The god of Chance

To my non-Christian friends,

A parody:

Once upon a time, in the beginning, the god of Chance hovered over and under and behind the infinitesimal dense point of self-existence called the singularity—eternally inert since time immemorial—and patiently waited for the right time to bring his causal forces to bear. At the right time from eternity—14.5 billion years ago—the god of Chance, like Rumpelstiltskin in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, rose from his eternally deep slumber and using his great and magnificent causal power acted with mighty force upon the inert singularity to explode it into motion—the Big Bang.

Prior to this mighty act of causal power, the god of Chance had imbued this inert singularity with all time, space, matter, energy, and the universal inviolable laws of this newly beginning universe: laws of gravity, laws of element formation from lighter to heavier elements, laws of particle aggregation, laws of star and planetary formation, laws of star and planetary movement, laws of biogenesis from non-living chemicals to simple and complex life, laws of evolutionary progress through descent from a common ancestor, and the laws of thought and reason within man’s brain. To govern man’s reason, the god of Chance using his great and magnificent causal power ruled it necessary to bring the laws of logic into existence, especially noteworthy: the law of non-contradiction and its corollary, the law of the impossibility of the contrary.

So now, with things in motion, and because the god of Chance in his great and mighty wisdom had seen fit to pack all time, space, matter, energy, and all inviolable natural laws into the inert self-existent singularity, he needed only to sit back and watch the beauty unfold. Inflation superseded the speed of light, and time, matter, and energy spread out into the expanding space. Gases coalesced and became stars. The first stars exploded and produced the heavier elements. The heavier elements aggregated and became planets. Planets moved into stable orbits around stars, pulled in by the god of Chance’s supreme law—the law of gravity. This planet—earth—became the seedbed for life from non-living chemicals (any magician would be proud). Simple life became complex life and voila! man arose from his initial beginnings as an amoeba to house the most powerful organ currently in existence—his brain—with its desires for meaning, purpose, significance, its consciousness, and its rational powers of thought. Man would love and be loved, and this with real, true significance because the faculties of his most significant organ—the brain—was the god of Chance’s most prestigious accomplishment.

Men and women would live their lives from birth to death believing and trusting that their existence (an effect) was caused by Chance. Why? Because the scientists tell them so.

—End of Parody—

Some of you will not get this parody. It won’t make sense to you. You would rather bow down to the idol of Chance and irrationalism. You would rather bow down to the singularity as if it was the wizard behind the curtain. You would rather bow down to anything other than a morally perfect God who holds you accountable for your moral and ethical choices. It’s really an ethical decision for you, not intellectual. You would rather differentiate yourself “for Chance,” and against God, than “for God,” and against Chance, because you would rather hold on to your own autonomy to make moral decisions, good or bad, out of the judgment of your own mind. Intellectually, you know that God exists, morally, you do not want to be confined to that God’s moral law and don’t want to admit you have made bad choices in your life and need to ask God for forgiveness.

One of the reasons this is so hard for you, is because you have been inculcated throughout your life to believe in magic; a fairy tale of origins where Alice falls through a rabbit hole and meets the ever-smiling Cheshire cat disappearing and appearing at will, and Dorothy is carried away into a land of good witches and bad witches and Munchkins and talking scarecrows. Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat, you have been taught to suspend reason and believe the illogical. You have been taught by the brilliant men and women of science (and you have believed every word they have said, because of course, they are unbiased paragons of knowledge) that Chance is an entity with causal power and intentionality—that Chance has Being in the ontological sense with power and force to bring about an effect. “By chance” is the mantra you embrace, and the universe around you and your own existence all happened by the veracity of this mantra. With these two little words—by chance— you have been taught that the impossible becomes possible, and that magic replaces reason and logic.

There are really only two choices here, my friends, when it comes to the origin of this universe and the why of your existence; a self-existent impersonal singularity, or a self-existent personal God. You tell me you believe in evolution, and back of that the Big Bang, and back of that the self-existent singularity that in its infinitesimal dense point contained all the stuff of our universe: all laws. all space, all time, all matter, and all energy. The driving force, the power behind it all, you claim, was blind Chance. “By chance” becomes the means by which an effect (the universe) is produced. Chance offers you the rabbit without the hat, and even more, no magician; for not only is Chance blind, but deaf and mute as well.

