Books for thinking Christians, Atheists and Agnostics

If you are looking for some thoughtful reading over Christmas, or at any time for that matter, here are three suggestions. These are all books that present, in various ways, the intellectual integrity of the Christian position and challenge the materialist and other philosophical worldviews. Whether you are a Christian who wants to understand the rational foundation for Christianity, or are an agnostic or atheist who wants to read an intellectual defence of Christianity, or you just like thoughtful reading, I can strongly recommend athese books.

Finding Truth - Nancey Pearcey

I am in the midst of reading this book and am currently just over halfway through it, so it is perhaps a bit of a cheat recommending it at this stage. However, it is so good that I feel I must include it. It takes Romans 1:18-32 as a template for assessing various worldviews and exposes the contradictions in them. In reading this book you will also gain a greater appreciation of various philosophical and worldviews.

God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? - John Lennox

I have read all of this one, at least the earlier edition a few years ago. John Lennox is one of my favourite speakers and writers. A common line of attack on Christianity is that it is unscientific and now that we have so much more scientific knowledge no thinking person would believe in the Bible. If we are honest, there are some Christians who would seem to demonstrate that the atheist attack is entirely justified. However, there are many thinking Christians and many scientists who are Christians. This book demonstrates the coherence of Christianity and science.

The Real Face of Atheism - Ravi Zacharias

I have read all of this one too! Ravi is a well known apologist and presents the case for Christianity and, like Nancey Pearcey, challenges competing worldviews. It is very easy to read and I would strongly recommend it.

On Preaching

These are just a few thoughts on preaching which I was mulling over on my walk this morning. They are relevant whether you are speaking to a small number of people, or to lots; and to whether you are speaking to the church or to the world.

There are three actors in the drama:

1. God and His Word
2. You
3. The "audience" (don't read too much into the use of the word audience!)

God and His Word

In 1 Peter 4:11 we are told to speak as if we are speaking the very words of God. Preaching is about communicating God's word, speaking on His behalf. We are here to communicate the message of God, in particular the message of the gospel.

You

God works through our personalities, and our experiences in life, especially our experience of His working in our lives, our experience of His salvation. 

The "audience"

We need to know who we are speaking to and, most importantly, to have some appreciation of "where they are coming from". One of the most important things is understanding why they find it difficult to believe the word of God (and this applies to Christians as well as non-Christians). At one level things should be easy. If we believe God and His Word, and if we obey His word then everything would be fine. Easy isn't it? Yet we all know it isn't. For all sorts of reasons we (and that includes you and me, as well as the "audience") find it difficult to truly believe God. The reasons can be spiritual, emotional or intellectual. Hebrews speaks about Jesus being a High Priest who is able to sympathise with us (Hebrews 4:15). We need to be able to sympathise with the people.

Now to preach effectively we need all three of these ingredients. If we only have two then we will be ineffective. God is obviously the most important. Many parts of the church (eg liberal parts, but not only them) pay little more than lip service to God, and it becomes about me (or man in general). If the preacher also has an appreciation of his audience this then becomes very dangerous, for his preaching will have an attractiveness to it, even though it is devoid of spiritual power.

If we miss out "you", then our preaching will be empty. We will be like the teachers in Jesus' day who lacked authority, and the people recognised it. Unless the word is alive in us we will have limited effectiveness. We will just be drones and we will drone on and on to nobody's benefit.

If we miss out the "audience" then we will fail to communicate, our preaching will either go over their heads, or round the sides, or just bounce off a brick wall. 

When we have all three in place, with God and His Word supreme, then we will be effective preachers in God's hands.

Thick as a brick

Yesterday the Independent published an article claiming Religious people understand the world less. Well all I can say is I am thick as a brick and proud of it.

