God not only caused the universe to come into being, he also causes the world to continue to be: “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1.17). The second form of the cosmological argument is the “vertical argument”, which aims to demonstrate the continuing need for a creator. The most famous proponent of this argument was Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274). It aims to answer the question: “why is there something right now, rather than nothing?” It basically rolls out as follows:
Something is keeping us in existence right now so we don’t just disappear. Something not only caused the world to come into being but something causes it to continue to be. The world needs both an originating cause and a conserving cause. This can be demonstrated by the following argument:
b.) A Conserving Cause
1. Every part of the universe is dependant.
2. If every part is dependant, then the whole universe must be dependant.
3. Therefore, the whole universe is dependant for existence right now on some Independent Being.
It can be argued that the second premise is faulty. After all, who is to say the whole universe is dependant? The whole universe may have a characteristic quite different to that possessed by its parts. However, intuitively at least, we must say that there is a necessary connection between the parts and the whole. If every piece of a floor is a tile, then the floor is tile. If every part of the universe is dependant, the universe is a dependant entity. Being dependant is the nature of the universe.
One dependant being cannot sustain another dependant being. I cannot will you to continue to exist; you exist, or cease to exist, independently of my will. I cannot, by the sheer dint of my personal efforts, eradicate the fact of death in the world, or put a stop to the birth rate that persists day-by-day. Similarly, I am dependant on factors outside my control. There is an infinite array of factors and mechanisms I am not even aware of that are presently sustaining my very life. There is a fundamental dependency that defines life in this universe. We are dependant on factors and forces that we are powerless to stop or influence. The same goes for every life-form on the face of the earth. There are factors that inevitably support life and factors which immediately cause death, irrespective of our perceived ability to be independent of circumstances around us. We are dependant beings. If we, and indeed every part of the universe is dependant (whether dependant on life-supporting factors (for example, oxygen) or basic physical laws (for example, gravity or very precise molecular and atomic make-up), it follows that the whole universe (being the sum of its parts) is dependant on some Independent Being for its existence right now.
Ultimately, the whole universe cannot be greater than its parts; if the contingent (dependant) parts which make up the universe as a whole were to vanish then the whole universe would vanish. Evidently then, the whole universe is basically dependant. This coheres with the Biblical witness found in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. In God all things hold together and have their being; “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1.17). The universe is dependant on its existence, moment by moment, on the God who created it from nothing in the beginning.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Jesus Of Nazareth Is The Only Hope For Any Person
Jesus of Nazareth is the only hope for any person
"Hopelessnes is hell - literally. As God made us to fulfil a function and attain an end (for 'man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever'), so he made us creatures for whom hope is life, and whose lives become living deaths when we have nothing good to look forward to. As the deep hopelessness of pose-Christian western culture tightens its chilly grip on us, we are made to feel this increasingly, and so can better appreciate the infinite value of life today of that exuberant, unstoppable, intoxicating, energizing hope of joy with Jesus in the Father's presence for ever which is so pervasive a mark of New Testament Christianity.
Whereas those without Christ are without God and without hope, living already in a dusk of the spirit that is destined to grow darker and colder, Christians are in the sunshine, endlessly rejoicing in 'Christ Jesus our hope'. The inescapable alternatives are false hope (Marxism? spiritism? happiness through having things? endless good health? - false hopes, every one), or else no hope (total pessimism, inviting suicide), or else Christian hope, the electrifying knowledge of 'Christ in you, the hope of glory'. It is a pity that so little is heard these days about what has been called 'the unknown world with its well-known inhabitant' to which the New Testament teaches Christians to look forward; for, as the hymn says: 'The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land,' and declaring that glory is part of what it means to relate the New Testament witness to the person of Jesus Christ."
- J. I. Packer, "Jesus Christ is Lord" in The J.I Packer Collection, ed. Alister E. McGrath
"Hopelessnes is hell - literally. As God made us to fulfil a function and attain an end (for 'man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever'), so he made us creatures for whom hope is life, and whose lives become living deaths when we have nothing good to look forward to. As the deep hopelessness of pose-Christian western culture tightens its chilly grip on us, we are made to feel this increasingly, and so can better appreciate the infinite value of life today of that exuberant, unstoppable, intoxicating, energizing hope of joy with Jesus in the Father's presence for ever which is so pervasive a mark of New Testament Christianity.
