Death: do animals count?

Some people question the meaning of the fall in relation to its introduction of death. They want to limit this to either mankind alone, or restrict it to a 'spiritual' death. This is to avoid the implication of materialist long age of earth and the obvious death of animals this would require prior to the fall. That is, millions of years of animal death recorded in fossils, again, on their terms.

This question, of death before the fall, in reference to animals (the 'living creatures' of Genesis 1:24 excluding plants, bacteria, insects, and the like) seems to want to make God part of the creation, and not separated from it as creator, but separate from it as source of life; despite being so as the creator of all life.

That is, somehow 'life' is external to even God, in some mystical or platonic construction.

Thus some disregard animal death in cavalier fashion. I doubt this can be sustained with a biblical understanding of the relation of Creator and his creation of life; something flowing from his word and the direct action of Christ. The Creator has no 'not-life' in him! Death is the denial of life and the reversion to a not-God state of being; that is, 'not being'. I don't think the hand of God, the Word of God produces death, otherwise, death would not be a cause for grief.

Death in these terms is a direct insult to God and an inversion of his creation (as sin is the inversion of his love).

I write this after recently seeing an aged relative's corpse and learning that our pet dog has multiple malignant tumors and will soon die. At different levels both are death, an assault on the life God created and both confront us with the horror, in different degrees, of the termination of life, of relationship and fellowship (even with an animal).

Our revulsion and grief at death is at its unnaturalness, its reverse of the purpose of the creation, It could not be before the fall, as the direct reading of Genesis 3 and as the ramifications of the fall are described.

Some days later:

We buried our pet dog today. The vet sent her on her way peacefully and without discomfort, or even curiosity at the cannula, she was so sick. The termination of life, even of an animal, was still horrible, it was still the inversion of life, it was still something not of the God of life who made Adam to govern (have care over) the animals that he named (examined, considered, classified, identified). Did Adam expect these animals to then die?

It was not until the fall that decay set in; and death is the result of decay.

1 big answer

In the blog "7 or so questions, 7 or so answers: an elevator pitch" I set out an approach to talking about one's faith in terms a non-Christian might better understand.

Greg Koukl recently released a video of his answer to precisely that situation.

An edited transcript is provided below.

What is your elevator speech answer to the   question "What do you believe and why do you believe it?"

First three stories.

1.  There is a God who is there.
2.  He has not been silent. (Francis Schaeffer's title)
3.  He has visited this planet in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

He gave evidence of who he was, and then did something to rescue us from ourselves that will determine what happens to everybody in the final resurrection.

That's, maybe, the content. At the end of history. Maybe I'll put it that way for a non-Christian.

Why do I believe it? Well, this one, in a certain sense, is I'll give the general point that I've given many times, because that answer is about the nature of reality—I'm not talking about my faith, my beliefs, as such.

Of course, they're my faith and belief, but what I believe about those things is that this is the way the world is. And I think that this is an accurate take on the world.

It's the accurate picture of reality, taken as a whole, because it turns out to be the best explanation for the way things are. And, so, when you look at the way the world is—that the world came into existence, that the world has conscious beings, that one set of the conscious beings—human beings—have a moral nature, and that concepts like mercy and goodness and justice and wickedness and evil. All of these are real parts of the universe— the worldview, the picture of reality—that makes the most sense out of all of these things. This turns out to be the Christian view of reality.

In the book, “Street Smarts," I have two chapters on atheism followed by one chapter on the problem of evil, and the chapter on the problem of evil is called Evil: Atheism's Fatal Flaw. I position the problem of evil, not in a defensive way, like, well, let's see if I can find out how I can convince you that it makes sense in our world; I did that in "The Story of Reality”. No, I'm trying to show there is a problem of evil, and that's not bad for us, it's bad for atheists, and here's why.

Simply put, the problem of evil fits into our world. Our story is about   the problem of evil from the beginning to the end”. It starts in chapter 3 of Genesis. It ends 66 books later. So, it fits in our story, and our story is not over yet. It's just part of it.

While there's no real problem there, in a certain sense. there remain questions that come up that we can speculate on and try to answer, but the key thing is, the problem of evil makes sense in our story. It does not make sense in the atheist's story.

In that, there's one example of our view of reality being a much better explanation than any other. In fact, the best explanation for evil or for the origin of the universe or for the existence of consciousness or the reality of human freedom or a whole host of other things.

If I was to give a short elevator speech, would I include any testimony in that or would I stick to, what I have just described?

No, I don't think I would put testimony in, partly because nothing in my testimony is evidential. It isn't like I heard a voice, I went blind, and then I got healed of blindness three days later (referring to the Apostle Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ). So, there's nothing that's third person public that I can offer.

Secondly, I really want to work to avoid relativizing my own views. This is why I don't like when people say, "Well, the Christian view is." There may be a place for that, but we have to be very careful that we're not just saying this is kind of, as you put it earlier, our club. I don't like "Well we believe this," or "We have faith that," "My faith tells me thus and so."

I'd rather put this in terms of my understanding of the nature of reality. These are my convictions about the way the world is, and I have particular reasons for thinking that my convictions match the world, and then I can talk about that. I'm going to try to stay away from the subjective element, in my case, for those reasons. I especially don't want people to be tempted to relativize my view. They could say it's inaccurate. Fine. But if my view is relative, it can't be inaccurate. It's true for me. That’s all you can say.

