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The following question has been crystallising in my mind of late: is righteousness a status God bestows or a property he acknowledges? This, it seems to me, is the issue which divides protestant / catholic belief. Protestants, particularly Reformed Evangelicals hold: not our righteousness is counted but Christ’s (see John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ) because God justifies the ungodly as we read in Romans 4:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Rom 4:5
I would seem that if God calls a sinner a saint, then that is so. The reformed answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma is: Good is what God says is Good. We Christians may be bad people, but we’re good in God’s sight because of faith and that’s what counts. Thus, the flip side of our sins not being counted (forgiveness) is that Jesus life get’s booked to our account.
This conclusion is confirmed each time I read or hear an evangelical teaching. I listened to a preaching today by a good pastor from the south of England regarding Romans 4. His key exegetical points were that Paul is showing:
- You can’t earn entrance into heaven
- If you think you’re good, you’re not
- It is by grace through faith all the way (Eph 2:8)
He illustrated the second point from Luke 18:9-14 where a tax collector beats his breast in repentance after a Pharisee boasts his righteous deeds before God. Jesus says that the tax collector “went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.
This really sums up evangelical thinking: Only God is truly Good and only when he justifies a person are they righteous. God declares someone righteous not because they are in fact righteous but because they have faith. Righteousness is a status bestowed and not a property discovered.
Now, it’s obvious that we all sin and need forgiveness. But is this the model for the Final Judgement? Will we stand before Christ, who will judge our deeds (Mt 24, 2 Cor 10), and, when things look bad, we fall on our knees and plea for mercy? Why can’t non-Christians do this? Or will Christians simply not be present at this horrible Judgement Day?
Many evangelicals have concluded that there is no real judgement for believers (Rom 8:1). There is an Awards Ceremony for Christians and a Terrible Judgement for the rest. Our sins are paid for and ignored because we believed and we’re only here to get awarded for good service by God. Evangelicals say Christians escape judgement and receive forgiven because of faith.
The closest thing I can find in Jesus teaching about this doesn’t quite match. In Matthew 7 Jesus says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” and in Matthew 6:14 “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you”. Disciples are taught that they escape judgement and receive forgiven because they have forgiven and not judged.
| Forgiven | Not Judged | |
| Reformed Tradition | By Grace Through Faith on the Basis of the Cross | |
| Jesus | By Forgiving Others | By Not Judging Others |
In case it was unclear Jesus re-iterated (Mt 6:15): if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. What does that mean for any evangelicals who don’t forgive but “trust in the Blood”!?
My point is not simply the glaring gap between human tradition and Jesus teaching. Rather it’s that the evangelical teaching is a seemingly arbitrary formal deal (faith for forgiveness) whereas Jesus teaching is a logical real deal (reciprocal forgiveness). Evangelicals think God justifies and forgives on the basis of faith but Jesus teaches forgiveness on the basis of certain “works”. Secular people cannot follow our “justification by faith” doctrine but they really get “do unto others” and expect God to award good behaviour and “forgive us as we forgive others”. Are they seriously misled? I would say they’ve understood the Lord’s teaching better than us.
OK, we can debate about whether forgiveness is a “work” or not but I know that in many evangelical circles forgiveness, a virtue, will be classified as “good works”, as one of those good things we try to do to earn God’s approval. Is that really so bad? My English preacher used Galatians 5 to show that our good works are just like circumcision – they annul Christ’s work.
But Listen to Jesus:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:43-45
The main point of this verse is that God is benevolent towards all humans, good or bad, and so should we be. But the tacit assumptions are revealing and not generally shared by evangelicals:
- Sonship is earned by loving people
- There are just and unjust people
Again, we can debate whether or not “earned” is the right word but I expect love and prayer to be exactly the types of “good works” evangelicals keep telling us won’t get us to heaven. Prayer is typically associated with a religious duty and we know the bad Pharisees made long prayers (Mt 6). Yet here we have Jesus saying: “Do this, so that you will be sons of God”.
Of course sonship is not technically the same as forgiven and justified. Theoretically you could be adopted as a son by God with or without forgiveness and justification. However, biblically, these things go together (John 1:12, 2 Cor 6:18, Mt 6:8) – the justified are God’s family. Evangelicals treat sonship and justification as applying to the same group of people and I concur. But this makes passages such as Mt 5:43-45 above difficult for evangelicals who believe that faith and grace are all that is required. Indeed many of Jesus sayings, particularly Mt 25:31-46 is practically unintelligible for the Sola Fide group.
