The Moral Argument

One of the arguments to support the existence of God is the moral argument.

The moral argument states:

->Moral values are objective facts:

--->Either atheism or theism must account for these facts.

----->Atheism cannot account for the facts.

------->Theism (belief in God) can account for the facts therefore theism is correct.


For the moral argument to work 2 things must be proven:

1) Moral values are truly objective (not subject to anyone's personal opinion but rather are always true despite how some people may feel about them).

2) Atheism really can't account for the existence of objective morals.


Are moral values truly unalterable? Can some moral decisions be "true" for some people and "untrue" for others? Let's get out of the realm of the abstract and let's get to a down to earth situation to answer these questions.

Suppose your wife or your mother decides to go out for an evening to get some groceries. She goes in, gets everything on the list and checks out. Then she carts the food out into the parking lot and gets all the food into the car. Seeing that it is 9:00 PM and very dark she gets into the car and after she gets a mile down the road she feels a gun pressed to her neck and a raspy voice telling her where to go. After driving a couple of hours outside of anyone's sight the man tells her, "Stop the car. Get out. Take off your clothes." After a restless and frantic night of police calls and every desperate measure to find out where your wife was you get word from an officer who found the car and the woman a couple hours outside of town. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this sir, but your wife was raped several times and then she was murderer."

If something inside you doesn't burn with the most violent rage at the person who would do such a thing, something is terribly wrong! We start thinking of the most painful torture fit for such evil people!

Now let me ask you a question. Can someone really say "Rape is ok for me but you may have a different opinion and we will just have to respect each others differences?" My answer to that is a HELL NO! Don't just listen to me though, ask yourself how you would feel in such a circumstance. How do newscasters report these stories? Do they do it with a grin like the weatherman who gives the 5 day forecast? No!! They are distraught and disturbed. They are solemn.

Ok I think most people will agree with me on that particular matter but are morals truly objective and not determined by personal preference? Let's look at some moral issues that are widely debated. Abortion. Some people think its ok and some think its wrong. Does this prove that morality is determined by people? No. The reason this isn't so is because the main issue at stake in abortion is not whether or not murder is wrong but what is argued is whether or not abortion classifies as murder! It is helpful to think of morals in columns: Adultery: Murder: Stealing: Lying. Now it is obvious that everyone agrees that these are wrong but what is argued about is whether or not something falls under that category. For example, Mormons believe that it isn't wrong for a man to have many wives. Even though that is the case adultery is still a sin to them! How can that be? It is possible because they don't think of having many wives as breaking the moral code of adultery but being unfaithful to those wives is adultery. A mormon would consider adultery as one of his wives having a sexual relationship with someone else or even himself having sex with a woman other than his wives.

This is important to understand because the only thing disputing about morals does is ensure that there truly are objective morals!! Consider these evidences of an objective moral code as well:

1) Humans live as if they are obligated to obey certain real values.
2) Moral outrage is evidence of a universal moral obligation.
3) Moral judgments are evidence of a universal moral obligation.
4) Every society has a similar moral code.

Let's look at this negatively as well. If all moral decision were relative then...

1) No moral code could be better than another!
2) There can be no such thing as moral progress ("I'm becoming a better person!").
3) Moral effort becomes meaningless.
4) No human being is better than another human.
5) All choices are equally good.

Really think about some of those. If there isn't a standard to judge our actions by then there is no correct behavior! That is not how we live though. We live with the weight of moral obligation every day of our lives. Would you really believe that there are no evil or good people? Was Mother Theresa a better person than Hitler? Not if you believe that morality is based on personal opinion because if it is then there is no correct opinion.

The reason Atheism can't account for the existence of objective morals is because something can only be objective (free from opinion) if it is determined by an eternal and unchanging source. The God of the Bible, Yahweh, has told us that he is that eternal and unchanging source. Since that is the case his character becomes the standard for all right behavior because he is the eternal One! Amen.

An Awesome Hope- 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Crystal's question:

Daniel,
I want to know or learn more about " The dead shall rise first" in 1 or 2 Thessalonians. What does that mean in the whole picture of things?

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (TNIV)

EXPLANATION:

We can conclude just from reading this passage that the Christians in Thessalonica weren’t completely sure about what happened to their fellow Christians who had died. Paul gives the reason for teaching this lesson on resurrection in verse 13. Paul didn’t want the believers in Thessalonica to grieve for the believers who had died as if they didn’t have any hope of seeing them ever again. Some scholars suggest that the church in Thessalonica thought that the believers who had died before Jesus’ return would miss out on the resurrection. Paul counters this false idea by teaching and emphasizing that it is the believers who had died that would be the first to experience resurrection not those living at the return of Christ! The main emphasis of this passage is the hope that all Christians look forward to whether alive or dead.