 

7 or so questions, 7 or so answers: an elevator pitch

I've mentioned elsewhere the 7 basic questions that every Christian should be able to give three answers to: the "elevator" pitch (we say 'lift'), the short answer and the discussion.

Here are my "elevator" pitches

1. Why are you a Christian?

Mankind only can understand himself in terms of a necessary reference point. But man is personal, so that reference point must be both self-existing and personal. Jesus of Nazareth is that reference point so I follow his way.

2. Why do you read the Bible?

It makes the best sense of the world/human condition that we have. It makes its case in history, not merely by theoretical claims or mythological stories.

3. Why do you attend church?

I don't 'attend' church. I am part of a church. [You could stop there if you are pressed for time, and await a follow-on question at another time.] Church is the gathering of people who are committed to the way of Christ. I'm 'in', so I'm 'in'.

4. Don't all religions teach the same thing?

4.1 No. Most religions ask man to pull himself up by the bootstraps Christianity recognizes this is obviously impossible. They seek the solution to the failing system in the very system that is failing, so they really offer nothing for mankind's dilemma. [Alienation from the creator in an alienated world.]

Related is the question, " Why is Jesus the only way to God? "

4.2 Because he is the creator, and restoration of relationship cannot come from within the 'system', but only from outside it.

5. That's good if it's your truth, but I'm spiritual without that/it's not for me. 

5.1 If it's only my truth it's not truth at all, and I'd be crazy to rely on it. It's like being broke, but being your own bank. What people need is a relationship with the Truth that is objectively outside themselves.

5.2 What do you mean 'you are spiritual'? 'Spiritual' is about the connection with the one who is ultimately there, not the reflection of our own contemplations.

6. How can a God of love permit so much evil and suffering?

By permitting mankind to live and be able to seek him and the resolution of our broken lives in his eternal life and love. We live in a broken world that is marked by alienation from the creator, but the benefit of us being linked to the creator is so good that it outweighs all the bad even conceivable.

7. Hasn't science disproved the Bible?

How could it? The Bible explains why science is possible at all!

The eighth question, of course, is:

Why do you believe in God?

8.1 Yeshua of Nazareth, Jesus, as the West names him, declared himself to be God on earth, demonstrated that during his teaching career, and came back from the dead to authenticate himself.

8.2 Finite beings, which we are and the cosmos is, demand an end point and a beginning point or source or a basis that is not finite; plus there needs to be an absolute source for personhood. God, the creator, is these things.

.

God, evil and modern man

I have yet to hear a sermon or apologetic that really deals with this in terms that might make sense to modern man. Schaeffer comes closest, but he still doesn't quite do it. Nevertheless, he does touch on it in passing, in True Spirituality when he talks of sin as being the breaking of fellowship with God.

Most disquisitions on this topic do nothing to overturn the ancient pagan impression of 'good' and 'evil' as two forces in active opposition and of similar potency.

But NO!

Good and evil do not float platonically behind God, and do not have any existence except in terms of who God is.

God is good by definition, or more precisely, God is love and the properties of goodness and evil (the inversion of goodness, as hate is the inversion of love) flow from this.

Evil, sin, suffering represent the inversion of God's love, of who God is! The result from rejection of fellowship with God.

A&E were told that 'the tree' would bring them face to face with this inversion, rejection, denial of God. That is, face to face with evil, which they would thus 'know'. That is experience and understand.

Love is the disposition to benefit the other even to your disadvantage, to give priority to the other. Evil is inversion of this, to benefit oneself in denial of others.

This comes out in fragments of pride, greed, selfishness, self-centredness littered through every day. From Adam's step away from God in denying him and asserting his own values in that denial, both Adam and the creation were stranded from man's communion with God. But there was more involved. Not only was mankind stranded, but the creation as a whole was severed from its comfort with God's presence. Man as the steward, as God's vicegerent in the creation had  broken the entire creation

The great tragedy is that the creation was given to us as the stage for our communion with God, but it became the place severed from that communion and God's love and life. It's promise was death, and God warned him.

The domain as a whole was broken, subjected to loss, to decay and degradation as the creation in its entirety was dragged after the one set to govern it in love and peace.

Nevertheless, God's love is unstoppable and perseveres, as does his creature in his image as one with real choices. God in this love acted to establish the 'long stop' position and occupied it in Christ. This position enables the final defeat of death -- the great inversion of the meaning of mankind echoed thereafter in his offspring -- and our regeneration to join his kingdom finally in the New Creation.

Methodological Theism?

Modern science proceeds not on the basis of methodological naturalism, but on the basis of methodological Christian theism! Naturalism by itself, whether metaphysical or 'merely' methodological has not produced modern science. In fact, it has produced neither systematic inquiry into the created cosmos, nor ceaseless curiosity. For this old world view, what is simply is! But for Christian theism. Paganism is a similar dead hand. What is is the product of the rainbow serpent. End of discussion. For panentheists, what is is god, and no inquiry is possible. If the god is capricious, as is the Muslim god, no science is again possible.

What Christian theism assures us of, and this is demonstrated in the first chapters of Genesis, is a material creation that is causally rational, that is objectively there, that is propositionally explicable, and created for our superintendence/care/stewardship and operation. It invites curious exploration, and demonstrates the principle in Adam naming the animals brought to him: he observed, analyzed, classified and categorized. It was up to him. All God did was bring his subjects to him.