I suppose that the following people understand the world less:

• John Lennox - mathematician and philosopher
• William Lane Craig - philosopher
• Francis Collins - led the human genome project
• John Polkinghorne - physicist

I could go on. I too am an academic (though definitely not in the same league as the above list of people) and a believer in Jesus Christ. I have seen belief in Jesus Christ transform the lives of drug addicts. I have seen belief in Jesus Christ enable people to get through terrible situations. I have seen belief in Jesus Christ motivate people to acts of great kindness and personal sacrifice. 

Personally I have found that belief in Jesus Christ enables me to understand the world more. I have found that belief in Jesus Christ gives me the strength to cope with difficult times in life. I find that belief in Jesus Christ enables me to overcome the world.

So, I am delighted to be thick as a brick. Or, to quote the word of another eminently stupid man:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor 1:15)

Genetics, Sex and 6-day Creationism

Writing about creation is a tricky business because it is an issue that some people have very fixed views on. So before embarking on the main topic of this blog let me say a few general things. Roughly speaking, there are three positions that Bible believing Christians can take on creation:

• Young earth creationism (YEC), taking the 6 days of Genesis as six 24-hour days.
• Old earth creationism/intelligent design (OEC), accepting that the universe is billions of years old, but have a strong belief in God being directly involved in creation.
• Theistic evolution (TE), accepting the theory of evolution, but seeing it as a process used by God.

For what it is worth, the old earth creationism/intelligent design is probably closest to my own opinions, but I have Christian friends who are in each of the above camps.

I am going to address a couple of arguments that are sometimes used by Young earth creationists in attacking particularly theistic evolutionists. What I am writing is not intended as an attack on YEC’s. Moreover, I consider neo-Darwinian evolution to be scientifically suspect, so it is most definitely not intended to support TE. Rather I am writing this to encourage us to think more clearly.

Two of the arguments sometimes used by YEC’s against an old universe and, in particular against theistic evolution, are that

1. God would not use a random process.
2. Evolution is a very wasteful processes and so God wouldn’t use it.

Both these views are mistaken. Let’s start with the randomness question.

The thinking behind the randomness objection seems to be that creation is a purposeful process, with God having a clear goal in mind, and therefore randomness cannot be involved. Such thinking is mistaken and demonstrates a lack of understanding. The first part of this blog will consider a mathematical technique (without any equations, so don’t panic), but then we will move on to sex, so hang on in there!

Genetic Algorithms

One technique in optimisation is something called genetic algorithms. Let’s consider this method.

A population is generated randomly. Then pairs of individuals mate and produce offspring. When two individuals mate there is crossover of “genetic” information, there is also an element of random mutation. All this creates a new population. A fitness function is then applied and the fittest members survive, the others don’t. This is just a basic description, there are numerous variations. This process is repeated many times and after many generations the optimum solution, or something close to it, is arrived at.

So you can probably see the affinities with evolution, especially the fitness function (survival of the fittest) and random mutation. Let’s consider the process a little.

First, it is a mixture of design and randomness. The initial selection of the population is random, mutation is random. However, there is also much design. The initial structure of the members is designed, the fitness function is designed.

Secondly, the outcome is, to a large extent at least, predetermined. If we consider a mathematical function which we are trying to minimise (consider a curve), then the outcome of the process, if the algorithm is designed properly, is predetermined. It will converge on the minimum point of the curve. So even though the process is random the outcome is not.

Thirdly, processes involving randomness can sometimes be more effective than more guided processes. The most popular optimisation methods use “hill-climbing” methods. You start from a point on a curve, calculate the gradient and then move in that direction to a new estimate. This process is repeated until the minimum (or maximum, depending what we are trying to do) is reached. For a simple curve this works well, but suppose the curve has lots of local minima. What will happen? The hill-climbing methods have a habit of getting stuck a local minima. Algorithms with a degree of randomness built into them tend to be better at reaching the true (or global) minima.

So what do we learn from this? It is that a process can have a significant element of randomness built into it, and even rely on this randomness, and yet be purposeful, lead to a specific outcome and be better at doing so than a more direct method.

