It's Easter Saturday and we are getting ready for tomorrow.  This is the last in the series on God.  I think this is a good day for it.  Happy Easter everyone!

6. The Question of God: The Answer is Christ

In what we have been saying about God so far, the assumption has been that it is within the Christian faith that the answer to the question of God is to be found.  This seems to rule out any contribution that other religions may want to make.  In these relativist days, however, to suggest that there might be only one way, one truth, and one life to follow, if you are to come to God is considered arrogant and bigoted.  In what follows, I will attempt to explain what I think our attitude to other religions should be and, at the same time, bring our series on the question of God to a close.

Firstly, we need to acknowledge that individual members of other religions are often good, kind people whose commitment to their faith is every bit as sincere as is that of Christians to theirs.  Indeed, the commitment of some members of other religions puts Christians to shame.  Furthermore, the contribution that some people of other faiths make to the general well-being of human beings leaves many Christians far behind.

Secondly, we also need to acknowledge that Christians, past and present, have, on many occasions, got things horribly wrong.  On an individual level, we have not followed the example and teachings of Christ; our lives have not witnessed to him; and we have frequently been guilty of hypocrisy and sin.  On a corporate level, the Church has much of which to repent.  The Church has to accept guilt for its instigation of, involvement in, and complicity with injustice, exploitation, violence, and a general inhumanity.  Our behaviour, at times, towards those of a different religious belief to our own cannot be defended.  And should not be.

Thirdly, though, we ought, perhaps, to make a distinction between the Christian religion and the revelation of God in Christ.  Religion is what we human beings do.  Sometimes, we will get it right and our religion will be a faithful enactment of the teaching of Christ.  It will express our obedience to and worship of our Lord.  On other occasions, it will be entirely neutral, neither good or bad in itself, but capable of becoming either.  On still other occasions, we will get it entirely wrong, and rather than the Christian religion being something good or even just neutral, it will become something bad, even demonic, reflecting our continuing sinfulness, rather than our obedience to God.  On most occasions, it will be a blend of all three.

So, as an example of the good, we might cite the bravery and sacrifice of the early Christian martyrs, who stood firm against paganism and persecution at the cost of their lives as they proclaimed the Gospel of Christ.  As an example of something neutral, we might cite synodical government (or any form of Church government for that matter).  There is nothing wrong with it in itself.  At times, it might be a useful way to enable the Church to serve God.  At others, it might prove a complete waste of time and a barrier to the Holy Spirit.  As an example of something wrong, we might cite the systematic persecution and torture of one group of Christians by another at the time of the reformation.

To say that the truth is to be found in Christ is not the same as saying that the truth is to be found in Christ’s disciples.  It should be.  Sometimes it is.  Often it is not.

Fourthly, however, no matter how much we may recognize and acknowledge our failure and sinfulness, both individually and corporately, as Christians, we cannot compromise on what God himself has revealed to us in Christ.  For the Christian, what God has spoken to us in Christ is an absolute standard and completely normative in matters of faith and practice.  No matter how much we may go wrong in the process, our aim as Christians must be to be faithful to Christ both in what we believe and in how we live.

God is to be found in Christ and in Christ alone.  This was a central tenet in the preaching of the Apostles and the Early Church Fathers.  The Apostle Peter, when speaking to the Jewish authorities, says:

‘There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’  (Acts 4:12)

It follows, then, that because God has revealed certain things to us in Christ, we cannot believe other things that contradict this revelation.  For example, we cannot believe that Christ rose from the dead and agree with Muslims, who do not.  We cannot believe in a God who is personal with whom we can communicate and agree with Buddhists, who do not.  We cannot believe in one God who alone is worthy of worship and agree with Hindus, who do not.

Some of the most basic Christian beliefs are absolutely incompatible with the beliefs of other religions.  We might agree on some things, but that does not alter the fact that we disagree on much more.  We might be able to work together in some areas, but that must not be at the cost of revealed truth.  If we claim to be Christians and recite the creed each Sunday, then, for good or ill, we are also saying, like it or not, that the other religions cannot be right, no matter how good or nice individual members of them may be.  In this respect, we need, humbly, to have the confidence to believe what our faith teaches us to believe.

When we declare our faith every Sunday in the Creed, we are declaring faith in one God and one Lord.  It is an inevitable consequence of this that there is one truth and that that truth is to be found in Christ.

But why all this emphasis on Christ?  It is because the question of God is ultimately not solved primarily by argument, debate, and discussion, necessary though they are.  And we do not find God by a consideration of the evidence, important though it is to examine it.  The answer to the question of whether there is a God is to be found in Christ.  Personally, we come to know this God for ourselves as we encounter him in and through Christ.  This is an encounter that everyone can have, and which everyone must have, if they are to answer the question of God for themselves.

