Paying Attention To The Sky

Fideism
Fideism contends that the only knowledge, or at least the only certain knowledge, we can have is by faith. While rationalism denies the existence of any truths of faith improvable by reasoin, fideism denies the existence of any certain truths attainable by reason without faith….Pascal, for instance, argued that to trust reason in the first place must itself be an act of faith, and not rationally provable. For if trust in reason were proved by reason, we would be committing the logical fallacy of “begging the question,” assuming what we are supposed to prove. Pascal further argued that if the source of our reason is not an intelligent and trustworthy God, but blind chance of some untrustworthy evil spirit, then our reason is not trustworthy at all. Who would trust a computer programmed by chance of a deceiver? But how do we know there is a a good and trustworthy God who created and designed human reason? If we try to prove such a God by our reason, we again beg the question and argue in a circle. We try to validate reason by God and God by reason. The only way out is a non-rational leap of faith in the beginning…The argument shows that the ultimate theoretical justification for reason cannot be reason itself.

Apologetics, Reason And Faith
Three kinds of truths:
(a)Truths by faith alone are things revealed by God but not understandable, discoverable or provable by reason (e.g. the Trinity or the fact hat Christ’s death atoned for our sins).
(b) Truths of both faith and reason are things revealed by God but also understandable, discoverable or provable by reason (e.g. the existence of one God, of an objective moral law, or life after death).
(c) Truths of reason but not of faith are things not revealed by God but known by human reason (e.g., the natural sciences).
If this is the correct position, then the role of the Christian apologist is to prove all the propositions of class (b) and to answer all the objects to the propositions in class (a). The doctrine of the fall teaches that human nature, and thus human reason is corrupted but still valid and usable – like a crippled body. It can walk perhaps but not well…Reason can persuade you to walk to the beach, but you must make the leap of faith into the sea of the living God. Fideism says it can’t even bring you to the beach; rationalism says it can put you in the sea.

How Much Of The Faith Can Reason Prove? Thomas Aquinas
The truth that the human reason is naturally endowed to know cannot be opposed to the truth for the Christian Faith. For that which the human reason is naturally endowed is clearly most true; so much so, that it is impossible for us to think of such truths as false. [If we only understand the meaning of the terms in such self-evident propositions as “The whole is greater than the parts” or “What has color must have size,” we cannot think them false.] Nor is it permissible to believe as false that which we hold by faith, since this is confirmed in a way that is so clearly divine. [It is not our faith but its subject, God, that justifies our certainty.] Since therefore only the false is opposed to the truth, as is clearly evident from an examination of their definitions, it is impossible that truth of faith should be opposed to those principles that the human reason knows naturally. Thus, either Christianity is false, or reason is false, or – if both are true – there can never be any real contradiction at all between them, since truth cannot contradict truth.

How Much Of The Faith Can Reason Prove? Thomas Aquinas II
That which is introduced into the soul of the student by the teacher is contained in the knowledge of the teacher — unless his teaching is fictitious, which it is improper to say of God. Now the knowledge of the principles that are known to us naturally [rationally self-evident propositions] has been implanted in us by God; for God is the author of our nature. These principles, therefore, are also contained by the divine Wisdom. Hence, whatever is opposed to them is opposed to the divine Wisdom and therefore cannot come from God,. That which we hold by faith as divinely revealed, therefore, cannot be contrary to our natural knowledge.

How Much Of The Faith Can Reason Prove? St. Paul [1 Corinthians 1:20-25]
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Existence Of God I [Change]
If there is nothing outside of the material universe, then there is nothing that can cause the universe to change. But it does change. Therefore there must be something in addition to the material universe. But the universe is the sum of all matter, space and time. These three things depend on each other. Therefore this being outside the universe is outside matter, space and time. It is not a changing thing; it is the unchanging Source of change.

Existence of God II [Efficient Causality]
The hypothesis that all being is caused, that there is no Uncaused Being is absurd. So there must be something uncaused, something on which all things that need an efficient cause of being are dependent…Existence is like a gift given from cause to effect. If there is no one who has the gift, the gift cannot be passed down the chain of receivers, however long or short the chain may be. If everyone has to borrow a certain book, but no one actually has it, then no one will ever get it. If there is no God who has existence by his own eternal nature, then the gift of existence cannot be passed down the chain of creatures and we can never get it. But we do get it; we do exist. Therefore there must exist a God: an Uncaused Being who does not have to receive existence like us – and like every other link in the chain of receivers.