Whereas those without Christ are without God and without hope, living already in a dusk of the spirit that is destined to grow darker and colder, Christians are in the sunshine, endlessly rejoicing in 'Christ Jesus our hope'. The inescapable alternatives are false hope (Marxism? spiritism? happiness through having things? endless good health? - false hopes, every one), or else no hope (total pessimism, inviting suicide), or else Christian hope, the electrifying knowledge of 'Christ in you, the hope of glory'. It is a pity that so little is heard these days about what has been called 'the unknown world with its well-known inhabitant' to which the New Testament teaches Christians to look forward; for, as the hymn says: 'The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land,' and declaring that glory is part of what it means to relate the New Testament witness to the person of Jesus Christ."
- J. I. Packer, "Jesus Christ is Lord" in The J.I Packer Collection, ed. Alister E. McGrath
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Limits of Apologetics
A Comment From the Mountainous Commentary Back-Log of This Blog: A Helpful Insight Into the Limits of Rational Argument
Below is a very helpful comment left by an astute reader of the post, "Haworth 10 Ways #1: The Cosmological Argument". In pithy, clear terms this comment states the conumdrum with which we set out: logic and reason, in and of themselves and unaided by divine revelation, can lead us to a god who is a conceptual idol and not the living God of Scripture. God is the Triune God who has revealed himself in the acts recorded in the Bible and the words recorded there which interpet these acts for us. This God is so different to the god who is merely the "cause" of the universe.
But, of course, (and I never thought of this as I am more-or-less philosophically illiterate) the concept of causality we begin with will dictate the god we end up positing as the creator of the universe. See the inventory below: Aristotle, Plato, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Aquinas...Hinduism - each begin with a different conception of causality which inevitably moulds their conception of deity in radical ways. None of the definitions of God these philsophers/theologian/elephantine religious culture offer is a conception that accurately squares with, or reflects fully, the God revealed in the Book of Scripture. This, as noted below, is not surprising: in each case, a particular conception of causality moulds a particular conception of deity. For example, for Marx, causality is the strictly physical motion among material bodies. This conception of causality is purely materialist; God, therefore, is a mere figment of the human imagination.
We must recognise that even the most sophisticated emloyment of reason and logic will only in the end demonstrate the reasonableness of belief as opposed to the reality of the Triune God. However, to demonstrate the reasonableness of belief in God does perhaps go some way to open the mind of the unbeliever. Apologetics and rational argument, in that sense, are very much preliminaries; challenging the mind-set of scepticism in a bid to prepare the ground for a more open-minded hearing of the gospel.
Read on...
Hi Jeremy,
I think that the cosmological argument (and the other traditional proofs) are an encouragement to the faith of believers. But if the syllogism looks something like this:
If there is causality, God exists
There is causality
Therefore, God exists
then an unbeliever is already starting with an idea of "God" that is something other than the Triune God of Scripture, and therefore, his or her definition of "causality" will be different, too. Consider what the following people believed about "God":
Aristotle: "impersonal, unmoved mover" or "thought thinking itself"
Plato: "demiurge who made the world according to metaphysically ultimate forms"
Hume: "unprovable hypothesis"
Kant: "hypothetical and rationally unknown lawgiver"
Hegel: "combination of temporal and eternal reality in process"
Marx: "figment of the human imagination"
Hinudism: "sum total of reality"
Aquinas: "first cause or unmoved mover"
In light of those definitions, it should not be surprising what those men believed about causality:
Aristotle: "impersonal principle of explanation"
Plato: "principle which yields opinion and not knowledge"
Hume: "mental habit"
Kant: "constitutive synthetic a priori category of the understanding"
Hegel: "provisional category in the development of the Absolute"
Marx: "strictly physical interaction among material bodies"
Hinduism: "illusion"
Aquinas: "principle that objects move when acted upon by another"
I would think that the Christian theist would want to say that "God" is the Triune God who has revealed himself in redemptive deeds in history and interpretive words in the Bible. Therefore, "causality" is the providential outworking of His eternal decree.But you'll notice in the video in the next post, that the gentleman from Western Michigan doesn't have a category for God being the cause of the universe. He wants some sort of natural explanation precisely because he is starting with a something like a Marxian definition of "God." I don't even think William Lane Craig would be comfortable with the definition of causality I've given above. But that is because he is starting with some "divine" attributes that he wants to start with, not taking into account the totality of what God has revealed about himself.
