The Enchantment of the Faith

Part 3 of a Dialogue on Faith

It was one of those rare, perfect nights where the moon was nowhere to be seen, and the clouds had parted in the sky, making way for one of nature’s few sights readily visible to every man: a luminous, shimmering blanket of stars swept across the sky vibrant and stunning. It is one of the few sights that does not diminish, even with time.

The Christian and the skeptic both lay on their backs in a grassy field, peacefully gazing heavenward, lost in the wonder of it all.

The skeptic broke a long silence.

“What do you think the ancients thought about all of this?”

“All of what?” the Christian asked, all too ready for a conversation, as he felt that this was really the perfect time for it.

The skeptic’s hand swept a wide arc toward the heavens.

“All of it,” he explained. “After all, we’ve only just come to understand it all ourselves.”  

“Have we really? I would say that perhaps we’ve just begun to understand it,” the Christian clarified. “Though certainly we’ve made a good start.”

“I think that maybe you’re prone to underestimating just how much we’ve learned in the past century.”

“I don’t know that I do. I am well aware of the successes of science, but I think that maybe none of us has any idea just how much there is left to know,” the Christian explained. “But of course we don’t—the very nature of ignorance is that one never quite knows just how much more is left to be learned. But I would suggest that we’re really not much closer to the end of the matter than we were when we began.”

“I thought you might say something like that,” said the skeptic. “And I’m sure you would never admit the one truth that every legitimate scientist knows: the more we know about the heavens the less need we have for religion.”

“No,” answered the Christian, “you’re certainly right about that. I would never admit to it. Only rarely do I admit to things that aren’t true.”

“And this is why we will never make any headway in our discussions,” the skeptic, quite seriously. “You won’t admit something that is plain to every thinking person. You are blinded from the truth by your willingness to believe in myths and superstitions.”

“Just because I won’t admit to it doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to discuss the question,” said the Christian quickly, “but you must allow me to question the premises of your assumptions.”

“Fine. Question them.”

“When you say that everything we have come to know about science has left us with less need of religion, where is that assumption from? Did you hear it from within religion? I highly doubt it. This may be the sorts of things that skeptics speak about together, patting one another on the back, but it’s certainly not something you hear within the walls of a church. I don’t remember ever hearing murmuring within Christianity of how woeful it is that the world has so little need of our faith. Where is the fear that Christianity should be feeling?”

“It’s something one learns just by looking at the world,” the skeptic declared.

“Looking at which parts of the world?”

“The facts of the world. Don’t you agree that scientists are seeking naturalistic answers the questions of existence in the universe?”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“And don’t you also agree that, in some respects, science has done a remarkable job of explaining things that were previously though inexplicable?”

“A truly remarkable job,” the Christian admitted. “Science continues to move forward in thrilling leaps and bounds! In just a few hundred years we’ve explained gravity, motion, atoms and, most recently, the cosmos! I certainly would be lying if I said I wasn’t continually impressed.”

“Then you’re only a step away from admitting my point!”

“I do see how it would seem that way.”

“But of course you do! It is the most obvious point in the world! For centuries—for thousands of years, really—man has been inventing vast, intricate mythologies to explain the things that couldn’t be explained in any other way, and now science has solved the problem!”

“You’re speaking,” said the Christian, “of the ‘God in the gaps.’”

“Exactly. You’ve said yourself that science has answered questions that previously seemed unanswerable, and with every answer, religion is rendered more impotent.”

“That is true of some religions, certainly,” the Christian admitted. “For example, Ra is almost certainly unnecessary. Who has need for a sun god when we have a working understanding of nuclear fission? Likewise, meteorology means we don’t need a god of thunder; modern medicine means we don’t need any gods of healing.”

“I’m surprised that you would admit it so easily!”

“Hardly. I’m admitting that we don’t need the panoply of gods invented by men to explain things that could not be explained. I’m admitting that we don’t need mythology. It’s fortunate that I don’t worship any of the gods of mythology—I worship the Christian God, about which science has had absolutely nothing to say!”

“But it says everything! Science has opened up the secrets of the universe! We finally know just how great and awesome this universe is thanks to modern cosmology. Christianity is so focused on man and the earth, that has never been able to comprehend the universe! It’s sad, really.”

“It might be sad,” said the Christian, “if it were at all true. But it simply isn’t. Christianity may believe that there is something special about men, and something unique about the earth—and though scientists have done everything in their power to prove otherwise, both of these statements are supported by an overwhelming weight of evidence—but it has never had any illusions as to the vastness of the universe.”

“But how could a religion so narrowly focused on man possibly comprehend the universe?”

“Simply because Christianity has never focused on man! Or, rather, it was never supposed to. Other religions are about men, Christianity is entirely about God. And when the focus is rightly placed on Him, man is put in his place.”

“And what place is that?”

“A very odd place indeed! Man may be important—he is certainly the glory of creation!—but he is also humbled, because he is always seen in relation to his creator. It’s no wonder that King David wrote, ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, or the sun of man that you care for him?’ Do you really think that in saying this David really misunderstood the insignificance of man? Or what about the book of Job? Remember that God asked, “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?” In saying this do you really believe that He was somehow making something small of the heavenly constellations? Of course not! God’s message to Job—a message that continues to this day—is precisely the opposite: who are you to even begin to fathom the magnitude of my creation?”

“But that’s just it! We have begun to fathom it! Maybe you’re right—maybe Christianity has always believed that the universe was great, but that only proves my earlier point! God was invented because man thought he would never be able to understand everything—but what a difference a few thousand years makes!”

“What a difference indeed!” the Christian acknowledged. “It has offered detailed explanations of quantum mechanics and general relativity.”

“Indeed it has.”

“And by them we know why planets revolve around stars, why we stick to the earth, and what kind of things we’re made of.”

“Yes!”

“We can survey the paths of stars and galaxies and turn back the clock to discover just where they were in the past. We can follow it all the way back to the very beginning, where everything is compressed into a neat, infinitesimally small point, outside of even space and time.”

“And what could be more beautiful than that?”

“That is certainly impressive—but don’t you admit that this is where science ends?”

“Of course it is! That is the moment in which the laws of physics, as we know them, break down.”

