it is a drop out of the ocean of his intelligence, we can not share God’s dying unless God dies; and He can not die except by becoming a man.  That is the sense in which He pays our debt and suffers for us what He Himself need not suffer. 

I have heard some say that Jesus had an unfair advantage, that His suffering and death must have been easy for him as He was God and knew the outcome.   That the perfect submission, the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus because He was God, but were possible because He was God.  If that is correct or not I do not know, but what I do know is that if I am drowning in the ocean and a man who is on a jet ski offers me a hand which will save my life, I will not shout at him “No, it’s not fair!  You have an advantage; you’re on a jet ski”.  The only reason why he can be any use to me is precisely because He has an advantage.  Who will you look to, if not to one that is stronger than yourself?

Like I said this is my own way at viewing what Christians call the ‘Atonement’.  But it is really only a picture; do not mistake it for the thing itself.  And if it does not help you, just dismiss it. 

A great resource to add to your library is "Unless I See... Is There Enough Evidence to Believe?"  by   Patrick Zukeran

Examined Christian Faith 'The Most Shocking Thing Ever Said' 2.4 What is Christainity

Now there are those who protest to Christians, could anything happen against the will of a God who is all powerful and knowing?   I personally think that someone who is a parent would never consider asking such a question.  As a case in point my daughter knows exactly what I expect of her, and what I will accept and not accept.  But it does not mean that she follows my wishes, even though my wishes for her behavior and choices are in fact what is best for her.  For example to roll it back a few years, when she was small I maintained a strict policy that I would never clean up her room, that she had to keep it clean herself.  Does not mean it was always clean, frequently it was not.  Anyone who knows me knows I would have preferred it to be kept tidy, but on the other hand it was my will to let my daughter live in a messy room if she so chose.  

The same thing happens everywhere you look, at work, school, church, elections,  everywhere… when you make something voluntary there is always going to be a significant portion of the population who will chose to not do it, even if they know it is in their best interest to do so (seatbelts anyone?).  Thus it is obvious that God created us with free will because He wanted us to choose good.  However, anything that can choose good is also capable of choosing bad; it is the gift of free will that made evil possible.   I have heard people argue that everything is preordained, that there is in actually no free will, but when you look at it from the eyes of God, why would He want to create a world of creatures that were like robots?  It would be pointless to create such a world.  The happiness that God desires for us is the happiness of being freely united to Him and know a love that makes the love between a man and a woman pale in comparison, for that to occur, we must be free to choose.

God knew what would happen, God knew that the vast majority of those He created in His image would rebel  and use their freedom in the wrong way, but it would seem that God thought it worth it, even if only one chose God’s preferred way.  You may disagree with Him, but as He is the source of all your reasoning ability, you could no more be right and He wrong then it would be for a waterfall to flow upwards instead of downwards.   I marvel at the pure arrogance of those who choose to say “yes, but I think it would be better if…”  to argue with God is arguing with the one who gave you the very power to argue, but go right ahead and cut of f the branch you are sitting on if that is your choice.

But it makes much more sense to consider the fact that if God thinks that this state of civil war in the universe is worth it, for giving us the choice of free will, that is to make creatures who can do amazing good or horrific harm, where something truly important can happen, instead of just a toy world where he pulls all the strings, then I will go right  along with it.   The better stuff that a creature is  made of, the freer they are,  thus the better it will be if we chose right, and the worst it will be if we go wrong.  A chicken can not be very good or bad, a dog can be both better and worst,  a child even more so, still even more an adult human… but best or worst of all would be a super spirit.

Which brings us to the Dark One , the Devil, how did he go wrong?  All we have to do is look at ourselves to answer that.  As soon as you have a sense of self, there is the possibility of putting yourself first, wanting to be the center – wanting to be your own god.  That was Satan’s sin, and the sin he taught the human race.  He put into the heads of our ancestors the idea that they could be like god, be masters of themselves, and invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God.  Therein you see the history of the human race,  out of that hopeless attempt to find something other than God that will make us happy,  has come all the evil that has ever existed in the world, money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, adultery, economic classes, empires,  slavery….