The materialist detractors think that Christian theism stifles inquiry. Not so. The record is that materialism does so. The great example is the rapidly diminishing number of 'vestigial' organs. We will soon be at zero in that count. The fiction of vestigial organs stifled inquiry and led to countless unnecessary, dangerous and sometimes fatal surgical operations.

But, confident of a cosmos designed by one limitlessly wise and knowledgeable (see Prov. 3:19-20) we are confident to keep exploring, keep finding knowledge and reliably communicating it. Our curiosity will, we are sure, be endlessly repaid. There will be no 'do not enter' signs as we know the entire material cosmos is here for our habitation, occupation, use and enjoyment. The detractors confuse the creator God with the fake gods of paganism, with the occasionalist 'gods' of the Greek Olympus, or the stupid gods of thing and place. These prevent science.

Nor does one who takes the cosmos as designed ever say...well, I don't know, God did it. No, we say. "This clearly presents a challenge to understanding, but it was made so as to be understandable by the creator, so let's get on, persevere, work hard, expose our ideas to criticism, let's learn how this thing works."

The only problem arises where metaphysical naturalism enters the ring. It sets preconditions that result in imagined histories being used to guide the work of observation and analysis. These could well lead us astray, as NDE leads us astray and produces speculation but no knowledge.

The Funeral

Not a particular funeral, although I'll get to that, but in general

At a recent home group meeting a funeral in my family was mentioned, and some discussion ensued. I made the point that talking the gospel was particularly difficult (as in tricky) at a funeral.

A couple of clergy guys present disagreed vigorously, asserting that it was easy to 'preach the gospel' at a funeral.

But, to what end?

At my family funeral a sub-deacon conducted the service and gave a well composed and sermon which sought to convey the gospel to an audience that was preponderantly not interested.

No particular interest was shown during or afterwards.

One attendee did mention to me that she envied people who believed in heaven, but she didn't want to joint them. Perhaps I missed a quiet plea for more information there, but the conversation didn't head in that direction, despite my poor efforts, I  must admit.

The gospel words went in one ear and out the other because they didn't connect with the pagan fatalism that is the default view of death in the modern world. It is this that needs to be tackled and undone.

Most people are afraid of death, but only in their quiet moments as they age; otherwise not so much.

It is quite a challenge to convey the gospel in such a setting and offers of hope, the promise of the resurrection are more suitable, ignoring that some, if not many of the hearers do not wish to truly participate in such. Thus, it is hard to convey the gospel at a funeral.

The street preacher?

So, what's the point of 'street preaching'?

Paul went to the place of discussion in Acts 17 and engaged in real discussion people who were there to discuss. He sought to form real connections, however transient they might have been.

Street preaching by contrast just hoses people with a blather of Bible-talk that ignores them as individuals with real concerns and life conditions. It denies people's realness and value as being in God's image. It also presumes that the hearers would know what he was saying, but without a biblical context, not so.

Attempted evangelism, I'd call it.

Perhaps it might work in parts of the USA where there is a large proportion of the population who might be familiar with the blather, but not in any other Western country, I would think.

See: https://youtube.com/shorts/BO48tNmwnAc

In my small corner

Our church has just started a monthly segment at our 'youth' service called 'In my small corner'.

This is a cross between a Q&A and a time of sharing of conversations had.

The first 7 'conversations' will be the 7 basic questions that a Christian must be able to answer to follow Peter in 1 Peter 3:15.

1. Why are you a Christian?
2. Why do you read the Bible?
3. Why do you attend church?
4. Don't all religions teach the same thing?
5. That's good if its your truth, but I'm spiritual without that/its not for me.
6. How can a God of love permit so much evil and suffering?
7. Hasn't science disproved the Bible?

From this point people will be invited to relate a conversation they've had and how they deal with it, or how they might have done so. A short discussion may follow.

So, here would be my first one:

Last evening I was talking to a man who was unpersuaded by the 'moral' argument for God. He insisted that the only thing he did was what made him happy and didn't offend against the law or other people.

He put everything down to social structures that had evolved.

I tried to bat back every response, I used examples of the Holocaust, Isis, Crime cartels and Hamas, and we had a good talk for a long time, but what would you have said?

A few things we want to do with this segment:

• Get people used to talking about their faith and its implications
• Show that they don't have to 'win' every encounter (Peter tells us to explain our 'why' not win the argument)
• Discuss responses, and use these for teaching points at another time
• Stimulate conversation over coffee later
• Encourage reading of relevant books/watch videos
• Encourage thoughtful  reading of the Bible.
  

Science and the Bible, or Science v the Bible?

All intellectual endeavor starts with a conception of the world. If that conception is not aligned with the world as it truly is, it fails to enable, or even allow, proper examination of the world. By proper I mean, in a manner that gives true knowledge of the discretely objective world. For instance,

 

> the ancients and pagans generally entertained fictitious occasionalist (look it up) gods contained by the cosmos that were fickle derivations of man at his stupidest, even the fates, that seemed to be over them also seemed to be contained by the cosmos.

> animists as a type of pagan had gods that were enemies and the world was their playground: again, fickle, needing to be appeased, usually by human suffering and sacrifice (oops, we do that today with abortion). It was spooksville all round.