“Right. It is the point, beyond which, we really can’t know anything. The point beyond which we need to have faith.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m sorry that it’s not appropriate scientific terminology, but it seems perfectly straightforward to me. There is a point, beyond which, we all, Christian and humanist alike, admit that we cannot empirically know something. It is the point, beyond which, faith is required of every man. Humanists have faith that there is some physics at work beyond the physics that we know; Christians have faith in God. The difference is not that of faith versus non-faith, the difference lies in the fact that I acknowledge and embrace my faith, while yours is hidden and ignored.”

“Even if that’s true, my faith is based on science,” said the skeptic.

“No,” the Christian responded, “your faith is based on the hope that somewhere, outside of what we can observe, there is something that is simply not God. My faith is in precisely the opposite. And, to be perfectly honest, I can’t help but thinking that my faith is considerably more rational. I don’t suspect that you would agree

“I certainly don’t.”

The Christian smiled.

“That only means the dialogue will have to continue.”

Jesus and the Kings of Earth

As I read the gospels, the continuous story of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom is a story that captivates me far more than any of the dramatic water-into-wine or healing-the-blind moments, though the latter certainly make for better television. This story does not begin in the Gospels, of course—it begins far before the man ever walked the earth. It is absolutely everywhere in the Old Testament, as we see creation groaning and man failing time and again to create the kingdom for himself. But in the New Testament we see, at last, a kingdom not just being longed for and prophesied about, but a kingdom come!

This startling revelation has perhaps its most poignant roots in the poetic words of the mother of Christ, as the boy who would one day rule over a kingdom that would never end nestled and kicked within her womb. According to Luke’s Gospel, Mary, in the Magnificat, uttered a beautiful song, whose themes would be echoed by her son during His ministry:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.”

Here is the strange and bold truth of a Kingdom that had not yet come, for it would only come with the child in her womb: Jesus would not become mighty, but he would establish a kingdom that would bring the mighty low; He would never be rich, but he would establish a kingdom that would render worthless the riches of the earth. Five chapters and thirty years later, when Jesus gave his Sermon on the Plain, His message was the same as his mother’s: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.”

From the beginning of Jesus ministry—yes, even well before the beginning—the message was the same: the worthwhile things of the earth were not the worthwhile things of His kingdom. All the riches of the world were left worthless when compared to the incomparable riches of His kingdom that will never end.

Jesus knew this, of course, when He was tempted. Had he not understood His own message (as we consistently fail to understand it today) He surely would have given in to Satan’s devious machinations. Malcolm Muggeridge was right in noting that Satan’s great secret in offering Jesus the kingdoms of the earth, is that at its core the offer is bogus. “There are no kingdoms for him to bestow; only pseudo or notional ones presided over by mountebanks masquerading as emperors and kings and governments.” Jesus, who would be called King of kings and Lord of lords, who came to usher in a glorious kingdom, who would send out His forces in the form of a church destined to conquer the earth, was being offered the mirage of earthly rule and authority. Satan offered Jesus nothing more than the laughable, passing pleasure of meaningless authority. Imagine Jesus actually giving in! Imagine Jesus sitting on a paper throne when there was a heavenly one waiting for Him! Imagine the inanity of Jesus ruling over a Potemkin kingdom that, like every nation and kingdom of earth, would be blown away again and again by every light breeze. Jesus declined earthly rule not because he was too humble, but because there is no earthly rule to be had! There never has been. Jesus alone knew that the offer was not just beneath Him; it had no value whatsoever, just as the sustenance of a loaf of bread has no value when compared to the pure, eternal substance of God’s Word. Though truly tempting to we of such little perspective, for Jesus to take these things would not be to accept something good, it would be to lose something of supreme value!

But the Jews failed to understand this in the first century, just as we continue to fail, even though we have the truth at hand. “To what should I compare this generation?” Jesus asked in Matthew 11. “It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, ‘We played the flute for you, andyou did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’” The people of Israel expected something different in their Messiah—and though they may have thought that their expectation was greater than the reality, in truth it was far less. They expected a king, to take a physical throne in their physical palace, for they hadn’t yet learned that every physical throne is destined to collapse; every physical palace to crumble and decay. Jesus may have been truly afraid when, “perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.” (John 6:15) What a mockery this would have been! For Jesus to be lifted up to be king of the Jews would have been the greatest tragedy to ever befall that nation—a greater tragedy, even, than the destruction of the temple a few decades later. To raise up Christ as an earthly king would have been to deny Him the eternal throne to which He was headed. It would have been to sacrifice something unbelievably great for something unbelievably worthless.

The story of Christ’s kingdom reaches its denouement, of course, at Golgotha. On the cross Christ put to death every pretense of Earthly rule; just as in His resurrection He made the first movement to take His seat on His eternal throne. But the truest perspective can be found in the hours leading up to the cross, with the mockery of Jesus by the guards and, surely, the priests of Israel as well. In mocking Christ, they were bringing judgment on themselves; in draping Him with the clothes of royalty and cruelly crowning Him with thorns they were demonstrating Christ’s decisions in the wilderness—they were mocking not just a would-be king, but the man who would be King of Kings. Jesus’ destiny was to rule over everything, bringing low the powers of men, and, ironically, it was His death that made this possible. While mocking Jesus, these people were enabling His rule, helping to usher in His kingdom, dramatically sealing their own fate.

So Jesus was killed, and so He rose, and so did His Kingdom find its foundation, on which it continues to be built today. Since Christ died, ostensibly ending what had been a vibrant, but brief, ministry that might even have led to a revolution had it been allowed to continue, two thousand years have come and gone. With those years, decades, centuries and millennia have come the world has seen the Roman Empire fall from dizzying heights; it has seen the Mongol Empire on the edge of conquering the known world; it has seen a British Empire, a French Empire, Portuguese, Belgian, Japanese Empires all rise and fall. Bitterly and tragically fall. Empires built by human hands, withering and dying with age after just centuries.

Christ’s Kingdom continues to grow; it shows no signs of aging.

Had Hitler been successful in his dream of establishing a German Reich so pure and so powerful that it did indeed last a thousand years, it would still perish and be replaced, in the end amounting to less than nothing when standing before the sheer weight of Christ’s eternal kingdom, which has persisted already for twice that.

