Is it possible that God has been at work in your life all along?

When I was a kid, I never paid much attention to the bus stop signs. In fact I was totally oblivious to their existence. Yet eventually there came a time when I decided I would like to start taking the bus. And then I started seeing bus stop signs everywhere! When I actually started looking for them, I saw them on the same streets that I walked every day. It’s not like they suddenly appeared; I’d just never taken the time to notice them before.

In the same way, is it possible that God has been working in your life the entire time, and you just haven’t recognized His handiwork? Could it be that the cravings that we all have, that sooner or later begin to nag at us, like craving intimacy, and destiny, and meaning, are really pointers to the God who created us and instilled these cravings in us?

» View the Soul Cravings videos

» Crave question: Has God been trying to get your attention?

» More Soul Cravings questions

» Going deeper: What’s Jesus got to do with it?

If God can do literally anything and everything, this includes things that are contradictory. Ex, he can make a square circle, or can create something the smells purple. If this is so, there is no problem with God’s goodness and the existence of evil in the world, because since God can do anything, such seeming contradictions should not phase us.

On the other hand, if God cannot do literally anything and everything (as is suggested in the Bible, ex God cannot lie), then this means that there are certain things that God cannot do. Thus, it is at least possible that the existence of free-willed creations (which could freely choose evil) and God’s omnibenevolence (perfect goodness) and omnipotence (all-powerfulness) are not incompatible, since it may not be possible for God to have the former (free will) without the latter (evil) to some degree.

This is part of the argument given in Alvin Plantinga’s landmark (but difficult since it’s written for philosophers) book God, Freedom and Evil … at least, as I understand it. (Short essay based on the book is available here.) He goes into considerably more detail in that book and no doubt with much more precise terminology and philosophical acumen than I have here. Not sure why it suddenly came to mind today, but thought I’d type it out. It makes sense in my own head …

Our duckling grows up into a duck in an arid climate, seldom feeling the cool, wet caress of raindrops. In those rare rainy moments, he steals brief glimpses, takes a small foretaste, of something more. Yet he is content in his environment, never having known anything else.

One day, a fierce wind begins to blow. Try as he might to weather the storm, he decides to venture out of his comfortable surroundings in search of shelter. He walks (for he has never had a need or occasion to fly before) as the wind continues to intensify, filling the air with sand and debris. Steadfastly, he pushes ahead, sometimes allowing himself to be blown forward by the wind, other times pressing headstrong against it. He walks, and walks, perhaps for hours, perhaps for days, it’s difficult to have any sense of time or direction.

Then, suddenly, the wind dies down, and as his eyes begin to clear he can scarcely believe what he sees.

Water. A billion, trillion times more than he has even seen before.

He has been led to the ocean.

He stands, then sits, then stands once again, staring at the magnificent scene in front of him. At length, be approaches timidly, dipping at first a single webbed toe, then a foot. Although scared by this new experience, this foreign environment, nonetheless he intuitively knows that he is on the threshold of greatness.

Still, he hesitates. It’s unfamiliar, untested, even scary.

Yet, he takes a step of faith and jumps into the water … and for the first time, swims.

It’s unlike anything he has experienced before, but at once he knows. This is what he is meant for. Not just his perception of the world has changed; he has changed. It’s not that he is abandoning everything about his life on land, but now that he has experienced the fullness of this new environment, he can never go back to the way things were before … he is home.

Photo credit: spyros_tav

The experience of encountering and walking with the living God is not like putting a feather in your cap; it’s more like putting on glasses and really being able to see for the first time. It is the fulfillment of cravings of which we are only given a foretaste in the natural world.

C. S. Lewis once said, “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.” This, I think, captures part of the transformative power when a person realizes that they have finally been freed to become the person they were always meant to be.

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus

Is it possible that God has been at work in your life all along? Maybe it’s time to explore your world beyond your current boundaries in search of the ocean, and ask the question: What does your soul crave?

Click the “more” link to view (the embedded video unfortunately auto-plays so I had to add the extra step to avoid it playing every time people came to the site).

I was asked by the commenter for my thoughts on the site, however there is far too much there to respond to in the comments section of another article. So I’ve decided to respond here instead with a series of short commentaries instead. I’ll start with the numerous short articles on the site’s front page, but I may jump around since certain parts may not be worth commenting on (or I may even agree with them, we’ll see!) For brevity’s sake I will refer to Andrew D Benson as Mr Benson.