> Aristotle had a view that made the world impossible to truly explore.

 

> Plato too, for that matter, and the

 

> German idealists more or less the same (we are now entering a time that inherits their subjectivism and undoes science). 

 

> Islam views it as subject to a capricious god, making pursuit of knowledge gained by study of the world impossible.

 

> Eastern monism, broadly speaking, reduces the world to a figment, so science is irrelevant, so science is irrelevant and because 'god' is everything, impossible, and

 

> materialism reduces it to chance material conjunctions, or 'dirt' for short, eliminating any hope that a mind that resulted from such random events would have anything of value to say about anything.

 

Darwin also noted this risk, but he nevertheless went on to undermine himself, sitting on the branch he was sawing off.

 

The Christian understanding of the world is utterly different, and thus underpins the rise of modern science, explicitly.

 

The description of the creation in Genesis 1 and 2 gives us this: The world (the cosmos, really) is separate from God, and brought into existence with coherent purpose. At the same time God was active and present in the world, as Creator, not creature.

 

The creation described, as analyzed below was set in the world we are in, indicated by the 'days' of creation making what it teaches set in and about reality (indeed it 'grounds reality'): the reality that we are in and have intellectual access to.

 

This was not off in some silly-ville of paganism or fantasy; it was located concretely in the history we are in and so its characteristics were definitive for us.

 

Its creation showed rational causality and propositional (intelligible) content, with a clear dependency sequence, starting with the general energy field (light). Each day's action rejecting 'chance' and showing its own teleological arc. Something NDE fails in at every point.

 

It shows that we, created 'like' the creator, are able to correspondingly (or conjointly) examine the world which we are to rightly govern/subdue/superintend/steward (none of which means 'exploit', degrade or destroy), gain knowledge and convert this to communicable and intelligible propositions.

 

The basis for this is a confidence in the constancy of the world at some level, regularity and rationality of material processes, and reliability of our cognitive faculties to understand the world as deeply as we can go.

 

There is no limit because we are confident that the world is entirely explicable. A 'designed' world encourages this, a random world jeopardizes the project before it starts.

 

This mission is encouraged because we are also confident that we have a purposeful role in the purposeful world: we have an in-built teleological sense that encourages the worthiness of the project.

 

So, Genesis 1-2 is not a science text, per se. Rather it is the text that explains why science is possible at all, worthwhile and within our grasp.

 

It demonstrates this where Adam is asked to name various animals brought to him. Those sitting on the village idiot fence always get this wrong. Name follows 'understand'. Adam necessarily observed, understood, evaluated and classified in one way or another. The first example of empirical science that we have. All other science has followed this pattern.

Name the animals? Why?

Adam was told to name the animals in Genesis 2:20. Why?

We don't know at what taxonomic level naming occurred. So the time it would take is a moot point. A day may have been plenty of time. It is certainly foolish to imagine it was every modern species. At higher levels we have cranes, water fowl, raptors and parrots...etc. Perhaps a dozen or so kinds.

Aside from anything else, this process of 'naming' was perhaps the first move of Adam's governing of the creation and so has significance in his reflecting the image of God in ' taking responsibility'. It also drives the point of the location of the event in real time and space, in history, that is, and showing that the animals were not creatures to be worshipped, but to be subject to mankind.

The other aspect of naming is the commencement of the intellectual component of stewardship. Here Adam is told to make the first move in creating knowledge! The intelligibility of the creation shown in Adam's intelligent analysis of it.
 

Now we must be careful in talking about man's dominion here. Today anti-theists, read back into this man's current foolish and selfish domination of the creation. Adam's role as being in God's image would entail loving and caring for the creation as God's gift and reveling in the joy of doing so.

 

How could Adam have named all the animals in a single day?

Yesterday at church: be family

The sermon was on 'being family'.

Clearly our teachers saw a deficiency here and urged its correction.

However, a 'family' ethos is a result, not a cause. If our current systems are not producing the desired outcome,  then 'try harder' within these systems will achieve no change, just frustration, fatigue and disenchantment.

We must understand the system that is causing this result, and then devise relevant changes to it. It is probably a long term effort, not one that will work next week.

Welcomers at your church gatherings/services/meetings

The job of a welcomer is usually to say 'hi' hand out the service handout, if there is one, and for a newcomer, offer to help them find a seat and escort them to it.

 

Welcomers should continue to be 'on duty' after the gathering: keep an eye out for the newcomer, speak to them again, ensure they have a coffee if desired and available. Introduce them to a regular member.

 

Emergencies: the welcomers must be trained for emergencies, be able to help with exits, operate fire extinguishers, and do initial aid care (not 'full' first aid) and assist as guides for evacuation. They must train for this regularly.

 

Spiritual issues. The welcomer may be the only person a newcomer speaks to, and so they should be able to give a plain English, cogent answer to any of the 7 basic questions:

 

1 -- Why do you go to church?

 

2 -- Why are you a Christian?

 

3 -- Why do you read the Bible?

 

4 -- Did Jesus of Nazareth really resurrect -- is he really God?

 

        Bible teaches Yeshua is God

 

5 -- Why do you believe in God?

 

6 -- Doesn't science disprove the Bible?

 

        See John Lennox on Science and God -- Two Mistakes we Make.

