Uninvented: Did the Israelites Hear God’s Voice? Deuteronomy 4

Uninvented: Did the Israelites Hear God’s Voice? Deuteronomy 4

Aug 10, 2022 | Uninvented

Deuteronomy 4 is an amazing passage both in Uninvented and theological terms. I will address the former here and the latter in my next post. If you’ve read Uninvented, you will know I was tempted numerous times to pontificate on the incredible theology in certain passages, but my focus had to remain on my uninvented argument. The question in the book was always, did this happen and in just this way, or not. Was it made up by the authors, mere human fiction to further a religious agenda? Or was it history, and happened pretty much the way the narrative presents it happening? It is either one or the other; there is no in between. One either has to accept the entire narrative or reject it all. Any partial acceptance or rejection is completely arbitrary and requires some human authority to determine what should be accepted and what should not. If we compare how scholars’ approach other ancient literature to how they treat the Bible’s historical claims, we’ll see just how arbitrary and biased they are. The reason is as simple as it is unjustified.

Critics for several hundred years have insisted that anything claiming to be supernatural in the Bible, the miraculous, had to have been invented, made up, fiction, because those kinds of things, those not explained by purely natural, material phenomena simply cannot happen. This, as I contend, is rank, anti-supernatural bias without any justification other than worldview preference. Bob is a materialist (the material is all that exists, there is no spiritual reality), so Bob cannot accept anything that contradicts his materialist worldview. Coming to the text begging the question like this means the reader must reject anything that cannot be explained “naturally.” If we come to the text without that bias, and not rejecting God’s existence and power a priori (i.e., beforehand), we can see if the narrative evinces realness, or verisimilitude as I discuss in the book.

Deuteronomy 4 is a tremendous example of a stark choice readers have. Either the author is lying, or he is telling the truth. The authors of the Bible throughout claim to be eyewitnesses to the works of God for his people. These were not events as portrayed in fairy tales that happened a long, long time ago in a land far, far away, where maybe little snippets of possible historical fact are embellished over time to make up a coherent grand historical narrative. Fairy tales or legends don’t tell coherent grand historical narratives over 2,000 years like the Bible, which even the critics agree is one of or the greatest works of literature in history. As I said over and over in the book, the Bible doesn’t read at all like the myths and legends critics insist it is, and this chapter is an excellent example of why.

Moses here is re-telling the Israelites’ history of their Exodus from Egypt, and how God rescued them, as he says, “from the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance.” The key to this passage, and the challenge before us, is a phrase he uses multiple times, that what happened in their rescue was something they witnessed “with their own eyes.” We only have two options when reading this passage: either the author is telling the truth, or he is not. Critics contend it is the later. Deuteronomy, they claim, was written sometime during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people in the fourth century BC, not by Moses a thousand years previously. If the critics are right, the author is fabricating a story he knows is not true. On the other hand, if we don’t come to the text assuming miracles can’t happen, thus begging the question, we can let the text speak for itself and see if it reads real. You decide:

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” 11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

15 You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire.

33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.

If this is fiction, then the Bible is a monstrous lie. If the critics are right, then there is absolutely nothing of value to be found in the Bible’s pages. I’m not interested in moral lessons told as “nobel lies.” On the other hand, if we’re willing to let the Bible speak as what it claims to be, God’s revelation of the history of the redemption of his people, we’ll let the text speak for itself.

This passage, of course, doesn’t stand in isolation, and it is the grand historical narrative from Genesis to Revelation that makes this passage so powerful, and read so real. God is continuing to reveal himself to his people, those he rescued from slavery in Egypt, allowing them to “hear his voice” so they will know that this God is unlike the gods of any of the other nations on earth. Which is a good segue to the amazing theology in the passage, the topic for the next post. 

Why Libertarians Are Not Our Friends

Why Libertarians Are Not Our Friends

Aug 6, 2022 | Politics & Government, Uncategorized

I recently wrote about why libertarians are not conservatives, and I want to comment on an article I recently read that continues my education about this topic. I became a “born-again” Christian, as we called it back then, in the fall of 1978. I was 18, and as ignorant and naive as all 18-year-olds are. That started an odyssey of learning that only intensifies by the day as I continue to learn a basic truth of maturity: The more I know, the more I realize I don’t know. It’s one of the reasons I Corinthians 8:2 is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Also, realizing that all knowledge and wisdom is found in God himself, tells us knowledge is limitless, boundless, and as infinite as he is. That means we will be learning, literally, forever. How exciting is that!