Some of you will be offended at what you’ve just read. It is not my desire to cause offense, but to assail your logical powers of reason. Think deep, my friends. Logic should tell you that Chance is not an entity, that Chance has no Being, that Chance has no causal power, that Chance is not a force, and that Chance is therefore a no thing. To say that something happens “by chance” is to ascribe instrumental causal power to nothing, which is an absurdity. It is in this I plead with you, be reconciled to God. He is the only self-existent Being that satisfies the demands of logic. Chance can’t; he’s blind, deaf, mute, and totally and consummately impotent.

Aristotle is claimed to have once said, “in the minds of the brightest men often resides the corner of a fool.” Don’t be that fool. Don’t blindly follow other fools (the scientists) who defy logic by attributing causal power to a non-entity. Don’t be bright and successful in all the rest of your life, but the fool in the corner of your mind that counts the most.

All my love,

Your friend

Vaya con Dios!

We Have the Fossils, We Win! – Part II

Dearest hijas and hijo,

If you’re counting on evolution to bolster your rebellion of God and unwillingness to repent of your sin, denying His existence and authority over your life so you can live life the way you want, you do so out of a metaphysic of Chance (see my posts The Matter of Irrationality, The Matter of Irrationality-Part II, The Matter of Irrationality – Part III).

You make Chance the Absolute, granting it powers of purpose and design and giving it a mind or will (the force, like in Star Wars?) that is somehow rational and can select beneficially not only on behalf of all biological species but the entire space-time cosmos, including its laws, finely-tuned constants, and aesthetic beauty. By an irrational leap of faith you believe that the universe is not only Chance-produced, but Chance-directed.

Numerous people have said to me, “Trust the science. Evolution is fact. The fossils prove it,” Whoa! Back the bus up my evolutionary friends. You first have to show how life comes from non-life; how non-living chemicals can bring about the first living organism with all of its complexity. Louis Pasteur, the French chemist and microbiologist in the 1800’s, showed scientifically and conclusively how life can only come from life, disproving the idea of spontaneous generation. Evolution cannot even begin to start and cannot be ‘fact’ until you can show conclusively that life can come from non-life. That’s your starting point, and not the fossils. This non-life to life is called abiogenesis and is an intractable problem that science has never been able to solve, the Miller-Urey experiment no exception (https://bigthink.com/hard-science/miller-urey/).

If evolution is your fall-back position, and you believe that life can come from non-life, you are philosophically stating a faith-based claim that Chance gave rise to all that exists. As a philosopher with a worldview, you thus have a deeply held conviction in an ideology of impersonal Chance giving rise to everything with all its complexities, including your own mind. Your formula is: no one x nothing = everything. In a very real sense this then is your religion—the god of Chance–and you serve him with unabashed intellectual pride and enthusiasm on the basis of faith alone. This faith in Chance then is used to justify the suppression of the knowledge of God that is evident within you (Romans 1:19).

Remember, you are a culpable knower of God and are without excuse for not recognizing Him and not honoring Him. This is God’s universe. He owns it. He has created the facts and has interpreted those facts for us in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Evolution with its wasteful, haphazard, helter-skelter slow march of death of untold millions of creatures has nothing to do with Him.

But back to the fossils. The fossils don’t ‘prove’ anything except that once living organisms are now dead. There are millions and millions of them buried in rock layers all across the globe. 95% of all fossils are marine invertebrates, less than 5% are plants, and less than 1% are vertebrates of all kinds (for part 1 of this series see here We Have the fossils. We win!).

See also https://creation.com/where-are-all-the-human-fossils

So, what can I tell you? If I tell you it is an impossibility of life coming from non-life, you won’t believe me. If I tell you that the genetic information encoded in the DNA of every microbe, plant, animal, and human could only come from an intelligent mind, you won’t believe me. If I tell you that mutation and natural selection produce very limited changes to organisms and lack the creative power to generate new genetic information to change one kind of creature into another kind of creature, you won’t believe me. If I tell you that because of this there are no true transitional fossils, you won’t believe me. If I tell you that the fossil evidence and science of genetics argue against the claim that humans evolved from some ape-like ancestor, you won’t believe me. If I tell you that God’s judgment in the world-destroying, globe covering Flood of Noah is a better explanation of the fossils in the ground than evolution, you won’t believe me. If I tell you Jesus Christ was dead, and rose from the dead, proving His claim to be God, you won’t believe me either. There seems to be nothing I can tell you to help your unbelief.