Below is a very helpful comment left by an astute reader of the post, "Haworth 10 Ways #1: The Cosmological Argument". In pithy, clear terms this comment states the conumdrum with which we set out: logic and reason, in and of themselves and unaided by divine revelation, can lead us to a god who is a conceptual idol and not the living God of Scripture. God is the Triune God who has revealed himself in the acts recorded in the Bible and the words recorded there which interpet these acts for us. This God is so different to the god who is merely the "cause" of the universe.
But, of course, (and I never thought of this as I am more-or-less philosophically illiterate) the concept of causality we begin with will dictate the god we end up positing as the creator of the universe. See the inventory below: Aristotle, Plato, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Aquinas...Hinduism - each begin with a different conception of causality which inevitably moulds their conception of deity in radical ways. None of the definitions of God these philsophers/theologian/elephantine religious culture offer is a conception that accurately squares with, or reflects fully, the God revealed in the Book of Scripture. This, as noted below, is not surprising: in each case, a particular conception of causality moulds a particular conception of deity. For example, for Marx, causality is the strictly physical motion among material bodies. This conception of causality is purely materialist; God, therefore, is a mere figment of the human imagination.
We must recognise that even the most sophisticated emloyment of reason and logic will only in the end demonstrate the reasonableness of belief as opposed to the reality of the Triune God. However, to demonstrate the reasonableness of belief in God does perhaps go some way to open the mind of the unbeliever. Apologetics and rational argument, in that sense, are very much preliminaries; challenging the mind-set of scepticism in a bid to prepare the ground for a more open-minded hearing of the gospel.
Read on...
Hi Jeremy,
I think that the cosmological argument (and the other traditional proofs) are an encouragement to the faith of believers. But if the syllogism looks something like this:
If there is causality, God exists
There is causality
Therefore, God exists
then an unbeliever is already starting with an idea of "God" that is something other than the Triune God of Scripture, and therefore, his or her definition of "causality" will be different, too. Consider what the following people believed about "God":
Aristotle: "impersonal, unmoved mover" or "thought thinking itself"
Plato: "demiurge who made the world according to metaphysically ultimate forms"
Hume: "unprovable hypothesis"
Kant: "hypothetical and rationally unknown lawgiver"
Hegel: "combination of temporal and eternal reality in process"
Marx: "figment of the human imagination"
Hinudism: "sum total of reality"
Aquinas: "first cause or unmoved mover"
In light of those definitions, it should not be surprising what those men believed about causality:
Aristotle: "impersonal principle of explanation"
Plato: "principle which yields opinion and not knowledge"
Hume: "mental habit"
Kant: "constitutive synthetic a priori category of the understanding"
Hegel: "provisional category in the development of the Absolute"
Marx: "strictly physical interaction among material bodies"
Hinduism: "illusion"
Aquinas: "principle that objects move when acted upon by another"
I would think that the Christian theist would want to say that "God" is the Triune God who has revealed himself in redemptive deeds in history and interpretive words in the Bible. Therefore, "causality" is the providential outworking of His eternal decree.But you'll notice in the video in the next post, that the gentleman from Western Michigan doesn't have a category for God being the cause of the universe. He wants some sort of natural explanation precisely because he is starting with a something like a Marxian definition of "God." I don't even think William Lane Craig would be comfortable with the definition of causality I've given above. But that is because he is starting with some "divine" attributes that he wants to start with, not taking into account the totality of what God has revealed about himself.
Hmm. Well said.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Haworth's 10 Ways #1: The Cosmological Argument (Part I)
The best known arguments for God’s existence are the cosmological argument, the teleological argument and the ontological argument. Respectively, these are the arguments from creation (from the Greek word, cosmos meaning “universe” or “world”), the idea of perfect being (ontos, meaning “reality” or “being”) and the apparent design of the universe (telos, meaning “end” or “purpose”).