(One other quick note. I cannot be entirely exhaustive in my commentary, so out of necessity I will be selective, because I don’t have the time to write a 400 page book in response! If I have not directly addressed an issue, it may be because I feel it is a similar to an issue already addressed, or is inconsequential, or even that I’m tired and need to sleep! )

The first section on the site deals with Jesus’ omnipotence and is titled “Read the Bible and see for yourself that Jesus did not know everything!” In a sense, I do agree with Mr Benson here, but in a more important sense I do not.

I want to explain that the classic conception of Jesus’ identity (and the one that I think coheres best with the full witness of the New Testament teaching) is not that Jesus was God merely playing a role, acting like (pretending to be) a human. Rather, in the incarnation Jesus is simultaneously fully God and fully man. This was necessary to achieve the aims of the atonement. (Although not necessary in the sense that God was obligated to do it.)

What this means (besides the fact that in some respects we may never completely comprehend every last detail about how that works) is that in order to take on a fully human identity, Jesus willingly chose to self-limit certain of His attributes. This is what Paul mentions in Philippians 2:6-7: “[Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.“ The Greek phrase translated “made himself nothing” above literally means “he emptied himself” … the NLT translates it as “gave up his divine privileges”. Because of this, Jesus’ omnis (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc) were all muted as he voluntarily chose to limit his abilities while on Earth. Most of the time Jesus acted in accordance with his human abilities, exercising his divine power/knowledge/presence/etc whenever he chose. It is not that he “lost” his divine nature, but rather that he veiled it as he chose for his purposes.

Again, this is not a modern day hypothesis, but has been the traditional interpretation of the church. Keeping this in mind, many of the objections in this first section/article are not worth addressing. However some of them deserve further comment.

The first section, regarding Jesus and the seeds, unfortunately contains what I assume is a typo. Mr Benson says:

Jesus was not omniscient because he did not know which seed is the smallest. He said, “… a grain of mustard seed … is the smallest of all seeds …” (Matthew 13:31-32 KJV)

However, this is not how the text of the KJV reads. It does not say “is the smallest of all seeds”. It reads “is the least of all seeds.” He probably meant the NRSV, which reads as he has quoted it. However, the KJV translation of the word as “least” could still be appropriate, because the Greek word mikros can have that meaning (according to Strong’s dictionary). Elsewhere in the same NRSV translation quoted above as “smallest”, the same word mikros is translated “least” (Luke 9:48).

So Jesus is not necessarily referring to the size of the seed here. Even if he is, I don’t see a problem with him referring to the mustard seed as being the smallest of all seeds his listeners would be familiar with. It seems entirely reasonable to take Jesus’ words that way, which is why (I assume) the NIV adds the word “your”, not to cover up a blunder as suggested in the article.

Following the seeds section, Mr Benson says “He who knows all things does not ask questions.” But on what basis does he make that assumption? Jesus often used questions in order to communicate with his listeners. A college professor may ask dozens of questions to his class during every lecture, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the answers! Jesus was interested in having conversations with people, and so naturally he would ask questions. Several of the passages cited in the remainder of this section follow this tact, so I won’t reply to each of them individually. In fact, Mr Benson later quotes John 11:42 where Jesus explains that he has said things “for the benefit of the people standing here” … which is exactly the point I am making.

However, we are given the example of Mark 13:32: “No one knows about that day or hour [of the endtimes], not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” This is not a question, it’s a statement, so Jesus is not merely encouraging audience participation here. Instead we have an example of the voluntary “emptying” of knowledge I referred to earlier; Jesus chose not to know because he did not want to reveal this info to his listeners. Note this carefully: The author of this gospel and the other gospels were quite aware that Jesus did not always openly profess omniscient knowledge. So the gospel authors themselves saw no problem with this; neither do I.

Then Mr Benson mentions the “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” quote which Jesus speaks on the cross (Mark 15:34). I use the word “quote” because Jesus is quoting Psalm 22:1. This should lead our inquisitive minds to ask: Why did Jesus choose to quote this particular Psalm? The reason is that it contains prophecies (or at very least parallels) with his own torment on the cross: a Psalm which opens with cries of anguish, but ends in confidence and triumph. Strangely, the Psalmist ended his Psalm with the words: “They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn – for he has done it.” (Psalm 22:31) Done what? The Psalmist is strangely vague here; but Jesus fulfills the Psalm through his suffering and completes our understanding of its meaning.