But like a car is made to run on gasoline (okay the newer ones run on electricity) it will not run properly on milk, or water, neither can humankind.  We were created to run on God.   That is why those who ask god to make them happy without bothering about religion, or doing as God wills for us, is a fools errand; God cannot give us peace and happiness apart from himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing. 

Every civilization ever built has always encountered the same exact problem, some fatal flaw always brings the most selfish and cruel people to the top, and it all slides back into misery and ruin.  Look around the American landscape today, and you will see it being played out again, as far down as the American family, we praise those who are selfish and cruel, and neglect those who choose God’s path.  They all try to run on the wrong fuel.  That is what Satan has done to the human race.

So what did God do?  First he left all of us with a conscience, the unshakable sense of right and wrong; second He sent the entire human race the same good dream, look at the history of the worlds religions, scattered all through the religions is a god who dies and comes to life again and by his death, somehow, someway gave new life to men.  Third, He chose one particular group of people and over hundreds of years, hammered into their heads the sort of God He was and that there was only one of Him, and that He cared about right choices, right behavior, and right conduct.   You have read the account of the hammering process, if not pick up the Old Testament and begin reading.

Then when mankind least expected it came the real shock. A man suddenly turns up among these same people who goes about talking as if He was God.  He claims to forgive sins; He says He has always existed, and that He is coming to judge the world at the end of time.  You need to understand, this man was claiming be from outside the world, who had made the world.   When you grasp that you realize that what this man said was quite simply the most shocking thing that has ever been said. 

There is one of His claims that seems to slip by us, because we have heard it so often.  His claim to forgive sins, any sin.  Now unless the one saying that was God, it is so preposterous as t be comical.  I mean you can understand how I can forgive the person who injures me, or steals my money; but what are we to think of a man who is not injured or un-robbed, who announces that He forgave you for robbing from me?  I can think of several words, that I should not type that would best describe that conduct.  However this is exactly what Jesus did.  He told people that their sins were forgiven if they repented from them.   He did not ask those who had been harmed, or injured, He behaved as if the sin was primarily against Himself.   This only makes sense if He really was God, and whose laws were broken and whose love wounded in every sin.   If anyone who was not God spoke those words they would be ridiculed as the utmost of conceit unrivaled by anyone in history.  

Yet (and this is really strange) even His enemies, when they read the bible do not get the impression of silliness or conceit.  He was a man that claimed to be humble and meek and we believe Him, but if he were only a man, humility and meekness would be the last characteristics we would attribute to Him.  

One cannot say that they are willing to accept Jesus a great moral teacher, but not accept His claim to be God.  There is only one of two possibilities.  A mere man who said the things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher, He would be the biggest lunatic ever to walk the face of the earth,  a man who would make the most insane appear sane.   No, you must make your choice, either Jesus was, and is the Son of God, or a madman.  You can call him a fool, and ignore him completely, you can spit at him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But you cannot come up with the patronizing dribble about His being a great moral teacher.  He did not leave that option open to us.  Nor did He intend to.  

Examined Christian Faith 'Christainity-and-Water' 2.3 What is Christainity

I have previously concluded that Atheism is too simple, however a equally simple viewpoint is what C.S. Lewis called 'Christianity–and-water', the view that says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right, ignoring and leaving out all of the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin, hell and the devil; as well as redemption.  Both of those viewpoints are for children. 

The Christian religion may look simple, but it is not.  A child saying a child’s prayer looks simple enough, and it is, if you are content to stop there.  However if you are not, and most of us are not, if you really want to go forward and ask what is really going on, you must be prepared for something much more difficult.  If you ask for something more then a child’s religion then it is crazy to complain when that something more turns out to be not so simple.  

There are lots of people out there who are not crazy or simple, but who have adopted the viewpoint that religion should be simple, and if it isn’t then it is too complicated for them to get their head around. They will say things like there really is a God then He would have made ‘religion’ simple, so that everyone can understand it.  You will however notice that the argument of God making religion simple is missing the point, religion is not something God invented, rather they should focus on God’s statement to us of certain unalterable facts about his own nature. 

