The Heart of Disbelief

We had an interesting discussion during our Lifegroup meeting last week about the nature of evidence for God's existence. I made the somewhat controversial statement that went something like, "For a person who has set their heart and mind on satisfying their own agenda and against looking for the truth, it's impossible for God to reach them anymore." My editor in chief explained afterword (and I agree), that it would have better to phrase it from the person's perspective, i.e. "that person would be unable to accept the Gospel message anymore". Because as we know, "nothing is impossible for God."

The point I was trying to make was that, at the very heart of the Christian faith is an attitude of deficiency. If we approach God with an attitude of humility, seeking the truth, and willingness to die to our own selfish desires - the revelation of Jesus can fall on fertile ground. On the other hand, if a person has set his heart and mind to resist the truth, how can they ever accept the one called The Truth?

As Dr. Ravi Zacharias had pointed out in his video lecture earlier that evening, "The problem with the unbeliever is not the absence of evidence, rather the suppression of it."

Rule #2

My first post was called Rule #1, which basically said that sometimes I end up disagreeing with my former self and that I reserved the right to delete, edit, undo, etc any previous comments made by these fingers. Thankfully, that has not happened yet, partly because there haven't been any posts in the recent months. Which leads me to Rule #2.

Rule #2:
This is my blog, and I'll write in it whenever I feel like it!

A good reminder

Consider this artcile in today's Tennessean. The story is about a group of church members filing a lawsuit against their church leadership over finanicial records. And this relates to loving God and loving each other (commandments 1 & 2) how exactly? It seems like these members care more about the legacy of a building than glorifying God. This is a good reminder that we must never love the instituion more than the Lord Jesus and our fellow brothers in Christ.

Around the turn of the century, the London Times invited several eminent authors to write essays on the theme "What's Wrong with the World?" G.K. Chesterton's contribution took the form of a letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton

In the same way, I can't help but wonder that if the question was asked, "What's wrong with the church today?" - could the answer be:

Dear Sirs,

We are.

Sincerely yours,
The Body of Christ

The Meaning of Life

Maybe you are like me and remember looking out your bedroom window as a kid and letting your mind ponder the deepest questions of life. "Isn't it strange that there would be a thing called "Earth" and that living things called "humans" would "live" on it?" On one hand, I knew all the Churchanese answers as to why we were all down here on earth - because God created us to be in fellowship with Him, etc... But I couldn't help but ask myself "Why?"

Why would a God who has existed for all eternity (try to fathom that) decide to create us? I suppose its a lot like asking why a circle is round. While I guess there is not a way to answer this question (because we're not God), I wonder how often we really think about the meaning of life. Our society likes to jokingly reference "the meaning of life" when talking about heavy subjects. But how should we answer this question - both in our own mind and in the mind of the skeptics we encounter everyday?

Ravi Zacharias points out that there are four aspects to the question of meaning in life. Wonder, truth, love and security, and that these four aspects are all contained in the worship of God. A sense of wonder that says there is something out there that ought to be revered, a perpetual novelty that overcomes the boredom of adulthood; a knowledge of the truth about who we are and who God is; the infinite love experienced through the grace of Jesus which in turn gives expression to every earthly relationship; and the security of knowing that death has been conquered and we will spend eternity with God our creator. All of these amazing truths are wrapped inside the worship of God, so that worship is not fragmented capsules in time (ala Sunday morning music), but a moment by moment outpouring in the life of a Christ-follower.

The world can offer the occasional sense of wonder, a nugget of truth here and there, loving relationships with our family and friends, and security in our own piles of cash. But how awesome to know that there is a God who fulfills our deepest need for meaning by giving us the desires of our heart - wonder, truth, love and security.

A Parable for the Modern Church

Two men stumble across a wary traveler and realize that he is very thirsty. The traveler readily admits his thirst and his overwhelming desire to drink water. Both men have a large canteen of fresh water they can give the thirsty traveler.

The first man is about to share his water when a terrifying thought occurs to him. The water in his canteen is very warm and while perfectly safe to drink, it may have a slight odor or aftertaste associated with it. Then a brilliant thought occurs to him. There is an outpost only 1 mile down the road that has cold, crisp fresh water - in fact the very water that first filled his own canteen! If only the tired thirsty traveler could experience this water! Excitedly, the first man decides to invite the traveler to the outpost - he'll even pick him up and take him there and pay for all the water once they arrive.