If Christ’s Kingdom has indeed persisted, then Mary’s prophecy concerning her son is made even more beautiful, for it is being fulfilled even today, before our own eyes. If Christ’s Kingdom is alive and thriving then His temptations in the wilderness remain both relevant and urgent to every man and woman who has ever been caught up in the things of the world; for, as Dostoyevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, “...in (Satan’s) three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it were, brought together into one whole, and foretold, and in them are united all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature.” If Christ does indeed sit on a throne, reigning over an eternal kingdom, then those present at His trial were not mocking their victim by pretending that He was a king, but mocking every king and emperor who has ever lived by pretending that they might be anything like Him. “Who,” asks Muggeridge, “among the motley collection of spectators of so obscure an event could possibly have envisaged that there before their eyes another civilization was being born, which would last for two thousand years, shining so long and so brightly? Not even the Apostles could have thought of that; what they looked for was an apocalyptic Second Coming and the end of the world, not the beginning of Christendom.” God’s ways, we need to be reminded time and time again, are not our ways. They are far, far better.

The Miracle of the Church

Miracles are intriguing things. They engage the imagination in much the same way that parables engage the mind.

Because of this, it is common to hear Christians appeal to the miracles of the Bible as evidence for both the existence of God and the rightness of the Christian faith. It is common to hear Christians point to the novelty of turning water into wine or the sheer audacity of walking on water to demonstrate the deity of Jesus; it is, after all, unthinkable that anyone should refuse to believe in a man whose actions disregard the most basic principles of chemistry or scoff at the notion of liquid viscosity. Only a man who was also God could transform a few pieces of bread and some fish into a meal for thousands; only the Son of God could still a storm with His words.

But we must be cautious. These miracles may be miraculous to the Christian, but the forgotten fact is that the miracles of the Bible are far too removed to serve real apologetic purpose.

    

As Christians we can marvel at serving a God who can part a sea, rain fire from heaven, or choose to destroy a city with either fire and brimstone or the sound of trumpets, but we must be aware that these stories are less than worthless to anyone who does not already believe. Just as the Apostle Paul said that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God,” this may be applied equally to any of the other miracles of the Bible. For it should go without saying that to disbelieve in God is undoubtedly to disbelieve in His miracles. No secular humanist will ever be swayed by the assertion of even the most heartfelt Christian that Jesus once made money appear in a fish’s mouth or cured blindness with mud. Those who disbelieve in God do not merely believe in a natural law, but in a natural law that is, by definition, immutable. Rules, to the naturalist, are not proved by the exception; they are proved by the fact that no exception exists. How could any such skeptic be expected to accept the presence of events which, by definition, ignore such laws? If miracles could be explained, after all, then they would cease being miracles altogether. True miracles are not just difficult to rationalize, they are impossible to rationalize, therefore making them truly beneficial to only two groups of people: those who witness the miracles firsthand and those who already believe in them.

Then are miracles without value to the non-believer? Far from it! Though the apostolic age of great public miracles may be in the past, it just so happens that two of the greatest miracles performed by Jesus Christ are ongoing. These great circumventions of the law of nature were not just momentary glimpses into His deity, but are enduring and undeniable even after two thousand years.

To the Christian, the greatest of Christ’s many miracles is undoubtedly His resurrection from the dead; not just a physical body returning to consciousness like Lazarus, but the pure, unchangeable body of a King ready to take his throne. It is one of only two miracles (along with the incarnation) for which there is a holiday that has overtaken the world. To those who believe that it happened as described, there is no more joyful cry than that of “He is risen!” for if this is true, then it is not only Christ who has been freed from the grave, but we as well. Now, says Malcolm Muggeridge, “After his death on the Cross, we are told, he was seen by the disciples and others on numerous occasions; the stone in front of the tomb where he had been laid was found to have been removed, and the tomb to be empty. These are matters of legitimate historical investigation; what is not open to question is that today, two thousand years later, Christ is alive. The words he spoke are living words, as relevant now as when they were first spoken.” Indeed, the first enduring miracle of Jesus is that He is alive today; it is miraculous that His words have not lost their meaning; He is still worshiped as God in an age when such a thing should be unfathomable; He died, and yet He undeniably lives.

The second miracle is, in some sense, the very same as the first, though it is one that might be more readily understood. This is the miracle of the church. The church—the living body of Christ on Earth—is perhaps the most overlooked miracle in the world, though it is no less miraculous than the raising of the dead. Augustine of Hippo considered it a miracle as early as the fourth century: “...the very manner in which the world's faith was won is found to be miraculous if we consider it. Men uninstructed in any branch of a liberal education, without any of the refinement of heathen learning, unskilled in grammar, not armed with dialectic, not adorned with rhetoric, but plain fishermen, and very few in number—these were the men whom Christ sent with the nets of faith to the sea of this world, and thus took out of every race so many fishes, and even the philosophers themselves, wonderful as they are rare.” If the continued existence of a church founded in such humility was so remarkable even in the fourth century, how much more profound must it be after sixteen hundred more years?

But it is not just that the church has survived—certainly there exist devout pockets of long-thought-dead mythology and every form of paganism that ever caught the hearts of men. Cults and sects come and go and sometimes remnants remain far longer than any would expect. No, it is not just survival, it is that the church, born from the humblest imaginable circumstances, proceeded to conquer the world with its message. It is not remarkable that there are loud, unshaven men on street corners with provocative signs or that there are devout ascetics in caves in the desert; it is that the growth of the church has meant both the rise and the fall of great governments, the subject of historic works of art and unfathomable conquests.

Still more remarkable, the miracle is not just that the church has conquered, for the hearts of men are fickle enough that such things can happen—it is that Jesus Christ insisted that it would happen long before it did.

The world may question the validity of Jesus’ words all it likes—we may even argue about whether or not the man even existed in the first place—but there can be no question that the sayings bearing his name were first put to papyrus long before there was any reason to believe that this little Jewish sub-sect would become anything of note. There is no doubt that by the end of the first century it was well known that Christ affirmed: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” There is no doubt that, before the church ever made it as far as Rome, Jesus declared to his disciple: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Whether these were the words of a God or not, they were words that, centuries later, have been left unshaken.

The audacity of Christ in declaring that His message would survive Him first began to circulate among a bold, but persecuted church trying to gain a foothold within the greatest empire the world has ever known; there were signs of encouragement in the growth of these communities, but there was nothing to suggest that the gospel should have the power to, not only conquer the empire, but to survive, and even thrive, long after the empire collapsed.