Thus reality and religion is complicated, but more then that it is also frequently strange.  It is hardly neat, and is never obvious, nor is it what you would expect.  Look at the universe and find something that isn’t complicated, different, or something that you would have guessed.  Reality is in fact usually something you would never have guessed, similarly that is one of the reasons to believe in Christianity.  It is a religion that you would never have guessed, or made up; it has that subtle twist to it, which most real things have.   You will either stay stuck in the children’s view of religion and the world or you will grow up.  Because the problem is not simple and the answer is not simple either.     

What’s the problem?  A universe that contains much that is obviously bad and apparently meaningless, yet it contains creatures like you and me who know that it is bad and meaningless.  There are only two views that address all the facts.  The first being Christianity, which views the world as a good world gone bad, however we still retains the memory of what it should have been.  The other view is one called dualism.  Dualism believes that there are two equal powers behind everything.  One good, and one bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight a never ending war. 

There is just one problem with Dualism.  The two powers or Gods – the good one and the bad one – are supposed to be independent.  They have both existed from all eternity, neither made the other, and neither of them has the right to call itself God.  Each, one would presume thinks it is good, and the other bad.  One of them likes love, mercy, and forgiveness, while the other likes hatred and cruelty.  If we call one the Good power and the other the Bad power, all that means is that we are agreeing with one of the two at the present moment.  If ‘being Good’ means only joining the side you agree with for no reason, then ‘Good’ can not be called good.   So what we must mean is that one of the two powers is actually wrong and the other right.  

The problem with that is that as soon as you say that, then you have introduced a 3^rd thing behind everything in addition to the two powers or gods.  Some law or rule of good that one of the powers conforms to and the other does not.  Now here’s the rub, since the two powers are judged by this standard, then standard or the Being that made the standard is higher up, then either of them, this being would in fact be the real God.  So what we call good and bad is simply a another way of saying that one of these tow powers is in a right relationship to the ultimate God and the other is in a wrong relationship with Him.  

Lets be honest, who likes being cruel and bad for its own sake, no one craves badness just because it is bad.  There is always a good desire within it, be it money, power, pleasure, safety, love, etc.  all as far as they go are good things.  It is how one pursues them that changes it to evil.  You can be good for the mere sake of being good (and I know some who are), but you cannot be bad for the mere fact of being bad. Ultimately badness is only spoiled goodness, and there must be something good before it can be spoiled.

Put more simply, to be bad the bad power must exist and have intelligence and self will.  However existence, intelligence and free will are in themselves good.  Therefore he must be getting them from a Good Power, A good God; for even to be bad, he must steal or borrow them from his opponent. 

Sounds very much like the Christian viewpoint that the devil is a fallen angel.  The devil is not a children’s story, he is a parasite, not the original.  The powers which enable evil to carry on are powers given in goodness.  All the things that enable a bad person to be evil are in themselves good thing- free will, cleverness, good looks, charming personality, existence itself.  Which is why dualism does not work.

However Real Christianity (not that Christianity–and- water thing) goes much closer to dualism than people want to admit.  Read the New Testament and there is much talk about a dark power.  A mighty evil sprit who is held to be the power behind death, disease and sin.  The key difference is that Christianity holds that the dark power was created by God and was good when it was created, but chose to go wrong.  

Christianity agrees with dualism that the universe is at war, but not a war between independent powers, Christianity believes it is a rebellion, a civil war, and we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the enemy. 

Yes we are in enemy occupied territory, and Christianity is the story of how the rightful king landed in disguise and is calling on all of us to take our part in a great campaign of sabotage.  So the next time you are in church, realize that you are receiving a message from our allies: that is why the enemy is so anxious to keep us from going.  I know that some of you are thinking right now, oh here he goes reintroducing the devil, with horns, hoofs and all.  As far as the horns and hoofs, are concerned, I could care less.  But this much I can guarantee you: 

IF anybody really wants to know him better, don’t worry, if you really want to, you will; Weather you’ll like it when you do is an entirely separate question.  