Mr Benson further accuses Jesus of lying in John 7, when Jesus says he will not yet go to the festival, but the disciples should go. He says this because the townspeople are telling him to go to the festival and “show yourself to the world” (v4) However, Jesus is not interested in doing so. He does not immediately go with his disciples, but at some unknown time later, he does go (as he said, it was not yet time for him to go right that moment (v6)) but in secret, not in the way that the townspeople wanted him to. This is not lying for both these reasons: Jesus did not immediately go to the festival, and he did not go in the manner in which the crowd wanted him to.

Briefly addressing the other objections, Jesus prayed both for the sake of the crowds (to show them how to pray) and because as a fully human being it was in his nature to pray. (Mr Benson here is taking a docetic view of Jesus, ie that he is God only and not human, which is not the biblical position and was renounced as heresy by the early church.) Mr Benson says “Had Jesus been omniscient, God would not have talked to him.” This seems to me to be a non-sequitur, and in any case the same rationale as applied to Jesus’ questions applies here.

Mr Benson ends his critique with what may be the most terrible two sentences of the entire section/article:

Furthermore, omniscient beings don’t think because they know every thought that can be thought. (The concept of omniscience is beyond human understanding.)

Apparently the concept is beyond the understanding of every human being … except Mr Benson, who according to the above seems (or at least claims) to understand it quite well. If it is beyond human understanding, how does Mr Benson know what omniscient beings do or do not do? Perhaps he means that fully understanding omniscience is beyond human comprehension; in that sense I would agree with him. But as stated, this argument is self-refuting.

What I think this first section demonstrates is how important it is to grasp that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. When one is emphasized above the other (either docetism or ebionism) it leads to not only an inaccurate apprehension of the New Testament view, but also a less than fully formed view of Jesus, which will lead to some of the problems noted above.

Whew. That took far longer than I anticipated … but I suppose it’s much easier to ask the hard questions than it is to answer them. I’m not sure when the next installment will be, but I will work on it when I have time.

Further reading:
How is Jesus God and man at the same time?
Much longer: Are Jesus’ Natures Compatible? (PDF) – From STR.org, generally a very good site.

Some people say that I threw my brain away
That I’m illogical and don’t have much to say
Some people say that it’s foolish to believe
In what we cannot see, so we’re deceived

All that I can do is listen to you
All that you can be is out there, you’ll see
Every single time that I
Explain to you my reasons why
You turn away; you close your eyes
And then you cut me down to size

Some people say that I threw my vote away
The moment I decided to live life this way
Some people say that it’s foolish to believe
In what we cannot see, so we’re deceived
I’m not here to make you all agree
But have you truly studied this historically?

Every single time that I
Explain to you my reasons why
You turn away; you close your eyes
And then you cut me down to size

Every single time that I
Explain to you my reasons why
You turn away; you close your mind
Your heart’s just not prepared to find
Some meaning, some meaning

Just wait, and listen to that voice
It calls so quietly, for you to make a choice
What will it be? What will it be?

The line that caught my attention was “But have you truly studied this historically?” I gave a talk recently at my church based on my ebook, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament, which I’ll be reprising later this month. I encourage you to check it out. The ebook, I mean. I may record a video of my talk this time, and if it turns out well, I may decide to post it online.

I guess it depends whether religion is like insulin or ice cream. For example, I prefer chocolate ice cream, while you might prefer vanilla, or butter pecan, or strawberry, or … great, now I’m hungry. But regardless of what your favorite flavor is, there’s nothing wrong with choosing one instead of another; it’s a personal preference. If someone told me they liked mint flavor best, I wouldn’t respond by saying “What the heck’s wrong with you?” or “How dare you choose mint instead of chocolate, you big jerk!”

The point is this:
That’s the beauty of ice cream – you can choose what you prefer. When it comes to medicine, however, it doesn’t make sense to choose what you prefer. Rather, it’s essential to choose what heals. It would be silly to choose NyQuil over penicillin simply because it tastes better. (Greg Koukl)

When choosing ice cream, you choose what you like. But when you choose medicine, you choose what heals you. Religion isn’t like ice cream, where you should choose whatever “tastes best”. You need to choose what’s true. The truth is often tough, but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore it and choose what we like.