So here is what I ‘will’ tell you. I know that you know God. I know that you suppress this knowledge you already have of God. I know that God will hold you responsible for this knowledge. I know that death will bring you face to face with God who will righteously judge your life. I know that what you think are your ‘good deeds’ won’t cut it with God. I know that if you continue to reject His open invitation to come to Him in repentance and faith and belief that Jesus Christ is His answer to your sin problem you will spend eternity in a place specially prepared for those who reject God called Hell. Should you be afraid? You should be very afraid.

Here is the encouragement. While you are living, you can make a conscious decision to reject the metaphysic of Chance and embrace the metaphysic of God. Think deep about the choices here. You’re either a product of Chance and all that this entails with no real meaning and purpose for ‘who’ you are, or you are a product of God, made in His image, with real meaning and purpose, with real significance, and really loved by Him. Once you’re dead, the choice is gone.

Don’t wait my evolutionary friends. The time is now. “Seek the LORD while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). “Turn to Me and be saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).

All my love,

Dad

Vaya con Dios!

The Matter of Irrationality-Part II

Dearest hijas and hijo,

Discussions with a non-Christian:

Non-Christian: So you’re saying that science and all the discoveries of scientists down through the centuries is worthless? That the collective knowledge we have gained through scientific discovery through time is utterly void?

^{(Borrowed capital)}

Christian: No, I am not saying that (see my post the seduction of scientism: a warning). There have been great accomplishments in science and through scientists who are not Christian. Non-Christian science has done a great work and brought to light much truth, but this is in spite of its assumptions—the assumption of Chance and a chance universe—and not because of them. Non-Christian science has worked with the borrowed capital of Christian theism, and for that reason alone has made great progress and given us incredible detail into our universe.

Non-Christian: What do you mean by ‘borrowed capital?’

Christian: You as a non-Christian, as well as non-Christian science which works within a metaphysic of Chance, must assume that the world is knowable and predictable in order to live and work. It is not a world of chaos. There is order and predictability; laws that govern the operational nature of the universe as a whole, e.g., gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the laws of physics and planetary motion, the laws of biogenesis, etc. But such assumptions do not come out of and are foreign to your metaphysic of Chance. Chance does not produce order but disorder; it does not produce coherence, but dissonance and imbalance; it does not produce predictability, but unpredictability and confusion. So you must borrow from Christianity and the Judeo-Christian system of thought (albeit unwittingly) in order to make sense of your theories and hypotheses.

Non-Christian: What? How do we borrow from Christianity and the Judeo-Christian system of thought?

Christian: You must first look at when and where modern science arose. It arose in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe out of the milieu that was the Protestant Reformation. When Martin Luther pinned his 95 theses to the Wittenberg Door, a tsunami of intellectual freedom was unleashed against the backdrop of intellectual slavery that was the Roman Catholic Church and its adherence to Aristotelian philosophy.

With this tsunami, men and women’s minds were free to think for themselves. This pivotal turning point in history freed minds to think carefully about the world and universe around them. Modern science arose within this new intellectual freedom. The early scientists wanted to think and investigate God’s thoughts after Him. They understood that God is a God of order, of law, of coherence, of immutability and because they believed that God created the universe they discovered these same laws, order, coherence, and predictability within the material universe itself. These things do not come out of a metaphysic of Chance, but rather out of a metaphysic of God.

Non-Christian: So unless I presuppose a metaphysic of God rather than a metaphysic of Chance I am unable to correctly make sense of the universe I live in?

