Hard to Deny the Bible

Even when you want to, it’s hard to deny the Bible. Writing around 150-70 AD, the Greek philosopher:

Celsus declared the first disciples of Jesus to be deceivers of the worst kind; a band of sorcerers, who fabricated and circulated the miraculous stories of the Gospels, particularly that of the resurrection of Jesus…He refers to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, and makes upon the whole about eighty allusions to, or quotations from the New Testament (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 92).

Although we lack extant copies of Celsus’ diatribes, according to historians, his words have been faithfully preserved by those who had responded to him. Interestingly, Celsus indirectly acknowledged that our Gospels were long venerated by the Church. That’s why he attacks them rather than the Gnostic Gospels, which clearly, even if they were in circulation, no one venerated.

Celsus pulled no punches. He wanted to denigrate the young faith through whatever argument he could muster. Nevertheless, he also obliquely acknowledged that the Gospels were eyewitness accounts of the “first disciples of Jesus.” This is a weighty admission in light of today’s radical skeptics who claim that the Gospels reflect the editorializing and synthesizing of the early church.

Although Celsus charged that these “disciples…fabricated…the resurrection of Jesus,” no credible historian can take this charge seriously. Why not? The Apostles all died martyrs’ deaths, never veering an inch from their testimony that they had seen and touched the risen Jesus. They were such credible eyewitnesses that even the atheist historian, Gerd Ludemann, had to concede:

It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ (Quoted by Lee Strobel, Case for the Real Jesus).

This doesn’t mean that Ludemann has come to faith. Far from it! Instead, he claims that the disciples all succumbed to mass hallucination! For forty days? Ludemann can close his eyes, but even he can’t keep the light from penetrating through his eyelids.

Daniel Mann

Christian Culture Promotes Science

Theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher argued that Christian escapism and dogmatic resistance to scholarship would serve the cause of unbelief:

“This blockade, the complete starvation of all science…will raise the flag of unbelief, compelled by you, because you have so isolated yourselves. Is the knot of history to be untied in such a way that Christianity will be left with barbarism, and scholarship with unbelief?”

The Church has characteristically responded to the threats posed by the university in either of two extreme ways---flight or accommodation. Schleiermacher warned about the dangers of the first response. Centuries later, Harold O.J. Brown documented the bad fruit that came as a result of flight:

“Although it was winning the battle for individual hearts in millions of cases throughout Christendom, Christianity was no longer winning the battle for the minds of individuals. Lives were changed, churches were transformed, some major legislative changes were introduced, but the foundations of doctrine were not consolidated. The Christian world and life view was gradually lost and Christianity became, for the first time since Constantine, primarily a private religion” (Heresies, pg. 418).

Christianity has fled the halls of academia in favor of privacy. However, today accommodation and compromise seem to pose an even greater threat to the vitality of the Church. We embrace Darwinism as we reassure ourselves that the Bible is still true, somehow. Former Pentecostal preacher, Michael Dowd, and author of Thank God for Evolution now travels the church-circuit trying to sell the idea that evolution promotes true worship and deep integrity. However, compromise results in a bland, uninspiring, and moribund faith. Other Christians demand us to rethink Christianity according to Darwin’s guidance:

“Darwinism exposes Christianity’s weakness in keeping up with the growing scientific knowledge. We use the fruits of scientific technology and blissfully ignore its implications for a contemporary and comprehensive biblical worldview.” (Academy for Christian Thought, NYC)

The pressures to privatize or compromise our faith are great. Atheists commonly charge that Christians can’t truly be scholars or scientists because they are locked into a faith that suffocates true inquiry. However, this assertion contradicts the facts. Instead, science arose because of the Christian faith and not in spite of it. In this regard, Henry Schaefer quotes the British scientist, Robert Clark:

“Scientific development has only occurred in a Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations…science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to argue speculatively that, perhaps, science might have been able to develop in the absence of Christianity, but, in fact, it never did. And no wonder. For the non-Christian world believed that there was something ethically wrong about science. In Greece, this conviction was enshrined in the legend of Prometheus, the fire-bearer and prototype scientist who stole fire from heaven, thus incurring the wrath of the gods.” (Science and Christianity, pg.14)

Our retreat and compromise with academia, has allowed naturalism, a dictatorial philosophy that has forbidden any consideration of supernatural causation, to hijack science. Our Harvards, Princetons and Yales had all been Bible colleges. God has not only been thrown out, but now the Darwinist claims that He never belonged there in the first place!