The Dilemma of Evil
To love evil is to succumb to it. But to hate evil is to also succumb to it. Jesus’ answer was forgiveness. Forgiveness neither condemns nor condones. It admits that evil is evil…It dissolves the glue between the sinner and the sin and sets the sinner free. Repentance does the same thing from the side of the sinner. Repentance and forgiveness work together like a reverse epoxy…God solves this dilemma on Calvary. Full justice is done: sin is punished and the very punishment of hell itself – being forsaken by God is exacted…One body cannot be in two places at once, but two different bodies can. The sinner with his sin cannot receive simultaneously just punishment and merciful forgiveness; but Christ’s vicarious atonement separates the sin from the sinner. We can only mentally distinguish the sin from the sinner. Christ really separates them. The sin receives its just punishment in his own divine person on the Cross and we sinners receive mercy and forgiveness in our own persons. That is why the biblical formula for what we must do is to be saved from sin in to “repent and believe.” Objectively salvation was accomplished by Christ on the cross, but subjectively we must accept him and his separation of sin from sinner. Our repentance and faith is our “Yes.” to this; our impenitence and unbelief is our no.

Augustine On Divine Grace and Free Will
Augustine came to realize two things [about divine grace and free will]…first grace is an “interior master” rather than an exterior one; grace deals with nature according to its nature, “grace perfects nature.’ And ‘nature’ for humans means human nature, which includes free will as part of its essence. Second, true freedom is not just indetermination, freedom from all influence, but self-determination, self-realization, self-perfection; freedom for the realization of our end and destiny. And this comes from God, our Author and Designer, our savior from the sin that blocks this self-realization. Thus the two parts of the problem become the two parts of the solution.

Evil And Genesis 3
Evil is real, but it is not a real thing. It is not subjective; but it is not a substance. Augustine defines evil as disordered love, disordered will. It is a wrong relationship, nonconformity between our will and God’s will. God did not make it; we did. That is the obvious point of Genesis 1 and 3, the stories of God’s good creation and humanity’s evil fall….The origin of human free will is sin. The immediate origin of suffering is nature, or rather the relationship between ourselves and nature….we are not ghosts in machines, souls imprisoned in bodies, or angels in disguise, but soul-body (“pycho-somatic”) unities…if the soul becomes alienated from God by sin, the body will become alienated, too and experience pain and death as sins’s inevitable consequences…there are two powerful arguments for the historical truth of Genesis 3. First, nearly every tribe, nation and religion throughout history have a similar story. One of the most widespread myths (sacred stories) in the world is the myth of a past paradise lost, a time without evil, suffering or death. The mere fact that everyone innately believes the same thing does not prove that it is true of course; but it is at least significant evidence…we behave like kings and queens dressed in rags who are wandering the world in search of their thrones. If we had never reigned, why would we seek a throne? If we had always been beggars, why would we be discontent?…The evil we do is not just spiritual but physical, bodily evil, for our bodies are parts of us. So the evils we do – sins – are also evils others suffer. Each evil is like a stone thrown in a pond, sending consequences rippling out to the farthest limits of physical interconnectedness.

Free Will And Moral Responsibility
Heredity plus environment plus free will equals the human act. Heredity and environment condition our acts, but they do not determine them, as the paints and the frame condition a painting but do not determine it. They are necessary causes but not sufficient causes of freely chosen acts…C.S. Lewis had one of the simplest and clearest ways of expressing the doctrine of human free will and moral responsibility that is implied in the Genesis 3 account of our “free fall.” He said, “If there are other intelligent beings on other planets, it is not necessary to suppose that they have fallen like us.”

Omnipotence: God And Self-Contradiction
To ask why God didn’t create such a world [a world with genuine possible freedom and no sin] is like asking why God didn’t create colorless color or round squares…It is a misunderstanding of God in that it is not a divine perfection to create or perform a meaningless self-contradiction. It is rather God’s consistency – his never contradicting himself – that is perfection. There is also a misunderstanding hereof what logic means. It is not an artificial rule, like playing nine and not ten innings in baseball. It is an objective truth about everything. We discover it, we do not invent it.

Wisdom Through Suffering
God allows suffering and deprives us of the lesser good of pleasure in order to help us toward the greater good, moral and spiritual education. Even the pagans knew that: the gods teach wisdom through suffering. Aeschylus wrote:

Day by day, hour by hour,
Pain drops upon the heart
As, against our will, and even in our own despite
Comes wisdom from the awful grace of God.

God let Job suffer not because he lacked love but precisely out of his love, to bring Job to the point of the Beatific Vision of God face to face [Job 42:5] which is humanity’s supreme happiness. Job’s suffering hollowed out a big space in him so that a big piece of God and joy could fill it. Job’s experience is paradigmatic for all saintly suffering.