Christian: Correct. Any brute fact that you wish to investigate and predicate upon must be related and correlated within a system of interpretation about all the other brute facts of the universe or it is unintelligible and meaningless. Facts and interpretation of facts cannot be separated. It is impossible even to discuss any particular fact except in relation to some principle of interpretation. We’re talking about your (i.e., science’s) philosophy of fact here again. Current science and its methodology assumes Chance and brute fact. It then relies upon the mind of man and his experience for interpretation, rather than understanding that God has already interpreted all the facts of the universe because He created them. They are not brute facts, but God-interpreted facts. He has revealed His interpretation of those facts to us in the Bible. This, current science and its methodology, cannot allow and refuses to acknowledge.

In other words, as Cornelius Van Til¹ has said, “a metaphysic of Chance is assumed as the matrix of facts. Then the chance collocation of facts is taken as the rational tendency among these brute facts. The relevancy of any scientific hypotheses is then determined by its correspondence to this “rational tendency” in things. You start with brute fact and end with brute fact. The circle is complete.”

It’s a vicious circle. Science and its methodology presupposes Chance as the Absolute and therefore concludes that God cannot exist. Science and its methodology presupposes Chance as the Absolute and concludes that miracle and/or the supernatural cannot exist. Is this rational? To argue in a circle like this?

Non-Christian: It’s no more rational than you presupposing a metaphysic of God. What’s the difference?

Christian: The difference lies within your own constitution. As I said in my last post, you are a culpable knower of God. God does not have to reveal Himself to you in a burning bush like He did Moses (Exodus 3:1-9). He doesn’t have to slap you upside the head to get your attention. You actually know that God exists from those things you see around you and encounter every day, and God holds you accountable for that knowledge, yet you try to suppress it; push it away from you and not think about it (see my post Willfully and Obstinately Ignorant). You must stop suppressing that knowledge of God you already have and follow it through to some conclusions. You must ask some deep and hard questions and seek out the answers to them within the knowledge you do have that God exists. Of utmost importance is the question of what does God require of me? Does He speak to me/us, and how? Who is Jesus and what does He claim for Himself?

Follow the threads through with diligence. Don’t be lazy about this and give up or claim there are too many unanswered questions. Don’t fall back to your metaphysic of Chance for that gives you no answers whatsoever. To believe and accept the metaphysic of Chance is like jumping out the open door of an airplane 10,000 feet up without a parachute and believing if you just flap your arms hard enough you can fly safely to the ground.

The difference also lies in that unless you presuppose a metaphysic of God, you cannot make sense of the universe around you; its order, its coherence, its predictability, its laws, your own mind and its consciousness, dreams, and passions. Without a metaphysic of God you cannot account for any meaning you wish to give to yourself. You cannot make sense of the personality that is you from an impersonal metaphysic of Chance. How does personality come from that which is impersonal?

All my love,

Dad

Vaya con Dios!

1. Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Evidences, ed. K. Scott Oliphint, P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1978, 2016.

The Matter of Irrationality

Dearest hijas and hijo,

Discussions with a non-Christian:

Christian: God is “there” and He is not silent. Not only do you know about God, but your whole being, your whole constitution, informs you that you truly ‘do’ know God (Rom. 1:19-20). In fact, you are a culpable knower of God. Day after day what you see above you, and around you, and within you, is speaking to you of His existence, and night after night as you ponder the night sky He is speaking His knowledge to you (Psalms 19:1-2). Your own conscience alternates between either accusing you or defending you in what you say, do, and think on a moment-by-moment basis (Rom. 2:15), because the law of God is written on your heart. Therefore, you are without excuse for knowing God, but not honoring Him as God or giving thanks to Him for your very existence (Rom. 1:21).

Non-Christian: Ha! I believe in science. Science has proven that God doesn’t exist. Science has shown that a quantum fluctuation in an energy field produced the singularity from which the Big Bang exploded onto the scene and eventually biological evolution took over on this planet and here we are today. You’ve made an irrational choice to believe in God despite the evidence that proves your Bible wrong.

Christian: Science cannot prove that something comes from nothing. That’s a matter of faith. You actually believe, by faith, in the metaphysic of Chance. And yet chance is not an entity. It has no Being, but is simply statistical probability with no mind behind it to direct it to any purpose. Purpose-less, blind chance cannot take absolutely nothing and produce everything. It cannot take a state of Non-Being and produce a state of Being, because chance has no power in and of itself to do anything.