Think of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). He came home in repentance, pleaing for mercy. His father basically “justified” him by calling him “son” although the man acknowledged he did not deserve it. The father gave the status of sonship at the same time as forgiveness because he repented and pled for salvation (not because of his “faith”). This is Initial Justification, God’s “Welcome Home” to the repentant sinner. This is the topic of Romans 3:21 onwards.
Imagine now the scene many years later when the father stands up to speak of his son. He speaks about the things his son really did, how he helped develop the business, assisted his family, saved that sheep and praised his faithfulness. Perhaps the father will gloss over the failings but he surely won’t praise the son for deeds he never did, imputing righteousness as evangelicals understand it.
I conclude, with N.T. Wright (see Justification) that our present status before God as a result of Initial Justification by Faith is an anticipation of the final judgement where there will be a Justification by Works and that Paul has made this perfectly clear in, the oft neglected, or twisted Romans 2.
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans 2:5-13
I remember how visibly shocked an atheist friend of mine was when I told him that the core message of Christianity was NOT a moral one. Perhaps you are shocked and are sure that Christianity’s chief concern is our morality. Perhaps you are well past personal moral striving (self-righteousness) and into justification by faith but still sure that the whole point is our moral dilemma before God and that Jesus is the solution for our guilt as a result of our immorality. I hope to offer a glimmer of a much bigger plan which Jesus announced and is still being unveiled.
Yeah, Christians Do Some Unexplainable Things
In his book, My Jesus Year, the Jewish author Benyamin Cohen makes a journey along the fringes of fundamental Christianity in America, particularly the Bible Belt. The result is an exposé of the strange things happening today under the banner of Christianity. This book is obviously following in the footsteps of Religiolous and other attempts at exposing Christianity as a crazy sect or farce but as with most caricatures they can sometimes backfire.
Although Cohen says “the churches inspires him to be a better Jew”, a possible sideswipe, he perhaps misses the point that Christianity is something which grew out of Judaism and bears the kind of resemblance we find between child and father or grandfather. Jesus was a Jew, indeed The Jew and all the apostles were Jews, the New Testament authors (possibly excluding Luke) were Jews – Christianity is the Following of the True Jew Jesus. Read the rest of this entry »
Many people find the idea of God ridiculous and have sought to explain why people believe such “strange things”. In the past Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Feuerbach theorized that religion is some sort of remnant from primitive culture which was due to fade away as man became enlightened. Today such theories have been discredited by anthropologists who analysed the methods and evidence then employed and found them wanting. Aside from this man has been “enlightened” for more than a century now and religion is showing no signs of disappearing.
Contemporary atheist writers such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet have therefore attempted to describe and explain belief in God as some sort of “mental illness”, a “meme” which has been contracted similar to a disease or otherwise explain using naturalistic mechanisms why believers are poor, er, souls, to be pitied because they cannot do any better. Such thinkers believe that religion can be biologised and thus discredited. So what do believers have to say about this?
An initial, not-so-obvious failure with this line of attack is that you can’t discredit an idea by showing why people believe it. When you prove that kids believe certain things only because their parents tell them you have not proved that these things are in fact untrue. What you have done is show that their belief is not rational – i.e. that it lacks valid reasons: age of claimant (parent) is not considered compelling reason in scientific arenas. This may cast doubt on the beliefs but unless the actual belief is examined it cannot be discounted.
Aside from this there is the more interesting backlash for atheists and naturalists in general. If a belief or idea is invalidated because of it’s having arisen by natural causes, which beliefs or ideas are valid? The answer is of course “none” because they all arose that way (in the naturalists view).
Atheism and naturalism in general has severe problems with explaining rational thought. If my thoughts and yours are just the product of chemical and electrical impulses in our pulpy brains why should we trust them? A neuron misfires and I could be believing nonsense! Alas, all is nonsense in a world which lacks an Ultimate Rational Agent (URA). Naturalism offers no basis for rational thought indeed there is no place for rationality on the naturalist view: if atoms are not rational then objects made (by irrational processes) of atoms cannot be rational. One way out of this uncomfortable corner is to say that certain organisations of matter constitute rationality. Sounds great but this is to smuggle in an external standard by which rationality can be judged. Why is this pile of carbon irrational but this pile of carbon (man) rational? By the naturalist view the idea of rationalism is a non-entity which cannot be verified without appeal to an external standard (our URA).