We are about to celebrate Easter.  Easter tells us that God took pity on us, that he had mercy on our ignorance and our inability to find him on our own by our own efforts, and that he came instead to find us and show himself to us.  When we look at Christ, we are looking at God.  Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, said to him:

            ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’

Jesus reply to him says everything that needs to be said:

            ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’  (John 14:8-9)

May each one of us find for ourselves the answer to the question of God in the only place that it can be found - in Christ. 

5. The Question of God: The Problem of Which God

Church leaders have expressed concern recently at the extent to which people are turning from Christianity to new age religion, astrology, and the like.  It should come as no surprise.  For years now, the church has gone soft on traditional Christian belief.  It has encouraged people to reinterpret Christian theology and to bring it up to date.  If we do not seem to believe in our faith, it is no wonder that society at large should decide not believe in it either.  All that our attempts to make Christianity relevant have done is to drive people back to what used to be believed before Christianity ever came on the scene.  It is rather ironic that young people should see pagan beliefs as more relevant to them than Christianity.  So much for the desire to be modern.

The problem, though, is a real one.  There can be little doubt that religion is back on the agenda.  Interest in spirituality is high, but the choice of faiths and the variety of spiritualities on offer is bewildering.  When it comes to religion, we are faced with a religious supermarket.  It is perhaps no surprise that people are adopting a pick ‘n’ mix approach to religion.  A bit of Christianity, a helping of Buddhism, a smattering of astrology and - hey presto!- instant religion.

It was not always so in Britain.  It was always the case that the world was full of different religions.  There have always been many competing religions, and Christianity has always had to struggle to be heard on the world stage.  It was once the case, however, that the average believer in the pew could choose to ignore the existence of other religions.  Living in Britain in the 19th century, you were unlikely to encounter any other religion besides Christianity.  This is emphatically not the case today.

Firstly, we see and hear of other religions on our televisions and radios; we read of them in books, newspapers, and magazines.  The world has become a global village, and all of us are increasingly aware of what is happening in other parts of it.  We are conscious today of a variety of religions.

Secondly, immigration has seen the arrival in Britain itself of other world religions.  We do not have to go to the Indian sub-continent to meet Hindus or to the Middle East to meet Muslims, members of these and other religions as well are now British citizens, living and practising their faith in most major British cities.  To drive through some cities, in the 1990’s, is to see not only the church and cathedral, but also the temple and mosque.

The question, then, is a real one.  Which god?  Which faith?  And, why my god?  And, why my faith?  Christians have to determine their attitude to other religions more so today than ever.  Broadly, one of three basic types of approach can be adopted.  All we can do here is summarize them.

Firstly, there is the pluralist approach.  This sees all religions as, in principle, equally valid.  Each religion in its own way expresses the human search for God and represents what has been discovered about God.  On this approach, no one religion can be said to have all the truth.  Consequently, our task is not to convert, but to listen.  We, as Christians, certainly have things that we can share with members of other faiths, but we have things to learn from them as well.  Inter-faith dialogue, joint services, and a search for common ground characterise this approach.

Secondly, there is the inclusivist approach.  This is probably the most common approach amongst Christians at the moment.  On this approach, the Christian faith is seen as the most complete revelation of God.  But that does not mean that we should completely disregard other religions.  They may not be in as full a possession of the truth as us, their understanding may be partial, but what they have is valid in as far as it goes.  We still want members of other religions to come to faith in Christ, but we recognize what is of value in their religion.  They may not have as much as us, but that does not mean that they have nothing.

Thirdly, there is the exclusivist approach.  Nowadays, this seems bigoted and intolerant, but, traditionally, it has been the approach of the Church to other religions.  On this approach, Christianity is the only true faith.  All other religions are in error.  They may be honourable attempts to discover God (equally, they may not be), but in any case, they are still wrong.  Anything that is true in another religion is true only inasmuch as it agrees with Christianity.  So there is nothing Christians can learn about God that they cannot learn from their own faith.  Our task, then, is not to listen to members of other religions, it is to convert them.

What are we to say about all this?  More than can be said here!  The following are brief observations.  Firstly, as Christians we can safely reject the first approach.  To say that all religions are equally valid goes against so much Christian teaching as to render it incompatible with Christian faith.  Furthermore, to argue, as some who take this approach would, that all religions are essentially saying the same thing is not only wrong, it is silly!  The different world religions do not agree with one another.  Indeed, they frequently contradict each other.  The person who thinks that all religions are the same does not know much about religion.

Secondly, Christians have to avoid intolerance.  There is no place in the Church for bigotry.  We must recognize the sincerity of those whose beliefs and practices are different to our own.  We also have to recognize with shame that many members of other religions live better lives than we do.

Thirdly, though, the issue is not whether Muslims, for example, are sincere or whether Hindus live good lives.  The issue is one of truth.  We live in an age which hates the idea of truth.  Everything is relative.  We do not like to think that there is one truth.  We prefer to think that there are many different ways each one right for the person who chooses to take it.  We want to allow different beliefs and alternative lifestyles.  As Christians, we have tended to follow the spirit of the age and have gone, instead, for a faith that emphasizes feelings and individual fulfilment.  What matters is what matters to me.  What is true is what is true for me.  But that is not Christianity.  What is true is what God says is true, irrespective of whether I experience it, feel it, or believe it.