Non-Christian: Wait. What do you mean by ‘the metaphysic of Chance?’

Christian: You assume that the science of reflective inquiry, which takes advantage of the objective connections around you, testing them repeatedly, and coming to hypotheses and then conclusions leads you to truth about all reality, but in actuality you are granting brute fact and the mind of man an ultimacy that your system of thought based on science and its methodology cannot provide a basis for. I’m talking about your philosophy of fact here.

The goal for which science has set for itself is that of complete comprehension of all facts—the facts are simply “there” to be interpreted by man. You assume that human reason alone is rightly able to judge all the facts presented to it. This is illegitimate for a finite creature such as yourself to do, even if collectively you think all scientific knowledge through all the ages can provide this complete comprehension of all existence. With this ideal and goal you are absolutizing Chance with powers it does not have (purpose, meaning, cohesion, order, Being). This then is your metaphysic.

Non-Christian: Wait. What is brute fact?

Christian: Brute facts are all the facts of the universe that are simply out there standing alone before any interpretation is given to them. Brute facts are devoid of intrinsic meaning, and therefore meaningless and unintelligible. They don’t come with a label attached to them saying, “This is what I am.” You run all these facts through your metaphysic of Chance and conclude that God doesn’t exist. You (i.e., science) are really presupposing Chance and absolutizing it as the matrix or schematism by which you interpret all reality. Chance then is the universal by which you give all these discrete facts meaning.

Non-Christian: So, what’s wrong with that?

Christian: Your system of thought based on Chance and the scientific method excludes God by definition and methodology, and so you conclude God doesn’t exist and/or live your life as “if” He doesn’t exist, yet because you are a culpable knower of God there is tension. You experience guilt, but have no way to explain that guilt and push it away from you within your system. Rather, you should recognize that you have a conscience put there by God, which speaks to you of God’s existence and your own culpability in knowing Him, and seek to answer questions such as “What does God require of me?” and “Why is there this tension of guilt within me and how do I deal with it?”

Non-Christian: So, is that what you mean by asking me prior to our discussion today if I have ever heard the gospel?

Christian: Yes, the word ‘gospel’ means good news. So, logically we want to know “What is the good news?” The bad news is that you are a sinner with no way to meet the requirements of God’s perfect standards. You might think you’re good enough, but God’s standard is perfection. Are you perfect in all your thoughts and actions? I didn’t think so. None of us are.

The answer is in God Himself. He has provided the answer in that He came down and lived among us. This God-man, Jesus, was perfect in all his thoughts and deeds, and died on a cross in your place for the sin which produces the guilt you feel. This then is the good news. Jesus paid the price for your sin and invites you to come to Him for forgiveness; to cry out to Him for mercy. As a culpable knower of God and a culpable knower of your sin, you recognize that, and come to Him for mercy and forgiveness, of which He will gladly give you. The consequences of not coming to Jesus in repentance of your sin will be dire. God will not be mocked.

Non-Christian: I don’t feel guilty about anything, therefore have no sin, and don’t need ‘anyone’s’ mercy.

Christian: So, who then is the irrational one? (see 1 John 1:8)

All my love,

Dad

Vaya con Dios!

the seduction of scientism: a warning

Dearest hijas and hijo,

The etymology of the word ‘science’ is from the Latin scientia, and means ‘knowledge (of something) acquired by study,’ ‘what is known,’ ‘learning.’ It is a very good word, and the scientific method and its use of both inductive and deductive reasoning are God-given, and if used properly, God-honoring. Science and its pursuit of knowledge about God’s created universe are good when used properly within its own limits.

Scientism, however, has a different meaning. It is the erroneous belief that science is the only real knowledge there is—that anything that cannot be understood through science doesn’t count as knowledge. The goal of scientism is the attempt to monopolize and control knowledge. It is a dangerous idea. Watch the short video below to see the difference:

The Limits of Science: A Critique of Scientism

You can also follow the below link to the article: ‘Big Errors Common in Big Science‘ for other good information on this topic: https://crev.info/2020/09/big-errors-common-in-big-science/

The belief that science or scientific conclusions are the only valid form of knowledge, or truth, is pervasive in our culture today. It is used as the most common reason to deny the reality of God—science has disproven it. This is nothing more than creating an idol in the mind and bowing down in worship to it. Scientism, then, is nothing more than the worship of science and scientific conclusions as the end all and be all of knowledge.