Now the point of all this is not to say that God used some form of genetic algorithms, but simply to demonstrate that the idea of it being impossible for God to use a process that involves a significant degree of randomness is simply without foundation.

Sex

Now let’s consider something a little less esoteric, and much more interesting. If you are a Christian I assume that you believe that you were created by God, and “fearfully and wonderfully made”, created on purpose. If you have children I take it you also believe that they were purposefully created by God. Now when a man and woman have sex tens of millions of sperm are released. If the woman becomes pregnant one of these millions of sperm fertilised the egg. Now from a scientific point of view there is an enormous amount of randomness in this, and while no doubt our scientific knowledge will increase as time goes on, I take it we accept the current biological understanding as being broadly correct. Yet we still believe we were purposefully created by God.

So what are we to make of this? Is our biological understanding wrong? No. It means that the biological understanding is not the whole story, and here is the fundamental point that Christians should be focused on when considering creation, and it is not whether God did it in 6-days of billions of years. The key issue is materialism. The atheistic view is that the material is all there is, and this is where they are oh so wrong.

The millions of sperm issue also knocks on the head the “evolution is wasteful therefore God would not have done it this way” argument. We know that a man produces millions, even billions of sperm, yet only a minute fraction of these actually fertilise an egg cell. Even Rehoboam only had 28 sons and 60 daughters! God actually seems quite prepared to use “wasteful” processes. So the wastefulness argument is another argument without foundation.

Conclusion

So what are we to learn apart from the falsity of the randomness and wastefulness arguments? It is that we need to be very careful about how we think. All of us, whether YEC’s, OEC’s, TE’s or atheists, can fall into the trap of thinking “God must have done it this way”, or “God would not have done it this way”. We should ask ourselves one question, “how many universes have you created?” We need to recognise the limits of our understanding.

Thoughts on the transgenderism "debate"

One of the promises of all the main parties in the current Scottish elections is to improve the rights of transgender people. Indeed there seems to be almost universal agreement among most of the parties, social commentators on the transgender issue. That is why I have put “debate” in quotation marks as we are experiencing a very rapid change in our approach to gender and are doing so with very little debate at all, and anyone who does seek to question the direction of travel is quickly labelled a bigot. Moreover, political parties, the media, and education authorities all seem to be moving in the same direction.

The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) recently published a report entitled “Gender Ideology Harms Children”. I think it would be helpful to look at the current zeitgeist in the light of this report and to ask some serious questions. This is particularly important as the gender issue is one that will increasingly affect children, a BBC report says that the number of referrals to a gender identity clinic for young people has experienced a doubling in referrals.

I would suggest that first you read the ACP report, it is short so it won’t take long. First, let me say something about the ACP. As far as I can tell, despite its name it is not a national body in the sense that the BMA is, and it is a socially conservative body , but it does consist of fully qualified pediatricians. Moreover the points made are backed up by references, and some of the points are definitely based on scientific truth. So it is definitely worth considering the issue in the light of the points they make.

The report starts with the opening paragraph:

The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.

Treating gender dysphoria

So let's consider perhaps the fundamental point of the current approach. Transgenderism is concerned with people who experience gender dysphoria, ie people who experience dysphoria with their biological sex. Now the current approach is that in this situation where there is a conflict between psychological and physical state the solution is to seek to change the physical state, this being done by taking cross-sex hormones, and possibly by gender reassignment surgery. Now there are two very important points to consider:

1. The common approach in most situations where one's perception of reality is at odds with the physical reality is to consider that this is a problem that needs to be approached as a psychological issue. With the matter of gender dysphoria we seem to be adopting the very opposite approach. We need to ask ourselves why this is considered to be the best approach to take.
2. The taking of hormones and undergoing gender reassignment surgery does not actually change the sex of a person. If the person was born male they will still have xy chromosomes. On a very practical level, a person born male will still be prone to prostate problems when they get older. In short, there is a limit to the extent to which the physical reality can actually be changed.