Happiness
The older deeper meaning of happiness is evident in the Greek word eudaimonia (eudemonia). This is first of all an objective state, not just a subjective feeling. It’s not true that if only you feel happy, you are happy. A grown man sitting in the bathtub all day playing with his rubber ducky may be content, but he is not happy…Happiness is to the soul what health is to the body. You can feel healthy without being healthy and you can feel happy without truly being happy. You can also be happy without feeling happy, Job was, learning wisdom through suffering. Jesus saying “Blessed [objectively happy] are those who mourn [feel subjectively unhappy].” assumes such a distinction.

Deep Happiness
Deep happiness is in the spirit, not the body or even the feelings. It is like an anchor that holds fast and calm on the bottom even while storms rage on the surface, God allows physical and emotional storms to strengthen the anchor; fires to test and harden our mettle. Our soul must become like bright, hard, sharp swords. That is our destiny and our design. We are not toys; we are swords. And that requires tempering in the fire. The sword of the self is to sing in the sun eternally, like the seraphim. If we could catch even a glimpse of this heavenly destiny, if we understood why we are destined to judge angels [Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:2,3:  Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!]

The Problems of Evil
The nature of spiritual evil is sin, separating ourselves from God.

(1)  The origin of spiritual evil is human free will
(2)  The end for which God allows spiritual evil is to preserve human free will that  is, human nature.
(3)  The nature of our physical evil is suffering
(4)  The origin of physical evil is spiritual evil. We suffer because we sin.
(5)  The end or use of physical evil is spiritual

Guilt And Shame
Guilt can be removed only by God, because guilt is the index of a broken covenant with God. Shame is only the index of a horizontal, human fear or fracture, but guilt is vertical, supernatural. A good psychologist can set your free from shame but not from guilt. He can even set your free from guilt feelings, but not from real guilt. He can give you anesthetics but cannot cure your disease, Psychology can make you feel good, but only religion – relationship with God – can make you be good…That’s why God sent his Son; no one but Jesus Christ could take away our sin and guilt. Faith in his atoning sacrifice is the only answer to the real problem of evil. Our only hope in not a good answer but “good news,” the gospel. The great theologian Karl Barth was asked in his old age what was the most profound idea he had ever had, in his many years of theologizing. He instantly replied, “Jesus loves me.”

Christ’s Trustworthiness
Did anyone believe Jesus’ claim to be God? The psychological, personal, motivational reason – as distinct from the objective, logical, theological reason – is because he was so good and wise and trustworthy…. They believed the Buddha’s doctrine not because it seemed true but because Buddha seemed true. How could he deceive or be deceived? He was “holy to the fingertips.” The same psychological principle explains how Christians from twelve apostles 2000 years ago to a billion believers today, believe this even more astonishing claim : they believe it because they believe him. To deny it, you would have to  deny him. And that is unthinkable…There is an instructive parallel in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lucy has entered another world, Narnia, through a wardrobe and told her siblings about it. They disbelieve her, of course. A wise old professor adjudicates the argument by asking Peter, Lucy’s older brother, whether Lucy is a liar. Peter is confident she is not; he knows her too well. Well, then, is she insane? It is obvious from her behavior that she is not. Then there is only one possibility left, concludes the professor: Lucy must be telling the truth…If Peter knows Lucy better than he knows the universe, it is more reasonable for him to believe Lucy and change his beliefs about the universe than vice versa. If we know the humanity and trustworthiness of Jesus better than we know what is possible for God to do, it is reasonable for us to believe Jesus and change our theological expectations, rather than vice versa.

The Alternative To Not Believing In The Incarnation
What force sent Christians to the lions’ den with hymns on their lips? What lie ever transformed the world like that? What lie ever gave millions a moral fortitude and peace and joy like that? Christianity conquered the world mainly through the force of sanctity and love. Saints not theologians converted the world. You can fake theology, but you cannot fake sanctity, Saints are not liars and liars are not Saints….Aquinas argues that if the Incarnation did not really happen then an even more unbelievable miracle happened: the conversion of the world by the biggest lie in history and the moral transformation of lives into unselfishness, detachment from worldly pleasures and radically new heights of holiness by a mere myth.

Reliability of New Testament Manuscripts
The state of New Testament manuscripts is very good. Compared with any and all of other ancient documents, the New Testament stands up as ten times more sure. For instance we have five hundred different copies earlier than A.D 500. The next most reliable ancient text we have the Iliad, for which we have only fifty copies that date from 500 years or less after its origin. We have only one very late manuscript of Tacitus’s Annals, but no one is reluctant to treat that as authentic history. If the books of the New Testament did not contain accounts of miracles or make radical, uncomfortable claims on our lives, they would be accepted by every scholar in the world. In other words it is not objective neutral science but subjective prejudice or ideology that fuels skeptical Scripture scholarship.

