DISCOURAGEMENT AND HORROR

Scripture is healing. Jesus had taught that if we continue in His teachings, His Word, we will know the truth and it will gradually set us free (John 8:31-32) from the darkness of our sinful lives. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we see a lot of ugly desires within ourselves. What makes this even more depressing for us are the many Bible verses that condemn these temptations:

·       But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts…For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. (James 3:14, 16 NKJV)

Such temptations seem to be unescapable. Consequently, we become discouraged and think, “Something must be terribly wrong with me or with the Christian faith, because I haven’t been set free from my many temptations to sin.”

We feel condemned already, but should we feel this way? I want to argue that our problem is not with our many temptations and even our evil desires but with our response to them. Do we yield to them or do we resist and flee from them? Do we embrace our evil desires or do we reject them? As the saying goes, “We cannot prevent the birds from flying over our head, but we can prevent them from making their nest in our hair. This is what it means to have “evil envy…in your hearts.” It is a matter of allowing sin to find a nesting place in our heart where we say “yes” to sin.

Let me try to demonstrate this distinction to you. For one thing, the Christian life is always a struggle against our inner desires and temptations:

·       I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. (Galatians 5:16-17 NKJV)

Our fleshly nature isn’t pretty. It always resists the leading of the Spirit. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised by the intense and unceasing battle raging within. Nor should our identity, our self-concept, be based upon the temptations arising from this sinful nature. I like the way Paul put it”

·       For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I [refuse] will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. (Romans 7:15-20)

Paul refused to identify with his sinful temptations, even though he would sometimes give way to them against his will. Instead, Paul regarded the real Paul, the “I,” as someone who wants to follow the Word of God, but sometimes fails.

It’s like having a vicious pit bull on a leash. This dog is not you, but you have responsibility for it and must take responsibility for any injury the dog might cause. However, there is a world of difference between you and someone who purposely allows the pit bull loose to cause injury, especially when this sin is his chosen lifestyle, as John had taught:

·       Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. (1 John 3:9 NLT2)

Therefore, to pursue a sinful lifestyle is in opposition to faith and a life in Christ (1 John 1:7; 2:3-4)

We are not our ugly sinful temptations, at least, not until we embrace these temptations as our masters or friends. Here is the distinction James made:

·       Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)

Therefore, we cannot say, “God gave me this desire; so it cannot be a sin to have a little fling.” Instead, these are our own evil desires, but they do not become sin until they have been embraced by us and “conceives” and “gives birth to sin.” Having the evil desires, therefore, was not sin until we give them birth.

Jesus too, God incarnate, had been afflicted with sinful desires, but without succumbing to them:

·       For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 NKJV)

This proves that experiencing all forms of vile temptations is not sin, because Jesus in the flesh also experienced these temptations. Therefore, we are not our sinful desires but a new creation in Christ who want to please our Master above all else.

Before I understood these principles, I had been tormented by my fleshly sinful temptation that such things could be inside me. However, now the Word has reassured me that it is no longer I who sin but the sin which resides in me. Therefore, I no longer have to be horrified by what I find within.

A TENTATIVE PROOF FOR GOD BASED UPON QUANTUM FINDINGS

I am a non-scientist. I cannot personally vouch for the “findings” of science. Therefore, this proof is very tentative and is based upon a consensus regarding the quantum world. The proof goes like this:

1.    The universe is not material but mind dependent

2.    The human mind cannot account for the universe.

Conclusion: Therefore, there must be a greater Mind – God!

PREMISE #1: The universe is not material but mind-dependent. Many question whether the physical world is comprised of tiny particles, as once supposed. Arjun Walia observes:

·       Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature… Again, what quantum mechanics reveals is that there is no true “physicality” in the universe, that atoms are made of focused vorticies of energy-miniature tornadoes that are constantly popping into and out of existence.  The revelation that the universe is not an assembly of physical parts, suggested by Newtonian physics, and instead comes from a holistic entanglement of immaterial energy waves stems from the work of Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg, among others. http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/12/05/the-illusion-of-matter-our-physical-material-world-isnt-really-physical-at-all/

Others suggest that unstable energy must be underpinned by something that is more stable – immutable thoughts.