Daniel Mann

Enlightened Selfishness

Have you heard about “enlightened selfishness?” It’s the atheistic equivalent of living by God-given moral absolutes. It seems to be the rage on the NYU campus. When I ask the students if they believe in moral absolutes like “genocide and torturing babies is wrong” or even “justice and injustice,” they usually deny that there is a moral reality independent from ourselves, but also claim that they don’t need this type of morality. Why not? Their answer usually goes something like this:

If I act according to my best interests, it will also be in the best interests of others. It feels good to love others. I don’t need a God or a holy book to tell me this!

This echoes the atheistic Humanist Manifesto II:

How are these principles [of equality, freedom, etc.] to be justified? They are not derived from a divine or natural law nor do they have a special metaphysical [beyond the material world] status. They are rules offered to govern how we shall behave. They can be justified only by reference to their results.

Indeed, there is some truth to this claim. Moral living, for whatever reason, usually brings positive results. God has wired us for moral truth, and when we act in concert with our conscience and do what is right, we usually feel good about it. When we don’t and hurt others, we feel like garbage. However, this rationale isn’t enough for us to live a consistent moral life. Living for results alone present many problems:

1. If there are no moral absolutes and there is a drug that can dull our conscience, there is no reason to listen to our conscience. It becomes no more than an accidental chemical-electrical response.

2. If there are no moral absolutes, life can have no more intrinsic purpose than getting pleasurable results. This can only lead to morbid self-absorption: “Am I enjoying myself enough?”

3. If we just regard results, we might choose to condemn an innocent man if it provides positive results for the nation. All sorts of abominations can be justified with this reasoning.

4. If we only do good when it feels good or provides benefits, our “goodness” will eventually shrivel up. Heroism requires paying a steep price for doing what is right. Sometimes going against our conscience can provide the best results (as far as we can assess them.)

5. We can’t condemn the sexual predator for a crime. All we can say is that his behavior didn’t yield positive results. But according to whom? He might have been very pleased with the results, al least until he was caught. What charge then do we bring against him? That his selfishness wasn’t “enlightened” enough?

6. Everything becomes relative to who gets results or pleasure out of what. Without an absolute standard, we can’t bring any charge against a Hitler. He was merely doing what he thought would bring good results.

7. We have no rationale to resist our feelings and lusts. If it gives me relief to take revenge, there is nothing to say that this is wrong.

8. There is no basis to resolve conflict. If one party’s best results do not coincide with the second party, conflict will arise. When a wife catches her husband cheating on her, he might simply respond that his affair feels right to him and that she has to deal with her own feelings. Without an appeal to absolute truth, the only “resolution” left is either force or emotional separation.

9. There is no basis for moral persuasion if a person feels good doing evil. They already know how to get the results they want.

10. The prospect of getting good results isn’t enough to resist temptation.

11. This will force us to lead a schizoid life—our mind tells us that “enlightened selfishness” is adequate, while our conscience tells us that there are moral absolutes.

Denying moral truth is a sophisticated way of denying God, but we pay a price for denial. The focus upon results alone is like a relationship built on benefits alone, whose emptiness eventually becomes shamefully apparent.

Daniel Mann

Deserve nothing but death!

We need to remind ourselves where we’ve come from so that we can truly appreciate where we’re going! Christ’s Cross should remind us, “You are guilty and deserve nothing but death!” But then it also asserts, “Christ has died for your sins, loving you beyond belief, forgiving you, and bestowing upon you His gift of eternal righteousness.”

Now, let’s consider what this means. We’re exposed, condemned and humbled for our many sins—arrogance, denial, self-justification, self-righteousness, self-deception, our self-centered motives, self-entitlement, self-promotion, selfishness, and the abuse and manipulation of others. The Cross leaves us without excuse or rationalization.

However, Christ loves us too much to leave us to stew in our corrupt juices. He opens our minds to the radical message of the Cross and frees us from sin, self-absorption, self-elevation, the struggle of trying to prove ourselves to both self and the world, blindness, bitterness, jealousy, and the wearisome burden of image-management.

It’s God’s gift to us, and we must never suppose we can earn it. A man named Simon proposed to buy one of God’s gifts, and Peter sternly corrected him:

"May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin" (Acts 8:20-23).

When we fail to see that we are unable to buy or earn God’s gifts, it means that we’re utterly blind to both the depths of our sins and the transcendence and love of a God who can’t be bought. It also means that we’re pretty stuck on ourselves—not a sin that God takes lightly.

Knowing that we’re so undeserving and yet so incredibly beloved, we increasingly (it’s a process!) find ourselves free to put others’ needs before our own. We no longer need to be defensive about our true status, because we’ve come to accept the fact that we’re nothing without Christ. We no longer need to denigrate others in order to lift ourselves. Because we no longer require their love and approval, we’re freed to love them. People no longer have the same power over us, and so we need not resent or fear them! Slights and rejections can now become occasions for laughter.