Try deepening your understanding with a great book by Timothy Keller called The Reason for God

Examined Christian Faith 'TheGreat Divisions' Part 2.1 What is Christianity

If this is where you are picking up at, I would ask that you go back to the first post in this series and begin to read from there.  You will do yourself a great disservice if you begin here.  As I made it clear that in religion, as in everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it.  However if you look for the truth, you may find comfort in the end.  If you look for comfort, you will get neither comfort nor the truth; only a cuddly dog of wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end….  Despair.

So what is Christianity?  There are two major divisions within the human race.  The first big division is between those (the majority) who believe in some kind of God or gods, and those (the minority) who do not.  Now if you are the later (an atheist) you need to persuade yourself that most of the human race has always been wrong about the question that matters most.  However, if you are a Christian, you realize that all the other religions, even the strangest ones, contain at least a small gain of truth.  But do not misunderstand, just as in math, there can only be one correct answer and all of the others are wrong.  Christianity is right and they are wrong, some are closer to being right then others, but they are still wrong.  Again, I get ahead of myself.

The second big division is between those who believe in God and what sort of god they believe in.  All various views can be broken down into two main divisions, those who think that God is beyond good and evil (as best as I can understand this view is held by the Hindus), and those who hold that God is absolute goodness, or righteous (Jews, Muslims, and Christians).  Those who hold the idea that God is beyond good and evil, claim that we humans call one thing good and another evil, but that is only the human point of view.  That the wiser you become the better you are to understand that everything is good in one manner, and evil in another.  Depending upon your point of view.  Thus while we call cancer bad, because it kills people, you could call a doctor bad, because he kills cancer.  It is just a matter of your viewpoint.  Usually people who hold this view also hold the other idea that God animates the universe as you animate your body.  In essence, if the universe did not exist neither would God.  They hold that everything in this world is a part of God.  A person who holds this view of God would say when dealing with a person who is an adulteress, or while walking through a slum “If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you would realize that this is also God”.  However if you think some things really are bad, and God really is good you cannot agree with any of that, a likely response to them would be “Quit being stupid.’

The Christian idea quite different, they believe that God created the universe like a painter creates a painting, if the paining were to be destroyed the painter does not die; like the architect of a house he is not part of the house, but you know he designed the house.  Christians believe that God created the world, that space, time, hot and cold; all the colors all the animals, plants, smells and tastes are things God created out of his mind.  Yet, the Christian also thinks that a lot of things have gone wrong with the world as a result of humankinds freewill; and that God insists and insists very loudly that we put them right again.  

For the atheist this raises a big question.  If a good God made the world, why has it gone wrong?  How could the universe seem to be so cruel, and unjust?  They will spend hours on end debating that very point, instead of asking the simple question that lies beneath it.  How did they get the idea that it is cruel and unjust?  You don’t call a line crooked unless you have some idea of what a straight line is.  What are they comparing the universe to?  If all of it is bad, unjust and meaningless, and they are part of it (so to speak) why would they think it bad, cruel and unjust?  In other words, when I go to the beach and jump in the water, I feel wet (because I am not a water animal); however all of the fish who live in the ocean do not feel wet. 

In the end, atheism is too simple, if the entire universe has no meaning, we should not have found out that it has no meaning.  Just as if there were no light on earth, and therefore there were no creatures with eyes, we would not know that it was dark.  Darkness would be meaningless. 

A great book that is easy to read and understand regarding this subject is "Unless I See... Is there enough Evidence to Believe"   by Patrick Zukeran

Examined Christian Faith 'As Hard as Nails' Part 1.5 - What is Christianity

What is Progress?  Is it forward movement?  Is it change for changes sake?  Is it finishing the math problem first, even if I come up with the wrong sum?  If I began working a math problem and I realized that I was doing it wrong, what would be the correct thing for me to do?  Obviously the sooner that I admit it, go back and start again the faster and further I will get.  Or another way to look at it is if I were driving from one town to another town that was due east of where I started from, but I discover that I am on a road that is taking me north to an entirely different town, progress would be to turn around go back to where I started from and begin my trip anew.  That is what progress is.  

I ended my last post with the idea that in the Moral Law, someone or something is increasingly getting on us for our refusal to do what we should do.  If you were to look at our society today, it is obvious that we have and are making some huge mistakes.  We are on the wrong road.  If that is so, then like a wayward traveler we must turn around, because turning around is the only way to make progress.  