Haworth's 10 Ways #1: The Cosmological Argument
There is a something rather than nothing. That is, there is a universe rather than nothing at all. This universe must have been caused by something beyond itself. The law of causality says that every finite thing is caused by something other than itself. In other words, nothing comes from nothing. Only what exists can cause existence, since the very concept of “cause” implies that some existing thing has the power to have an effect on another. From absolutely nothing comes absolutely nothing. This can be stated another way: if there were ever absolutely nothing (including God), then there would always be absolutely nothing (including God.) Everything that comes to be has a cause.
So, given that the universe exists (and this is undeniable) on the basis of a cause, the existence of God can be demonstrated as being the cause of the universe. There are two basic forms of this argument. The first is the kalam cosmological argument (the “horizontal argument”), which argues in a linear fashion back to the beginning of time. It was first formulated by Arab philosophers in the middle ages. It rolls out as follows:
a.) A Cause at the Beginning: The universe had a beginning. Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else. Therefore the universe was caused by something else (a Creator).
Once you have stated this simple argument, you can go on to support it on the basis of an appeal to scientific evidence. For example, according to the second law of thermodynamics, in a closed, isolated system such as the universe, the amount of usable energy is decreasing. The universe is running down and therefore it cannot be eternal. The widely accepted Big Bang Theory offers major support for this argument. According to this view, the universe exploded into being roughly 15-20 billion years ago. Evidence offered for the Big Bang includes the 1) “red shift” or Doppler effect noticed in the light from stars as they rapidly move away from on another (this movement being caused by an explosion of unthinkable force); 2) the radiation echo from space, which has the same wavelength that would be given off by a gigantic cosmic explosion; 3) discovery of a mass of energy such as would be expected from an initial, cosmic explosion.
Obviously, science cannot offer an explanation for such a cosmic explosion. The scientific pursuit is limited within the bounds of the material universe; it cannot stretch beyond the moment of creation. However, if the universe did come into being at a fixed point in time (as science does demonstrate) then it is very reasonable to conclude that there was a Creator who brought it into being. Thus, basic scientific evidence, as well as intuitive logic, provides compelling evidence for the Biblical witness: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1.1). The universe as a whole does not explain its own existence; as such, it calls for an explanation beyond itself. The most reasonable answer it that there was a first, self-sufficient (independent) cause of the whole universe. That cause is God, who created all things out of nothing.
There is also philosophical evidence that backs up this argument. Time cannot go back into the past forever, because it is actually impossible to pass through an infinite number of moments. If there truly are an infinite number of moments then we would never be able to locate a fixed point of beginning. It is impossible to locate the starting point of infinity; it stretches back in time forever. Furthermore, we have just demonstrated (on the basis of an appeal to science) that the universe did indeed begin at a fixed point in time. As such, there cannot be an infinite number of moments. Time must have had a beginning. If the world never had a beginning, then we could not have reached now. But, we have reached now so time must have begun at a particular point and proceeded to today. Therefore, the world is a finite event after all and needs a cause for its beginning.
This argument can be summarised:
1. An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed.
2. If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never come.
3. But today has come.
4. Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (the universe had a beginning).
5. But whatever had a beginning is caused by something else.
6. Hence: there muse be a Cause (Creator) of the universe.
...But that is not all: God not only caused the universe to come into being, he also causes the world to continue to be: “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1.17). The second form of the cosmological argument is the “vertical argument”, which aims to demonstrate the continuing need for a creator. The most famous proponent of this argument was Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274). It aims to answer the question: “why is there something right now, rather than nothing?” Tune in for the next post in which we will look at this form of the cosmological argument.
Haworth's 10 Ways #1: The Cosmological Argument
There is a something rather than nothing. That is, there is a universe rather than nothing at all. This universe must have been caused by something beyond itself. The law of causality says that every finite thing is caused by something other than itself. In other words, nothing comes from nothing. Only what exists can cause existence, since the very concept of “cause” implies that some existing thing has the power to have an effect on another. From absolutely nothing comes absolutely nothing. This can be stated another way: if there were ever absolutely nothing (including God), then there would always be absolutely nothing (including God.) Everything that comes to be has a cause.
So, given that the universe exists (and this is undeniable) on the basis of a cause, the existence of God can be demonstrated as being the cause of the universe. There are two basic forms of this argument. The first is the kalam cosmological argument (the “horizontal argument”), which argues in a linear fashion back to the beginning of time. It was first formulated by Arab philosophers in the middle ages. It rolls out as follows:
a.) A Cause at the Beginning: The universe had a beginning. Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else. Therefore the universe was caused by something else (a Creator).