The Style Of Myth vs. The Style Of The Gospels
The style of myth is not the style of the gospels, but that of real, though unscientific, eyewitness descriptions. Anyone sensitive to literary styles can compare the Gospels to any of the mythic religious literature of the time, and the differences will appear remarkable and unmistakable—for instance the intertestamental apocalyptic literature  of both Jews and Gentiles, or pagan mythic fantasies like Ovid’s Metamorphoses or Flavius Philostratus’s story of the wonder worker Appolonius of Tyan (A.D. 220). If the events in the Gospel did not really happen, then those authors invented modern realistic fantasy nineteen centuries ago. The Gospels are filled with little details, both of external observation and internal feelings that are found only in eyewitness descriptions or modern realistic fiction. They also include dozens of little details of life in first-century Israel that could not have been known by someone not living in that time and place. And there are no second century anachronisms, either in language or content….There are also telltale marks of eyewitness description, like the little detail of Jesus writing in the sand when asked whether to stone the adulteress or not. No one knows why this is put in; nothing comes of it. The only explanation is that the writer saw it.

C.S. Lewis On The Necessity of Traditional Christian Imagery
“Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder. Here lies the deepest taproot of Pantheism and of the objection to traditional imagery. It was hated not, at bottom, because it pictured Him as man but because it pictured Him as king, or even as a warrior. The pantheist’s god does nothing, demands nothing.  He is there if you wish for him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that heaven and earth shall flee away at his glance. If he were the truth, then we could really say that all the Christian images of kingship were an historical accident of which our religion ought to be cleansed. It is with a shock that we discover them to be indispensable. You have had a shock like that before with smaller matters – when the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here: the shock comes when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. “Look out!” we cry, “it’s alive.” And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back—I would have done so myself, if I could – and proceed no further with Christianity. An impersonal God – well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads – better still. A formless life force, surging through us, a vast power we can tap – best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at infinite speed, the hunter, the king, husband – that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s Search For God”) suddenly draw back. Suppose we really found Him! We never meant it to come to that! Worse yet, supposing he had found us?”

The Christian Alternative
The data of Christianity (The New Testament) is intrinsically possible. It has no internal or external inconsistencies. Not one fact of history, science, philosophy, or common knowledge refutes it. It is probable. God could well have done this. A good wise clever living God might well do just what the Gospels say he did in Christ: become human and die to save us. It works. It has enlightened and transformed lives. It has created Saints who lived and died for this “lie” or “lunacy” or “myth.” It has been believed by the wise, lived by the holy and longed for by the skeptical. Even Freud saw it as wishful thinking, as fairy tale, that is as desirable, as too good to be true. As Tolkien put it, “There has never been a tale which men more wished was true.” It gives greatest hope and meaning and purpose ever proposed to human life. We are to become Saints here and little Christ’s hereafter. What a destiny! It is the only rational, honest alternative.

Pascal On The Conspiracy Theory
The apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition is difficult for it is not possible to imagine that a man has risen from the dead. While Jesus was with them, he could sustain them; but afterwards, if he did not appear to them, who did make them act? The hypothesis that the apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus’ death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them has only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would have all been lost. Follow that out.

Why Many Are Not Persuaded To Christianity
The reluctance is usually moral. To admit that Jesus is divine is to admit his absolute authority over your life, including your private life, including your sex life. Can a drug addict think clearly and objectively about moral truth when it comes to drugs? Why should a sex addict be different? We are all addicts to something – to selfishness, at least. That is the meaning of sin, the very disease Jesus came to cure. Of course the cancer is going to fear the surgeon. That is exactly what you would expect. That is not the reason to disbelieve the surgeon’s claim to be the specialist. Just the opposite. The old self in us is no fool. It sees that Christ comes to kill it. It knows Christianity is not a harmless theory, but something alive and dangerous.

Fabricating The Resurrection
The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographic proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events…The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection (and been believed) under such circumstances had it not occurred.

The Lack of Evidence For The “Christian Myth Theory”
The Gospels are a miraculous story, and we have no other story handed down to us than that contained in the Gospels…the letters of Barnabas and Clement refer to Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Christ, and Irenaeus relates that he had heard Polycarp tell of Jesus’ miracles. Ignatius speaks of the resurrection. Puadratus reports that persons were still living who had been healed by Jesus. Justin Martyr mentions the miracles of Christ. No relic of a non-miraculous story exists. That the original story should be lost and replaced by another goes beyond any known example of corruption of even oral tradition, no to speak of the experience of written transmissions. These facts show that the story in the Gospels was in substance the same story that Christians had at the beginning. This means that the resurrection of Jesus was always a part of the story.