To the first churches in Asia Minor it must have seemed an unbelievable thing that the Apostle John should prophecy not just the survival of their diminutive communities of believers, but of a thriving church that would overtake the world: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the lamb!’”

To the reader who does not yet believe, I can only suggest that they look more carefully at the history of the church, for it has survived and thrived beyond all reason, and in perfect accord with the assertion of Christ. And to the reader of faith, who already believes in and is encouraged by the many miracles of the Bible—to the one who bears witness to the continued miracles of the church and the resurrection—I say this: “God is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness.” We can take solace that the last and greatest promise of Jesus continues to hold true: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Christ and Mythology

“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God?’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? ... Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.’ ...the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. ‘I have come too early,’ he said then; ‘my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves.’” -Nietzsche

Nietzsche was right. Christianity really ought to be dead by now. Indeed, as Chesterton noted, Christianity has died, many times over: “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”

If Christianity was just another form of mythology (a pejorative that the secular humanist clings to hopelessly when discussing the Bible), if it was just another superstition, then, yes, it really ought to have died out by now just like any other myth. It ought to be as disbelieved as any other superstition. The fact is that, unless they are being brought to life by authors or Hollywood screenwriters, almost every mythology that arose coextensively with the birth of Christianity have not just seen their followers dwindle—it has seen them literally drop to zero. There is no one, literally no one, who argues that Greek or Roman mythology might be more than myth. There is no one, literally no one, who would pray to Thor or Odin; who would worry about offending Ra or Osiris. The Celtic druids are not merely in hiding; they are extinct. Their temples and statues have been overrun by moss and are steadily crumbling into the earth.

Nietzsche was right in the 19^th century when he thought that Christianity was in some trouble. Like the first centuries after Christ or the period of reformation, theological crises were commonplace then, and it could even be said that, in a sense, Christianity was dying. One would have expected the trend to continue, as trends often do, and yet the 20^th century saw a number of revivals, and even today there are vast pockets of society wherein the Christian faith is growing, not just in terms of demographics, but in terms of devotion. Nietzsche could never have believed that a preacher like Karl Barth would come along and renew theology, or that preachers like James Stewart or Billy Graham would arise and that countless millions would still be willing to hear a message that has not changed in more than two thousands years. There is a strange truth of Christianity that says that a generation of apostasy does not have to lead to a generation of greater apostasy. In any mythology, and even in most religions, when one generation abandons their beliefs, the avalanche has begun and in the next generation this apostasy will be heightened. Why should a son ever come to believe in something that his father has abandoned? In Christianity this is precisely what has happened, time and again.

Christianity is different, not only because it is true, but because it is believed to be true. The Greek and Roman myths were not merely abandoned, they had really never been believed in the first place. Yes, perhaps they had been believed inasmuch as a deist or agnostic might hold some vague notion that a god may have some form of existence, but they had never been believed as one believes in the world. Faith is a conviction of the unseen; myth is the hope for a daydream. Faith is a discovery, myth is a creation.    

When a person becomes a Christian, he ceases to allow his mind to create a world as he wants it and begins to discover a world that God has created for him. It is not creating the savior that we desire, it is discovering the Christ whom we need. This is what has led to the otherwise unaccountable survival of Christianity through the many moments when it really ought to have died. This is what keeps sons coming back to the faith even after their fathers fall away; it is what leads to revivals when the world thinks we ought to hold a funeral for God; it is what leads to awakenings long after Christianity seems to have fallen asleep. If there was no more Christ in Christianity, the faith would certainly have been killed off long ago, swallowed up by the incorporeal nonsense of Gnosticism or the worldliness of the Manicheans and then killed entirely by the cultures of the world.

This ought to be seen as remarkable! That Christianity has managed to survive, that churches grow and that non-believers become believers and that the faith thrives most under the greatest persecution, is one of history’s greatest contradictions. Chesterton likened Christianity to a river—an independent flowing of fresh thought that is racing unstoppably toward the salty sea of culture and, yes, myth. “Some expect it to go down in a cataract of catastrophe, most of them expect it to widen into an estuary of equality and moderation. In other words, most moderate people thought that faith like freedom would be slowly broadened down; and some advanced people thought that it would be very rapidly broadened down, not to say flattened out.”  

To Christianity, the delta—the place where river and sea meet—should not be considered the life of the sea, but rather the death of the river. When a tiny stream of fresh water meets an infinite ocean, it is the fresh water that is made salty. The vast ocean swallows the river whole. Even the mightiest river—one that has carved canyons in solid stone and swept both away man and beast by its deadly currents—is rendered impotent the very moment it touches the vast ocean.

The river of Christianity has somehow (and by this I mean “by the power of God”) collided with the sea and yet remained a river. No, much more than that! It has made the sea less salty! Though moments have arisen that have seen the river disperse, losing ground to the mighty tide, let it be known that the faith is not subject to entropy. Though creation itself may be groaning for redemption, not so the river that cuts its way through the ocean—it is the church that carries the great promise of redemption to a groaning world. In the church is held the mystery that, though an entire generation may seem to slip away and the faith may appear to fail, the next generation may very well bring about an awakening. The river, though cutting through the ocean, might in fact grow stronger, sweeping the sea along in its path. It is not necessary that periods of darkness must prefigure periods of even greater darkness; they may, in fact give way to glorious light!

Christianity may be called untrue, but it cannot be called a myth, because it is a thing that has been believed and it is a thing that has swept its way into the world while remaining pure. While every myth is swept away easily by the changing tide, Christianity alone marks the place where the river at last begins to overcome the sea.

This is a thing to be believed! What if we truly lived as if it was the sea whose identity was threatened by exposure to the river? What if we understood that it is the world that must flee from the church in order that their addictions and idols might be spared, rather than the other way around?

This boldness is the great promise of the gospel, and it is a truth borne out by history. Christianity lives and thrives and has been regularly walking out of its own grave for two thousand years, following in the footsteps of its founder.

Christ and Philosophy

Of the most effective attacks on Christianity, the most common today seems to be the attacks from those who oppose “religion” in its most general meaning and proceed to argue against the concept of “god” in the most abstract sense, arguing against one by arguing against another. An argument against Hinduism, then, is an argument against organized religion, hurting the Christian as much as the Hindu. This form of attack (like so many) is, of course, disingenuous when applied to any religion, but is even more profoundly wrongheaded when applied to Christianity, for Christianity cannot be compared with the religions of the world.