 

7 -- How can you believe in God/be a Christian with so much evil and suffering in the world?

 

        My first impulse here is to ask how they deal with evil and suffering in the world without a Saviour? Do they just accept it mutely, ignore it, seek to redress it, and how? However, the first question, as always should seek information: what do they mean by 'evil and suffering'? But also see John Lennox on this. And the full lecture.

Who is in charge?

The default answer to this question asks you to trot out the 'leader'.

We don't have 'leaders' in church.

A leader in modern terms would be the Greek archon: a ruler, boss or governor. One in command. We don't have this in the church. The closest thing might be overseer (elder) or the modern invention 'pastor'. 'Minister' is the best general term, and I think 'Senior Minister' is OK: senior servant, like your Butler at home.

The Senior Minister is the one who coordinates the service of the other ministers (both paid and volunteer).

In our church we have Organizers (who help the Coordinator), Convenors of home study and prayer groups, Ministry Assistants and Helpers (who attend to practical aspects of service).

But, I'm still groping for the word that is short snappy and to the point.

Moderator, as in some denominations; I think is a better term than president or chairman, so it might be useful.

For the local church, the general term I like, if 'minister' is inappropriate, ambiguous or confusing is Steward. A steward is used in secular connections, but ours is different. Instead of a youth group volunteer 'leader', who I would call a 'ministry assistant', but that is too clumsy for easy conversation, there would be stewards. 'Counselors' might also work, based on the term in summer camps; although this might be confused with therapeutic counselors. Organizers might also do the job.

But not 'Leader'. Ever!

How to teach theology

Only based on my experience, I doubt that most churches teach any theology. What theology people pick up would be by their private reading, so that could go anywhere, or by osmosis in their local church.

Osmosis is not the most efficient way!

But teaching theology would sound onerous to many church stewards, moderators, teachers and congregations. It has to be made relevant. And here's how.

One of the teaching segments of the year, perhaps aligned with Lent, or a school term, or for a couple of months after Trinity would be dedicated to 'theology'. The other 'terms' if you follow the school year, might be one OT, one NT and one contemporary life, for example, with Advent taking us up to Christmas.

Here's how the theology program might work: by using the main questions other religious approaches ask of Christian faith:

It might be the most common questions asked or claims or objections made by:

Muslims

1 Is the God Yahweh of the Bible the same as the god Allah of the Qur'an?

2 How can God be 1, yet 3, simultaneously?

3 How can God have a son?

4 Where does Jesus say 'I am God' in the New Testament?

5 Who is greater, Jesus or Muhammad?

6 Was Jesus ever crucified?

7 Which is the real religion of peace? Christianity or Islam?

8 Doesn't the Qur'an claim the Bible is corrupt?

9 We have an original Qur'an, so why can't you find an original Bible?

10 Because Islam is growing faster and stronger, won't it defeat Christianity?

See these videos for answers.

Jehovah's Witnesses

See 3, 4 and 6 above.

Modern Spiritualists (the average person)

1 Aren't all religions really the same/teach the same thing?

2 Everyone is good, deep down.

3 Isn't trying to do the right thing good (enough)?

4 Isn't the Bible just a collection of myths and legends?

5 Isn't God really the universe and in us all?

Modern atheists/materialists.

1 Isn't matter, energy and space are all there is, and all there will ever be.

2 See 1-4 for Modern Spiritualists

and, of course the

7 basic questions of Christians.

1 Why do you attend church?

2 Why do you read/believe the Bible?

3 Why do you believe in God?

4 Why are you/what is a Christian?

5 Wasn't Jesus just a great teacher, like other famous religious figures?

6 How can a good God permit evil and suffering?

7 Doesn't science disprove the Bible?

(See an earlier version: the 5 basic questions.)

In answering the questions, the basic theological themes of the Bible could be explicated.

Then the Apostles creed might be worked through, units of the questions that changed church history, as a bonus political history and the church might also be examined.

Ideally, each talk ( 'sermon') would have an accompanying article for people to study and perhaps discuss in their discipling group.

All interesting!

How are you at sales?

Not selling?

I'll bet you are!

I'm thinking of clergy and volunteer ministers at church. You know, the ones who look after 'pastoral' care, and seek to support those in some particular need.

A common question I've heard, and indeed, one I have asked as well is: "How can we help?" or "What can we do for you?"

Now, this is the sort of question that was perhaps learnt from poorly trained retail sales assistants. These are the poor souls who approach the customer on entering their shop and ask...one of the two questions above.

Bad sales technique, bad technique for those 'selling' their pastoral support services.

What is even worse is the implicit superficiality or disrespect, or disdain, in some cases, this shows for the person asked.

I'm not going to tells sales assistance what to do...they can pay for their own training, but church ministers (of whatever stripe) can do better.

Our job is to know people, to 'relate' to them, to  understand who they are and from that be able to suggest areas of service.

We need a conversation, not a one-liner 'I'm off the hook now, because I've inquired after their welfare.'

We can use the normal conversation.

-- Hello, how are you/how are things going at the moment?

[answer comes back]

-- It sounds like you have a few challenges/frustrations/worries/burdens/loads/things on your mind [pause for response which may or may not come].

-- Could I drop in to have a coffee with you at home? I'll bring the coffee!

OR

-- Let's go inside [there should be nooks in the eccleseum for quiet chats]...or elsewhere.