But how do we appropriate the healing benefits of the Cross? It always starts with trust:

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. (Psalm 37:3-6)

But don’t leave out obedience. Trust and obedience are inseparable. If we trust, we’ll obey:

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1:2-3)

Trust and obedience do not exist independently, anymore than I can have a functioning brain without a heart. This doesn’t mean that we’re saved by our good deeds, as if we can earn something from God and convert His gift into a wage, something we deserve (Rom. 4:1-8). However, if we truly believe, we will act on those beliefs. Take, for example, the man who goes to a trusted doctor but throws away the prescribed pills. He then explains that he trusts his doctor so much that he doesn’t have to take the pills. This, of course, is ridiculous! If we trust God, we do what He tells us to do (John 14:21-24)! Also, if we trust God, we’re free from proving ourselves trustworthy. What a relief!

Daniel Mann

Response to MK: Tim Keller

Dear MK,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Perhaps I should have prefaced my critical remarks by acknowledging that Tim Keller is both a fine preacher and defender of the faith. So my disagreement with him must be understood within the context of appreciation for much of what he does.

I agree with your major concern. We shouldn't major in minors by thrusting in-house, contentious debates in the face of the seeker. However, there is a place for earnestly contending for the faith (Jude 3). Confronted by many who are arguing that Genesis is about Darwin, we have to be able to show that it isn't.

Why? Darwin's Genesis represents almost an entire reversal of the overall thrust of the Bible. According to the Gospel message, God created a perfect world, we screwed it up, and God then came to the rescue. It had all been "very good" (Gen. 31); even the animals had been herbivores (1:29-30) and there was no death (Rom. 8:18-22). According to Darwin, death, blood, and gore have always been with us. Theistic evolutionists claim that death-dealing struggle for survival had been part of God's initial design--not "very good!"

If the fight for survival had been God's ideal, there is no room for a Fall. In Darwin's world, Adam and Eve were simply trying to obtain a survival advantage by attempting to be like God! Who can blame them!

Death entered the world through us, not through God's institution of the bloody Darwin-design. This reversal places the blame on God and not where it belongs. Consequently, the Redemption becomes puzzling. Did Christ die to restore us to natural selection? No! Instead He died to reverse what had been lost through sin and death, not the horrors of natural selection:

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Cor. 15:21-22).

Likewise, Christ's return will bring restoration (Acts 3:21). According to Darwin, this can be nothing more than the return to the primordial survival-of-the-fittest--not a very pleasant hope!

I agree that there is much that is figurative in the Bible, but even a figurative interpretation is unable to find Darwin in Genesis. It would be like finding Chairman Mao in the Book of Acts, the Cosmic New-Age Jesus in the Gospels, or the A Course of Miracles in the Letters of Paul. In order to derive these philosophies from the Bible, the Bible would have to be rendered so utterly nebulous and symbolic as to make it entirely useless and meaningless. No one would ever be able to have confidence that what they were reading in the Bible was actually there. Nor could such a Bible have the necessary specificity to produce a coherent faith. Instead, making such accommodations will eventually destroy our faith.

Perhaps we will offend some by strenuously attempting to separate Darwin from Genesis. Perhaps we might appear mindless to others. However, I think that we have to trust our sovereign God for their salvation rather than taking matters into our own hands by trying to blunt the offense by suggesting that Genesis might be able to accommodate the likes of Darwin. This betrays a lack of trust in our God as the Author of salvation.

If we do nothing and remain neutral, our faith will suffer erosion. Meanwhile, The Academy for Christian Thought, (of which Keller is a board member) supported by Redeemer Pres., is aggressively promoting Darwin within the Church.

Daniel Mann

Repentance

I received many responses regarding my last essay in which I questioned the viability of a salvation message without a full-bodied call to repentance. One response was from Chris, a former lesbian, who has a great heart and understanding for others caught in this lifestyle:

“We go to the PrideFest parade and picnic with a message of Radical
Love…I'm always amazed at how comfortable I feel at PrideFest. It's like, I
know these people. They're my kin. They're my family…I understand them.
I know what they want and I know how they feel. I'm not so far removed
from them that I can't remember myself there…They really just want to be normal people, but feel that it is unobtainable, so they settle for what is available, faults and all…The people I talk to there are happy to see me, though they know why I'm there. They know that I'm there to love them…”

Despite her sensitivity regarding this struggle, she still recognizes the necessity for repentance:

“I've thought a lot about the question - "By bypassing repentance, are we extending a false hope?" The answer is definitely YES, we do extend a false hope by overlooking repentance! Repentance is such a bondage-breaking experience. Laying our sins at the foot of the cross and walking from them, brings real hope!...I repent of the sins that I have committed against God…that He will not only restore innocence before Him, but also restore the innocence that I lost in my own mind to set me free to enjoy the wonders of this world!”