I could scarcely begin to describe the myriad ways that Christianity is unique, and not only among the religions of the world (that much has been said time and again). Far more interesting to me has been the revelation that even as a general philosophy of man, it is unique among philosophies. And I do not mean “unique” in the watered-down and inane sense that there might somehow be different “stages” of uniqueness, nor do I mean that Christianity is only unique by a matter of degree. I mean it in the definite, exact sense of the word: Christianity is unique. It is not just to be differentiated among the world's religions; it stands absolutely alone. It does not merely offer an alternative to other philosophies; it is really the only philosophy.

Philosophers see themselves as the observers of mankind. They see themselves as theater-goers observing the many acts of a sweeping play, every scene filled with equal parts comedy and tragedy. It is a performance of such depth and magnitude that every member of the audience might take something different from it—they, having seen the very same play, might come to a multitude of conclusions, all of which seem, in some sense, true, but are really contradictory. Some will give rave reviews to the performances of the actors; others will have endless criticisms for the dialogue or the set construction or the direction. Philosophers have witnessed the same performance time and again; it is not the play that changes, it is their views of it that change. Philosophers provide a haughty, pretentious audience, and it all stems from their belief that they have somehow stepped outside this farce themselves, looking down from a private box, musing after the strange behavior of strange creatures they could never understand. The philosophers have forgotten that the stage extends to them, as well; they have forgotten they cannot abandon their humanity for the sake of their philosophies, just as no historian can ever step outside of history.

Christianity, on the other hand, is the only philosophy grounded in objective absolutes rather than human ingenuity; it is, in other words, the only philosophy not rooted in failure. Secular philosophers pride themselves not in understanding things fully, but in understanding them slightly better than other philosophers, which can only mean that they do not understand things at all. The same could be said for the pursuit of science, which is not to understand things perfectly, but to understand things better than those who came before. Even among the philosophers and scientists there is rarely any pretension of knowing everything, and there is a tacit acceptance of the limitations of knowledge. Not so with Christianity.  

Christians have long held the key to philosophy, for ours is a philosophy not originating in human observation, but originating outside of humanity. A man cannot fully understand himself without first forgetting that he is a man; but Christian philosophy originated with a God who is separate from man, but who also became man; a God who knows man’s heart both from the outside and from within. This powerful truth has been wielded by men and women of all ages and with varying degrees of education, beginning not with the educated elite, but with lowly fishermen and tent makers. The poor and the humble have been speaking more common-sense notions on philosophy than the richest and most educated since long before we bothered to keep track of these things. Ever since all philosophy found its ultimate meaning in the incarnation, the most reasonable philosophers have been those that recognize the utter futility of philosophy itself, for the philosopher, with his endless degrees and his almost worshipful devotion to language, will inevitably spend the course of his life in trying to understand why a man should decide to do what he does, while at no point recognizing that he really ought to just ask himself. 

Secular philosophy begins by asking a question about human behavior; why, for instance, should we be so driven by greed or power? Why are we so afraid of death? From these questions are devised increasingly clever (and, consequently, increasingly less likely) explanations and algorithms that seek only the broadest possible generalizations. All of man’s actions are driven by a will to power, a will to live, a will to procreate, etc. Once the philosopher discovers the ultimate driving force of man, all of his decisions will somehow come to make sense at last. But as philosophers stumble about in the darkness looking for the light switch that might finally illuminate the mysteries of man, Christians are free to sit in the comfortable warmth of a bright sun that has been shining all along; an oasis to which I may freely invite others, for there is room for all.

Christian philosophy alone does not begin with an observation of man, but begins instead with two principles: sin and grace. The scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you never to begin a principle, for a principle must always be based on observation and never the other way around. One should never begin by saying that the stars are made of chicken soup, because there is a very good chance that, once we learn how to study the stars, we will most likely discover that chicken soup is nowhere to be found. The secular philosophers are very much more in tune with the scientific method—observe, hypothesis, theorize, observe, re-theorize. That is all well and good, but only until one realizes the strange truth that the presumptuous principles of the Christian faith have for thousands of years offered a perfect description of man, while the philosophies of men seem to come and go on every changing breeze of fad and folly.

Christians are also blessed with a perfect philosophical text. Secular philosophers have wasted countless volumes in defining the abstract principles of humanity, decipherable only to those who have learned the language, while the Bible stands alone as the most complete description of man ever assembled. Alone among ancient literature, the Christian scriptures offer man in his most primal, vulnerable state, as a sinner desperately in need of grace; as a fallen being in desperate search of salvation but unable to procure it for himself. There is no thousand page philosophical tome that comes close to equaling the 42 chapters of Job in explaining hardship, suffering and injustice. There are no expressions of joy, sadness, brokenness, humility, gaiety, loss or victory that can equal the Psalms. There are no modern histories of any race of men that equals the Pentateuch, both in describing the fickleness of man and prescribing a cure. There are no works that are so candid about failure, no depictions of life so honest about difficulty, no religious tract as blunt about its difficulties. The Bible stands alone.

Every human philosophy is built on truth; but it is only ever a partial truth. They are based on observations of man rather than the whole man. The truth of philosophy is always overshadowed by its inadequacy, simply because it tries to make man a rational creature, whose choices can always be explained. It is strange that the philosophers who carry on this tradition, who seem so sure that humanity can be explained, seem to have never stopped and looked at themselves; to observe their own strange decisions and inexplicable actions. A secular philosopher who bothers to look at himself will recognize quickly that he is the best evidence against his own philosophies. Philosophers can wax on and on about the condition of man, but until they recognize that man is best defined by his relationship with God, their words and insights will pass away. They will never stumble upon anything as lasting or insightful as the words of King David: “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Blessings from Blasphemy

The Literature of the Heretics, pt. 9

Why, as a faithful Christian, should I ever have concerned myself with what professed non-believers—professed opponents to belief itself—have to say about my religion?

Too much of my life has been spent in devoted attention to the things I agree with and in denial of the opposition. But of course it has. This makes sense. It is easy and refreshing to read words and arguments that only serve to reinforce the things that I hold as important, and it takes far more of my attention, with the potential for far more mental anguish, to expose myself to challenges. Why not just ignore them?

