Talking Out Of Turn

Let us begin by asking, where did the universe come from?

The possibilities:

• From nothing. However, the cause (i.e. nothing) would then be greater than the effect (i.e. the universe). So this is a logical impossibility.
• From itself. Can an egg come from an egg? No, an egg must come from a chicken. We can argue which came first, but to argue that either one came from itself would be silly. Therefore this response would not make sense. It would be absurd.
• It has always been; the universe is eternal and unchanging. It is static. Also known as the steady state theory of the universe. This was the major view from ancient times to Albert Einstein himself. Today, however, this theory has fallen by the wayside since it goes against established scientific laws. For example, it would violate entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. Likewise, it would have to explain why galaxies seem to be moving away from one another, as astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered in the 1920s. And the theory would have to take into account the force of gravity. To be specific, over a finite period of time, the force of gravity should cause all matter to collapse into itself. These are the main ones that come to mind, but surely there are others.
• It is an oscillating universe. This might be a subset of the eternal universe theory. It would thus fall prey to some of the same scientific incongruities mentioned above as well as raise some new objections. E.g. is there enough critical mass in the universe to cause the universe to expand, contract, and expand, again and again, ad infinitum?
• From another universe, i.e. there are multiverses. I suppose this is plausible, but it remains in the realm of theory rather than conforming to empirical scientific data and laws. And even if true, we would then only push the question back a step and ask about the origin of the multiverses.
• The universe is an illusion. Eastern religions predominantly make this claim. Of course, this does not conform to modern science either. And it brings up other difficulties such as a philosophically deficient response to the problem of evil.
• From multiple deities (e.g. gods and/or goddesses). This option has been expressed in the ancient religions. From the millions of Hindu deities to the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses to Zoroastrianism, and everything in between. There are some modern oddballs like Scientology, too, which as I understand it substitutes an advanced alien civilization for deities. However, this would beg the question, from where then did these gods come? (Unless they were each pre-existent. Which could not be proven except by their divine revelation. More on divine revelation below.)
• From a single deity. That is, from a Supreme Being which we will term “God.” This seems to make the most logical and scientific sense. For detailed discussions on the existence of God, one might consider this website as a helpful starting point.

With the last point in mind, we might subsequently ask what God is like (understanding that we are asking from the only perspective we can, the human one). Is God intelligent? Is God personal? Is God masculine, feminine, both, or neither? Is God good, evil, both, or neither? And so forth.

Left to ourselves, however, we wouldn’t have a clue how to answer these questions about the nature of God — what He is like, and so on. No more than little children first learning simple addition and subtraction would know how to derive Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity from scratch.

Still, we guess. We try. I don’t know why we do, but we do. Hence the various philosophies and religions. But we come up short. All attempts by the human mind to grasp what God is like have been exhausted by the religions and philosophies of the world. Yet, at the end of the day, religion and philosophy are but humanity’s speculations and guesswork into the mind of God.

After all, can a finite human mind ever come to grasp an infinite one? No, not without God taking the initiative to reveal what He is like to us. At best we can only tease out His characteristics here and there from the created universe.

We are like fish living in a fish bowl. Sure, we can discover certain things and come to certain conclusions. E.g. we are living in a bowl; the bowl is a closed system; the bowl is mainly full of water; the water is necessary for us to continue living; the bowl is too perfectly built for it to have arrived here by chance; if there is a bowl, then in all likelihood there is a bowl maker, etc. But we can never comprehend the bowl maker himself unless he reveals himself to us in a way suited to our limited fish brain.

Or to take another illustration, can a dog understand calculus? How about a joke? How much less can we understand God! God might properly ask us, “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?” No, we cannot so much as lift a finger to shift a single star of either constellation to effect its appearance let alone course in the skies. Or take gravity. Although we understand how it works, at a deeper level, we don’t actually know what gravity is. If we cannot accomplish or understand such a comparatively small task or concept in the created order, can we ever hope to discover or comprehend God?