During this visit your job is to get to know the person's current challenges, objectives, hopes and desires and to bring to them both the succor of our Lord, pastoral care, and identify any practical care that the church is able to provide. Let them know what the church can do and if necessary what community services might also be available.

I know people vary in their opinions on this, but I don't think I'd reflexively offer to pray for them, either on the spot (certainly not on the spot, despite some evangelicals and Pentecostals loving to do this), or remotely. A Christian should expect another Christian will naturally pray for them, particularly when expressed need is discovered. No need to say; sounds empty IMO.

On this score, while imperfect, I aim to pray for all those whom I've spoken to at church through the following week.

3 theological planks in Genesis 1

NT Wright, while making an admirable contribution to NT theology (thus his name, I guess!) has spoken, albeit briefly on his reasons for his view of an evolved 'creation'.

While the literature is full of sound (IMO) defenses of the nature of the text of Genesis 1-3 as narrative, and its general reasonableness (with the vehemence of the modern world in opposition being more to do with its doctrinaire naturalism than any real substantive objections), theological discussion of the creation is rare. There is a theology that does emerge from Genesis 1 and cannot emerge from a-historical, analogical, metaphorical or fantastic (as in fantasy) views of the text that needs discussion.

It revolves around three major points:

1--God's creating in natural days (expressed in similar form to Numbers 7:12ff) shows him to be acting directly and concretely in space and time, with the only mediator being his Word. He does not distance himself from the creation, nor use the creation itself as some sort of intermediary; which would invite worship of the creation  rather than the creator; he connects himself to it and values it ('very good')

2--God's creating in natural days shows in real concrete terms that he is present and active in the space-time he created for us to be his image-bearers in and be in communion with him, but is not captured within it. This sets the context for the theophanies throughout the Bible, the work of the prophets and the Incarnation. God is not the deist figment, isolated from the cosmos, nor a Neo-platonic left-over disdainful of the material creation. Rather, he rejoices in it!

3--He creates by word: the creation is shown to actually have  real propositional content and reflects this in the rational causality of the work over the 6 days. This shows the creation cognate with our own propositional capability and gives us confidence in our ability to 'rule' over the creation and as we come to know it to express that knowledge propositionally: in 'words' by which we communicate. This also gives us confidence that we can gain real knowledge of the real concrete creation, because it was directly made by the  real concrete (not  abstract, platonic, deist or pan-everythingist) god as were we in his image: like him. Naturalism, as Plantinga argues, cannot provide this type of confidence.

Over all Genesis 1 (and on to 3) sets the frame of reference for our knowledge of ourselves, the creation, our Creator and the inter-connections between then. It cogently grounds theories of knowledge, of being and of ethics and places them in the nature of God who is love, who is communicative within the god-head; and with us, and who only gives truth. It avoids the arid dead end of pagan philosophical speculations that either place god within the cosmos, merge god into it impersonally, or remove him from it deistically or in a mute spiritism. It gives us real confidence in the real world as cognate with our experience of it.

The 3 Mysteries

 In a wonderfully succinct conversation (clip) between Roger Penrose (mathematical physicist) and  Bill Craig (philosopher/theologian) three great ontological mysteries are discussed:

1. The physical world is so extraordinarily precise in its mathematical descriptions (I would add that it is extraordinary in that it is inherently contingent)
2. Conscious experience arises in a material world: some arrangements of material (humans, maybe the 'higher' animals), and not others (rocks) are self-aware (and can communicate meaningfully with others).
   
3. The ability to use our consciousness to understand and comprehend mathematics and its extraordinary 'deep' ideas which are far from (and independent of) our experience, but nevertheless cohere with our experience of the physical universe and exist (abstractly) independently of it.

 For Craig these metaphysical questions arouse the ancient philosophical problem of 'the one and the many'. That is, what is the underlying unity of these three seemingly disparate realms of reality: the mental, the abstract and the physical.

These realms are so different, so causally unconnected, yet they come together in our experience, one has to wonder as to the underlying unity that brings them together.

The abstract realm cannot be the source of the mental or physical, because it has no effect on anything. For instance, the number 7 as a number, a concept applied to a quantity, is causally effete: it affects nothing physically 

Could the physical realm? But it doesn't give rise to consciousness: it is not able to explain either the mental, or the abstract. It doesn't explain intentionality (the about-ness of our mental states) which no physical object has. Nor is it able to explain itself. It is contingent. It is incapable of grounding logical and mathematical truths, and is plausible finite.

Nor can the abstract realm...it (the mathematical realm) is characterized by necessity--its logically necessary truths--and its plenitude; the infinitude of mathematical objects.

What about the mental?

We know that mental causes have physical effects in our brain-states and actions: one can will to arise from a chair or to speak.

Some philosophers regard the abstract realm as ideas in the mind of the beholder (I tend to disagree, as they seem to be part of the 'deep' structure of reality, but neither physical or mental).

Either way, no human mind can be the source of these realms, only engage in aspects or reflections of them because we are contingent and finite.

The mental realm is plausible the domain of an infinite (limitless, self-existent) consciousness. A mind that has created the physical and underwrites the abstract (without being Platonic) and is necessary.

This gives an underlying unity to the tripartite metaphysical that we live in and affirm.