I entitled this essay "Blessings from Blasphemy," but in this I don't mean to imply that one receives blessings from the act of blasphemy, nor that blasphemy should be encouraged for the purposes of blessing others. What I mean is that, though of course I would prefer it if the world as a whole was suddenly aligned to my beliefs (even though I am inclined to enjoy myself in disagreement—I would gladly give it up for the sake of such unity), as long as there are those who vehemently deny the things I believe in, there are certain benefits to be gained by, at the very least, hearing them out—benefits that, I believe, make the entire endeavor worthwhile. 

I can easily point to the two most direct blessings:

First is the blessing of knowledge. It is important to face the arguments made against even our most dearly held beliefs, for the simple fact that we claim our beliefs to be true. If we believe in truth, then our truth ought to withstand the arguments against them. I understand those who avoid the opposition simply because they do not, in a general sense, like conflict, and this I understand (to a certain extent), but to avoid the argument altogether is to admit a lack of faith.

I understand the hesitancy a Christian might feel in facing up to those who seriously question their beliefs—especially those as highly regarded as Hitchens or Dawkins, who can lay claim to countless souls “won over” from religion to non-religion. I can understand the hesitancy because I have most certainly felt it myself. No one enjoys giving audience to a person intent on destroying the things they hold dear, but this fear absolutely pales in comparison to the joy that comes in the knowledge that the arguments we have feared are, in fact, worthless. We fear these men because they are learned, only to discover that even the greatest university educations have not enabled these men to understand the faith they deride. They tear apart religion like vultures at a carcass, but when they come to Christianity, and especially the cornerstone of Christianity in Christ, they find their beaks dulled against the same impenetrable wall that has devoured argument for centuries.

There is a sense of indescribable freedom in discovering that the monster one has been afraid of was, all along, harmless as a kitten. I don't think this holds true for everyone, of course; some are more prone to be swayed by clever argument than others (and though I don't believe either Dawkins nor Hitchens to have many substantial arguments, there is no doubt that they have a talent in being clever), but for those who do truly understand the substance of Christianity, it is wonderful to discover that their arguments have no real foundation; that their true effectiveness lies in lumping every “religion” together and destroying them as a whole because Christianity taken alone can withstand every arrow. 

The second of the blessings one can receive from this sort of blasphemy is even more important, and that is the blessing of awareness. It is important that we know what we believe; it is equally important to know how others see what we believe. Christians are meant to be the image-bearers of God on the earth, and there is no doubt that this is a job that, more often than not, we mangle until it is unrecognizable. If the heretics have one talent that stands above the rest, it is the talent of pointing out the many flaws of God’s people—and these are flaws that Christians need to be aware of!

The terrible fact is that not every argument made by the heretics is untrue. Not every complaint about religion is unfounded. As I read through the works of the heretics, especially Hitchens’ God is Not Great, I found myself nodding in agreement far more often than I would have liked. Christianity may, at its heart, be truly good, but that certainly does not mean that Christians are even remotely good. We must never fall over the same stumbling block that has been hindering Christianity for thousands of years, which has seen Christian after Christian struggling to defend the indefensible; to offer an account as to why some travesty or another was actually justifiable. If the scriptures have taught us anything, it is that, first, everyone is capable of acting horribly, and, second, that God can somehow use us for good without condoning our evil.

In addition to pointing out the sins of our past, the heretics can make us aware of some of the ridiculous claims Christians still have a tendency to make which, quite frankly, makes it difficult for us to be taken seriously. As just one small example of this, I uttered a heartfelt “amen!” when Dawkins wrote that, “...in greater numbers since his death, religious apologists understandably try to claim Einstein as one of their own.” This may not bother many as profoundly as it bothers me, but it is indicative of a larger point. Einstein was emphatically not a Christian, and he was emphatically not a Jew in any orthodox religious sense, yet I myself have heard Christians claim that he was somehow a ‘spiritual light’ among the ‘darkened’ scientists. True, Einstein was known to turn the occasional wispy, spiritualistic phrase, but he was in no sense religious. For that matter, if I was Dawkins I would also have noted that Christians do the same thing with Thomas Jefferson, who I would consider one of the great opponents to Christianity this country has ever seen. Words and phrases that vaguely smack of religion do not make one a Christian and it does not help our cause to try and lay claim to individuals simply because of their celebrity.

Dawkins is also correct in saying: “The other thing I cannot help remarking upon is the overweening confidence with which the religious assert minute details for which they neither have, nor could have, any evidence.” Absolutely. Christians (much like scientists) are far too quick to claim certainty on matters where certainty is simply not possible, whether it be an historical item or a doctrinal point. Reading the heretics reminded me that there are points where it is perfectly acceptable to be unsure, lest I be seen (rightly) as undiscerning.

These are just a couple examples of situations where the heretics have it right, and where Christians ought to be humble enough to learn from them. Christians need to be more intellectually honest and much more open to criticism, not bristling in anger every time a non-believer points to some error or another. We need to be aware of how we are seen by others, “...that by doing good (we) should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” (1 Peter 2:15)

Finally, I want to close this series with a quick note about my choice of words (something that probably should have been mentioned at the beginning): I've had some questions about why I chose to use the word "heretics" in regard to the authors I have been dissecting—there is the sense that the word might cause undue offense. It is a fair question, and the answer probably begs for an essay by itself, but to summarize, I will simply say this: a heretic is nothing more than a person who is at odds with religious orthodoxy. No one would dare argue that either Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins venture anywhere near orthodoxy with their thinking, no one would call them fence-sitters or ‘semi-orthodox’. Not only is it fair and accurate to refer to them as heretics, it is a label that they really ought to wear as a badge of honor, as I might if someone labeled me a ‘fundamentalist’. For the word to be controversial, it really has to be applied to one believer by another. When one Christian calls another Christian a heretic it is a very serious matter—it should rightfully be considered offensive and reason for great debate. When a Christian refers to a secular humanist as a heretic, he is only using the most obvious word in the world.

The Altar of Science

The Literature of the Heretics, pt. 8

“As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.” – Richard Dawkins

“Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They begin with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing.” – G.K. Chesterton

I find plenty to disagree with when reading the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens when it comes to their content. But there is also much that I disagree with in how their disagreeable content is expressed. It may seem trivial, but how an argument is presented is, in some respects, equal in importance with the validity of the argument—and in the case of these heretics (Dawkins in particular), his method does much to undermine the very points he is making.