Paul then goes on and gives the resurrection hope that all Christians share based on the resurrection of Jesus. God is going to bring the dead Christians with him when he returns at the Last Day and at that time they will be the first to experience their life in their new resurrected bodies! The time between the resurrection of the dead and the resurrection of the living won't be long though. All resurrections will happen on the same day, there is just an order that God has for the resurrection.

When Paul says that the believers who are still alive at the return of Christ will not “precede” those who have died in Christ he is saying that we will not be the first to be raised! It says that the dead in Christ will rise first. So Crystal to answer your question, what Paul is talking about when he says that the dead will rise first is that on the Last Day, the Day that Jesus returns, the Christians who have died will be resurrected first and then the Christians who are still alive will be resurrected second.

In the whole picture of things this is an encouragement that all Christians will be resurrected and will be with God and that God has an orderly plan for how things will proceed on the Last Day. This is meant to be an encouragement to all Christians so that we can rejoice in what awaits us!

HOW ARE WE TO APPLY THIS MESSAGE?

As Christians we need to have such a firm confidence of our hope of being resurrected that when the death of a believer occurs we will not grieve like the world. In William Barclay’s commentary he quotes an ancient letter that says,

“Irene to Taonnophris and Philo, good comfort.
I was sorry and wept over the departed one as I wept for Didymas…But nevertheless against such things (death) one can do nothing. Therefore comfort one another.”

That’s it? That’s all the world can offer to encourage people who are experiencing the painful loss of a loved one? That is pathetic! How different is the hope that we have as Christians? Paul tells us that the dead will be resurrected into a new healthy, powerful body and that Christians will be reunited to their loved ones that have died. Best of all, after our resurrection we will be with the Lord FOREVER! That is why Paul says “Encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess 4:18). We can encourage each other with a genuine hope.

Another way that we can apply this passage is by being active in sharing our faith. Something that scares me more than anything is when my friends tell me that someone close to them has passed away and I ask them, “Was he a faithful Christian?” Something that you may want to highlight in your Bible is the phrase “in him” and “the dead in Christ.” This hope and promise is only for the person who has trusted and believed in Christ unto death. What hope can we offer as Christians to people that are grieving over the loss of a loved one who was not in Christ? None. That is a hard pill to swallow but it is the truth. God doesn’t expect us to evangelize the world but he does expect us to be a light to the people he has placed in our lives.

If you aren’t a Christian you can claim this hope for yourself by learning what Jesus has done for you then repenting of your sin and being baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and also to receive the Holy Spirit. You need others as well. Talk to a friend who is a Christian for guidance.

Finally, I would encourage all of you to imagine what that Day will be like when God will raise his people. Think of both the resurrection of those you love and also of your own personal resurrection. For me this passage is so encouraging. I ponder the resurrection of my Dad. His body has been battered because of all the years he has been a mechanic. He has been through 5 surgeries. I have cried every time I have visited him before he goes into surgery. It hurts me to hear how bad his back is killing him. I remember seeing him with 2 large metal staples in his neck. His body hurts and he’s my Dad! I can’t wait to see the resurrection of my Dad! I wonder how God will do it? I want to watch as God removes the metal from his bones and then maybe I will see my Dad’s flesh return to a young healthy state. I want to see his cuts vanish and his glasses broken. I want to hear shouts of joy instead of painful groans. I want to see my Dad sprint to me as God renews me! What a day. It will be better than we could ever possibly imagine!

Read 1 Corinthians 15:35-58.

Back Home

Sarah and I felt like being dorks while we were waiting for our food to cook so we took some fun pictures. I conveniently haven't posted the really dorky pics.

Eternal Security

The doctrine of eternal security is not as difficult as it has been made out to be. At the heart of the matter is the question, "Once I become a Christian is it possible for me to fall away from God and lose my salvation?" Those who would answer "no" to this question usually don't know how this thinking ever even came about. Briefly, the doctrine of eternal security is rooted deeply in Calvinism. The five key beliefs of Calvinism are:

Total Depravity- man is born completely dead in sin and is powerless to even respond to God.

Unconditional Election- God chooses those whom he wishes to pardon by the blood of Christ and those whom he chooses not to forgive.

Limited Atonement- Christ's blood was only shed for those whom God chose for salvation.