Scientism nothing more than idol worship

Am I saying that science is bad and its pursuit not God-honoring? This is the charge leveled against Christians today, isn’t it? “You are anti-science,” they say. Listen carefully. I am not saying that science and its pursuit of knowledge about the natural world are wrong or bad (see above—science and its pursuit are good and God-honoring when used properly), and there are numerous Christians, past and present, who were God-honoring scientists who did their science with God’s handbook, the Bible, open and consulted by their side. One only has to peruse the history of science to see the names: Steno, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Mendel, Boyle, Maxwell, Damadian, etc. This ‘anti-science’ screed is a pejorative thrown at Christians by non-Christians, and even at some Christians by other Christians. It is nothing more than a smokescreen.

What I am saying, is that one must be discerning in what scientific conclusions are accepted as true, justified belief. We, like the younger man Timothy warned by the older man Paul, are to “avoid… what is falsely called ‘knowledge’” (1 Tim. 6:20), “and we are destroying speculations and every lofted thing raised up against the knowledge of God and are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). In other words, examine and test every “knowledge” claim to see how it comports with the Word of God, and with what God has already said about the matter. Understand that God’s Word is the foundation for our thinking in every area. Reject those “knowledge” claims that don’t comport.

Do you see the difference? What is it that constitutes true, justified belief? And how do you know that you know? Can you see instances of where science or scientific conclusions go completely counter to what God (the owner) has said in His revelation (the Scriptures) to man (His created entity) about His universe? Things like: who He is, what He has done, and what is man’s condition and how to rectify it? I’m sure you can.

Our God-created earth as seen from LRO orbiting our God-created moon. Gen. 1:1-31

It is God that owns His universe. He created it—He owns it. His ownership of the universe means He decides the rules, not you or me. His ownership means He decides its beginning and end, which kingdoms rise and which kingdoms fall, what happens on earth here and what happens out in the cosmos there. His ownership of the universe means He should be honored for it. Do you think most people realize this and honor Him? I tell you, no, most people do not honor God for His ownership of the universe, including His ownership of they themselves.

This then is the seduction of our age, and is its prevailing philosophy. Be aware of the hidden presupposition of scientism in speaking to your friends and loved ones, mis hijas y hijo. Most people will have this unstated assumption in their opinions and speech, and must be challenged on it. Why?

“because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).

(P.S. If you understand that one truth, mis hijas y hijo, that there is no one who stands before you that does not know God, it will empower you like nothing else will. There is no one; not friend, not parent, not sister, not brother, not the lost tribes in the deepest jungle, that does not already know God, and that He exists and is There, then you will never be hesitant or afraid in your speech or words in speaking about that knowledge. It will give you a confidence like nothing you’ve ever imagined.)

All my love,

Dad

Vaya con Dios!

Do You Have a Biblical Worldview?

Dearest hijas,

What is a Biblical worldview, and do you have one? A recent study by The American Culture and Faith Institute (ACFI) was seeking to determine how many Americans use the Bible as their filter for reality, to determine right from wrong, and to shape their beliefs, attitudes, and actions.

Shockingly, only 4% of millennials qualified to have a Biblical worldview. These are the next generation of pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, Sunday school teachers, and parents!

Here’s the link to the article:

https://answersingenesis.org/culture/study-shows-only-10-percent-americans-have-biblical-worldview/

Make sure your worldview is Biblical, mis hijas. It starts with a proper understanding that God is Creator, that you and I are creatures (the thing created). The world is not an emanation from God’s essence, one piece of God, if you like, but that the created world is entirely and irrevocably distinct from God. As creatures of God, we are capable of fellowship with God however.