Take, for example, Dawkins’ writings on science. What I mean by that, of course, is take almost everything he has written. Dawkins writes about science in the same way he writes about himself and all of mankind—with a purposeful, but insincere, subjectivity. Of course, he would say. Subjectivity is the one thing required of the scientist! He doesn’t realize that, while the scientific method may thrive on subjectivity, understanding human nature absolutely does not.

Dawkins seems to insist on keeping his explanations of every human decision, every human thought, every human quirk, firmly at arm’s length. He feels a desperate need to rationalize absolutely everything by way of natural selection—every action or thought a human could have can be rationalized as a self-evident quirk of genetics. When a poet describes happiness they might do so by employing the metaphor of a sunny day or the return of a long-lost love; when Richard Dawkins describes happiness he does so as a mixture of proteins that release dopamine into the brain so as to prolong the survival of the species by way of... and from the first word he demonstrates only that he has really never understood the meaning of happiness.

Science, to the heretics, too quickly ceases to be a method by which one looks at the world and instead becomes just as much a religion as the faith they deride. When Dawkins writes that, “...a widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts...is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect...” he is absolutely right (and this is something religions should seriously consider), but at the same time he does not seem to understand that he has not merely pulled religion down from its place above criticism, he has replaced it with his own altar of science! God forbid that any of us should second guess a scientific study!

I do try to avoid criticizing a healthy pursuit of science (because I have ventured down this road myself and found great joy here), but I cannot help but criticize the scientists for their utter failure to understand the very things they are so desperately trying to comprehend. An astronomer can become so lost in his telescope that he has forgotten to lie in a field at night and simply stare into the heavens; a biologist can become so lost in his microscope that he has forgotten that the cells he is studying actually make up a creature. Scientists have a tendency to sacrifice their own humanity for the sake of their discoveries. Men like Dawkins have become, for lack of a better (or more fitting) analogy—the extreme Calvinists of humanism. Just as Calvinism in its most extreme form rids humanity of both free will and, in effect, personal responsibility, so also is Dawkins quick ascribe an evolutionary explanation for every decision made by man, removing responsibility from all of us for our actions. Every action is biological; every decision is made with the intent of spreading our DNA, to ensure the survival of our genes.

My opposition to Dawkins in terms of science is not limited, however, to the cold, aloof tone it forces him to take when talking about things that are living and awesome—it has also become clear to me that I ought to no longer give him the benefit of the doubt when he is prattling on about how science frees us from religion, because whenever it proves convenient to do so, he seems willing to neglect the very scientific method he worships! So rigidly and worshipfully does Richard Dawkins view science—so low does he prostrate himself before that particular altar—that he has forgotten (or consciously abandons) one of the core principles of the scientific method. Specifically, he neglects to acknowledge that facts are notoriously difficult to come by, and that the very word—fact—is not a word to toy around with.

Dawkins claims that, “Creationists simply don’t realize that evolution is a fact!” No, they don’t, but neither does the honest evolutionist. Time and again Dawkins refers to the “fact” of evolution, deriding the weak-minded zealots who refuse to believe. Surely Richard Dawkins—a man steeped in science throughout his adult life—is intelligent enough to know that there is something very significant and very special about calling something a “fact.” Richard Feynman—an atheist himself, and one of the greatest, most beloved scientists of the 21^st century—loved to boast about how close his theories were to being facts, but consistently stressed the difficulty of facts: “You can see, of course, that...we can attempt to disprove any definite theory. If we have a definite theory, a real guess, from which we can conveniently compute consequences which can be compared with experiment, then in principle we can get rid of any thoery. There is always the possibility of proving any definite theory wrong; but notice that we can never prove it right. Suppose you invent a good guess, calculate the consequences, and discover every time that the consequences you have calculated agree with experiment. The theory is then right? No, it is simply not proved wrong.”

Human evolution is theory, not fact. We could literally watch a species evolve into another before our eyes and it still would not prove that this is how life came to be as it is. I realize that this sounds like nit-picking; like I am quarrelling over a simple matter of syntax or vocabulary, but it really is much more than that. It is indicative of an arrogant form of scientism that simply cannot be taken as gospel. It is evidence of a man so singularly focused on attacking something that he has forgotten the very laws he claims to live by. This is a common danger—our desire to destroy others getting in the way of positive affirmations of our beliefs—that we all must continually guard against. It is especially evident in political disagreements, where we are so quick to point out inconsistency and hypocrisy on the other side that we neglect to notice our own. Dawkins betrays the certainty of his own beliefs by being disingenuous about them.

One need only read the words of the most God-hating scientists to discover the fact that they seem to have universally missed something in their understandings of the universe. Perhaps their views are self-consistent, as an earthworm may be consistent in saying that the whole world is made of nothing but dirt, but they are incomplete. They consistently neglect a great portion of the man-beast they are so desperately trying to explain. It is terribly difficult, after all, to explain a thing that you have never properly understood. One could imagine trying to explain a camel without mentioning his hump or an elephant without mentioning his trunk. The explanation may be accurate and consistent, but few would defend it as complete, or even valuable.

The purely scientific view of man, quite simply, does not understand man. It may have an explanation as to why he has hands, but not why he should choose to use his hands to produce works of art rather than hunt or forage. It tells us why we have hair on our heads, but not why we should choose to shave our heads in solidarity with an illness or to join a monastary... it doesn’t—it simply can’t—tell us these things because it is likely to cause madness, like describing a rainbow to a man born blind.

Real hope cannot be found in science. This is not real evidence for God, of course, but nevertheless one should at the very least stop and consider what sort of hope or meaning they are looking for. If hope is the same thing as increased knowledge, then science may hold some very limited hope—but it is a hope that will fail the very moment one looks out into the abyss and recognizes just how little has actually become known by science. It is like the man who spends his life attempting to comprehend eternity, only to grow old and realize that he is no closer than he was when he began. As Chesterton said, “The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

Real hope is found in embracing the eternal rather than trying to comprehend it. It is found in first understanding creation and then studying it; with much of science it is, tragically, the other way around.