Irresistable Grace- Since God has called and chosen certain people to receive His grace it is impossible for them to refuse Him.

Perseverance of the Saints- Since God has chosen certain individuals for salvation and forgiven them by Christ's blood and since they cannot resist God's grace they are kept by the power of God and cannot fall away from their faith.

This forms the acronym "TULIP." Today most "Calvinists" are only "Modified Calvinists." You will rarely ever meet a 5 point Calvinist but you meet 1 point Calvinists all the time. Can you guess which of the five points they believe? Right! Perseverance of the Saints! Why do people want to believe this doctrine? In my opinion people either don't want to worry about losing their salvation because they might continue sinning and feel safe in that lifestyle or because they don't understand what truly happens when one is baptized and becomes a Christian. What most 1 point "Calvinists" fail to see is that the whole system stands or falls together. The key to understanding Calvinism is CAUSATION (the belief that God causes all things to happen). The problem is that when you ask a 1 point Calvinist if they believe in free will they have violated the entire system of Calvinism because in their theology free will can not exist because then God would have to respond to man in some situations and thus wouldn't be completely in control of everything. The opposition to Calvinism is called Arminianism and the key to Arminianism is the belief the God is completely in CONTROL of everything that happens but he doesn't cause everything because He has given man free will.

Now aside from all of that theological baggage the Bible is much simpler (who would've thought that?). The Bible indicates that man truly does have free will. God put Adam in the Garden of Eden and gave him a real choice: obey God or disobey God. Adam's true free will is evidenced by the fact that both he and Eve disobeyed God. Let's focus now more on the topic of eternal security as seen in the Bible. Can a genuine Christian turn his back on God and lose his salvation? The Bible yells "Yes"!

In Luke 8 Jesus tells the parable of the sower. The seed that was sown was scattered on four different types of soil. The seed is the word of God and the soil are different people that the word comes to. Three out of the four soils accept the "seed" but only one soil retains the seed and brings forth fruit.

When Jesus was telling his disciples about the events they would experience he told them that they would be handed over and put to death but, "whoever stands firm to the end will be saved" (Matt 24:13). The parable that Jesus told immediately after his discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem's temple and the end of the age proves that it is possible for faithful believers to be unfaithful. Matt 24:42-51 shows that a faithful servant can turn wicked and be assigned to a place with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (24:51).

Read John 15. Jesus said that IF we remained in Him we would bear much fruit but if we didn’t we would be cut off and thrown into the fire (15:6). There is a genuine responsibility on our part to remain in the true vine.

Read Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira were members of the early church. They lied to the Holy Spirit and paid for it. They obviously chose to disobey God.

In Colossians 4:14 Paul mentions one of his companions, Demas. At that time Demas was working with the church but at the end of Paul’s life he says that “…Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica" (2 Tim. 4:10).

Read Hebrews 6:4-12. This passage at first seems brutal and scary but those who fall away and persist in their rebellion are those who can’t come back to repentance. This passage does show that it is not only possible to fall away from the faith but that it is a reality that people fall away. One of the main purposes of the book of Hebrews was to encourage Jewish Christians to persevere in their faith in Christ and not fall away. How can we possibly believe that we can never fall away when it is written,

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For,
"In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay."

And,
"But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back."

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved” (Hebrews 10:36-39).

The Bible is filled with the reality that we must remain faithful to God. (James 5:19-20; Revelation 2:7, 2:10-11, 2:17, 3:1-6). The entire book of Revelation stresses the need for Christians to live victoriously to inherit eternal life with God.

Bible Study

Hello Family and Friends,

I have the desire to post some Bible studies on this blog but I really need help in choosing a book to go through. E-mail me and let me know what you might want to study.

Let the Wise Be Humbled

Psalm 8

LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
(TNIV)

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

How can we know what is real and true?

“You have no right to tell me what to do!” “That might be wrong for you but it’s not for me!” Statements like these are tossed around in our culture and sadly even in many churches. At the heart of such claims is a much deeper presupposition: there are no standards of right and wrong, further there is no standard of truth. Everything is relative. If someone would oppose the relativity of our day they must appeal to a truth that is sovereign over all people and for all time.

For the most part the word truth has lost its essential meaning. Relativists have confused and fudged the most basic understanding of the word that even children can fully comprehend. Truth is what corresponds to reality. To say that something is when it is not is non-truth, because it doesn’t match reality! For this reason truth cannot be defined as “what works” because some things “work” that aren’t true. For example if a man on the brink of divorce lies to his wife that he’s truly not cheating on her and she stays with him then the man got what he wanted but his statement didn’t correspond to reality. His lie worked but it didn’t represent truth i.e. the fact he was cheating on his wife.