PREMISE #2: The human mind cannot account for the universe. Perhaps instead the basic building blocks of this physical world are thoughts. This idea, at least on the micro level, seems to be widely accepted among quantum physicists:

·       A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. (R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005) (14)

James M. Kushner also affirms that:

·       Every prediction quantum theory makes has been tested with consistent results... A photon, for example, may be either a wave or a particle state, but which it appears to be depends on a choice made by the observer... Some scientists like John Wheeler... have reached tentative conclusions:

o   Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists "out there" independent of us, that view cannot longer be upheld. There is a strange sense in which this is a "participatory universe." (Salvo, #32, 64)

While we might be participants, there must be a major Player! If the human mind is able to impact external reality, there clearly seems to be severe limitations in place. We do not seem to be able to impact gravity, the expansion of the universe, or the laws of physics. I can’t even get my wife to think like me! Certain realities of this universe seem to be universal and immutable and impervious to our thinking. Besides, our seven billion inhabitants of this Earth tend to think about the universe in very different ways. Yet the universe moves forward in harmonious and predictable ways.

Any doubt about this should be dispelled by the fact that the laws of physics pre-dated our own existence. Our thinking, therefore, cannot account for them.

Therefore, if the universe is mind-dependent, there must exist a greater mind than ours, omnipotent and unchanging, which can account for the order and stability.

Mathematical verities are also mind dependent. If this is true, this too serves to bolster the above case.

Consider the number 1. It is a concept, an idea. We don’t find the number 1 or 2001 in nature apart from our own conceptualizations of it.

If this is true about the number 1, it is also true about the numbers 2, 3, 4 …. And it must also be true about higher level mathematical constructs, like the Pythagorean Theorem. Through this construct, we are always able to determine the length of the longest side of a right-angle triangle by squaring the two other sides, adding this figure and then determining its square root. Amazingly, this answer is exactly what we find when we actually measure a right angle triangle.

However, we didn’t create this Theorem; we discovered it! Although distinct from the material world, it seems to understand the material world and tell us so much about it.

Likewise, the angles of every triangle contain exactly and invariably 180 degrees. If you were to add a fourth line or side to the triangle, this four-sided figure would contain angles equaling 180 + 180 = 360 degrees. If you would add a fifth line or side to this four-sided figure, it would contain angles equaling 180 + 360 = 540 degrees, ad infinitum.

How can we explain this uniformity, this elegance? Certainly, this isn’t an elegance that we created, but rather discovered. Besides, this uniformity seems to be immutable and universal – traits that transcend our individual, changing minds. However, if mathematics is conceptual and therefore, mind-dependent, but doesn’t depend on our minds, then there must be a universal and immutable Mind that it does depend upon.

To state this another way:

1.    Mathematical truths are conceptual.

2.    They therefore require a mind(s).

3.    Our human minds are not adequate to account for the uniformity, immutability, elegance, and harmony with the “physical” world, which we find in mathematical realities. These mind-dependent realities therefore also point to a greater Mind. Perhaps, then, they (the universe and mathematics) are both made of the same “substance,” the thoughts of a Superior Intelligence.

CONCLUSION:  If the universe is not fundamentally material and is mind-dependent, then an all-determining Mind must be its Source and Sustenance.

What mind can possibly account for the laws of science, the fine-tuning of the universe, and the fortuitous conditions that are necessary for life and discovery? Only an all-intelligent and omnipotent One!

Even if we subsequently discover that this world is not mind-dependent, we still have to account for its myriad appearances of design, functionality, elegance, and fine-tuning, and this brings us back to an omnipotent and omniscient Creator God, the very God described in the Bible.

THE LIMITS OF PROOFS, EVEN OF MIRACLES

When a militant atheist feels like he has been backed against the wall, he pulls out his trump-card – “Well, prove that God exists.”

Don’t be tempted by the bait. You will never be able to provide such a militant with a proof that he will accept. Instead, you might even ask him, “What type of evidence would you find satisfying?”

He might respond, “If God exists, I want him to appear to me right now.” However, not even such a miraculous appearance will make any difference to him. The late author and scholar, C.S. Lewis, recounts an interesting story:

·       One person…claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination. (God in the Dock, “Miracles,” 25)

From this, Lewis concluded that “seeing is not believing.” Why not?