Once you have stated this simple argument, you can go on to support it on the basis of an appeal to scientific evidence. For example, according to the second law of thermodynamics, in a closed, isolated system such as the universe, the amount of usable energy is decreasing. The universe is running down and therefore it cannot be eternal. The widely accepted Big Bang Theory offers major support for this argument. According to this view, the universe exploded into being roughly 15-20 billion years ago. Evidence offered for the Big Bang includes the 1) “red shift” or Doppler effect noticed in the light from stars as they rapidly move away from on another (this movement being caused by an explosion of unthinkable force); 2) the radiation echo from space, which has the same wavelength that would be given off by a gigantic cosmic explosion; 3) discovery of a mass of energy such as would be expected from an initial, cosmic explosion.
Obviously, science cannot offer an explanation for such a cosmic explosion. The scientific pursuit is limited within the bounds of the material universe; it cannot stretch beyond the moment of creation. However, if the universe did come into being at a fixed point in time (as science does demonstrate) then it is very reasonable to conclude that there was a Creator who brought it into being. Thus, basic scientific evidence, as well as intuitive logic, provides compelling evidence for the Biblical witness: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1.1). The universe as a whole does not explain its own existence; as such, it calls for an explanation beyond itself. The most reasonable answer it that there was a first, self-sufficient (independent) cause of the whole universe. That cause is God, who created all things out of nothing.
There is also philosophical evidence that backs up this argument. Time cannot go back into the past forever, because it is actually impossible to pass through an infinite number of moments. If there truly are an infinite number of moments then we would never be able to locate a fixed point of beginning. It is impossible to locate the starting point of infinity; it stretches back in time forever. Furthermore, we have just demonstrated (on the basis of an appeal to science) that the universe did indeed begin at a fixed point in time. As such, there cannot be an infinite number of moments. Time must have had a beginning. If the world never had a beginning, then we could not have reached now. But, we have reached now so time must have begun at a particular point and proceeded to today. Therefore, the world is a finite event after all and needs a cause for its beginning.
This argument can be summarised:
1. An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed.
2. If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never come.
3. But today has come.
4. Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (the universe had a beginning).
5. But whatever had a beginning is caused by something else.
6. Hence: there muse be a Cause (Creator) of the universe.
...But that is not all: God not only caused the universe to come into being, he also causes the world to continue to be: “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1.17). The second form of the cosmological argument is the “vertical argument”, which aims to demonstrate the continuing need for a creator. The most famous proponent of this argument was Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274). It aims to answer the question: “why is there something right now, rather than nothing?” Tune in for the next post in which we will look at this form of the cosmological argument.
Ad Hoc Apologetics: Haworth's 10 Ways
Haworth’s 10 Ways: (Roughly) 10 Arguments for the Existence of God
This following series of brief posts will purport to examine (roughly) 10 proofs for the existence of God. In imitation of Aquinas’ magisterial 5 Ways, I am advocating an ad hoc 10 Ways. Overall, I think Haworth’s 10 Ways contains seven fairly strong arguments and three that are arguably quite weak. Each Way (or proof) is simply a ‘snap-shot’ image of a much wider and labyrinthine argument, elaborated at one time or another over the course of last two millennia – whether that be the early ‘cosmological argument’ of Paul in Acts 17, the 5 Ways articulated by Aquinas in his Summa or the recent innovations of Alvin Plantinga, a living Christian philosopher. Haworth’s 10 Ways are therefore intended as mere tools, bite-size proofs that can be used in a kind of scatter-bomb way as one discusses the existence of God over a pint.
Arguably (this is not a question resolvable in the space of this short post), reason can never prove the existence of the living God outright. Many believe any given argument, no matter how effective, ultimately only presents a conceptual cipher or a mental idol. In other words, arguments of the kind to follow can conjur the so-called "god of the philosophers" but not the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a remarkable philosopher, mathematician and physicist who lived during the seventeenth century in France. In 1654, at the age of thirty-one, Pascal underwent an incredible conversion experience. He recorded it on a piece of parchment that was found sewn into his clothing after his death. It appears that he carried it with him at all times. It reads as follows:
Year of Grace 1654
Monday 23 November, feast of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr, and others in the Martyrology.