Aside from the speculation of popular contemporary writers we have little evidence that people believe in God based on some genetic configuration. Believers often come from unbelieving families or live in cultures which believe completely differently or are even hostile towards believers. It is true that belief is often “inherited” in the sense that children inherit certain values from their parents by seeing them lived. Most people however call this “education” and not “genetic inheritance” as it arises after conception at which point a child’s DNA is separate and independent of its parents. One-armed war veterans do not beget one-armed children ;-)
If, at some time in the future, investigators would discover a gene which “enabled” belief in God I would indeed become thoughtful. Are all my thoughts controlled by my genes? I find the possibility fantastic (in the wild, improbable sense) because there simply aren’t enough genes to control the myriad of beliefs people have. Is there a gene which makes people believe in “green monkey-aliens named Sebastian who live on planet ZuTo on Richard Dawkins’ left shoe on Tuesday afternoons”? Of course not – beliefs arise during our lifetimes. If I am wrong on this then all belief and rational thought becomes invalid. Our beliefs are not “reasoned” but “imposed” by irrational forces. All belief systems, atheism included would be in ruins.
Postscript
22 September 2008: According to Philosopher Alvin Plantinga and many evolutionists – Naturalistic process like evolution cannot be guaranteed to produce true beliefs because true beliefs do not necessarily confer survivability. This means that, for the naturalist, our beliefs are here because they help us survive and not because they are true – veracity is a side-effect. Our rationality has evolved to help us survive and not to help us discover uncomfortable truths and thus we have no basis for assuming our reason is helping us decide truth rather than decide safe.
The majority of wealthy modern people are practical atheists – living as though God did not exist – perhaps without actively considering why they do this. Here are some common reasons people give for being atheists or agnostics:
1. Because of science
Many people have some vague idea that Science has disproved and replaced God. Because we now understand the world we don’t need to invoke God to explain things. This assumes that God was in fact invented to explain the world and science has made Him redundant. History tells a different tale and the fall of religion with the progress of science has yet to materialise.
Christians believe that the universe is God’s creation in the same way a painting is the work of an artist. We marvel at the strokes and, with analysis, understand more about how it was done. However, even with a perfect understanding and lots of scratching around we won’t find the painter under the paint. We may learn something about the artist’s character and motive but He’s not part of the painting.
Science points to God in it’s most fundamental laws and it’s most complex processes – watch out for pseudo-science: the painting did not pop into existence for no reason and beautifully paint itself.
2. Because it appears intellectual and modern
We like to believe that new ideas are better ones and God belongs to old-school thinking. However new ideas are often published and broadcast because they are innovative not because they are good whilst old ideas survive because they’ve stood the test of time. New ideas come and go. The bright future promised by modern atheism’s Founding Fathers (e.g. Marx, Nietzche) has failed to materialise. People today are atheists not because of conviction but from indifference, distraction and confusion accelerated by mass media. Truth is not a democracy. Test the message.
3. Because everyone else is
Most practical atheists today are not bad folk and feel they are good enough to cover their bases in case God shows up. They assume God is congenial will accept at least 50% of his creatures into heaven and assure themselves (with sideways glances) that they’re doing OK – “At least I’m not like them!”. This whiter-than-thou thinking is sheep mentality which is comfortable but dangerous as they enjoy the social infrastructure laid down by believers oblivious to it’s erosion.
4. Because it’s liberating
It appears that atheism liberates in denying ultimate authority because that liberates humans to self rule. Is that a good thing? How are we doing at that? And who should rule – does might make right? Which ideas about society should be implemented (enforced) as policy? Atheism tends to breeds anarchy or despotism – twin evils in which some human or group of humans enslave the rest.
5. Because religion is …
Bad? Unnecessary? Boring? Incoherent? Violent? Oppresive? Repulsive? Well, so are many forms of atheism but this sort of argument is irrelevant because religion is not the issue. You can be a religious atheist or a child of God who shuns religion (like Jesus) – the issue is ultimately how you relate to your Creator by whom and for whom you were made because this relationship shapes your life here and your eternity.
6. Because it’s the default position
It’s debatable whether people are by nature atheists or theists. The fact that all societies recognise a god seems to point to the latter. Nevertheless, we need not remain atheists if we were born that way just as we grow from ignorance to understanding and progress from milk to solids. Our modern lifestyle feeds, distracts and desensitises us to our basic need for purpose and relation to our heavenly Father yet we must break these chains.
7. Because God is…
Bad? A bully? Unjust? Improbable? The God you don’t believe in you haven’t met yet. God is the perfect loving being knows you and who wants to spend eternity with you – He would and did die to catch your attention and give you a chance at accepting His offer. Forget the cliches and the presentations you have seen – seek Him alone and personally!