What his this to do with libertarians, you ask? For me, libertarianism is a symbol of a life-long struggle to figure out my political philosophy, although I wouldn’t have put it that way until very recently. Part of this life-long learning process always included politics, but not as an all-encompassing philosophy. Maybe I didn’t think that was possible or necessary, I’m not sure, but I wasn’t compelled to grapple and get into the weeds of what I believe about human governance. Now I am. This drive is part of the questioning everything mentality that has overtaken me with the advent of Trump, more because of those who opposed and despise him, than the man himself.

As I went through my college experience growing in my Christian faith, I came across Francis Schaeffer, and because of him I realized I was a political conservative. I started reading the once great National Review (it went full-on NeverTrump in 2015 and lost all credibility), and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. This must have all happened after the 1980 election because (again, just between you and me) I voted for Jimmy Carter. My dad was a Catholic, Italian, Democrat, and he would never change, so having given up the Catholic part I figured I’d stick with the Democrat. I gladly can’t change the Italian.

I quickly learned the conservative movement Reagan represented consisted of those who embraced a traditional/religious view of reality, and libertarians who did not. A lot of libertarians, as I found out, are religious, but their political philosophy is driven more by the conviction of the primacy of liberty, than by what their religion might say about the human condition related to politics. It’s complicated, as I discovered and have been frustrated by ever since. I was clearly part of the traditional/religious wing of the movement, but I didn’t exactly know why I wasn’t a libertarian. I do now, but I’m still working through exactly what my political philosophy looks like. A piece at American Greatness called, “Libertarians are Not Our Friends,” helped me to better understand why I am not one of them. The author’s conclusion is true if a bit overstated:

All thinking persons know—and evidence abounds—that libertarians with anti-statist mentalities are dangerous, ideological, illusory, and impractical. Taking a one size fits all approach to every situation is wrongheaded and totally misguided. It is philosophically illogical and amounts to policy stupidity. It is zealotry at worst and naïveté at best.

His assessment gets to the heart of why I’m finally understanding libertarianism is not an ally of true conservatism, and why the American Founders were not libertarian at all. The pure liberty of the libertarian is a universal abstraction that doesn’t exist in life and fails to consider the lived existence of actual human beings.

God made man his own image primarily as a moral and not choosing creature. In other words, it’s not the choosing that determines the morality of the thing, but the thing chosen, or not. This brings us to Aristotle’s concept of telos, or purpose, a famous concept in the history of Western thought. He asked why things exist, and discovered four causes, the ultimate reason being the final cause or the reason for its existence. This idea gets us close to the idea of morality. Something is moral not merely because God says it is, and thus morality is not arbitrary, not merely God’s will. Rather, morality, what is right and wrong, good and evil, is a reflection of the being of God himself, an extension of that being into the nature of things. That is deeply profound for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is it proves God’s existence, and that reality is not mere matter in motion that came together by chance. 

To make this point, I told someone recently, that means what is moral is not determined by our preferences, as when we prefer chocolate to vanilla ice cream. Things are wrong or right, good or evil, not because of what we prefer, but because they are, and it is our job to discover whether they are one or the other.

The reason liberty, or the freedom to choose, can’t be our ultimate good is because what is chosen is more important than the choosing itself. If we choose evil, the choosing is evil; if we choose good, the choosing is good. The choosing itself cannot be a moral value. The Founders of America understood this. Just two months prior to the ratification of the Constitution in September of 1787, the Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance. In Article 3 they wrote:

Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

And the religion and morality they are talking about is Christian religion and morality. It is the religion and morality, and the choosing informed by those, that determine good government and happiness, not the choosing itself.

This isn’t to say that along with Patrick Henry we shouldn’t cry, “give me liberty or give me death!” And mean it. One of the most precious things we’ve inherited from our Creator through Christ through Christian Western civilization is our liberty, and it is our Christian duty to defend it. But liberty is not libertarianism, which is an ideology that tends to promote license, and doing whatever we want or whatever we choose. That is called anarchy which eventually leads to tyranny. Only when God’s law is the law of the land, can there be true liberty, and tolerance, but that is a topic for another post, or book.

Uninvented: Who Invents a Talking Donkey as History?

Uninvented: Who Invents a Talking Donkey as History?

Aug 4, 2022 | Uninvented

One of the strange things about the Bible is that most of it is written as straight-ahead historical narrative, but many of the stories don’t read like any history we’ve encountered outside the Bible. The story of a talking donkey would have to be at the top of that list. If you want anyone to believe a story you’re writing, would you include a talking donkey? So, why put a talking donkey in a story if you want people to believe you’re writing history? That’s a good question. In the first chapter of Uninvented, I give a brief overview of the history of biblical criticism. To understand that history, and its skepticism about the Bible’s historicity, we must understand the Enlightenment assumptions that inform the critics’ perspective.