As the first man is wrestling with his decision, the second man is also weighing his options. Like the first man, the water in his canteen is originally from the same outpost. But also like the first man, he recognizes that his water has grown warm and slightly stale during their many travels. On one hand, he knows that the thirsty traveler would greatly enjoy the cold crisp water which is offered at the outpost, certainly more so than the canteen water - so long as the traveler wasn't dying of thirst. But suddenly it occurs to him, "the traveler is dying of thirst! And after all," he asks himself, "when you are very thirsty, isn't it true that warm water is actually better for you than cold water because it is more easily accepted by the body?" Thrilled at this truth, the second man pours his canteen into the thirsty man's hands and saves the traveler's life.

Many thanks go out to my brilliant wife who first made this analogy tonight (although in a different form.) Let us never forget that there is a time and a place for cold crisp water and a time and a place for warm organic water.

Next week - the parable of the traveler who is so far gone, he does not even realize he's thirsty. Which of the two men is better equipped to save his life? (thanks again honey...)

TAG, you're it

In my opinion, the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG for short) provides one of the most compelling reasons to reject Naturalism and embrace Theism. Back in the mid 1980's, Gorden Stein an atheist debated the existence of God with Dr. Greg Bahnsen. Below is a small excerpt from the Bahnsen/Stein debate in which Bahnsen brilliantly articulates TAG. You can find the entire text of the debate here.

"The transcendental argument for the existence of God then, which Dr. Stein has yet to touch, and which I don’t believe he can surmount is that without the existence of God it’s impossible to prove anything; and that’s because in the atheistic world, you cannot justify and cannot account for laws in general (laws of thought in particular), laws of nature cannot account for the human mind, and the fact that it’s more than electrochemical complexes and events, and cannot give us moral absolutes. That is to say, in the atheist conception of the world, there’s really no reason to debate, because in the end as Dr. Stein has said, all these laws are conventional. All these laws are not really law-like in their nature, they’re just… well if you’re an atheist, and a materialist, you’d have to say they’re just something that happens inside the brain. But you see, what happens inside your brain is not the same as what happens inside my brain, and so what happens inside of your brain is not a law. It doesn’t necessarily correspond to what happens in mine. In fact you can’t be identical with what is inside of my mind or brain, because we don’t have the same brains. If the laws of logic come down to being materialistic entities, then they no longer have their law-like character.

If they are only social conventions, then of course what we might do tonight to win the debate is just define a new set of laws and we’ll say that all those that want the convention that says atheism must be true or theism must be true, and we have the following laws which we conventionally adopt to prove it, you see we’ll be satisfied.

But no one is satisfied. That’s not a rational procedure to follow. Laws of logic cannot be avoided. Laws of logic cannot be accounted for in a materialistic universe, therefore the laws of logic are one of many evidences that without God, you can’t prove anything at all."

Or as CS Lewis states, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

Engineering Week

National Engieneers Week was last week, so I thought I'd honor my profession and have a little fun in the process.

Great Engineering Quotes

"Engineers aren't boring people, we just get excited over boring things."

"Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling in the mud with a pig. After a few hours, you realize that he likes it."

AutoCAD Monkey

A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there, another customer walked in and said to the shopkeeper, "I'll have an AutoCAD monkey please." The shopkeeper nodded, went over to a cage at the side of the shop and took out a monkey. He fitted a collar and leash, handed it to the customer, saying, "That'll be $5000." The customer paid and walked out with his monkey.

Startled, the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, "That was a very expensive monkey. Most of them are only few hundred dollars. Why did that one cost so much?"

The Shopkeeper answered, "Ah, that monkey can draw in AutoCAD - very fast, clear layouts, no mistakes, well worth the money."

The tourist looked at a monkey in another cage. "That one's even more expensive! $10,000! What does it do?"

"Oh, that one's a Design monkey; it can design systems, layout projects, mark-up drawings, write specifications, some even calculate. All the really useful stuff," said the shopkeeper.

The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey in its own cage. The price tag around its neck read $50,000. He gasped to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?"

The shopkeeper replied, "Well, I haven't actually seen it do anything, but it says it's an Engineer."