The Bible stresses the importance of truth.  Jesus said: ‘you will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32).  Christians believe that God has revealed the truth in Christ.  Christians make many mistakes, they fail often, but that does not alter the truth of God’s revelation of Himself in Christ.

Holy Week is proceeding apace!  Hard to believe that tomorrow is Maundy Thursday.  Below I post the next in the series about God.  I will post the remainder over the next few days.  You may remember me writing that these were a series I did for Lent some time ago, but they are still what I would want to say on the subject now!

4. The Question of God: The Evidence of Revelation

In our thinking about God, I have been arguing that there is evidence all around us for his existence.  But many people do not see it or do not respond to it.  This raises the question of how people are to come to believe in God.  This question at once brings us to the heart of the problem.  The  assumption in much of the discussion about believing in God seems to be that it is us who have to do the work, that it is up to us to find God.

This assumption lies behind a lot of religious thinking both outside the church and in it.  In contemporary religious studies, religion is often portrayed as human beings’ search for God and for meaning in their lives.  The different religions in the world, then, are to be explained as the different stories of our quest for something beyond us.  Alternatively, from a Christian standpoint, people will be urged to believe in God, to think about the importance of faith, to consider the arguments, to see their need and to act.  This sort of understanding can result in a presentation of the Christian faith that is based on what we can discover about God.  It can also begin to seem that if we make the effort to think through the arguments, experiment and engage with religion then, eventually, we will find God.  God is there and it is up to us to find him.

From a Biblical point of view, this is not at all satisfactory.  First of all, it is not God who is lost, we are.  Secondly, spiritually, we lack the means to come to God.  Thirdly, even if the evidence were as bright as bright could be, we would not be able to see it because spiritually we are blind.  The theologian who has done most in the twentieth century to remind the church of this is Karl Barth (1886-1968).

Barth was born at Basel.  After studying theology at the universities of Bern, Berlin, Tubingen, and Marburg, he became a Reformed minister in Switzerland.  It was while pastoring a church in Switzerland that he wrote a commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.  It was to establish him as one of the major theologians of the twentieth century.  He was to become a professor at several German universities until, after conflict with Hitler, he was dismissed by Hitler in 1935, and became professor of theology at Basel until 1962.  Pope Pius XII described him as the greatest theologian since St Thomas Aquinas.

Barth rejected all theology that put the emphasis on human beings and what they did, and stressed, instead, what God has done and still does through revelation.  God, for Barth, is utterly transcendent and wholly other.  Stressing the sinfulness of human beings, he pointed out that men and women had failed to find God because of their sin, and so God, in the person of Christ had come to us, had sought us out, and had unconditionally welcomed us into a relationship with himself.  In the Gospels, after all, it is the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, not the lost sheep who seek the shepherd.  In Christ, then, God reveals himself making it possible for people to believe in him.
 

And that said Barth is still how it is.  We do not now find God, not even in Christ, by our own reasoning and efforts.  It is not that God made the truth known in Christ, and it is now up to us to find it.  It is still necessary for God to reveal himself to each one of us separately.  This he does through the preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ.  In Christ, God calls each of us to himself and makes it possible for us to come to know him.  Left to ourselves we would only ever stumble around in the dark.

But what are the consequences of this for our examination of the evidence?  We have been arguing that there is evidence for God.  Well yes, indeed there is.  We, however, have chosen not to see it and now have become unable to see it.  St Paul describes human beings as being spiritually blind and therefore unable to see the light of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4).  Does this mean, then, that considering the evidence is a wasted effort?  No, just not enough.  It is right to show people that there are good grounds for believing in God, but more is needed.  We must ask God to open people’s eyes to see the truth of the evidence.  We must ask God to draw people to himself through the message we proclaim.  Jesus said that no-one can come to him unless drawn by the Father who sent him (John 6:44).

So where does this leave human reason?  Firstly, it means that reason alone will never and can never bring people to God.  We need a spiritual renewal if we are to be able to enter into a relationship with God.  Secondly,  human reason is in any case limited because we as human beings are limited.  There are limits to what we can know and understand.  This is not a message that we like to hear.  We are encouraged to think that there are no limits to human understanding.  Sadly, the very fact that we are mortal, confined to a body and given over to death, with a brain that cannot absorb everything shows that there are limits.  When it comes to God, we are never going to have the mental capacities necessary to understand him fully.

Thirdly, however, there is a vast difference between saying, as I have been, that we cannot find God through reason and saying that belief in God is unreasonable.  Simply because something does not seem to make sense to us, does not mean that it does not make sense.  Furthermore, once we have come to faith, we are in a position to see and understand more than before.  Indeed, it should be an absolute priority for every Christian to grow in their understanding of God.