This is a philosophical perspective, rather than a religious one, except Judeo-Christianity, or more strictly Christianity, which understands a necessary creator who experiences personhood (diversity of mind) it himself (is triune), does not need the physical or abstract realms and is external to the tripartite world and independent of it.

We know that minds can design things, and the view that there is a limitless mind who has designed the physical world on the mathematical blueprint, that it had in mind has a long philosophical history-- back to Philo of Alexandria, who said that the intelligible world, the intelligible cosmos exists in the Logos (Philo says 'mind of the Logos') and is instantiated in the physical world. QED.

Let's do theology!

 My letter to one Del Hackett:

I've much appreciated your "Is Genesis History" series. It has given me a lot of philological and diachronic information that ties quite nicely with empirical studies of the natural world, showing their general consistency with the Biblical data.

While it is good and proper to make the case for the historical nature of the Genesis account, there must be a theology, indeed, a philosophy, that flows from it, because Genesis 1-3 provides the frame of the reality we experience and are bound to. Thus, rather than a mere recital of events, these events tell us many things, but in the numerous sermons I've heard, live, and on-line, this area is not explored. Thus we have no theological insights to bring to those who deny the direct historical language of Genesis, or the sceptics who side-line it completely as fictional, or fantasy, when it provides the basis for deep understanding of life, the universe and everything.

The theology itself needs to be explored!

Christian theology is not just built on the biblical text, but on the history the text details. God's acts have all occurred meaningfully in space and time in the domain in which we exist and worship Yahweh. This is the very point of the creation account. Unlike the other religions, which locate themselves within the cosmos in some way: impersonal or not, spiritual or material, and generally monist in conception, the creation account shows the holiness (separateness, independence, and aseity) of the creator and that and how he 'relates' to us.

For instance, in the NT, we don't just discuss the historicity of the resurrection of our Lord, but we explore the theology that this opens up. What theology does the creation account open up?

This is important because from its basis we have the means of arguing the nature of the created world, us and God against what must be the only alternative: views that are derived in the world from pagan philosophy.  Indeed, even in the church the dominance of neoplatonic thought looms large, as the creation account itself is 'platonized' and placed in a different abstract domain, while the nostrums of materialism are taken as determinative of real history and therefore set the bounds for the reality of human kind and life.

The events of the creation week demonstrate God's nature, showing what it is that mankind is like. They show us the basic nature of reality in the revealed nature of God in his actions. The days of creation provide the frame of reference for our understanding of God, reality and ourselves.

In fact, what is believed about our origin, the origin of the cosmos, sets the basis for our understanding of reality as a whole, it is the final point of reference for everything we experience and know. Yet, in the materialist framing, we cannot be sure of any knowledge at all, as Plantinga points out in his naturalistic argument against evolution. Nor can we be sure of who we are, as perhaps Kant, if his views are to be accepted, would suggest, with transcendence severed from the phenomenal world.

In brief, I think the following topics are addressed in the creation account:

Firstly, it shows that in creating in normal days as they are calibrated and defined, that the creation occurs in history; it is not detached from time or place like a fairy tale. It is done in the flow of history that we stand in.

It follow from this, that God, while transcendent is also present and directly active in the creation; he is close, and creates in love 'with his hands' as the Psalmist (Ps. 8) writes; for communion with his creatures. This sets the context for all the theophanies including the incarnation, and the revelation through history and prophets. It also shows that nothing but his word stands between him and we his creatures!

God creates by word: he shows that the creation has propositional content, is orderly, and with rational causality; unlike the mad 'creation' by pagan gods with utterly irrational a-historical 'causality' that destroys any hope of an understandable world for mankind's stewardship.

That the creation is by word and orderly encourages us, as his image bearers (that is, we communicate propositionally and have personal agency) that the cosmos is amenable to study from which we gain understanding and knowledge (cf Proverbs 3:19, 20).

We learn for the creation, as being in Gods image, that our words and actions, our relationships and ambitions, have real significance, and our words can have substantive meaning. This grounds our theory of knowledge (epistemology), or understanding of being (ontology), our understanding of ethics (our meta-ethical structures) and our basic need for community to function within.

From this we acknowledge the dignity of every life, the difference between man and animals, man and plants, etc, and we know that God is not removed from or indifferent to the material world. He created it as a real place for us to know and enjoy him within.

We also know that the creation is rationally and reasonably done  by God who does not deceive, but reveals. It is a designed cosmos, so we can be confident that it is explicable, we have reasonable faith that it has constants of state and  uniformity of causality, but in an open system; thus modern science is possible and arose on the basis of such confidence. The 'gaps' invite study, not resignation to 'God just does it'.

But for those theologians who tell us that the creation account does not represent concrete reality and God has not his word as the intermediary between him and his creatures-in-his-image (cf John 1: 1-3, 10 and Colossians 1: 16, 17, Hebrews 1:2, 2:10,11:3) but his creation stands between us, none of this flows. They have typically put the creation in a Schaefferean 'upper storey', a Platonic mystical abstraction, or an Aristotelian impersonal, undisclosed 'mover'. Whichever way, they have disconnected the creation from God, denied his word is active in our material world, and lent towards Gnosticism's despising of the material cosmos and man's created physicality. They open wide the door for worship of the creation (evolution, theistic evolution, spiritism, Eastern mysticism) which is what we see today.