It has been said that there are as many religions, as many gods, as there are people. Obviously atheists and other non-religious folk would disagree but the point is plain:
- There are lots of religions
- Even within religions, conceptions of God differ
We thus ask ourselves: why should this be and what does it mean. I see 3 clear reasons why religious concepts abound:
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Religions are complex ideas
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Religions are descriptive
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Religions describe the intangible
Religions are complex ideas
Unlike simple concepts like arithmetic we cannot describe a religion’s premise in one sentence and devise an experiment to test it.
Religions are descriptive
Religions are rarely hypothetical theories but descriptions of God and the supernatural. Humans hardly ever agree on descriptions of things. Try describing your best friend Peter to someone and see how another person would describe them – there will be some overlap (he is a 27 year old Male) but not 100% consensus. There may even be disagreement and contradiction (IS Peter a funny guy?).
Religions describe the intangible
Religions deal mainly with subjects which cannot be contained in a laboratory and tested. We’re dealing with the meaning and purpose of life, the nature of humanity, the afterlife, morality and the nature of God. We can’t test these things once and for all and resolve differing views.
Thus, because religions are complex, descriptive and (mostly) unverifiable we can expect many differing views. (Atheists and agnostics would prefer we be silent on such issues and are irritated that religions proclaim with certainty what is, in the agnostics eyes, pure speculation.)
What Does All This Mean?
Now, what shall we conclude concerning the multiplicity of religions:
- All are equally true (Pluralism)
- All are equally false (Classic Atheism)
- All are equally indeterminate (Agnosticism)
- Each should be analysed logically and evidentially
My (potentially unpopular) answer would be 4: we need to look at religions individually. Only laziness or ignorance could answer otherwise. It may not be easy but all other answers have serious problems:
- The religions cannot all be true because they contradict each other. Christianity says that Jesus was crucified and Islam denies this. Buddhism says (in effect) that God does not exist or is impersonal, Islam says he is One and impersonal and Christianity says he is personal and triune (three persons, one being). They can’t all be right.
- The religions cannot all be false because the evidence for the theism as opposed to atheism is overwhelming (admittedly not all religions are theistic). I am not aware of any new evidence in favour of the no-God hypothesis except that it’s trendy and considered “intellectual” to be an atheist. To KNOW that there is no God you’d have to know everything about everything. The folks who say all religions are false cannot have analysed all religions due to the sheer number. The “all are false” conclusion is rash, arrogant and ignorant.
- The agnostic stance is untenable in my opinion because it results not from careful consideration but from ignorance and laziness. It also seems illogical to say “I KNOW that WE CANNOT (or do not) know”.
I believe we can and should consider each religion on it’s merits, group similar ones to keep the workload down and use common sense to find likely candidates. We should not let the multiplicity of ideas force us to assume all are right or wrong just as we should not assume the millions of numbers mean that 1 + 1 cannot be solved. Some things, like reality, are either true or false and not a matter of taste.
Related Posts
Naturalism must be false because it leads to contradictions:
- The universe is all that exists (naturalist’s premise)
- The universe is just the sum of it’s parts
- The parts were all caused
- The universe is therefore caused (2 & 3)
- The cause cannot be one of it’s parts (illogical)
- But only it’s parts exist (1 & 2)
- The cause cannot exist (5 & 6)
But 7 contradicts 4!
Now, to resolve this problem you’d have to deny one of the premises but this leads to more contradictions and conflicts with science and knowledge of the universe. Try denying and you get:
- You are not a naturalist
- You are not a scientist
- Special pleading – some special part was uncaused
- Illogical, irrational
- Illogical, something cannot bring itself into existence if it does not yet exist in order to do so.
- Illogical, irrational
- Illogical, irrational
Typically atheists will either conclude:
- There is no cause!
This is special pleading, question begging and contrary to the axiom of science known as Causality. It also implies the universe is eternal which science tells us it is not. One would also have to be all-knowing in order to assert that something has no cause. - We don’t know the answer…yet
This is a common response with the implication that science will one day discover a way in which things can cause themselves, pop into existence or be eternal. It is therefore the assumption that one day science will triumph over logic without realising that this will topple science as it is the foundation on which science stands.
Because there is no way out and the statement “nature is all there is, was or ever will be” is manifestly false a rational being must conclude that something transcending nature exists. Either nature is all there is or there is something else with nothing in between.