In the light of this one has to ask if the current approach is actually the best way of helping people who experience gender dysphoria. The report refers to reports of high suicide rates in people who use cross-sex hormones and undergo gender reassignment surgery, even in LGBTQ friendly countries such as Sweden. Now one has a healthy caution about all such studies, but it does at least mean we should ask questions.

Surely we should ask ourselves if the current approach is the best way to really help people who experience gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria and children

This is the primary reason for my writing on this issue. There is an increasing move to instruct our children that transgenderism is good and that the, until now, accepted definitions of gender are wrong. This is a very serious matter and we need to be sure that we are going in the right direction.

To appreciate how serious the issue is one only needs to consider that one of the approaches can be to give children puberty blocking drugs. So the approach is to give a child drugs that inhibit the normal healthy functioning of the body. If this is to be considered a good approach for a child one needs to be darn sure that you are right. Moreover, according to the report, puberty inhibiting drugs can have harmful side-effects, and in the longer term cross-sex hormones have serious health risks as well.

The  report refers to studies that say the majority of children who experience gender dysphoria to actually “grow out of it”. Now this does not mean we should ignore the problem if a child does suffer from gender dysphoria, but it does mean that we should seriously question the current approach. Children are very impressionable, which is one of the reasons all societies seek to protect children, and there is a serious risk that the current direction we are going in will cause harm to our children. Indeed the report goes so far as to call that approach child-abuse, and one can see why they do this.

So I do believe there are serious questions need to be asked of the direction we are going in. However, there is also another matter that does need to be addressed. Part of the motivation of the current approach is a desire to stop bullying of people, and children in particular, who experience gender dysphoria. This is an entirely laudable desire. Bullying wherever and for whatever reason it occurs is abhorrent and we should do what we can to stop it, but there seems to be a serious risk that the current approach is built on a lie, and if it is it will ultimately lead to failure and cause serious harm to children in the process. We are actually made male and female. So maybe we need to find a different way of dealing with the bullying problem. Also, we need to address the gender stereotyping issue.

What Abba Father really means

This post is a short meditation on Romans 8:15, in particular on "Abba,Father".

The Holy Spirit within us has made us children of God, He does not make us slaves to fear. In our desire to do right and to avoid doing wrong we can so easily become slaves to fear, the fear of failure, the fear of punishment (1 John 4:18). I guess most (probably all) of us have times when we fear about having made a wrong decision, we think God will punish us if we have made a wrong decision. If you are going through a time like this just consider your thoughts for a while. Now God may discipline us, but discipline and punishment are completely different. Punishment is completely judicial, paying the price for our sin and failings. Discipline is done with the loving hand of the Father leading us on to become better sons and daughters, teaching and training us.

The Spirit brought about your adoption as sons. The concept of adoption is probably borrowed from the Roman or Greek culture. An adopted son had the same rights as a natural born son, and this included inheritance rights.

And the Spirit enables us to cry “Abba, Father”. Now Abba is the Aramaic term used by a child of its father but we need to be careful in over-sentimentalizing it and substituting the word “daddy”. Yes there is a closeness and an affection, but there is also the discipline and leadership of a father as well, the authority of the Father. We need to beware of interpreting "abba, Father", just through the lens of our society's dysfunctional views of fatherhood. Jesus used this phrase in Gethsemane when He was about to go to the cross and was going through anguish before it. Abba Father gives us the strength to do what we think is impossible to do, gives us the strength to endure what we don’t think we are able to endure, to become Christlike people that we never thought possible. That is the truth of what Abba Father means, it is a million times greater than just “daddy”. My own father died while I was a baby, but I am so glad that I have Abba Father and all that He desires for my life. Let us rejoice in the fullness of what Abba Father means.