In the final analysis, without the foundation of a realist creation, as set out in the Genesis account, one cannot have a Christian theology of creation, but a pagan one. Nor can we have a philosophy of reality that will be fruitful in the real world. Either we end with a deist uninvolved god, or a monist 'god' who is merged indistinguishably into creation; neither representing the God who is not silent and who speaks in the Bible. The one who created us for true relationship with each other and with him.

Cursed ground?

In the Fall passage: Genesis 3:14-19, it is interesting to note that neither Adam or Eve are cursed. Eve's child-bearing and relationship to Adam are 'down-graded'. But this is not a specific curse! The ground that Adam has to work is 'cursed'. Things won't be proper any longer.

But, Adam is not cursed! What does this imply?

I suggest that one implication is that his imageness is not impaired! He remains, with Eve, in God's image. So he remains one who has meaningful decision-making power? His commitments are significant because they emanate from an image-bearer? His propositional capability remains credible and real, congruent with his life in the creation.

Perhaps this renders the Calvinist doctrine of 'total depravity' not so total after all!

What good the Bible?

The Bible is usually noted for its three basic controversial ideas--first, there is a God. Second, He so loved the world that He took human form and was called Jesus; he was then crucified so as to succumb to sin of and resurrecting give new life to those who believed in Him.

These three ideas are central, but it inter alia contains other gems. The first meets Satre's observation (or is it a claim?) that 'no finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point'.

The Bible locates this infinite reference point in God, opening to us at once some of the great, and long struggled for, in some cases, features of Western thought. These are the conspicuous other gems derivative of that one:

The equality of all men qua men, at least before the law, but also ethically and with equal dignity.

Perhaps also a robust epistemology established by the grounded reality of the creation. It's opening passage gives the material world and human discourse a status that is elusive for animists, Eastern monists, and indeed, strict materialists. It has made modern science possible with its open invitation to explore the cosmos in its foundational propositional rationality (that is, God spoke and it happened, and no dream time serpent involved; rational causality with propositional identities is applied to the real world). Thus it has opened the possibility and indeed the fact of the cosmos being available for investigation and this to produce knowledge.

It also locates an ethical substrate in what is (God, I mean), not in a Foucaultian power play or mere genes to be truncated by a humean guillotine. Ethics has meaning and it is not socially derived and therefore not amenable to the manipulation of either the powerful or the noisy.

Finally for here, it invites us to both the caution of humility and the joy of this wonderful world (albeit much marred by human rejection of the creator) where art, music, and simple good fun are really there, and really substantially enjoyable; and were compassion is a true movement of the soul and not a transiently convenient play of the genes.

The Bible and its Credentials

 Many new Christians, if they have not had the benefit of formal instruction through the catechism, creeds and the Bible are probably at a loss as to how to both read and explain the Bible; they would be flummoxed by any question that either challenged or simply inquired as to their attitude to the Bible.

There are two limbs to this issue:

1. Is the Bible reasonable?
2. What is the Bible all about?

There is also a third issue, not quite about the Bible, but about the reason for one's commitment to its message and response in faith to Christ

Voddie Baucham has recently released a couple of videos that help here: about the Bible and belief.

I'll summarize them in case the videos disappear.

The Bible

Briefly, Voddie says:

I choose to believe the Bible because it's a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and claim that their writings are divine, rather than human, in origin.

Voddie then goes into detail about the history of the text.

Reliable collection of historical documents; written in plain narrative with minimal elaboration. 'Flat prose' I call it.

Luke's opening is the benchmark for the NT texts: it is about seeking objective events and their consequences. 

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

The books, apart from perhaps Revelation, are written within the reasonable span of life of likely eye-witnesses and others with contemporaneous contact with the events.

The earliest extant manuscripts we have are very close to the times of their subject, much closer and in greater number than any other ancient document of historical significance.

Was the text of the Bible, particularly the NT, corrupted?

Unlikely. The corrupters would have had to have corrupted over 6,000 separate manuscripts across Asia Minor, the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region. They would have to have coordinated this across space and time, left no trace on the parchments and other forms of record, and made no ripple in the church and its documents. All so improbable as to allow us to safely dismiss the notion out of hand.

Belief

Is our faith in the text's message (as well as the text itself) reasonable?

Yes, for a few reasons.

As Greg Koukl puts it; it is the story of reality; the best explanation for who we are, our dilemma and our relation to the world around us. It's the story of reality!

The expansion of each of these themes is essential, of course Here's a start.

The requirements made of us for faith are alarmingly generous and require nothing of us but 'yes' to Christ's offer signified in repentance. The natural response to this is, of course to seek the company and society of other believers, to seek to introduce others to Christ and to give reasons for the faith that we have: rational reasons, reasons that work objectively in the world.

And, "science"? Does it disprove the Bible? Well, no. Science depends on events that are observable, measurable, repeatable. It doesn't apply to history. What applies here is reasonable evidence, the witness of 'eye-witnesses', external corroboration of events, reliability of the text, as per above, the pattern of foretold prophesies, and its information that defines the human condition, shows our connection to our creator, and all without imposing impossible demands; but faith in Christ.

Most people who regard 'science' mean, of course, evolution 'disproving' the Genesian account of creation. But this 'science' is the back projection of a materialist/naturalist conception of reality. Nothing to do with science; everything to do with the preconceptions and assertions of naturalism.