·       Whatever experiences we may have, we shall not regard them as miraculous if we already hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural…We can always say we have been the victims of an illusion; if we disbelieve in the supernatural this is what we always shall say. (25)

Lewis took this principle a step further:

·       If the modern materialist saw with his own eyes the heavens rolled up and the great white throne appearing, if he had the sensation of being himself hurled into the Lake of Fire, he would continue forever, in that lake itself, to regard this experience as an illusion and to find the explanation of it in psycho-analysis, or cerebral pathology. (25)

If the facts do not agree with our worldview, they are easily ignored. Years ago at a family get-together, we – all of us were either agnostic or atheistic – stood spell-bound for a good hour at the sight of our two little girl-cousins doing the Ouija Board. The girls were spooked by this Board, and it required a lot of adult persuasion and reassurances to get them to perform. Here are the facts about which we all agreed:

1.    Even blindfolded, the disk scurried around the Board spelling out adult words with adult thoughts and personalities. All of us ruled out any possibility of deception on the part of the girls.

2.    The girls came up with answers that they were naturally incapable of knowing.

3.    None of us suspected that what we were viewing was illusory or the product of a hallucination. We were all seeing and hearing the same things, even for a good hour.

Over the years, I have asked my skeptical family what they had concluded from what they had seen. None had a natural explanation or would try to ascribe what they had seen to a hallucination. However, this event made no impact on their worldview. As Lewis had stated, “Seeing is not believing,” even if no alternative explanation is available.

I don’t think that we can easily comprehend humanity’s hatred of the facts. Nor can we fathom the depth of our own aversion to the light of truth. However, spiritual blindness is the consistent revelation of Scripture. Jesus also pronounced this very verdict against humanity:

·       And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20; ESV)

Apart from the grace of God, they are lovers of darkness and have been taken captive by what they love:

·       And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

We have been imprisoned by Satan. This prison does not require chains and bars. This is because we are willing captives. Because we had been enemies of the truth (Romans 5:8-10), more was needed than proper argumentation, love, or even miracles to secure our freedom! God had to grant us a new heart and mind so that we could receive the truth, “come to [our] senses,” and escape our bondage.

If we fail to grasp the fact that this is a supernatural battle, we will become very frustrated with the skeptic and even with our own evangelistic efforts. However, when we perceive the great extent and dimensions of the battle, we realize on Whom we must rely.

Consequently, the battle for the mind is not primarily waged against flesh and blood but against the devil himself:

·       Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:11-12)

But this doesn’t mean that we are just innocent pawns in a cosmic battle. Instead, we have willingly and culpably given ourselves over to the powers of darkness:

·       Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (Ephesians 4:17-19)

Why have they given themselves over to the darkness? Because of “their hardness of heart!” We have rejected God in favor of our own desires. As a result of this, God has given us up to the blinding influence of these desires (Romans 1:24, 26, 28; Psalm 81:12). Consequently, Lord Himself must rescue us from unbelief.

However, we are important participants in His plan – loving, showing respect, patience, and humility, and providing answers for the skeptical. It is my prayer that this book may have contributed something to our endeavors.

DO GREAT CLAIMS REQUIRE GREAT EVIDENCES?

Atheists generally say that the existence of God is a great claim, and that great claims require great evidence.

Actually, I tend to agree. However, I would insist that the evidence for the Creator should be compared to its competing “great claim” that natural forces (NFs) are the creators. Both of these are necessarily extraordinary claims, which require extraordinary evidence. Both claim either that these NFs or the Creator must be eternal (and uncaused) and therefore wouldn’t require an illogical and endless series of causes (infinite regress) to explain their own existence. However, I think that the God hypothesis has far more support. From the little we understand:

1.    NFs cannot explain the creation of matter, energy, time, and space. Instead, NFs would require that these elements pre-exist eternally before NFs can act upon them. However, time cannot be eternal. It would mean that an infinite number of years would have to be fulfilled before we could arrive at the present – a logical impossibility.

2.    NFs cannot explain their elegance, demonstrated in the simplicity of their formulaic statements. Instead, elegance suggests Intelligent Design (ID).

3.    NFs cannot even explain their own immutability in a world of molecules-in-motion. In such a world, we would expect them to also change. However, if NFs are in the state of flux, there could be no scientific textbooks or even learning.

4.    It is more parsimonious to accept the eternal existence of one creative Force than many NFs.

5.    The omnipotent God hypothesis can explain everything. Besides, the eternal Cause must be adequate to account for the rest of the universe. However, NFs are hard-pressed to account for many things – life, consciousness, freewill, objective moral law, and even the existence of a single atom.

6.    There is absolutely no evidence that anything has ever been caused by a non-intelligent NF. Perhaps instead, these NFs are created by God, emanate from His Being, and are not at all natural.