Making sense of Revelation and why we should study it

I am currently leading a Bible study group looking at the book of Revelation. Some may think I am either very brave or very foolish, or even both! Revelation is perhaps the most difficult book in the Bible to make sense of, and the one about which more rubbish has been spoken, written and published than any other book in the Bible. I guess that many people just dismiss Revelation as being beyond them, and some of those who do study the book are a little bit fixated. Moreover if you read three commentaries, even ones by "sensible" theologians, you will likely as not get at least three different opinions. So what are we to do? Just ignore it? Adopt a particular line of interpretation, dismissing all others? I will try to give some answers here. These are not intended to be a complete answer, but perhaps some will find it helpful.

Ignoring Revelation is not a viable option. The book itself says that the one who hears the words of the book will be blessed. Yet there are so many alternative ways of looking at the book: preterist, historicist, idealist and futurist. On this point I adopt the eclectic approach, i.e. seeking t take the  best from each. But even that only gets us so far for within each of these streams there are multiple variations. Then there are the thorny issues of amilliennialism, premillennialism and postmillennialism. Added that is the rapture pre-tribulation, mid or post? If you want to know, I am a post-trib premillennialist, but there are many good Christians in every camp. So here is a go at approaching Revelation.

First, 2 Timothy 3:16,17 tells us that all Scripture is God breathed and given to us for the equipping of the saints. So the purpose of studying Revelation is not so that we can prove our pet theory, but to equip us to be better servants of Christ in difficult circumstances.

Now let's suppose the preterist view is entirely correct. Ie most of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century. What value is it to us? Well it shows us how the kingdom of God and evil interact in times of intense opposition, namely the overwhelming power of the Roman empire. So we can learn from it.

What if the pre-trib view is correct? In that case we will not be here during the worst events described in Revelation. Is it then of any value to us, other than idle curiosity and a sigh of relief that we will not have to endure the great tribulation? Well while we may not be here during the great tribulation, we may be here during pre-cursors. In 2 These 2:7 Paul says the man of lawlessness will come, but the spirit of lawlessness is already at work. If we look at history we see many instances of mini Antichrist's. The Roman empire and its emperor worship is the example pertinent in John's day. In recent history imagine what  it was like to be in Nazi Germany. In fact it is worth reading history of those days to see how a truly evil empire works. Sadly much of the church in Germany did not do well in those days, much of it acquiescing to the Nazis, the Confessing church being a notable exception. Or there is the regime of Communist Russia. In our own day there are many Christians having to endure horrendous circumstances under Isil or in North Korea, and many other parts of the world. Even in the West our governments and society are increasingly anti-Christian. So there is certainly value in knowing how to live as a member of God's kingdom in evil times, indeed it is essential. 

The same arguments apply if the post-trib view is correct, even more so. If the post-trib view is correct then our generation might go through the great tribulation, but it might not. And no preceding generation has gone through the great tribulation. So all the arguments applied to the pre-trib view apply equally. Then of course there is the real possibility that we will have to endure the great tribulation itself.

So regardless of the "correct" view, there is a need to read and learn from Revelation. I realise that all this can be seen as an argument for taking an idealist approach, and I would certainly advocate that as being a very useful approach, but not to the exclusion of the others.

What about all the graphic details we find in the book? Well we can try and give a detailed interpretation of it all, but I tend to think that that is often not too fruitful. It is sometimes more helpful to view Revelation as a drama. Consider Lord of the Rings, how should you view that? There is no need to get engrossed in every detail (I know that some do!), but instead to get absorbed in the drama to appreciate  the battle between good and evil, and the workings of the human heart. There is value in doing the same with Revelation, not for all of it, and not as the only way of reading it, but it will benefit us to do this as part of our study.

I hope these ramblings are useful. You don't have to agree with everything I have said, and it certainly is not a complete approach, but hopefully it has some value. What I am certain about is that Revelation is a book we should all read and can all benefit from. Indeed there may come a time when it is essential to learn from it.