In short, no, we cannot. As human beings, we can only go so far and no more in our attempts to understand the mind of God.

However, there is no such limit for God. At any time and in any place, God can choose to reveal Himself to us. In fact, this is precisely the claim of certain religions: God has revealed Himself to us.

That is why our response to the question “Aren’t all religions really the same?” must be an emphatic no. Not all religions are the same, not by a long shot! Many are illogical. Many fly in the face of empirically established scientific laws. Many do not mesh with historical facts and figures. Many are internally inconsistent, in terms of their own teachings. Many make sense of some things while leaving us in the dark about others. Many satisfy at an intellectual level but not an existential one. Many differ on core issues like the nature of God, the afterlife, what “salvation” entails (e.g. must we do more good than bad, must we become enlightened, etc.), and several other teachings in a way which cannot be reconciled with other religions. And many simply do not claim divine revelation.

As Steve Turner puts it in his “Creed” (the entire poem is well worth reading):

We believe that all religions are basically the same –
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

Nonetheless all share one common thread: all were started by men, men searching for God, and thus formulating their own ideas about Him. Of course, what use is an idea on the topic of what God is like if it’s merely the opinion of another human being? We can all have an opinion, but an opinion is not necessarily a truth. Thus we must look to God Himself for answers to our questions, for our only hope is if God Himself speaks to us.

Continuing this line of reasoning, I ask, has God spoken to anyone? Has God told any individual or group of people what He is like? In the past, certain peoples have indeed claimed to have received divine revelation, to have received “the oracles of God,” so to speak. In fact, since very few peoples have made this claim, and made it with sustained credibility (i.e. in line with reason, knowledge, and science), we can boil down the contenders to three: the Jewish people, the 1st century Christians, and Muhammed.

The best way to adjudicate the matter is to go directly to the source, that is, to the divine revelations themselves. We are therefore left with the Jewish Scriptures (commonly referred to as the Christian Old Testament in the Western world), the Christian Bible (which includes the Old Testament as well as the New Testament), and the Muslim Koran.

Which one(s) holds up to logic and reason, science and knowledge, history and understanding, proper textual criticism, and so forth?

As others like Steve Hays have argued in the past, the Koran disqualifies itself.

For instance, one major claim Muhammed made in order attest to his genuineness as a true prophet was for skeptics to compare the Koran with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Apparently Muhammed believed that a comparison of the Koran with the Old and New Testaments would vindicate the truthfulness and inspiration of the Koran as well as himself before his community. He made this statement in a day and age when the Scriptures were not readily available to normal people. Not to mention that many were illiterate (including, ironically, Muhammed himself; but apparently he was divinely inspired to speak the words of the Koran while others transcribed the words). Hence Muhammed could make such a claim in the first place. But the problem is that today we do indeed have access to the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran. And we can compare each with the others. What do we find? We find that the Koran contradicts the Bible in many places. It gets many facts wrong or perhaps changes them. So the bottom line is that the Koran does not at all hold up even to Muhammed’s original challenge.

But a rejoinder might be offered. Muslim scholars argue that the Koran is accurate whereas the earlier Old and New Testaments have been corrupted through errors of transmission and the like. Among several problems which could be cited, a rather conspicuous one is that, all things equal, why should we trust a chronologically later reading (i.e. the Koran) over a far earlier one (i.e. the Old and New Testaments) in those places which disagree?

Furthermore, all things are not equal. The Koran has a dodgy textual history whereas the textual history of the Old and New Testaments has been verified time and time again, by internal as well as external methods, and across fields such as archaeology, linguistics, and even the various sciences. Many books could be cited but one might consider Bruce Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration as a good starting point.

Judaism is a bit trickier. In one sense, it comes down to the identity of the Jewish Messiah. The old joke about the difference between the Jew and the Christian is that, for the Jew, the Messiah has yet to come whereas, for the Christian, the Messiah is coming again. So the question we might ask is, is the Messiah still to come or has the Messiah already come?