Someone who is very helpful when it comes to understanding the relationship between faith and reason is St Anselm (1033-1109).  Anselm was born in Italy.  At the age of 26, he entered the Benedictine monastery at Bec in Normandy.  Shortly after, in 1063, he became the prior of the monastery.  He was prior for about 15 years and then became the abbot.  In 1093, he became the archbishop of Canterbury.  Anselm believed that it was revelation, not reason or experience, that gives us the content of the Christian faith, but the believer can then seek, by the use of his or her reason, to understand more fully what he or she believes.  By examining the Christian faith in this way, we can come to see how rational it really is. 

In a famous passage Anselm wrote:

‘I am not trying, Lord, to penetrate your sublimity, for my understanding is not up to that.  But I long in some measure to understand your truth, which my heart believes and loves.  For I am not seeking to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order that I may understand.  For this too I believe: that unless I believe I shall not understand.’  (Prosologion 1)

May God grant us the faith to believe so that we too may understand.

It is the third study in my Church's Lent series on the parables tonight and I will talking about the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  It is also our Church AGM this week and I have been busy getting the AGM Reports ready for printing ahead of the meeting.  Anyway they have gone off and should be ready in time!  I will write more about my thoughts on the parable after tonight's study, but for today here is the third in the series about God!

3. The Question of God: The Argument from Experience

So far, in these talks, I have been arguing that believing in God is rational. It is reasonable to believe in God.There are, however, dangers with this approach.  It can begin to sound as if all that matters is the mind, or that human reason on its own is sufficient to lead us to God.  That is certainly not what I am arguing, although I do think that reason is greatly under-valued by many Christians today.  This week, I want us to think about the evidence from experience, and then, next week, as we think about revelation, examine the limits of reason.  What I am arguing is not that reason is a substitute for faith, but that faith is reasonable.  Reason alone may not bring us to faith, but that is not the same as saying that our faith is not reasonable. Indeed, if it is not reasonable, then it is not faith in the Biblical sense of the word.

Some Christians, though, both past and present, have despaired of ever getting anywhere with human reason, and have turned instead to human experience.  One such was Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).  He was a scientist, a mathematician, and a Christian thinker.  You will have probably have used one of his inventions this week: the calculator. Pascal allowed only a limited role for philosophy and reason.  ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing’ is a famous quote.  Also famous is ‘Pascal’s wager’.  When considering whether or not there is God, we need to consider, said Pascal, the stakes.  If we believe in God, we stand to gain much both in this life and the next.  Even if we are wrong, we will lose nothing for we will be dead and never know.  There is nothing to be gained by not believing in God.  It is better, then, to bet your life on God!

As an emotional appeal, I find this very effective, and it has to be remembered that many of the decisions we make in life are based on what we feel to be right for us.  Some people will dismiss emotion when it comes to religion, but when it comes to almost every other decision that they have to make, whether it be whom they marry or which brand of cola they buy, they will let emotion play an important part.  Our emotions are essential to our lives as humans.  Nevertheless, when it comes to God, it has to be admitted that individual spiritual experience is of only limited value as evidence.  Furthermore, it also has to be conceded that Christians often try to prove too much from their own experience. 

Frequently, Christians will point to things that have happened in their life and experience as proof that there is a God or that Christianity is true.  An appeal will be made to alleged miracles or supernatural occurrences.  Sadly, rarely will these bare the weight that is put on them.  This is not to deny their importance, nor their importance for the person who experiences them, but as evidence they do not carry much conviction.

In the first place, miracles and the like, which Christians often use in an attempt to establish the truth of their faith, are, in fact, often universal phenomena experienced by people of different religions and none.  Secondly, on many occasions, the phenomena are perfectly susceptible to physical explanations.

So does this mean that, in thinking about God, evidence from experience has no value?  I do not think so.  Individual experiences may not count much as evidence, but religious experience taken as a whole may have something important to teach us.  Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) has been very influential in the way people think about religion.  In 1917, he became a professor at Marburg University in Germany.  He is best known for his book, The Idea of the Holy.  He stressed the universality of religious experience.  No matter how much they may differ on just about everything else, what people have in common is what Otto called the numinous. 

To put it plainly, people, wherever they may be, have an innate sense that there is something else out there, something bigger than them that goes beyond their physical senses and experiences.  Human beings want to worship something.  Sometimes what they worship may seem strange, but there can be no doubting their desire to worship.  In this, we are very different to other animals.  However much we may be related to them through the evolutionary process, animals of the non-human type do not go in for worship.  Why are we as humans so religious?

Feuerbach (1804-1872) argued that our worship of God (or whatever) was a projection of our own feelings and emotions.  We have created the sort of being that we wanted to believe in.  Rather than man being created in the image of God, God was created in the image of man.  Feuerbach was followed by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Sigmund Freud (1865-1939).  Marx saw religion as a drug used by the rich and powerful to keep the oppressed happy with their conditions.  Freud saw religion as an illusion, a crutch for weak people.  We needed a father figure, someone to turn to and to depend on, and so we invented God.  It is a bit like a child with an imaginary friend.  Well, possibly.  As before, that is one interpretation of the evidence.  Again though, is it the most likely or the most reasonable?

