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.

Two books?

When the discussion turns to the Bible and 'origins' one often years the claim that God has spoken in two books: the Bible, that's a real book, and the 'book of nature'. That's not a real book, its an analogical book.

The two books theme has been used by some very famous people, but it's not helpful, not good and...not even right. In fact, it's so bad as to be not even wrong, to borrow a criticism attributed to Wolfgang Pauli when asked to comment on science so bad that it 'was not even wrong'.

How can this be?

Let's start with the first book: the Bible, the real book. It is full of words. In the original manuscripts the words are there, penned by people whom the Spirit had infused so what was written was the word of God, while retaining the spark of individuality that comes with any writer. 

The words of scripture are congruent with the word spoken in power recorded in Genesis 1 and mentioned by Christ (Mark 13:31, for instance).

Schaeffer discusses the word, the propositional, contentful, communication of God to man, his creation in The God who Is There and Who Is Not Silent. This word mediates the relationship of God and mankind. It is the word by which we make the response of worship to God, our creator, redeemer, saviour.

As Peter Jones says, there are only two religions. The worship of God, the creator, and the worship of the creature (which is every other religion, so called).

When the 'book of nature' is conjured up, the wonder of God in creation is not read through the actual word of God, but is placed in a separate category, almost, in some cases, a separate ontological category, in a separate reality from the Word of God. In this category, the creation is identified with only the words of man in a concrete sense; and these are not inspired by God, but are framed and modelled by man's 'world view'. This is often not founded on God's actual real word, but on words that start from the view that their is a 'neutral' place of only 'nature' and man.

There is in this maneuver the potential to split worship and this second book, so called, the analogical book, usually supplants the words of God culminating in worship of the creation, not the creator as his word takes second place as to the all important grounding definition of our frame of reference by which we see connection between creator and creation. No longer is this his word, but what men say about the creation!

There is only one book. The Bible, by which we are guided into all truth; including the truth of a real world that is amenable to intelligent inquiry because it is intelligently created by the God who speaks and who gave us that ability.