The fundamental belief of these critics, going back some three hundred years, is anti-supernaturalism. For a variety of complicated historical, philosophical, and cultural reasons, Western intellectuals began to see the universe as a closed system. The world was merely matter, and cause and effect moving that matter, with no room for a God to interfere. Miracles messed with this, so miracles in the Bible had to go. I call this question begging anti-supernatural bias. To “beg the question” is a logical fallacy that means to assume the conclusion without having to prove it. So, a talking donkey? Don’t be ridiculous! Everyone “knows” donkeys can’t talk, therefore, the story of a talking donkey in Numbers 22 must have been made up. It can’t be history because, well, donkeys don’t talk. Question begging at its finest. But let’s get rid of the anti-supernatural bias and look at this story another way.

One of my arguments in Uninvented is that if someone wants to write a believable story, they won’t put stuff in the story that is clearly unbelievable, unless it really happened. If you’re an Enlightenment rationalist any miracle is unbelievable, but if you’re not, some miracles in the Bible are more believable than others. This is where we come to the talking donkey story of Numbers 22. If you’re not familiar with the story, Balaam is a prophet, and the king of Moab, one of Israel’s enemies, is asking for Balaam to curse Israel. He tells the king he can only say what God tells him to say, and it is most definitely not to curse Israel. God was angry with Balaam because he really wanted the rewards the king of Moab could give him, rather than being faithful to what God had said, so the Lord had a donkey rebuke him. When you read this on the surface it sounds like some kind of fairy tale, or a tall tale like the fish getting bigger and bigger with each telling:

21 Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. 22 But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road.

24 Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. 25 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat the donkey again.

26 Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

32 The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. 33 The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.”

34 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back.”

With an anti-supernatural bias, you dismiss it immediately as invented, unhistorical, something added to the narrative to maybe teach a lesson about obedience to God. However, without the bias you can ask yourself, why include this in the story if it isn’t real? Everyone knows, even 3,500 years ago, that donkeys can’t talk. If the person who wrote the story, and we believe it to be Moses, wanted to be believed, why write this unless it really happened? And as Christians, we believe in God who is the Creator of everything out of nothing, an all-powerful being to whom nothing is impossible. If he wanted donkey to talk to make a point to a wayward prophet, who are we to say that is not possible?

Regarding miracles specifically, as Christians we don’t have to beg the question and assume miracles can happen, therefore this happened. However, our assumptions do influence how we view the text, and all people come to the text with certain assumptions. We, however, don’t come to the text with an anti-supernatural bias, and dismiss miracles out of hand; that begs the question. Our assumptions are rather more reasonable and logical. God is the Creator of all things out of nothing, an all powerful being who by definition can do anything. As he said to the 90 year-old Sarah when he told her she’d have a child in a year, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” No! This talking donkey story is like every other miracle presented in the Bible, muted, mater of fact, part of the historical narrative. Biblical miracles don’t read at all like legends and myths the biased critics insist they are, including a talking donkey.

Notable Quotation: From Atheist Abortion Doctor to Catholic Forgiven Sinner

Notable Quotation: From Atheist Abortion Doctor to Catholic Forgiven Sinner

Aug 1, 2022 | Notable Quotations

Now, I had not been immune to the religious fervor of the pro-life movement. I had been aware in the early and mid-eighties that a great many of the Catholics and Protestants in the ranks had prayed for me, were praying for me, and I was not unmoved as time wore on. But it was not until I saw the spirit put to the test on those bitterly cold demonstration mornings, with pro-choicers hurling the most fulsome epithets at them, the police surrounding them, the media openly unsympathetic to their cause, the federal judiciary fining the jailing them, and municipal officials threatening them—all through it they sat smiling, quietly praying, singing, confident and righteous of their cause, and ineradicably persuaded of their ultimate triumph—that I began seriously to question what indescribable Force generated them to this activity. Why, too, was I there? What had led me to this time and place? Was it the same Force that allowed them to sit serene and unafraid at the epicenter of legal, physical, ethical, and moral chaos?

And for the first time in my entire adult life, I began to entertain seriously the notion of God—a god who problematically had let me through the proverbial circles of hell, only to show me the way to redemption and mercy through His grace. The thought violated every eighteenth-century certainty I had cherished; it instantly converted my past into a vile bog of sin and evil; it indicted me of high crimes against those who had loved me, and against those whom I did not even know; and simultaneously—miraculously—it held out a shimmering sliver of Hope to me, in the growing belief that Someone had died for my sins and my evil two millennia ago.