I also have not yet made the case for the God of Christian theology, only that somebody or something is behind the moral law, and that we have reason to be concerned.  We have by examination found two pieces of evidence about this Somebody.  The first is that universe He has made, and as I alluded to in closing my previous post, if we use that as our only clue, then we would have to conclude that He is a better artist then Monet (just look up at the night sky) and that he is also no friend to man (all that space out there is a very dangerous place for humans).  The other bit of evidence we have is that persistent Moral law which He has placed inside of our minds.  It is perhaps a better piece of evidence because for us at least, it is inside information.  

Just like a person, you know more about the person by listening to his conversation then by looking at the house he built.   So from this second piece of information we can conclude that the ‘Someone’ behind the curtain is intensely interested in right behavior – unselfishness, courage, truthfulness, loyalty, honor, faithfulness, kindness.  In that sense, it agrees with Christianity and some other religions, that God is “good”.  Also like I mentioned in closing my previous post, do not go so fast as to assume that God is “good” in the sense of being a cuddly dog, an indulgent, soft, or sympathetic.  There is nothing soft and indulgent about the Moral Law.  It is as hard as nails.  It tells you to do the right thing regardless; it does not seem to care how painful, dangerous or difficult it is to do so.  

If God is like the Moral Law He has placed inside our minds, then He is not soft at all.  Mind you, we still have not determined if God is a personal God, only that He exists.  But so far, all we have been able to conclude is that He is more like a mind then anything else, and may be quite unlike a person.  If God is a pure impersonal mind, then there is no reason to ask for personal allowances, to be let off the hook when you get it wrong.  Because you will not like the answer.  Likewise, if there is a God of the impersonal absolute goodness then it does you no good to decide you do not like him and want nothing to do with him, because there is that one part of you that agrees Him and disapproves of greed, adultery, robbery, etc…

Oh, you may want him to make an exception in your case, but you know at the bottom of yourself that unless the power behind the universe absolutely despises that type of behavior, He cannot be good.  On the other hand, if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate almost all that we do.  

That is the catch 22 we are in, if the universe is not governed by absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the end meaningless and hopeless.  However, if it is, then each and every day we make ourselves an enemy to that goodness.  We hopeless without it and hopeless with it.  God is our only comfort, and our supreme terror; the one thing we need most, and the thing we most want to hide from.  He is our only chance, and we have made ourselves His enemy.  

I hear a lot of talk from people about how they think looking into the eyes of an absolute good God would be fun; they need to revisit that idea; just as Moses looked away.  Goodness is either our great safety or our great danger, depending on the way we react to it; and all of us have acted the wrong way.  

You need to understand that, you need to reread it a hundred times until you finally get it.  Because Christianity simply does not make any sense until you have faced the hard facts I have been describing.  Christianity in the long run brings comfort, but it does not begin there, it begins in the dismay I have been describing.  There is no use attempting to go to the comfort first without going through the dismay.  

Christianity tells people to repent (make progress) and promises forgiveness.  It says nothing to those who do not know that they have anything to repent of, nor do they need any forgiveness.  It is only after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind that law, and you have broken it, and put yourself at odds with the Power, it is then, and not a second sooner, that Christianity begins to talk to you.  When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor.  When you realize your position is desperate, you will begin to understand Christianity. 

In religion, as in everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it.  However if you look for the truth, you may find comfort in the end.  If you look for comfort, you will get neither comfort nor the truth; only a cuddly dog of wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end….  Despair. 

A great book to help you reason the answers to your own questions or those of others is  Handbook of the Christian Apologist,  each chapter tackles subjects like 'Does God exist, the problem of evil, the divinity of Christ, life after death, and objective truth.  Written in a lively easy to follow manner it may be just the book you need to understand some of the questions you or others may have. 