Salvation without repentance is a plane with one wing. It’s not going anywhere. An example will help to demonstrate this absurdity. Imagine a bigamist, who has secretly married multiple women to bilk them out of their money. He is told that Christ will forgive all his sins and grant him eternal life apart from repentance. It sounds like a great deal, so he takes it without any intention of changing his behavior. The church receives him as a brother but must immediately caste him out of their midst for being unrepentant of his bigamy—the height of absurdity!

This is absurd because it divides what is inseparable--faith and repentance--opposite sides of the same coin. We can’t have one without the other! The very same motion that turns us to God in faith, turns us away (repentance) from our former ways. We can’t truly turn to God without turning from something else! Therefore, if someone says he has faith but is unwilling to repent, his faith isn’t a true faith (James 2:14-26)!

Scripture reflects this same connection between faith and repentance. These two concepts are so closely associated that they are used interchangeably. Repentance, like faith, is preached as a prerequisite for forgiveness (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:22; Luke 24:47). Consequently, in the same way that faith comes as a gift from God (Eph. 2:8-9), so too does its counterpart (2 Tim. 2:25; Acts 5:31; 11:18), so that boasting is eliminated.

We can’t turn to God without turning from sin. This doesn’t mean that we won’t continue to struggle with sin, but it does mean that we will confess our sins and turn from them, although perhaps with difficulty and backsliding. But a refusal to repent is a rejection of the gift of eternal life, while a refusal to preach repentance is a betrayal of the Gospel.

Daniel Mann

A letter to the New York Times

A letter to the New York Times

(Unpublished):



Re: Laws of Nature, Source Unknown, 12/18/07. I don’t think that the origin of our laws-of- nature are entirely inexplicable when we apply some logic. For instance, let’s ask the question-- Which is more reasonable?



1. One intelligent, unexplainable Creator who created and holds all things together, or
2. Many disconnected, unexplainable, “polytheistic,” unintelligent laws, which do the same omnipotent work of holding the universe together, somehow each exercising its sovereignty in tandem with the others?



True science understandably abhors the inelegance of the latter and has struggled under Einstein’s mantle to find unity, a common principle or cause to tie everything together. We find this beauty in Monotheism, the heart and essence of science.



I like what the cosmologist Paul Davies said about the “enlightenment’s” verdict eliminating God:



“Then God got killed off and the laws just free-floated in a conceptual vacuum but retained their theological properties.”



When modernity “killed off” God, it subsequently had to make gods out of what they hadn’t killed. What do these free-floating laws-of-nature explain? Little! These deities have been given divine, unquestioned, explanatory status, while their Maker has been stuffed into a dark closet. Perhaps we need to air out the closet!

Daniel Mann

Genesis 1:1

In an interview in Christianity Today (June 2008, pg. 38), Tim Keller states:



“So I want to be noncommittal [about the arguments for intelligent design]. I don’t want the people who don’t like one creation view to feel like they can’t listen to the rest of the gospel. Instead I point out that it’s a red herring to go after that before you decide whether Jesus died and rose again…And I was trying to say, ‘Because you believe in evolution, does this mean that Jesus Christ couldn’t be raised from the dead?’ If he was raised from the dead, then you have to take seriously the Scriptures and you have to work on all this. If he wasn’t raised from the dead, who cares about Genesis 1-ll?”



Although Keller is correct in being Gospel-centered and also that it’s best to reorient some people back to the core message, others are going to balk:



“Why should I take your gospel seriously? Why should I even entertain the possibility that Jesus rose from the dead? If the Bible isn’t correct about Genesis 1-11, what reason do I have to believe that it’s correct about Jesus?”



There are times when Keller should be more committed to the viability of these chapters. I had not been able to even begin to consider the possibility that the Bible was God’s Word, because I was convinced that evolution was true. This meant that the Bible was just wrong. The Darwinist, Thomas Huxley, says virtually the same thing about the Bible’s creation account:



I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how anyone, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures…If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the Promethean mythos, what value has Paul’s dialectic. (Quoted from The New Answers Book, Ken Ham, Editor, 32-34)



Huxley is correct. If Genesis is myth, then the New Testament, which is built on it, can be no less vacuous. However, for me, this forbidding barrier came down once I read a book that persuasively critiqued the theory of evolution. Consequently, I began to consider that there was a possibility that the Bible could be God’s truth.



Meanwhile, many have testified that once they were made to see the “light” of evolution through an introductory biology course, they dumped Christ. In a sense, this is reasonable. It’s hard to believe in the rest of the Bible once one becomes convinced that Genesis 1-11 is fallacious.



If Huxley’s charge stands, it’s hard to see how many will not fall, or at least venture forth deprived of their confidence in the Word.

Daniel Mann