The undisputed father of Western Christianity is Saint Augustine (354-430).  Aurelius Augustine was born in Thagaste in Roman North Africa (modern Algeria).  He had a pagan father and a Christian mother, St Monica.  In his student days, at Carthage, he decided to devote himself to a life of philosophy.  He turned away from Christianity finding the Old Testament crude and unspiritual.   He taught in Africa and Rome.  Then, in 384, he became a professor in Milan.  It was here he came under the influence of St Ambrose and, in 386, was converted.  He was press-ganged into becoming a priest in 391, at Hippo, in North Africa, and, in 396, became its bishop.  He remained there until his death.  Augustine wrote extensively.  Sadly, he is not so popular nowadays.  Some of his views are now somewhat politically incorrect.  This does not alter the fact that his influence on the church and western civilization has been immense.  He has been more influential, and still is, than either Marx or Freud.

Augustine said in a famous prayer, ‘you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’.  Augustine’s point is that God made you and I in his image, and we naturally want to worship our maker.  St Paul tells us that while we have turned away from the worship of the one true God, we have not stopped wanting to worship, and have turned instead to the worship of other things.  As has been said, there is a God-shaped hole in all of us.  It is a hole that we are constantly trying to fill, but which only God can.  When in difficulty, often almost as an unconscious reflex, we find ourselves praying, even if we do not normally engage in such superstitious behaviour.  Our desire to worship and to pray strongly suggests the truth of what instinctively we feel: that there is something, someone out there.  

That someone is God.

I am getting ready for tomorrow and thought I would take a break to post the second in the Lenten series I called the Question of God.  I hope you are having a good weekend.

2.  The Question of God: The Evidence of the Cosmos

Last week, we saw that the question of whether there is a God, or not, is a real one in the society in which we live.  We noted that there were, in this world, problems with the idea of ‘proof’ and that this applied to everything, not just to God.  Nevertheless, we concluded, belief in God still needed to be rational.  There should be evidence for believing.  We are now going to think about some of the evidence for God as well as some of the objections to it.  Time, sadly, prevents us devoting as much attention to it as we should.  We can, at least, make a start.

October 23, 1996 was a special anniversary.  On that day, the world was 6,000 years old.  At least, it would have been if you accepted Archbishop Ussher’s dating of creation.  Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) calculated that, according to the Bible, the world was created in the year 4004BC.  Bishop John Lightfoot (1602-1675) further refined it to 9.00am on October 23.  While people would not necessarily have gone along with that precise dating, there was a time when most would have accepted the basic point, namely, that it was God who had created the heavens and earth.

Then came Charles Darwin (1809-1882).  Suddenly, God did not seem necessary anymore.  We arrived here not by the supernatural, creative act of God, but by the natural, selective process of evolution.  Human beings were not the result of the plan of God, but an accident of nature.  This was excellent news for those who wanted to get rid of God.  At last, they had an alternative explanation for the origins of life.  No more did we have to resort to God to explain where we came from.  Goodbye, God.

Except that God has not quite gone away.  Indeed, the very persistence of faith in God is itself evidence for God.  Despite all that the 20th century has thrown at him, God is still here and still very much on the agenda.  But we will return to this.  Those who want to argue for chance, and chance alone, have not had things all their own way.  Firstly, not everyone is completely happy with the theory of evolution.  This is not to say that I am siding with those who still stick to a belief in six day creation.  I simply note a fact.  Secondly, and more importantly, even if right, evolution only describes a process.  It still begs the question of whether it was a chance or purely natural process.  As a method, it is fine, but did it simply happen, or was there a mind behind it?  Evolution as a theory cannot answer that.

Many of us think that rather than undermining belief in God, the descriptions that scientists themselves give us of the evolutionary process seem rather to reinforce such a belief.  Indeed, have you noticed the way some people talk about evolution?  They set out to describe what they believe to be a natural process and end up attributing to evolution intelligent, thinking characteristics.  They will talk about evolution doing this or that, deciding and determining this or that, so that evolution starts to sound, not so much like a process, but more like a person. 

Now, of course, they do not intend to do this, and would be horrified to know that this is what they are doing.  However, when faced with the fact of the natural order, is it the case, perhaps, that we are compelled by the evidence to think that it could only have got here if there had been a thinking, intelligent mind behind it.  A mind which decided and determined that this is how it should turn out.  And if the natural world as we see it compels us to think and talk like this, could it be because that is precisely how it is?  Is it that in the very evolutionary process we see the work of God? 

This seems to be a good point to introduce Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).  Aquinas lived long before evolution as an idea was ever thought of.  He went to the University of Naples, and, while there, in 1244, at the age of 19, joined the relatively new Order of Preachers, the Dominican friars.  His family wanted him to become a Benedictine, and kidnapped him, locking him in the family castle for a year.  He got his way, and continued his studies at Paris and Cologne.  In 1252, he returned to lecture in Paris, thereafter lecturing at Paris and in Italy.  In 1323, he was made a saint.  In time, he came to be hailed as the Common Doctor of the Catholic Church and as the Angelic Doctor. 