Blind Golfers

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.

Engineer: What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!

Doctor: I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude.

Priest: Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him.

Priest: Hi George. Say, George, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow today, aren't they?

George: Oh yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight while saving our clubhouse last year, so we let them play here anytime free of charge.

SILENCE.

Priest: That's so sad, I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.

Doctor: Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there is anything we can do for them.

Engineer: Why can't these guys play at night?

Beyond Opinion

One of my heroes in the faith is a man named Ravi Zacharias. I recently purchased his new book entitled "Beyond Opinion - Living the Faith We Defend." For those not familiar with Zacharias, he is probably the most influential Christian Apologist since CS Lewis and is a true giant of the faith. Born in India, educated in the west, the scope of his ministry is truly experienced all over the world.

Over the past 5 years, I have listened to and read nearly everything he has published, and so much of his teaching has defined where I am today. In the opening preface of "Beyond Opinion", he writes these words:

There is no greater example in apologetics than the apostle Paul speaking at Mars Hill. The irony of the talk Paul gave is in the difference in reaction the Easterner has when reading Paul’s address to that of a Westerner. The Easterner is thrilled at how the apostle wove the message starting from where the listeners were to bring them to where he was in his thinking. The average Westerner is quick to point out that few of his hearers responded. Such an attitude says volumes about why the church in the West has been so intellectually weak. To those in the West, the bigger the number of respondents, the more replicated the technique. The bigger the statistic, the greater the success. Westerners are enamored by size, largesse, number of hands raised, and so on. When the sun has set on these reports, we seem rather dismayed when statistics show the quality of the life of the believer is no different from that of the unbeliever.

No doubt about it, the body of Christ in America needs a serious wake up call. We have been trained by "church" to feel our faith, but have we been trained to think? Sure, we all sit in front of pre-packaged messages every Sunday and hear our favorite pastor give us valuable insights on how we should think, act, love, give, etc... But how many times have you heard a pastor defend why Christianity is TRUE? How many times have you heard a preacher explain to you why he believes that the resurrection is a historical fact?

I like to think about it on three levels: Level 1 is the ground floor, the foundation. Its the level that defines a person's worldview. It's the thought behind the answer, "Why are you a Christian?" In my opinion, most Christians today would have a hard time answering that question at level 1. But in a scientifically minded, "prove it to me" culture, shouldn't we have a good explanation for why we believe what we believe? That's why I love the title of the book, "Beyond Opinion." Our faith in Jesus should go beyond that of opinion.

Level 2 would be considered the arts or entertainment, where the worldview of level 1 gets communicated. Take any popular TV show in which pre-marital sex and homosexuality are treated as the norm and you will see level 2 in action. In the same way, the American church has become a master at level 2 - stimulating the senses to achieve maximum emotional gratification. Now don't get me wrong; I love level 2. There is nothing that excites me more than raising my hands with fellow Christians as we sing at the top of our lungs. But here's the point; the emotional response of raising my hands should be born out of thought - out of level 1, and not from the lighting, multimedia, or intensity of the music. In my opinion, the western church has done a great disservice to our generation by over emphasizing the level 2 approach. In the process, we have abandoned the tool of critical thinking and left ourselves vulnerable to attacks from the enemy.

In the same way, the church has become a master of level 3, which I call the application side of life. Its the level that says, "Do this, think that, don't do this, watch out for that, etc." I would venture to say that 95% of Sunday sermons this week could fall under these categories. Again, don't get me wrong. There is nothing problematic about preaching on application. There are always new insights on how to walk closer with God which can be very helpful to all of us. My point is simply this:

We should not run away from levels 2 and 3. But we should also recognize that the world is also very good at levels 2 and 3. The world loves emotional outpouring during a concert. The world loves tips for a healthy life. What the world cannot stand is the uncompromising truth that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. And unless we have trained and equipped ourselves, and our children to understand this truth, we may be just moments away from being swept off our feet to something that feels a little better than following Jesus.

Evolution and Race

Recently, there has been a firestorm of criticism raining down on Dr. James Watson, one of the men who helped unravel the mystery of DNA back in the 1950's. Here are a couple of his quotes that have ruffled people's feathers:

"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically."


"(I am) inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really."