Admittedly, theism and ID have other great claims like miracles, one-time phenomena that go beyond the grasp and purview of science. Consequently, don’t miracles require extraordinary supportive evidences (ESEs)?

At this point, we need to make a necessary distinction between a single miracle and miracles in general (MG). MG already possess ESEs in the form of millions of supporting testimonies or reports.

But where are the scientific evidences against miraculous occurrences? They do not and cannot exist! Why not? Because science can only address repeating events, events that can be retested! But miracles are anomalous, one of a kind. Therefore, they cannot be repeated. It is therefore not appropriate to ask for scientific proof for things outside of the reach of science. Consequently, science cannot disprove miracles.

But what do we make of the claims for individual miracles, like the Bible’s insistence on the Virgin Birth? From a materialistic and naturalistic perspective, the Virgin Birth would require extraordinary evidences, but not from the perspective of ID. If there is a God, then all of His creations are miraculous and transcend the grasp of science.

In light of this, we are taken back to the original question – “Does the Creator exist?” If He does, then He is the ESE.

This doesn’t mean that we should not be diligent about examining miraculous claims. In fact, the Bible tells us to examine all things, including ourselves. Even though we have a God who can perform miracles as easily as He can speak, the Bible also requires that any event or charge be established by at least two witnesses.

However, as I have argued earlier, even miracles, by themselves, can do little to change minds. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave after four days, instead of considering the implications of what they had just seen, many consorted to have both Lazarus and Jesus put to death (John 11). This account, and many others, demonstrates that humans have the ability to deny or distort any form of evidence. Therefore, don’t be surprised that the anti-supernatural bias is often deeply embedded and can stubbornly resist argumentation and piles of counter-evidence.

Trusting in the Lord

What does it mean to trust in the Lord? It’s not about learning how to generate a warm fuzzy feeling. You’re not going to feel the fuzzies when you’re on a roller-coaster – just dread – but you can still trust in the Lord, even at these times. How? Simply by deciding to! Even when it seems that your life has come to an end, you can say to yourself, “Lord, I’m going to trust in You and Your promises, even as my mind is racing out of control.

This is what the Psalmists repeatedly wrote about. King David related how, in the midst of his torment, he made the decision to turn to his God and decide that he had to trust in Him:

·       Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. (Psalm 56:1-3 ESV)

There is no indication that his fear suddenly subsided into billows of comforting faith. In fact, there is no reason to believe that fear will be suddenly dissolved by this decision, any more than my fear on the roller-coaster was suddenly dissipated, when I exercised faith. Instead, our comfort is usually the result of our deliverance.

Later, David experienced a loss that had caused him great distress. While he was residing with the Philistines, during his flight from King Saul who wanted to kill him, and while he and his 600 men were away from their camp at Ziklag, the Amalekites attacked and had taken captive all of their wives, sons, and daughters:

·       Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. (1 Samuel 30:4-6)

How did David strengthen himself in the Lord? There is no indication that he was able to conjure up soft-fuzzies. Instead, amidst his distress, he turned to his only source of hope, and asked his priest to inquire of the Lord about what they should do. As a result, he and his men pursued the Amalekites and defeated them and recovered their families.

Instead of crediting the prowess of his faith for his victory, David gave all the thanks to his God. Any trust in our faith is a misguided and self-centered trust. Instead, our trust has to be in God, apart from whether our faith gives us ecstatic chills of confidence.

Later, David wrote:

·       For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken…For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2, 5-6)

David had learned that there were many times that he would have to “wait in silence” for his God to rescue him, even after any sense or feeling of hope had evaporated.

As a new Christian, I proudly told myself “I will never allow anything to separate me from my faith.” However, sometimes, God waits until our faith is dead, as dead as Lazarus in his tomb. After the crucifixion, two disciples walking on the Emmaus Road had already surrendered their hope in Jesus. However, it was at this very instance that He appeared to them and renewed their faith in Him. So too will some of us have to experience the death of our faith until we too learn that our Lord remains faithful even if we fall.

I also had to learn that I couldn’t place my trust in faith but in Christ alone, that He would deliver me no matter how hopeless I had become. In C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, a demon is boasting to his master of how hopeless and demoralized he had succeeding in making one church-goer. The master responded to his subordinate that he was a fool for thinking he had been victorious. He explained that their victory is more than ever in doubt when their hopeless victim continues to turn to God, especially when lacking any sense of hope.

Let us not, therefore, pay much heed to our feelings of hope and faith but to God alone.