One of the greatest philosophers and theologians ever, Aquinas wanted to demonstrate that the Christian faith was in every way a rational faith and belief in God thoroughly reasonable.  Aquinas defined five ways by which we could know there was a God.  Behind each of them is the idea that the world itself reveals God as its creator.  If you read a book, look at a picture, listen to a piece of music, you can often immediately tell who its author, painter, or composer is simply from the style.  Aquinas’ five ways have been subject to many criticisms.  Certainly the way he expressed his arguments reflects the language and thinking of his day, just as the way we express ourselves reflects the age we are living in.  His basic point is, though, a good one.  When we examine the cosmos, and ask how it got here and how it got to being the way it is, is not the most reasonable explanation not that it just did, but because someone wanted it to and purposed that it should?

Aquinas, in his fifth way, also pointed to the nature of the cosmos.  It is extremely intricate and ordered.  If we were talking about anything else, we would say it is well designed.  But does not design suggest a designer? William Paley (1743-1805) taking up the argument used the example of a watch.  If someone was to find a watch, even if they had never seen a watch before, would not they know, simply from examining it, that it could not have just got like that by chance, but must have been made by someone.  The complexity of the design argues for a designer.  If we can see it with a watch, why not with the cosmos which shows even more evidence of design?

That Aquinas was right to argue like this receives support from the Bible itself.  St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, writes of human beings:

‘For what can be known about God is plain to them.  Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.’ (1:20)

All this proves nothing.  If you want to persist in believing that the universe just happened and that we are a result of chance or purely natural processes, then you are perfectly entitled to do so, that is one interpretation of the evidence.  However, I would like to ask you to consider whether, in all honesty, it is the most reasonable one. 

The first thing I came back to after Chinese New Year was Lent!  This year, for our Lent Bible Studies at my Church, we are looking at five more parables of Jesus to add to the five we studied last year.  The first which we studied last week was the one about the tax-collector and the Pharisee (Luke ).  Jesus told this parable Luke tells us to those who 'trusted in themselves that they were righteous'.  The implication, of course, being that we can only be righteous by trusting in God.  Regular readers of this blog will know that this is a question I often find myself turning back to.  It also raises the issue of the link between being righteous in God's eyes and how we live our lives.

As it happens, I also found myself last week back at Ming Hua, our theological college, teaching Christian Ethics.  This is the second module where we consider specific issues: abortion, sex, euthanasia, war, etc, etc  I intend to pick up on the blog where I left off a few months ago about this.  But as far as I can see it is very hard to be as dogmatic as some would like us to be on these issues - as class discussion often illustrates.

I thought, however, that I would get back into posting here by posting today the first in a series of Lenten Studies I gave during my time in Banchory in the 1990s.  They were on the 'Question of God'.  I have to confess that I don't remember them exactly filling the pews, but reading them again at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, I am Pharisaical enough to think there is some merit in them!  I must have done at the time as these are the only ones that I kept and only recently rediscovered them on my computer.

Indeed, the questions:

whether there is a God or not

how, if there is, we can know and be acceptable to him

and what happens when we die 

have always seemed to me to be three of the most important questions in life.  I don't think we always manage as Christians to give convincing answers to them.  But that is another matter.

Anyway, it's good to be back in cyberspace!  Thank you to all who keep visiting and reading.

1. The Question of God: Introduction

Today we begin a series on God.  Am I alone in thinking that sermons and talks matter?  Well, whatever we may think about sermons, there should be no doubting the importance of our subject.  I have always found it strange that we do not worry about God.  We are rather casual about God, and this irrespective of whether we are believers or not.  I do worry about God, and have done for as long as I can remember.  Surely the issue of whether there is a God, or not, is one that must have profound implications for us all?

Of course, for most of our history there has been no question about it.  That there was a God was as obvious to people as was the sun, wind, and rain.  It still is to many in other parts of our world.  We forget the extent to which true atheism is a minority opinion.  But the question of God is a very real one to us living in the West today.  Nietzsche, at the turn of the century, said that God was dead.  However, throughout the 20th century we have seen that rumours of God’s death have been greatly exaggerated.  Nevertheless, for most people there is, at least, a question about it.

The question is expressed well in a book I was given to read over the summer.  It is by Jill Paton Walsh and called, ‘Knowledge of Angels’.  This was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994, and some of you may know it.  Now let me say I dislike the book and certainly would not recommend it to you.  I refer to it only because it seems to sum up where many liberal intellectuals are when it comes to God and where they would like us to be.