It entails the absolute tripersonality of God. God is absolute personality, and because He is absolute, He is self-sufficient and self-existent, and therefore does not depend on anything else. He knows, He loves, He speaks. He is not just personal, but tripersonal, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This has important philosophical implications and answers the age-old philosophical problem of the one and the many (universals and particulars). God is both one and many, and has made a universe that is both one and many.

As to the relationship between Creator and creature, the Bible’s description of this relationship is lordship. God is LORD, and creation is His servant. God’s Lordship entails His control, authority, and presence. God controls all things according to His will. His authority is His right to be obeyed. His presence is His nearness to His creation and His intimate relationships with it.

We also know that a Biblical worldview describes man’s condition. Everyone of us, dead and lost in sin, in rebellion against our Creator. Everyone of us in need of an answer to our sin problem; an answer that can only be found in an acceptance of Christ’s death on the cross in our behalf, as a substitute for the death we rightly deserve.

With love,
Dad
Vaya con Dios mis hijas

Are you confident of your knowledge?

Dear hijas,

As an aside from our series on radiometric dating, I encourage you to read Dr. Jason Lisle’s new blog post on epistemology: or how do you know you know, found here:

http://www.jasonlisle.com/2013/09/06/are-you-epistemologically-self-conscious/

It dovetails with our earlier series on philosophy and Christianity and is a good reminder of one of the many differences between the Christian worldview and the secular worldview on knowledge: where it comes from and how you can trust it.

Dr. Lisle asks a great question: “Are you epistemologically self-conscious?”

With love I remain,

Dear ol’ Dad

Vaya con Dios mis hijas

The Altogether Grand Other Who Speaks

Dear hijas,

The Judeo-Christian position for the answer to the problem of knowing is that of God’s self-existence, as well as self-contained knowledge existing in the triune Godhead before there was anything else. And by ‘anything else’, I mean everything that we see and observe on earth, in the skies with our telescopes, and under the seas with our cameras. This altogether grand Other, the infinite-personal God of Judeo-Christianity created ‘from nothing’ everything that is ‘there’, including man in His image. It is because He has spoken that the epistemological question is answered. The Judeo-Christian answer posits two levels of existence: God’s existence as self-contained, infinite, and personal, and man’s existence as derived, personal, and finite. We see the level of God’s knowledge as absolutely comprehensive, and the level of man’s knowledge which is not comprehensive, but derivative and reinterpretative. Our knowledge is rational because God is ultimately rational. So how does He speak?

Let me answer that question by telling a story. Suppose there is this altogether Grand Other who is omniscient in knowledge, omnipotent in power, omnibenevolent in love and goodness, perfect in every way our minds can conceive of perfection, existing as tri-unity: three Persons, one Godhead, sharing love and communion with each other before anything existed. Eternal, from which there is no cause, always having been there. Then suppose He created ‘from nothing’ everything that now exists, including man and woman and placed them on a rotating mass of ground (earth), spinning around a bigger mass of light(the sun), with other rotating and spinning masses in the skies above this man and woman He has created.

Now suppose, because He is infinite, everything else would be limited in contrast to His enough-ness, or infinite-ness. Man and woman are created as personal on the side of His personalness, yet finite as opposed to His infinite-ness. Would it be strange to think that this infinite, uncreated Personal, would not want to communicate to the created, limited personal to which He has created? To tell them of what He has done, the nature of the things around them, and something of Himself as their uncreated Creator? Of course, if this uncreated Personal were to communicate to this created personal, He would not exhaust Himself in His communication, but would tell her things that are true. He would not lie, for what would be the purpose?

It would also not be unexpected, if the uncreated Personal really cared for the created personal, to speak of things in a propositional nature; to communicate in the same way that the created personal communicates to other created personals. As a limited, finite reference point, the created personal if she began with herself, would not be able to know everything there is to know about everything if this uncreated Personal didn’t tell her those things. Of course, she wouldn’t know everything because that would make her God, wouldn’t it, but at minimum she would know those things that the uncreated Personal wanted her to know, and those things He wanted her to know would be true. Because He created the world she lives on, and the universe she lives in, He would also create in her a spirit of discovery; a rational mind to uncover other things about herself and the world around her. Her knowledge of those things would need to be in relation to Him; analogical to His knowledge though for them to be true to what is, and true to His creation of those things in the first place.