Jesus didn’t claim Christianity is ‘true like ice cream’. He didn’t say “Come, follow me, it’ll be fun!”. He in fact claimed something very specific, contradicting every single religious (or non-religious) person who lived before him. He claimed that it’s impossible to “earn” our way into heaven, and in fact need to trust in God (who Jesus himself claimed to be in human form) instead of trusting our own failing efforts.

But isn’t that pure arrogance? Isn’t that intolerant? Doesn’t it sound presumptuous for Christians to claim they have “the truth” and all other religions are wrong? Well, only if truth is like ice cream. If someone is dying and needs medicine, you need to give them what will heal them, not what they like best. In the same way, Jesus gives us what we need, and ultimately what is best for us.

There are many different paths, but they don’t all eventually lead to the top of the same mountain. Some veer off to the left and the right; others climb entirely different mountains! And if God is real, truth about God is not like ice cream; it’s like medicine, and only what is true can heal.

So, download it now!

A response that I’ve seen is that atheism is not a worldview because it is not a belief, rather it is merely a “default position”. The rationale given sometimes compares belief in God to unicorns or some other such mythical animal, in the sense that unbelief in such things (or anything, really) is the default until convinced (or proven) otherwise.

While I can certainly see the reasonableness of this line of thinking and its general applicability, I wonder if it applies equally well to the question of God. There’s at least two reasons to think in this specific case things might be different. First, the vast majority of people throughout history have believed God (or gods) exist(s), a phenomenon which remains the case today. Should a belief be regarded as a default position when the majority believe the opposite?

And secondly, related to the above, if Richard Dawkins and those who agree with him are correct that human beings have evolved a natural proclivity towards belief in God(s) as some sort of survival/social assistance mechanism, should not belief in God be considered the default position, since we are supposedly “hard-wired” for such belief? Shouldn’t such naturally impelled belief be considered the default? Although I would agree with Dawkins that human beings seem to have an innate proclivity towards belief in God, I would suggest that there is different reason why so many people seem to have an innate awareness of God.

One of Ehrman’s main points goes unchallenged on the show, however. That being that the earliest Christians didn’t think Jesus was divine. Ehrman’s argument seems to be that even though Jesus is clearly portrayed as being divine in the Gospel of John (which he admits), in the (ostensibly earlier) synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) he is not portrayed as being God. So, Ehrman is saying, since the synoptics are earlier and don’t portray Jesus as God, John can be dismissed as a later invention (or evolution) of the Jesus story.

At the outset, this black-and-white distinction is false, since reading the synoptics should not result in anyone thinking that the authors intended to portray Jesus as “just a guy”. Even if someone wants to claim Jesus is not divine in the synoptics, it would be ridiculous to say that Jesus is not seen as being utterly unique and far above and beyond all other people who have ever lived.

But when Ehrman’s claim that Jesus’ divinity is absent from the synoptic gospels is studied more carefully, there are at least two huge problems. First, I think it’s false that Jesus’ divinity is not found in the synoptics. There are in fact many ways the authors speak of Jesus’ divinity in the synoptics. I’ve explained one of these ways in depth in my post “Jesus Never Claimed to be God?“. I think we can see in the early synoptic gospel writings how the authors are struggling to comprehend this god-man, this real human being who lived and ate and walked with them, but who at the same time was nevertheless “God in the flesh”. (See also Glenn Miller on the subject of Jesus’ self-understanding in the synoptics.)

The second problem is that the synoptic gospels are not the earliest documents in the New Testament. The earliest documents are generally agreed to be Paul’s letters, which contain some of the strongest statements of Jesus’ divinity, such as Colossians 2:9: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” and Philippians 2:5-7: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Therefore, going by Ehrman’s method, since Paul’s writings are earlier than the synoptics, the should be trusted instead, and these statements regarding Jesus’ divinity should be believed ahead of the later synoptic gospels’ descriptions.

A featured article series currently on TheLife.com, written by Canadian philosopher Michael Horner, investigates Jesus’ resurrection as final proof of Jesus’ divinity; ie, that not only did Jesus claim to be divine, but that the resurrection validated His claim. Please take a moment today to read “Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?”

Oh, and happy Easter! Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, it is truly the greatest and happiest of all holidays.