The book is set in the 15th Century at a time when Christianity was undivided in the West and when people believed in God as a matter of course.  A stranger is washed up on the shore of a Mediterranean island.  The stranger, whose name is Palinor, declares that he has no religion and does not believe in God.  The Cardinal responsible for religion on the island takes pity on him and arranges for him to discuss the claims of faith with Beneditx, one of the holiest and wisest men in Christendom.  This is in the hope that Palinor will come to see the error of his ways and believe in God.  The stranger turns out to be cultured, sensitive, wise, and accomplished.  Instead of Beneditx convincing him with his arguments for the existence of God,  Palinor succeeds in undermining Beneditx’s faith.  Towards the end of their discussions, Palinor says:

‘For I think that it is in principle impossible to know whether there is a God or not.  I know therefore with immovable certainty that I shall never know that God exists.  Likewise I shall never know that he does not.  Such knowledge is always, and in principle out of  reach.’

So there you have it.  Doubt as a religious principle!  You cannot prove God one way or another.  You cannot prove he does not exist, but you cannot prove he does either.  So best not to worry about it.  Celebrate, not divine intervention, but human achievement.  Nowadays, in matters of faith, doubt has become the order of the day, both inside the church and out.

The father of modern philosophy - and in many people’s minds the father of doubt - is one René Descartes (1596-1650).  Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.  He was a contemporary of Oliver Cromwell and Charles 1.  Descartes asked what it was possible to know for certain, beyond any doubt.  If you were to doubt what you could not prove, what would you be left with?  Many of us know the answer he came up with.  Descartes concluded that we could be certain of our own existence.  Why?  ‘Cogito, ergo sum’.  I think, therefore I am.  Not much of which to be certain maybe, but something.  What is not generally known, perhaps because it suits modern philosophers not to make it known, was that Descartes also believed it was possible to be certain of God’s existence.

But that was all.  I can only be certain of my own existence and God’s.  Now whatever you think of this, Descartes has a point.  Modern thinking has tended to follow Descartes in demanding proof and doubting what cannot be proven.  This is what lies behind what is believed to be science’s rejection of God.  God cannot be proven in the laboratory, so we cannot believe in him.  Yet Descartes reminds us that it is very hard to prove anything with absolute certainty.  It does not lie in our power to be that sure.  Given the way scientific theory changes so rapidly, you would have thought that people would have grasped that.

What we normally ask for is not proof in an absolute sense, but evidence.  Reasonable evidence.  We do not want life to be based on blind leaps in the dark.  We can accept that an argument cannot be infallibly proven as long as there is sufficient evidence in its favour for us to believe that it is true.  We want to be rational.  We want what we believe to be reasonable: not mere superstition or wishful thinking.  In this series of talks, I am going to disagree with the father of modern philosophy.  I do not think God’s existence can be proven.  But, as Descartes showed, in the sense people often use the word, very little can. 

I do, however, think that belief in God’s existence is rational.  There is sufficient evidence for God to make believing in him reasonable.  If, however, this is the case, it follows that it is UN-reasonable to do nothing about it.  If we can establish that there is good evidence for believing in God, then not to act, not to do something about it, can only be to do with either a determined, self-destructive rebellion or blind prejudice.  What you cannot claim is that you are acting in a rational and reasonable way.

The question of whether God’s existence can be established by rational enquiry as opposed to simply having faith is one that has exercised some of the greatest minds in the church.  In the next few weeks, I hope to introduce you to one or two of them.  We should not turn our backs on the teachers of the past.  They have much to teach us today.  They demonstrate that it is possible to be a Christian without having to abandon your intellect. 

Some believers have believed unbelievers’ propaganda.  They are frightened to think too seriously about God in case it turns out that either he does not exist after all or that there is no evidence for his existence.  They have believed people like Walsh’s Palinor that if you look at the arguments you have to surrender your faith.  We have nothing to fear from honest enquiry.  If it were the case that belief in God was not rational, then we would be wrong to persist in believing in him.  As we shall see, however, the Psalmist is right in affirming that it is fools who say that there is no God (Psalm 14:1).  It is atheism that is unreasonable.

6. Finding God Again: The Emerging Church

The interetsing thing about writing a series blogs is that you don't know where you are going to end up when you start writing them. This series grew out of some thoughts I had on different understandings of God. This, in turn, led to a series about the way our view of God has changed. This present series really is about thinking about God, but in the course of it I am trying to see how our understanding of God is profoundly affected by our own cultural situation. I had expected to get this to point ages ago. But that's the fun! Thanks for sticking with me so far. I will post again in the series later in the week. I will aim for Thusday, but you may hear the odd thing from me before then!

Have a good week!

Finding God Again: The Emerging Church

Many reading this blog may not have heard much about the emerging church. And describing it is not always easy, as even some who would align themselves with it would readily admit. It is strongest in the US, but is also to be encountered, increasingly in other parts of the world, although I haven’t much come across it here in Hong Kong. I hope, however, some of us are at least addressing the same issues.

I strongly agree with Scot McKnight, a NT scholar and Christian teacher who has aligned himself with the movement, that we should let the movement speak for itself. So as I write this blog, I will give some websites and blogs where more information can be found. I myself have found Scot’s speaking and writing especially helpful (see http://www.jesuscreed.org/). Scot has just presented a very interesting and helpful paper on the movement (for a copy see http://www.foolishsage.com/wp-content/uploads/McKnight%20-%20What%20is%20the%20Emerging%20Church.pdf ).