Most of his critics are rightfully pointing out that the "intellegence testing" cannot be accurately assessed accross cultural lines. Fair enough. But something much bigger is slipping through the cracks. Let's look closer at the first quote.

Dr. Watson is clearly pre-supposing a naturalistic Darwinian worldview which holds that all life came from primordial soup and arose by random chance + time. This is also the same worldview which undergirds virtually all of Dr. Watson's scientific peers who are now criticising his statements. But here's the problem - if mankind is really just a random collection of materials, then his first statement is perfectly reasonable. Varying intellegence accross racial and ethnic lines should be expected if Darwinism is true. Why should we expect that a random collection of cells called "my brain" would function EXACTLY the same as a person raised in Africa, China or Canada? In fact, doesn't the whole Darwinian model enspouse and defend this very thinking: Survival of the fittest? Only the strong (and smart) survive?

This whole episode vividely points to one of the biggest problems with evolutionary thinking on the origin of life. On one hand, the atheist wants to remove God from the picture and live only inside a natural framework. On the other, the atheist wants equality across racial and ethnic lines. But on what basis?

Ideas have consequences. The idea of Darwinism has consequences, one of which is the loss of an objective basis for the value of equality. Too bad that only a theistic worldview can justify their outrage.

A sovereign God at work

Two quick stories that have recently reminded me of God's complete sovereignty.

1. Thanks to Tony for sharing this video. The artist's name is Akiane (a-kee-ah-na). In a nutshell, her parents were atheists, but God had a different plan for her life.

2. We recently had the awesome opportunity to give away our old beat up Explorer. I really didn't feel good about selling it because it may be on its last leg (wheel). We asked around for about two weeks with no luck. Then one day, as I was driving home I really felt led to contact Travis. Travis was a new engineer to our office, but something he had said the week earlier had indicated that someone he knew may be looking for car. To make a long story short, we ended up giving the car away to a man named Watson - Travis's father-in-law to be (getting married this May). So here's the cool part:

Watson has given away several cars over the course of his life. The car was going to be put use immediately as a part of Watson's new project called the coaches channel. And the best part of all, when I received the title transfer, there is a part that asks "If the car was sold for less than the value, please state the reason why _________." On that line, Watson had written one word. "Friendship."

As I read that word, I just paused again to thank God for his Sovereignty. Not only were able to help another family in Christ, we gained some friends in the process.

What's in a name?

Profound: The life and words of Jesus Christ. I've heard it said that "Jesus Christ continually contradicts us in the way that we experience ourselves as alive, and he compels us to radically redefine what we mean by "life". He encounters us the way that he encountered the disciples on Easter morning. They, the living, were really dead; He, the dead, was really the living."

Simplicity: All that He asks is that we die to ourselves. It may take a different form for all of us, but at its core - that's it. "Die to yourselves and let me live inside of you. Be everything opposite of what the old man will desire - meek, humble, poor in spirit, loving your enemy." He says this is the way to true happiness.

Profound simplicity. It may sound like a paradox, but maybe its the best description I have for Jesus - a profound man with a simple message.

Tony Dungy

Below are some excerpts from a fantastic article on Tony Dungy. You can read the entire article here. What an awesome example of Christ to the world.


In the penultimate paragraph of his best-selling book, "Quiet Strength," a work whose subject matter certainly transcends the folly and fleeting stardom of sport, Tony Dungy wrote this: "I coach football. But the good I can do to glorify God along the way is my real purpose."

For one more year at least, perhaps even a little longer than that, Dungy will continue to moonlight in those pursuits, to address with great purpose the duality of his life, and to chase both his ultimate vocation and his higher-profile avocation.

And for at least one more season we're all the richer for it.

The former means serving his maker by bearing witness to his deep-rooted faith. The latter encompasses scratching the itch that on Monday precluded Dungy from simply walking away from the game that has been such an integral part of his life since he was persuaded by a respected educator and friend to rejoin the Parkside High School football team for his senior season, after he had quit in protest when his best friend was not elected a captain.

But make no mistake: The day is coming, and unfortunately all too soon, when those parallel paths surely will diverge.

Football is going to lose the personal tug-of-war for Tony Dungy's heart, essentially because he believes the battle for his soul is infinitely more important. And so while the much-awaited Monday resolution regarding his football future ended with a decision to remain with the Colts for at least the 2008 campaign, culminating a high-anxiety week in which his annual private inventory-taking was transformed into a public passion play he never intended it to be, Dungy is now officially a short-timer.