—Bernard Nathanson, M.D. The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by The Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind

How To Do Evangelism Without Doing Evangelism

How To Do Evangelism Without Doing Evangelism

Jul 29, 2022 | The Gospel, Uncategorized

For many Christians, being a full-on Jesus freak like me doesn’t come naturally. For many reasons I’m kind of obsessed with this whole God thing, and I can’t help thinking about him all the time and about how he is related to everything, literally. You might think this would make me, as “they” say, so heavenly minded I’m no earthly good, but it would in fact be just the opposite. I’m so heavenly minded that I am able to be of some earthly good. When we live life in light of eternity, knowing this life is not all there is, that this life is in fact just the beginning of our forever life with our Creator, then our lives can be lived as he intended for them to be lived. As Jesus said:

 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

The Greek for “to the full” means all-around, “more than” (“abundantly”); beyond what is anticipated, exceeding expectation; “more abundant,” going past the expected limit (“more than enough . . . “). That is the life Jesus, God himself in Christ, wants for us. And it is only in him, and in the gospel, the good news he came to bring us in his death and resurrection, that such a life “to the full” is possible. Sure, anyone can live a passably fine life without him, on the surface, but a kind of amazing fulfillment and joy about just being alive to everything can only be found in Him. Even as incredibly challenging and frustrating and disappointing, and sometimes downright terrible as life can be, in Him, in Christ Jesus, life is incredible often beyond the ability to convey. As is my habit of not getting right to the point, you must be wondering what this has to do with doing evangelism without doing evangelism. Well, hold your horses, and I’ll tell you!

While I am not an evangelist by trade (Ephesians 4:11), one who is called by profession to proclaim the good news of the gospel, I can’t seem to help wanting to talk about this good news all the time. What separates me from what I think many tend to think of when they see or hear the word evangelism, is that my sharing the good news is not restricted to a certain set of propositions about how we are to be saved from our sin. We might think of these propositions as the core of the gospel out of which radiates our perspective on all things, and that core is our reconciliation to our Creator.

It is quite obvious we are born fallen, or in theological terms, in original sin, which is alienation or estrangement from our Creator. In biblical terms, we are enemies of God, by nature openly hostile to and animated by a deep-seated hatred for him. Most Christians, let alone non-Christians, don’t realize the depth of this alienation. We tend to see sin as something akin to jay walking, when in fact it is more like genocide, an almost infinite difference. That’s why the gospel is so profound. As the Apostle Paul puts it:

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Again, what has this to do with doing evangelism without doing evangelism? Everything. When we get this, I mean really get it, we can’t help it affecting how we see everything, how we encounter and engage and feel about everything. C.S. Lewis, as he always seemed to do, captured this wonderfully:

 I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

And Lewis was an ex-atheist, which in his 30s he realized explained absolutely nothing about reality, while Christianity explained everything. We call that serious explanatory power!

Christianity, which is the gospel, which is our reconciliation to our Creator, affects how we define and experience every single thing every single moment of every single day of our lives. It gives definition and meaning to all things. It allows us to understand the puzzle pieces that fit into the puzzle of existence. In philosophical terms, puzzle pieces are the particulars (each fact or experience of existence), and they can only make sense because they are part of the universal, the big picture, which is God himself in Christ. How does this comprehensive understanding of existence in Christ help us do evangelism without doing evangelism?

Every person we encounter every day is looking for meaning in their lives. They are looking for hope, purpose, dignity, fulfillment, significance, accptance, love, you name it, none of which can be had in the particulars, in the puzzle pieces by themselves. But oh how people try! We need to understand this, to really buy it, because it is true! Why do you think in the most prosperous periord in the history of the world there are so many suffering from depression and anxiety, frustration and despair? Something like 40,000 people every year in America kill themselves! How pathetic and sad is that. And we have the answer! The gospel! Not the four spiritual laws, or the Romans Road, as helpful as such things can be, but in Christ, and in reconciliation to our Creator in him!

What this means is that everything in some way, some how, comes back to the gospel. It comes back to the Creator of all things who has revealed himself in his creation, in Scripture, our Bibles, and in Christ. So, we can speak this to those we encounter without being obnoxious, or “religious.” We can proclaim the hope, meaning, purpose, love, all of which comes from the reconciliation to our Creator in the one who reconciled us and all things to himself on a Roman cross and came back from the dead to prove it was all true. This is what people are looking for! They just don’t know it yet. We never have to say another person has to believe all this, only that we do, and it just happens to be the truth! Far from being obnoxious or annoying, this makes us winsome and attractive to people who are likely dying in a desert of existence and don’t know they’re really looking for an oasis of water named Jesus!