What we have in the above then, is exactly what the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, the Bible, claims for itself. It claims to be propositional revelation from the uncreated Personal to the created personal in verbalized form. God speaks, and we have His knowledge as non-created Personal, perfect and infinite, to tell us what He wants us to know as the created, finite personal.

Would it be wise to listen to what He has to say?

(Source: Francis A. Schaeffer, He is There and He is not Silent, Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL, 1984).

Vaya con Dios mis hijas,

Dear ol’ Dad

Is Anyone ‘There’ to Speak?

Dear hijas,

Is there anyone there to speak? What a simple and profound question. Does man, being finite, gather enough facts, enough particulars, and try to make her own universals, her own overarching unifying truth? Can she do this with her reasoning powers alone? Where does she start? Her life is only 80-90 years, can she just begin with herself? Or must she go back further than herself, gathering the knowledge of these things from past generations? But where does she stop unless she goes back to some beginning of all things? Is there an answer somewhere back there along the line, or must she go back to when it all began? And what beginning does she choose, an impersonal beginning, or a personal one?

You see, she’s trying to answer the question of who she is, of ‘what’ is this world she is born into, of what purpose or meaning for her existence, if any, there is, and how she knows. What does it all mean, what can I believe is true, and what is not true? This is the epistemological problem she faces, trying to make sense of all the particulars in her life, and tying them into one overarching unity. The one and the many, particulars and universals, diversity and unity. Is there an answer?

There is no satisfactory answer if she chooses the impersonal beginning. If she’s honest with herself, and this is right where she is, that’s what has caused the confusion in the first place. But if she begins with the personal, and the Judeo-Christian infinite-personal God, then there is someone there to speak. He’s personal, on the same side as she is personal, yet He’s infinite, to her finiteness. He is the creator of all else, and therefore does speak. He speaks about Himself, His character, His attributes, so that she can know who He is, not exhaustively but truly, and He speaks about history and the cosmos, so that she can know things about herself and the world around her. She has an answer to the nature of reality, to who she is, and to her existence and place in this vast universe. He speaks and answers her questions about meaning and purpose, about values and ethics, not exhaustively but truly. He speaks and answers her most deep and profound questions about life and death, and what happens after death. His answers bring the satisfaction that was missing for her. They make sense and are truly fulfilling. They bring peace to her troubled soul.

It is on the side of the personal-infinite God of the Judeo-Christian system, on the basis of propositional, verbalized revelation, that God speaks and provides these answers to her epistemological problem, the problem of knowing. He is the Creator, she is the creature, and it is on this basis that what He says will be true to what is. There will be no error, for everything comes from Him. The question of knowing is solved in Him and in what He has spoken and she can rest, satisfied that His knowledge is perfect knowledge.

Vaya con Dios mis hijas,

Dear ol’ Dad

Man’s Greatest Need

Dear hijas,

Modern man doesn’t ‘know’ who she is. One of the biggest questions she faces in life is to try and find an answer to ‘who’ am I? She either struggles with this question all her life in some form or another, or she faces it once in a while, thinks she knows the answer, and pushes it away, moving on with daily living. But for what purpose?

The more thoughtful of her kind will realize that if she is just the byproduct of a long impersonal evolutionary process, kicked up out of the pond scum by blind chance, then in reality, she’s nothing more than a cog in the machine; a nothing really, in an empty, meaningless universe. She sees only silence in the things that man desperately needs most—values, ethics, purpose, and meaning. Many people come to this sad state of affairs. The suicide rates all over the world are testament to some aspect of this. No purpose, no meaning, nothing to live for. Might as well die.

This question of ‘knowing’ who she is, is part and parcel to the epistemological question we’ve been discussing. Her greatest need is to ‘know’ herself; to ‘know’ what purpose she is here on earth, what meaning there is to her existence. And no matter how much she knows she needs these things, she comes to the conclusion that there is only silence.

Her greatest ‘need’ is to know whether there is anyone adequately ‘there’ in the universe to speak. Her deepest longing and question becomes, “Can someone please say something?”

Vaya con Dios mis hijas,

Dear ol’ Dad