Then again, when it comes to football, that's precisely what Dungy always considered himself.

It would diminish the character of some of the fine people I have encountered in life, and in work, to proclaim that Dungy is the finest man, outside of my father, I have ever met. This claim, however, I will make: There have been none finer.

There are times in this business when you sit down to transcribe an interview or review your notes, and you quickly discover there isn't a usable quote to be had on the tape or among the scribbling. Spend even five minutes with Dungy, replay the tape, and you find yourself with the unenviable task of editing out material you'd kill to have on other occasions. In any story about Dungy, his words are far more eloquent than any of your own, but the bosses don't pay you to merely file a monologue. A lot of quality stuff, suffice it to say, gets left on the cutting room floor.

Without annexing the role of a Pigskin Pygmalion, he shapes lives and builds character. And his destiny is to somehow do the same outside the forum of sport. Which is why, with every day the NFL bought with Dungy's announcement on Monday that he will coach in 2008, and then again review his status, we are all the beneficiaries.

The clock is ticking, as it really always has been, on Dungy's public life. When he walks away from football, there won't be any return, no encore performance like a Bill Parcells or a Joe Gibbs. Nope, when Tony Dungy leaves, to commence the full-time work in the ministry for which he has been preparing, it will mark the end of his football career. And so we would all be wise to enjoy what remains of it.

Dungy's life in general has been a victory tour of sorts, but one that he believes will culminate in a reward much loftier than the Vince Lombardi Trophy. And so it's doubtful he will treat the 2008 season any differently than the dozen campaigns in which he has served as a head coach.

In planning his ministry, beginning his work with prison inmates, establishing family-centered initiatives, and by every day bearing witness with his own example, Dungy has embraced exactly what his "life's work" will entail in private. But with his Monday decision to stick around a little while longer, it's nice that he gave the rest of us at least one more public year in which to revel in the elegance and dignity of his simple, quiet strength.

My Worldview

So what's a worldview? In my opinion, a worldview should attempt to answer four basic questions about life. Origin, meaning, morality, & destiny. How did I get here, what gives life meaning, how do I define right and wrong, what happens when I die?

For folks who don't know me, I am convinced that the Christian worldview is true. Its not that the Christian faith makes me feel warm and fuzzy (although sometimes it does). Its that I believe the Christian faith provides the most comprehensive and collectively complete answers to these questions.

So why is that important? I guess I feel like too many times, I've seen non-Christians and Christians (myself included) get into a heated debate about something which is really a by-product of our particular worldviews. Take any of the heated political issues of the day. If someone believes that human life has happened by random chance and that each person can define their own moral code, we shouldn't be surprised at all to find out they are OK with abortion and stem cell research. What we need to do as Christians is understand that the problem lies a lot deeper than a person's view on homosexuality or the political candidate they happen to support. We need to find a way to meet them in their worldview and then show them the superiority of ours!

I think this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said he wanted to be "all things to all people, so that by all possible means, I might save some." We live in culture that has a built-in discrimination against all things religious - particularly Christian. Not fair, but that's life. Our challenge should be to understand not only what we believe, but what's the worldview behind WHY we believe. Does Christianity make sense to us? If so, we should be able to explain why it does. Sometimes a simple question back to the person who is questioning us can open the door to the real foundational issue that needs to be looked at. (Just think about how often Jesus did this).

In any case, I don't think it takes an apologetics scholar or theology graduate to defend the Christian faith in everyday life. It simply takes each one of us being committed to always being "ready to give an answer for the hope that we have."

Rule #1

I have always been reluctant to start a blog. Like all of us probably do, from time to time I believe that I may have stumbled accross something that needs to be shared with my fellow man. In my case, this is usually something that is either very funny to me, or something that I found incredibly insightful or relevant.

So here's the problem: within about six months time, I will typically look back at said nugget of humor or wisdom and decide that it really wasn't that humorous or wise at all.

Therefore, Rule #1 simply states that any blog, at any time can be retracted, deleted, un-posted and/or denied in full by the author (me). That said, it is now time to bask in the freedom of self-publishing.....