Although it is hard to define what is a very diverse movement, excellent is Andrew Jones (see http://www.tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/). Andrew’s blog is also a great resource and always provocative and interesting. He also has the distinction of now living in my old Diocese. Andrew has written several blogs attempting to give a definition of the movement. Andrew himself is at the very heart of it and gives links to many blogs by fellow travellers.

Those who are part of the emerging church are asking what we should be like as a Church in the cultural context that we now find ourselves in. They are asking what the implications are of contemporary culture for the way we understand the Gospel, for our presentation of the Gospel, and for the way we live out the Gospel. How do we do church in a way that is authentic and faithful to Jesus and his teaching?

Many in the emerging movement began life within very conservative churches. A leading figure such as Brian McLaren is an example of this. People like Brian, however, felt increasingly dissatisfied with the type Christianity that they found within the churches they belonged to. In this sense, the emerging church can be seen as a protest movement within evangelicalism.

It would be very wrong, however, to see it as only a protest. The emerging church is asking questions that I believe we all need to be asking at this stage in our cultural journey. More than that, within the emerging movement there is a very strong emphasis on mission. On not waiting around hoping that people come to us, but being prepared to go out and meet with them in an open and accepting way.

This means changing the way we do church. At one level, this has meant either reordering traditional churches or abandoning them altogether for more user friendly places. Many are now meeting in homes, or pubs, or coffee houses. But there is more to it than simply the physical geography of the church meeting place, important though this is. The emerging church is rethinking the meaning of the church. This has lead to a much greater emphasis on relationships than has traditionally been the case.

In the past, churches defined themselves by what they believed, by statements of faith and credal confessions: the 39 Articles for Anglicanism, the Westminster Confession of Faith for the reformed, the Catechism for the Roman Catholics, and so on. There were propositions that you had to believe if you wanted to be a member. Often these were overt, written, and required a signature. Other times, they were unspoken assumptions, but you soon knew if you stepped out of line. Emerging folk are very suspicious of this sort of approach. They are happier to live with doubt, stress that all truth is relative, and that each generation sees truth through its own cultural glasses. As one person within the movement has expressed it: ‘I grew up that we’ve figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel life is big again – like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in colour.’ Not all, by any means, would want to put it so bluntly, but this quote catches a spirit within the movement.

The emphasis on culture is especially important. For some it is about speaking in a culturally relevant way talking to people where they are now, rather than were they where or where we would like them to be. This can mean keeping a very conservative, evangelical message. I still can’t work out whether he sees himself as part the emerging church movement or not, but Mark Driscoll in Seattle would be a prominent example of this type of approach (see http://www.marshillchurch.org/). As Mark, or Pastor Mark as he is known, will tell you himself, he is one of the most influential pastors in America, based at one of the fastest growing churches, in one of the least churched cities. Love him or hate him, and people do feel very strongly about him, he is having an impact!

For others, however, a more radical approach is needed. Rather than speaking to culture, they are seeking to embrace it. Many believe that contemporary culture has something important even prophetic to say to the church. And that we in the church need to revaluate our message in the light of it. Those who identify with emergent village would take this approach (see www.emergentvillage.com).

This causes some confusion in terminology. Not all emerging church folk would identify with emergent. Those who are critical of the movement have a tendency to equate emerging with emergent to see emergent as typical and defining of the movement. The movement, however, is far more diverse than this and requires a more nuanced critique.

And there have been criticisms. One very notable critic of the movement is Don Carson, a leading evangelical scholar and speaker. Don does not blog, in principle, which is a shame, as it would be good to be able to react with him. He does, however, write! Recently he has written a book on the emerging church, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. I am not sure it is the best book for understanding the movement, it is, however, a very good book if you want to understand the movement’s critics and where they are coming from. Don’t begin with it, but include it in your research if you want to study the movement. You can also find lectures on the movement by Don on the web.

I have been trying to understand the movement for myself. I think it was my work on the Da Vinci Code that gave particular impetus to it as the DVC raises, I believe, precisely the sort of issues that the movement is addressing. I am deliberately calling it a movement and I have even used the word church. Many emerging people do not like this. They do not want to be seen as a potential denomination. They prefer to use the term ‘conversation’ to describe what they are doing.

I like the word conversation, and it is certainly appropriate given that much of the thinking is taking place on the web, using blogs especially. This allows comments and reactions in a very immediate way. The movement itself is still new, original, and exciting. The way that the conversation is taking place means that even if you live in Orkney or Hong Kong, you can still feel yourself to be at the centre of something vital! However, I have used the word ‘movement’ deliberately as I think what is going on has become more than a conversation and that, in my opinion, is no bad thing. I for one am happy to join the conversation and this blog is an attempt to do so.

But more about me next time!