A thorny impediment to the resolution of this question, though, is that Jews since the Council of Yavneh (c. 70-90 AD) have interpreted large swathes of their Scriptures, i.e. “the Old Testament,” in terms which omit the possibility that Jesus could be the Messiah. To push the point further, Jews have a decidedly anti-Jesus and hence anti-Christian bent elsewhere in other writings (e.g. the Talmud). This does not mean their interpretations are wrong, per se, but one should be aware of the blatant bias. For instance, an unbiased reading of a chapter like Isaiah 53 should at a minimum cause the reader to wonder, “About whom…does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” But many orthodox Jews will point out that the prophet is speaking about the nation of Israel (plural), not an individual (singular), despite the fact that the Hebrew is in the singular throughout the chapter. Thus a fair reading of the passage would strongly seem to indicate that it is speaking about an individual.

Another problem is that modern Judaism accepts all people outside Judaism as heaven-bound. One need not be Jewish to be saved. Basically, it comes down to whether the person believes in a single God and is essentially a good person who has done good deeds. Specifically, the Jews believe the non-Jew who believes in a single God and who has obeyed the Noachide laws will merit heaven. This sounds lovely, along the same lines as the Hindu idea that God is at the top of the mountain and all religions merely approach the peak from different sides of the mountain, such that in the end any and all the genuinely religious will reach God. But the question is not whether our notions of God and heaven and salvation are true, but rather what God’s notions are? What has He revealed to us as truth insofar as these topics are concerned? In this case, what do the Jewish Scriptures themselves teach about God and heaven and salvation? That is, does this near universal salvation based on a person’s obedience and good deeds square with the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures themselves? The Jews would include the Talmudic interpretation (”the oral Torah”) of the Jewish Scriptures (”the written Torah”), which does teach this sort of salvation, but which many Christians, for example, would reject on the grounds that an accurate interpretation and understanding of the Jewish Scriptures contradicts the Talmud itself at certain significant points — foremost of which would be the identity and work of the Messiah.

Perhaps a weightier consequence of the Talmud’s anti-Christian stance is that modern Judaism does not accept Jesus’ death on the cross as the atonement for sin. One of the fundamental teachings of the Jewish Scriptures is that if a person sins, then a sacrifice must be brought to the Temple to atone for the sin. Which culminates with the Jewish High Holy Days or Days of Awe, and particularly on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The most obvious problem, though, is that the Temple no longer stands today. It has not stood since the year 70 on our calendar. There is no high priest. There is no Levitical priesthood. Levi or Levy might be a common Jewish surname in our day and age, but I’ve not heard of a Levi or Levy who is currently serving his annual priestly rotations in Jerusalem. So the next question is, has anyone’s sin been atoned for per the Jewish Scriptures’ teachings? Modern Jews teach that such things as prayer made in good faith, etc., stand-in as a sacrifice to atone for the person’s sin, which again sounds lovely, but is this what the Jewish Scriptures teach? Christians would argue, no, the Jewish Scriptures do not teach this. And as a consequence, even if a person has done good deeds, we know no one is perfect. So how can the bad he has done or the good he has failed to do be atoned for? How can his sin be atoned for? For modern Jews, there is no system of atonement in line with the Jewish Scriptures because there is no Temple. And they do not accept Jesus’ sacrificial atonement. So they’re stuck. Perhaps that’s why there are some groups of Jews who seek to rebuild the Temple. Thus, the Christian would argue that modern Judaism seeks to establish its own righteousness before God rather than accepting the righteousness God has provided for His people in Jesus the Messiah.

Let’s move on to Christianity and the New Testament. The first Christians were Jews. Christians such as the Apostle Paul almost always began proclaiming Jesus as Messiah in Jewish synagogues. Even the Romans originally considered Christianity a sect of Judaism. Christianity might therefore be seen as Judaism taking an alternate route. Likewise modern Judaism might therefore be seen as Judaism taking an alternate route.