Eve of St. Chrysogonus, martyr and others.
From about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight,
FIRE
“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), not of philosophers and scholars.
Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
God of Jesus Christ.
“My God and Your God” (John 20:17).
“Your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16).
The world forgotten, everything except God.
He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.
Greatness of the human soul.
“O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You” (John 17:25).
Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from him.
“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
“My God, will you leave me?” (cf. Matthew 27:46).
Let me not be cut off from him for ever!
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I am separated from him; for I have shunned him, denied him, crucified him.
May I never be separated from him.
He can only be kept by the ways taught in the gospel.
Complete and sweet renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Everlasting joy in return for one’s day’s striving upon earth.
“I will not neglect your Word” (Psalm 119:16). Amen.
As an outstanding religious thinker, Pascal had painstakingly examined and developed the conceptual arguments for the existence of God. However, it was only with his conversion experience at the age of thirty-one, that his mind blazed with the burning conviction of being consumed by the fire of God’s immediate presence. He calls the all-consuming presence the "“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), not of philosophers and scholars”. The God Pascal encountered was the One whom the concepts and argumentation of philosophy completely failed to grasp. In the presence of such a God, Pascal cries “Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.”
Pascal had stood before God’s presence and the reality of God himself. In the aftermath, he would never again identify the living, Personal-Infinite God with philosophical concepts and clever argumentation. “The world forgotten, everything except God...He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.”
As Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) once remarked (when asked why he never debated God’s existence in public):
“…God is not to be discussed and debated. God is not a subject for debate, because He is Who He is and What He is. We are told that the unbeliever, of course, does not agree with that; and that is perfectly true; but that makes no difference. We believe it, and it is part of our very case to assert it. Holding the view that we do, believing what we do about God, we cannot in any circumstances allow Him to become a subject for discussion or of debate or investigation. I base my argument at this point on the word addressed by God Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:1-6). Moses had suddenly seen this remarkable phenomenon of the burning bush, and was proposing to turn aside and examine this astonishing phenomenon. But, immediately, he is rebuked by the voice which came to him saying, ‘Draw no nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ That seems to me to be the governing principle in this whole matter. Our attitude is more important than anything we do in detail, and as we are reminded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, God is always to be approached ‘with reverence and with godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:28 and 29)…To me this is a very vital matter. To discuss the being of God in a casual manner, lounging in an armchair, smoking a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar, is to me something that we should never allow, because God, as I say, is not a philosophic X or a concept. We believe in the almighty, the glorious, the living God; and whatever may be true of others we must never put ourselves, or allow ourselves to be put, into a position in which we are debating about God as if he were but a philosophical proposition. To me this is an overriding consideration which is enough in and of itself...”
As Martyn Lloyd-Jones makes clear, God is no mere philosophical concept. He is the living God of Moses. As such, when we speak to others about this God, contending for his existence and supremacy, we ought to remain aware that we are not speaking about a neutral philosophical X. Although Martyn Lloyd-Jones is speaking here mainly to full-time preachers, his words apply as much to those of us seeking to share the gospel with our peers in day-to-day life. In a sense, as soon as we open our mouths to speak about God and share the gospel, we are preaching. We are speaking of truth and a “theology on fire”. The God we serve “is a consuming fire” who can not be reduced to neat philosophical propositions.
Nonetheless, (and perhaps in opposition to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones is arguing for above) philosophical proofs can be useful and helpful aids that can help demonstrate the reasonableness of belief in God. Haworth’s 10 Ways comprise a humble effort to enable us to do just that.
Signing Off -
The Scribbling Apprentice
This following series of brief posts will purport to examine (roughly) 10 proofs for the existence of God. In imitation of Aquinas’ magisterial 5 Ways, I am advocating an ad hoc 10 Ways. Overall, I think Haworth’s 10 Ways contains seven fairly strong arguments and three that are arguably quite weak. Each Way (or proof) is simply a ‘snap-shot’ image of a much wider and labyrinthine argument, elaborated at one time or another over the course of last two millennia – whether that be the early ‘cosmological argument’ of Paul in Acts 17, the 5 Ways articulated by Aquinas in his Summa or the recent innovations of Alvin Plantinga, a living Christian philosopher. Haworth’s 10 Ways are therefore intended as mere tools, bite-size proofs that can be used in a kind of scatter-bomb way as one discusses the existence of God over a pint.