The Evolution of Fallen Man

The Literature of the Heretics, pt. 6

“The human brain runs first-class simulation software. Our eyes don’t present to our brains a faithful photograph of what is out there, or an accurate movie of what is going on through time...I say all this just to demonstrate the formidable power of the brain’s simulation software. It is well capable of constructing ‘visions’ and ‘visitations’ of the most utmost veridical power. To simulate a ghost or an angel or a Virgin Mary would be child’s play to software of this sophistication.” – Richard Dawkins

“Religion is not provided to us by revelation, it doesn't come from the heavens, it doesn't come from the beyond, it doesn't come from the divine. It's man-made. And it shows. It shows very well - that religion is created, invented, imposed by a species half a chromosome away from the chimpanzee.” – Christopher Hitchens

First, I should mention a source of agreement I have with both Hitchens and Dawkins: we share at least one foundational premise when discussing humanity. We can all agree that humanity falls short of perfection, and that any human claiming otherwise has not thought to look at the world around him before making his claim. I, like the world I live on, am far from perfect; I sometimes mistakenly believe things that are lies, I sometimes tell lies myself, I am selfish, proud, angry, arrogant, etc. The one thing that allows me to live with these truths is the knowledge that everyone else is in the same boat.

Now, the difference (which is of immeasurably greater consequence than the agreement): I see these imperfections as a consequence of sin, while the heretics as genetic malformations brought on by incomplete evolutionary processes. Furthermore, they tend to believe the very idea of sin to be depraved (“What kind of ethical philosophy is it that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor?”-Dawkins), while I would only go so far as to say that their evolutionary answer to be fundamentally wrong-headed.

I understand that these authors believe the evolutionary imperfections of man have led to all of the great evils of the world (in my last post I gave an example of Hitchens relating wars with the fact that we have not yet “evolved” into fully rational beings), and that religion is a mere symptom of our mind’s ability to play tricks on us (as Dawkins implies in the quote at the beginning of this post). That much is easy enough to understand, but it leads me to a bit of an impasse: I have reason to say that man is imperfect because I am aware of a standard of perfection. God. I am aware that I am fallen because I am aware of the heights to which I am called. The other side is not afforded such perspective. The heretic, though blessed with a common grace he may never understand, is aware that there is something wrong, yet he cannot possibly define it, as he believes in nothing that can be used in comparison. He thinks war and murder are wrong because he knows in his heart that life is valuable, but he cannot offer a convincing argument as to why. He believes we just need to evolve further, but evolve into what? Into Nietzsche’s “Übermensch”? A genetically pure, physically perfect superman? I know it is in bad taste to do so, but how can one avoid making comparisons here with Naziism when one speaks of the evolution of man? After all, would humanity really sit idly by and allow itself to progress naturally when we have the means to help nature along? Hitchens even comes dangerously close to a wholesale endorsement of Eugenics: “Sad though (abortion) is, it is probably less miserable an outcome than the vast number of deformed or idiot children who would otherwise have been born, or stillborn, or whose brief lives would have been a torment to themselves and others.” I have tried hard (and done a good job, I think) of keeping civil in my discourse so far, but how can one not be driven to anger at such a sentiment? It is a statement of pure evil. Evil in the truest, most objective sense of the word. And yet, that is how the heretic believes that the human species might one day evolve itself free from sin.

To put it bluntly: The facts show otherwise. History has capably demonstrated that we cannot simply “evolve” into perfection (not that such a being, to the heretics, can objectively exist). Even if we were to systematically abort all of the potentially weaker members of our species (something that I am not sure is not already happening to some extent), survival of the fittest will never successfully weed out the things that make us human, either for better or for worse. It will never rid us of our pride or selfishness just as it will never rid us of our love or our need to worship. We simply cannot transform ourselves into anything either more or less than human.

At least the heretics admit that we are not perfect; that our minds play tricks on us; that reason and logic cannot always be trusted.

...and yet, they seem perfectly willing to do just that.

Both Hitchens and Dawkins demonstrate an exceptional willingness to believe in their own exceptional logic, while simultaneously admitting that mankind has been “hoodwinked” for thousands of years and tricked into believing in religions. They do not seem to understand that they are, as we all are, looking at the world and seeing only those things that support what they hope to be true. It does not mean that their words are all lies (though they are not immune to lying, as I could easily point out); it means that they are selective and they apply the reasoning that best confirms previously-held beliefs. This is the fundamental undercurrent of all human thought that ever was or ever will be (including my own)—and it really ought to be stated aloud every now and then. None of us are free of bias; no author of an historical work can fully remove himself from his text; no debater can avoid making the evidence support him.

It is easy for the undiscerning reader to be puzzled by reviews of Biblical history by historians claiming to be either impartial or merely skeptical. We place far too much weight in the words of those who declare themselves experts, who comb the scriptures for any apparent anachronism; who scour the linguist anomalies of the authors, seeking some slight oddity to which they can grab hold. It is easy to forget that when we are reading commentaries and criticism we are only reading the words of men just as error-prone and biased as we are, and they need to be accepted as such.

It is even easier, perhaps, to accept the word of the scientist, who is merely trying to pull back the veil of nature—what could be more objective than that? But the truth is very different. Science is not immune from bias; in fact, one could argue that science is more blatantly prone to bias than most professions, as a great portion of modern science lies in interpretation rather than empiricism, and a great majority of scientists believe that one of their tasks is to throw God (and believers in God) for a loop.

My point is simply this: Both Hitchens and Dawkins spend a tremendous amount of time and effort in assuring their readers that much of religion can be reduced to “trickery” of the brain, and yet both men admittedly worship at the altar (a phrase chosen particularly because both men would find it distasteful) of human reason, a thing (as I previously explained) that is very nearly a myth itself.

Now, what are we to do with these imperfections if we cannot simply breed it out of our species? What are we to do with sin if we cannot simply make ourselves into better people? The short answer is that we can do nothing at all, which makes it all the more fortunate that there is a God who can. Humanity is at its best when it is seeking after the God of the Bible (note that I did not write, “when it is seeking after religion”—the difference is crucial); sin is at its least when we are attempting to imitate Christ. The point of Christianity, no matter what the heretics might claim (over and over and over) is not to belittle us by pointing continually to our sin, but to free us of sin. The book of Romans states very explicitly that we were once slaves to sin but now we are free. We are already free; we do not have to wait to advance to our next evolutionary state; we do not have to wait until the universities learn how to better indoctrinate us or the government learns how to better control us. If we are in Christ we are free from sin.

That is my point.