The Gospels Have Not Changed Over Time
With a single exception, no apocryphal gospel is ever even quoted by any known author during the first three hundred years after Christ. In fact there is no evidence that any inauthentic gospel whatever existed in the firs century, in which all four Gospels and Acts were written….No other ancient work is available in so many copies and languages, and yet all these various versions agree in content….The text has also remained unmarred by heretical additions. The abundance of manuscripts over a wide geographical distribution demonstrates that the text has been transmitted with only trifling discrepancies. The differences that do exist are quite minor and are the result of unintentional mistakes.

The Importance of The Fall (Genesis 3)
Genesis 3 is the crucial example in the Old Testament. There are three reasons why the Fall can’t be mere moral parable or fiction. First, if the Fall is not historical at all, then its effects – suffering and death – also are not historical. If sin is historical in its effects, it must be historical in its cause. Second, if Adam’s fall didn’t really happen, then Christ’s salvation need not have rally happened either. Paul deliberately juxtaposes and parallels these two in Romans 6, calling Christ the New Man or Second Adam. If the first Adam was not historical, why must the second Adam be? If the disease is merely mythic, not historical, then the cure can be merely mythic, not historical. Finally, if the Fall didn’t really happen in history, then God rather than humanity is to blame for sin, for God must have created us as sinners rather than innocents. If there was never any real unfallen state, then we were sinners from the first moments of our creation, and God was wrong to figure everything he made “good.”

Historical Questions Are Critical To Christianity
It is misleading to suggest that historical questions are irrelevant to religion. This may be true for other religions, but not for Orthodox Judaism or Christianity. Buddhism, for instance, is independent of the historical Buddha. Platonism is independent of Plato. But without a historical Christ there is no Christianity. There is no such thing as “Christianism” There is no abstract theory which just happened to have been taught by a man named Jesus. ..Christianity is not a set of timeless truths but a faith in a historical person and historical events, the most important of which were miraculous: God’s creation, lawgiving and prophet-inspiring, and Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection.

Evolution vs. The Bible
There is no logical contradiction between the Bible’s claim that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and the claim that once the earth was here, species evolved by natural selection. Science is like the study of the inner ecology of a fishbowl; the Bible is like a letter from the person who set up the fishbowl. Far from being logically exclusive, the two ideas of creation and evolution easily include each other, or at least suggest each other. On the one hand, the Bible does not say that God created” (bara) each species by a separate act, but that he said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.”{Gen 1:24]On the other hand, a theory of evolution that confines itself to empirical science does not claim to know whether or not there is a divine Designer behind these natural forces. But surely such an elegant and ordered design strongly suggests a cosmic Designer.

The Christian Connection With Their Bodies
Christians believe in a special connection between themselves and their bodies. Without their bodies they are not really complete. Christians also believe that God made them to live with him forever, not in disembodied souls, but in the glorified body raised up in he resurrection on the last day. …what you believe about life after death depends very much on what you believe abut God. If God exists, and if God has destined us for eternal life, then there is really no problem about the means for self-conscious experience. God will provide them. At the death of the body and before the general resurrection, God is fully capable of providing the means by which we enjoy his presence. No doubt …this will be very unlike the way we now experience…Christians also believe that the human person is a mysterious unity of matter and spirit. There is part of us that is extended in three dimensions and takes up space: this we call “matter.” But there is another facet of the unity we are which cannot be thought of in that way; this is the part of us we call “spirit.”  Scripture says that God breathed life into lifeless matter, and that image of breath and life is most appropriate to the nature of spiritual being. The human spirit animates matter, gives it what vital energy and gathers it into a living organic unity. That is what God created it to do. Thus Christians believe that a human spirit exists for a body; it was made to exist in matter as its life-giving principle. This means that all those parts of human life that seem most essentially spiritual, like knowing and choosing also involve the body; the spirit experiences through the body. And so human life involves a most intimate relation between these two sides of our being: matter needs spirit to bind it into a functioning unity; spirit needs matter to release its potential for pursuing and enjoying all the goods, moral and intellectual, proper to human life. That is why Christians look forward to the resurrection of the body. It is part of their belief that the soul without the body is incomplete; that the full and complete person is present on the last day when matter and spirit, transformed and redeemed, are joined together in the resurrection of the just.