Arguably (this is not a question resolvable in the space of this short post), reason can never prove the existence of the living God outright. Many believe any given argument, no matter how effective, ultimately only presents a conceptual cipher or a mental idol. In other words, arguments of the kind to follow can conjur the so-called "god of the philosophers" but not the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a remarkable philosopher, mathematician and physicist who lived during the seventeenth century in France. In 1654, at the age of thirty-one, Pascal underwent an incredible conversion experience. He recorded it on a piece of parchment that was found sewn into his clothing after his death. It appears that he carried it with him at all times. It reads as follows:
Year of Grace 1654
Monday 23 November, feast of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr, and others in the Martyrology.
Eve of St. Chrysogonus, martyr and others.
From about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight,
FIRE
“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), not of philosophers and scholars.
Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
God of Jesus Christ.
“My God and Your God” (John 20:17).
“Your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16).
The world forgotten, everything except God.
He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.
Greatness of the human soul.
“O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You” (John 17:25).
Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from him.
“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
“My God, will you leave me?” (cf. Matthew 27:46).
Let me not be cut off from him for ever!
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I am separated from him; for I have shunned him, denied him, crucified him.
May I never be separated from him.
He can only be kept by the ways taught in the gospel.
Complete and sweet renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Everlasting joy in return for one’s day’s striving upon earth.
“I will not neglect your Word” (Psalm 119:16). Amen.
As an outstanding religious thinker, Pascal had painstakingly examined and developed the conceptual arguments for the existence of God. However, it was only with his conversion experience at the age of thirty-one, that his mind blazed with the burning conviction of being consumed by the fire of God’s immediate presence. He calls the all-consuming presence the "“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), not of philosophers and scholars”. The God Pascal encountered was the One whom the concepts and argumentation of philosophy completely failed to grasp. In the presence of such a God, Pascal cries “Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.”
Pascal had stood before God’s presence and the reality of God himself. In the aftermath, he would never again identify the living, Personal-Infinite God with philosophical concepts and clever argumentation. “The world forgotten, everything except God...He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.”
As Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) once remarked (when asked why he never debated God’s existence in public):
“…God is not to be discussed and debated. God is not a subject for debate, because He is Who He is and What He is. We are told that the unbeliever, of course, does not agree with that; and that is perfectly true; but that makes no difference. We believe it, and it is part of our very case to assert it. Holding the view that we do, believing what we do about God, we cannot in any circumstances allow Him to become a subject for discussion or of debate or investigation. I base my argument at this point on the word addressed by God Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:1-6). Moses had suddenly seen this remarkable phenomenon of the burning bush, and was proposing to turn aside and examine this astonishing phenomenon. But, immediately, he is rebuked by the voice which came to him saying, ‘Draw no nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ That seems to me to be the governing principle in this whole matter. Our attitude is more important than anything we do in detail, and as we are reminded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, God is always to be approached ‘with reverence and with godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:28 and 29)…To me this is a very vital matter. To discuss the being of God in a casual manner, lounging in an armchair, smoking a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar, is to me something that we should never allow, because God, as I say, is not a philosophic X or a concept. We believe in the almighty, the glorious, the living God; and whatever may be true of others we must never put ourselves, or allow ourselves to be put, into a position in which we are debating about God as if he were but a philosophical proposition. To me this is an overriding consideration which is enough in and of itself...”
As Martyn Lloyd-Jones makes clear, God is no mere philosophical concept. He is the living God of Moses. As such, when we speak to others about this God, contending for his existence and supremacy, we ought to remain aware that we are not speaking about a neutral philosophical X. Although Martyn Lloyd-Jones is speaking here mainly to full-time preachers, his words apply as much to those of us seeking to share the gospel with our peers in day-to-day life. In a sense, as soon as we open our mouths to speak about God and share the gospel, we are preaching. We are speaking of truth and a “theology on fire”. The God we serve “is a consuming fire” who can not be reduced to neat philosophical propositions.
Nonetheless, (and perhaps in opposition to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones is arguing for above) philosophical proofs can be useful and helpful aids that can help demonstrate the reasonableness of belief in God. Haworth’s 10 Ways comprise a humble effort to enable us to do just that.
Signing Off -
The Scribbling Apprentice
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