There are two dangerous systems of thought which attempt to invalidate the reality of objective truth: skepticism and relativism and within each system there is a further disagreement on whether skepticism and relativism applies universally or only religiously. Universal skepticism claims that no truth is knowable. The problem in making that claim is that the claim itself is contradictory to the whole position of universal skepticism. If truth can’t be known then how do those who maintain universal skepticism objectively know that truth can’t be known? Religious skeptics profess that only religious knowledge can’t be known. At the core of this skepticism is the idea that God can’t be known. The problem with the statement, “It is impossible to know anything about God” is that one would have to know something about God, namely, the fact that he can’t be known in order to make this statement. How does the religious skeptic know so much about God that he knows God can’t be known? Their reasoning is flawed.

The universal subjectivist claims that all truth is dependent upon each person to decide for himself and that there is no standard or objective truth. The flaw in this argument is that even that claim “All truth is subjective” is subjective for the subjectivist (within the logic of their system). The subjectivist isn’t really trying to say anything! He can’t even convince someone else of his fundamental claim that all truth is subjective, since truth varies from one person to the next! The religious subjectivist holds that religious positions are relative and that there isn’t one objective truth concerning God. This idea doesn’t conform to facts because God has acted and manifested Himself in reality thereby validating only one objective truth about Himself. Religious subjectivism is disproved once facts are brought into the equation. Jesus Christ died, was buried, was resurrected. These are objective truths that can be verified through historical evidence. The foundational belief of Christianity is an objective truth claim that can be proved by evaluating solid evidence thus nullifying religious subjectivism.

The skeptics and subjectivist and those who deny the existence of God have a great dilemma. They place man at the center of morality and truth yet they then try to make a system of objective morality that all people should conform to. Based on their system this just doesn’t work! Maybe murder is wrong for you, but it may not be wrong for someone else! The skeptic and subjectivist can’t approve or rebuke one course of action over another because their opinion about “truth” doesn’t warrant that kind of “judgmentalism.” They are impotent to enforce any standard for right conduct over another person. What would this do to society? Chaos! The government or any other human wouldn’t have any right to convict child molesters worthy of the death penalty or any other heinous crime for that matter. Evil could be passed off as “true for me” while the most loving acts of kindness could be labeled as wicked. But this isn’t how the world really works. Governments do appeal to standards of right and wrong based on objective truth and pronounce judgment when those standards have been violated. Josh McDowell coined his own proverb in confronting this issue, “There are no relativists who expect to be treated relatively” (McDowell 78). In theory the skeptic or subjectivist might say that morality and truth is decided individually but the second their wife gets raped they scream, “Justice!” Though they want certain benefits from their skeptic or subjective beliefs they can’t stomach the consequences when other people live out the inevitable implications of the rationale that boasts, “Such and such is true for me!” If humanity adopted the belief that truth is relative the only fair answer one could give to someone who experienced such an atrocity is, “Tough! Get over it!” This answer doesn’t satisfy!

The heart of the matter is the question, “How can we know what is real and true?” Skepticism and subjectivism are inadequate and flawed arguments to defend the position that truth can’t be known or isn’t real. Modern thought has been so polluted with falsehood that we have forgotten how simple it is to know reality and truth. Subjectivists and skeptics have tried to replace the word belief or opinion with truth (Willard). This is irrational because you can’t make something true just by believing it! The next time you’re starving try believing that there really is food in your stomach. Even if the whole world agreed that there was food in your fridge or in your stomach it wouldn’t matter because belief doesn’t constitute truth; correspondence to reality does! “You can think of reality as what you run into when you’re wrong” (Willard 12). Only when something corresponds to the way things really are is it true. When we claim, “Jesus was and is the Son of God” we are stating an objective truth that either matches up with how things really are or it doesn’t. Since Jesus made an objective truth claim that he was God he can only be true or false. Since Jesus bodily rose from the dead we have a historic reason to believe that Jesus was speaking the truth.

Reality and truth isn’t something we make up or decide it is what really is.

Bibliography:
Groothuis, Douglas. Truth Decay. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2000.
Kreeft, Peter and Ronald K. Tacelli. Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove:
Intervarsity Press, 1994.
McDowell, Josh and Bob Hostetler. Right From Wrong. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994.
Willard, Dallas. “Truth: Can We Do Without It?” Christian Ethics Today. Vol. 5. Number 2,
April 1999: 12-15. .