Examined Christian Faith 'Buts' 1.2 - What is Christianity

Well that didn’t take long.  I have received several emails’ raising a couple of questions to my previous post.  Please keep in mind that this is not a book, rather it is a lack of a better analogy a series of letters to myself.  Nevertheless, I appreciate the correspondence, and it has made me a ware of the fact as I have stated  that all clear thinking is based on the two points mentioned in my prior post , I need to  assure myself that before I move forward that the foundation that those two point’s build is in fact solid.  Therefore, I must address a couple questions that were raised.  The objections came in two basic areas, which I have summarized as follows.  ‘Isn’t what I call the Law of Human Nature (Moral Law) simple a herd instinct that has developed just like our other instincts over the years?  ‘ And ‘Isn’t what I call the Law of Human Nature (Moral Law) something that is taught to us by our parents, family, society, etc.?’  Let’s take a look at those ‘Buts’

I will begin by responding to the first inquiry ‘Isn’t what I call the Law of Human Nature (Moral Law) simple a herd instinct that has developed just like our other instincts over the years?’  I would be a complete fool to deny that we as humans have a herd instinct, but that is not what I meant by the Moral Law.  I as well as you know what it is feels like to feel prompted by instinct for food, shade, sexual instinct, motherly love, and on occasions sometimes we even feel a desire to help another.  There is no doubt that all of those desires are due to herd instinct.  However, feeling a desire to help is quite different then feeling that you should help, weather you want to or not.  

It is actually fairly simple to visualize.

If you do not know, I live in Hawaii.  Oahu is a small island surround by a massive ocean. Needless to say, if you live here, you spend a fair amount of time at the beach.  Imagine that I am at the beach and I hear someone caught in a riptide crying for help.  At that moment I will feel two desires, the first the desire to help (due to the herd instinct) the second a very strong desire to keep out of danger (self-preservation).  Interestingly, I will also discover inside myself a third ‘thing’, which tells me that I should follow my impulse to attempt a rescue, and to ignore or suppress my self-preservation desire.  It does not take much thought to realize that that third ‘thing’ that decides which of the two desires should be encouraged, cannot be either of the two desires, as they are opposing desires.

Another way to look at the fact that Moral law is not just one of our instincts is that if two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing else in the creatures mind except for those two impulses, then obviously the stronger of the two must always win.  Nevertheless, at preciously those moments when we are most aware of ‘Moral Law’ it always instructs us to chose the weaker of the two instincts.  In the above example, if you are like me, you probably want to be safe, much more than you want to go swimming into a riptide to save a drowning man.  However, the Moral Law tells you to do it anyway.  It is that third ‘thing’ that drives us to chose to act to make the weaker of the two instincts stronger than it really is. 

Now on to the second general objection ‘Isn’t what I call the Law of Human Nature (Moral Law) something that is taught to us by our parents, family, society, etc.?’  We of course learn a great many things as we are growing up, language, math, writing and even the rule of decent behavior.  But while most of these are merely conventions (what language do I speak,  do I drive on the right or left hand side of the road, do I shake your hand  or bow, what type of clothes do I wear) some like mathematics are real truths.  The question then becomes which class does the ‘Law of Human’ nature belong?

The are two obvious reasons why it belongs to the same class as mathematics (Real Truths).  The first I addressed in my previous post, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time and another, or from one country to another; the differences are not nearly as significant as most people want to imagine.  In fact, when you look closely at them you will see the same law running through all of them.  However, those mere conventions can and do vary greatly from one time and one country to another. 

The other reason is this.  When you consider the morality of one people (country, time, culture) to another, do you believe that the morality of one is better or worst than the other?  Now stop and think about that for a second; because if no set of moral ideas were more real, or better than the other, there would be no reason to compare say the civilized morality to a savage morality or Christian morality to a terrorist morality.  If decent behavior simply meant that every nation, every person could do what he or she approves of, there would be no sense in saying that any nation or any one person had ever been more correct in their approval than any other person.  But we do not hold that to be true, in fact, all of us do believe that some moralities are better than others are.  Now here’s the rub, the moment you say that one set of moral ideas is better than another; you are, in fact, measuring them both against a standard.  Saying that one of them conforms to that standard better than the other.  However, the standard that measures the two is something different from either of them.   

Like it or not, you are comparing them both with some ‘Real Morality’.  

 Max Lucado's examination of the Beatitudes may just be the inspiration you need The Applause of Heaven