Viewed together, the two religions — modern Judaism and Biblical Christianity — might be seen as two separate branches from the same tree. And that tree is based on what the patriarchs and the prophets proclaimed, what they believed they received from God Himself in the writings known as the Old Testament. So the question we must ask is, which group rightly understands the Old Testament? What does the Old Testament actually teach? Specifically, as I’ve already alluded to above, what does the Old Testament teach about the Messiah?

Christians claim Jesus is the Messiah. That is, that God spoke in and through the prophets (recorded in the Old Testament) in the past, but in these last days has spoken to us in His Son. Christianity therefore might be summed up with the following:

Hebrews 1:1-2 Listen

1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (ESV)

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At this point, we are left with both Judaism and Christianity, or more specifically, with the writings commonly known as the Old Testament and the New Testament. To sum up, the question is, first, are these writings in actuality the direct revelation to humanity from God Himself, and secondly, is Jesus the Messiah — Lord and Savior, God Himself incarnate, the Word of God in the flesh?

I could continue, but perhaps it’d be better to take a more personal turn. So, I ask you, dear reader, does God want to be found? Is He knowable?

If not, then we have no hope; we will never find Him if He does not wish to be found. As far as we’re concerned, there may as well not be a God. Humanity has no hope. None whatsoever. We have no idea who we are or why we are here let alone where we’re going, if anywhere. We’re just grasping at straws with the different religions and philosophies of the world. Maybe there is a God, maybe not. Who knows? Maybe this God will save us, somehow, maybe He doesn’t care at all. Again, who knows? We’re just hoping for the best. Whatever “the best” means. Because in the end, life on a pale, blue dot orbiting an insignificant yellow star in the far recesses of the Milky Way galaxy, which in turn is but one galaxy out of the billions and billions of galaxies in the universe, is absolutely meaningless as far as we’re concerned. If modern science is right, then one day all the lights will burn out, and all that will be left is unremitting darkness. There are no other options or alternatives or possibilities. It’s only a matter of time. In the end, we’re all doomed. In the end, it will all end. In short, it’s twilight, and we’re trapped on a sinking ship in the middle of nowhere — not only unable to swim to save ourselves but in fact bound and shackled in place — even as the bow begins to dip beneath the waves.

On the other hand, if God does wish to be found, if the Bible in both Old and New Testaments really is God’s authentic communication to humanity, as they claim to be, if God really has spoken to us, then is this not in itself an utterly shocking truth? That God Himself could and does speak to humanity? Imagine that this is true. Just for a few moments. Pause and think about this for a minute. Would it not be the most glorious news? That the living God has spoken to us! That His voice is real. That His words are recorded, and are real. That He is real. Would this truth not still your mouth in astonishment, bow low your heart in humble awe, bring you to your knees, and cause you to wonder, perhaps in tearful, joyful, even incredulous amazement, “What God is this?” Is this not hopeful? Is this not good news? Would you not hope in this God? Could He not be a life preserver for your soul? If not far better — an unsinkable wooden ark in which to find rescue from the raging waters that threaten to envelop and drown us in this cold, dark universe?

At the very least, dear reader, do you not wish to find out whether it might perhaps be true? Whether there’s even an inkling of possibility in the claim that God is real? That God is living? That God has spoken? That God is knowable? After all, what do you have to lose? If it’s false, then you lose nothing but some time and effort. If it’s true, though, imagine what you have to gain! Dear reader, I kindly implore you, please read the Bible and test it for yourself. Have Martin Luther’s attitude toward the Bible: “If the Bible were a large, mighty tree and all its words were little branches I have tapped at all the branches, eager to know what was there and what it had to offer.” Test every single “jot and tittle.” Ask, and keep on asking, and never give up until you receive; seek, and keep on seeking, and never give up until you find; and knock, and keep on knocking, and never give up until the door is opened to you. For the promise of Jesus Christ is thus: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). Test God’s words, truly test them, and see whether this God Who seems far away, this God Who seems silent, this God Who seems unknown, might not draw near, speak, and make Himself known to you.

For the name and honor and glory of our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

[Revised: Nov. 2, 2006.]