Journey into Insight Chapter 2

Central to Christianity, is a belief in the existence of God and His love for all His creatures, particularly human beings. Muslims, Jews and Christians call God by different names, and may use different terms to describe Him, but they all worship one and the same God. The crucial difference is that Christianity acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God who was sent to give us the way to eternal life.

Our Limited Knowledge

Mankind knows God only to the extent that he has chosen to reveal Himself; the rest is mostly theorising. We label God with superlatives such as ‘perfect’ and ‘infinite’ without having any clear understanding of what these terms may really mean in relation to Him.

These represent only a fragment of the whole. In Islam they have over one hundred words or phrases for God, and further ideas can be found in other religions. It is possible that some combined description might be more complete and accurate than any one version by itself.

The Word of God

Is the Bible the ‘Word of God’? From the Christian perspective, the answer is both yes and no. Yes, in that it is the best record we have of the teachings of Christ, his immediate disciples and the inspired words of the earlier prophets. No, to the extent that it also contains a lot of ordinary human history. It is definitely not the complete word of God, for what He could teach us would never fit into a single book of that size (John 21:25). Is it the accurate word of God? To a limited extent, for it is necessarily recorded in the relative crudeness of human language in the cultural context of time and place, otherwise we would never be able to understand it at all. Some parts are written in symbolic or metaphorical language, which can seldom be interpreted with complete certainty. The Bible also contains a number of apparent inconsistencies, but God cannot be the author of contradictions.

If we accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then it is reasonable to regard his teachings as the most accurate and authentic words of the Almighty. Next in credibility may be the epistles written by the disciples of Christ, and their contemporary collaborators, as there is a reasonable indication that their teachings were drawn more or less directly from him and are almost entirely consistent with his message. The prophets of the Old Testament must also be taken seriously in that they were accepted by Christ and often quoted by him. However, their words tend to be much more obscure and often ambiguous. Where there appears to be disagreement, it is appropriate that the teachings of Christ be given preference.

The word of God does not end with the Bible. The writings of later scholars may also contain elements of Truth, particularly when they draw reasonable conclusions from the teachings of Christ. However, a clear distinction must be made between logical inferences from Scripture and ‘theological theorising’.

What about the ‘prophets’ of other religions? From the Christian perspective the possibility cannot be excluded that some of their writings may also contain divine revelation. God can inspire whoever He wishes, and the reader may be surprised to learn that the much quoted teaching of Christ, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you,’ was also said by Confucius several hundred years earlier.

The Nature of God, Apparent Alternatives and Ongoing Debates

Much philosophical discussion has taken place over whether God is personal or impersonal, unity or trinity, familiar or remote, male or female, concerned with details or only with the overall picture, and whether He lives within human beings or outside them. It seems that we often use the word ‘or’ when we should be using ‘and’.

In His interaction with human beings, the nature of God appears to have shown characteristics of both genders - and often neither.

Practising Muslims and Orthodox Jews, who believe in God as a single person, find the Christian teaching of three persons in one God strange and contradictory. However, the evidence of the Scriptures supports the concept of God as both unity and trinity. Consider the following extracts from the gospels:

‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ ...‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:1-14) The Word referred to here, is Jesus Christ.
‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’ (Matt. 28:19).
‘Who has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9)...‘The Father and I are one’ (John 10:30).
‘No slander is beyond forgiveness for men; but whoever slanders the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven’ (Matt. 12:31). If only the Father is God then why should it be more serious to slander the Holy Spirit?

Despite the evident paradox, we must refrain from jumping to conclusions. The concept of ‘one’ is not always as simple as it seems and the word ‘person’ is only the closest humanly comprehensible description of the nature of God expressed in the comparatively primitive approximations of our language.

Another controversial question is whether God can know the future, and if He does, how can freedom exist? Here too we confront an apparent inconsistency. However, before we reject either as impossible, perhaps we should consider that despite our ‘advanced’ scientific age, we still have hardly any understanding of the nature of time itself. Without this, such debates are destined to remain inconclusive.

In the most fundamental sense it seems unlikely. A number of things, such as the principles of logic and mathematics, are probably part of His nature, and we can reasonably expect such things to be eternal. He cannot decay or die or cease to exist for much the same reasons. He cannot change in the sense of being ‘wrong’ and later ‘right’, nor can He create things that are inconsistent in themselves. However, we are told that all things are possible with God, which suggests that He is free to express Himself in an infinite variety of ways. Since not all of these are simultaneously consistent, some might regard this as an ability to change. By way of analogy, we can walk slowly or quickly but we cannot do both at the same time. We have to change from one to the other.

God's Work: Creation, Evolution and Design

From the scientific point of view, the origin of the universe and its natural laws remains a mystery. We have theories to explain their existence, but the actual event of their coming into being is not directly observable. We really don't even know the fundamental nature of matter! With the evidence available to us at this time, it is impossible to confirm the biblical event of creation or to rule it out by deductive methods. [In this sense, we take creation to mean bringing something into existence out of nothing.]

For similar reasons, there has been much debate about the origin and development of living things. The commonly accepted explanation is a process of evolution. This essentially means ‘the spontaneous development of life from basic resources to complex organisms, under favourable conditions, according to natural laws and initiated by natural forces’. In contrast, the biblical version of the origin of plant and animal life, indicates an act of design. It teaches that every species was formed intentionally by an intelligent being, from the natural resources of the earth, ‘to bear off-springs according to its own kind’. However, the Bible also makes allowances for natural change as well as creation and design. For example, if God made one pair of human beings from which all others descended, then the different races must surely be the outcome of a natural process.

While abundant evidence is available to indicate a gradual process of adaptation within almost every species of living organism, a strong link between the different species has yet to be found. For example, the theory that man and the ape have a common physical ancestor has never been supported with substantial scientific evidence. In general, it seems what is presently known about the history of life on earth, is better explained by design and natural forces working together than by either on its own. Once again the emphasis is on ‘and’ rather than ‘or’.

Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with the evolutionist argument that life came about and developed because all the necessary conditions coincided. However, it does not refute the possibility that an intelligent being designed and initiated the process, intentionally provided the necessary conditions, or intervened at different stages. The only serious conflict between the ‘divine action’ explanation and the theory of evolution, occurs where the latter seeks to ascribe the origin of the universe and the development of life to pure chance. The use of the term ‘chance’ in science, is often no more than an attempt to elevate what is really an admission of ignorance to the dignity of a legitimate theory.

Other components of the theory of evolution, such as ‘adaptation’ and ‘the survival of the fittest’, seem completely plausible, and are observed not only in plant and animal species but in many things made by human beings. Within almost every type of human artefact we find variety, and modifications or adaptations are incorporated to suit different purposes. Those designs best suited to the prevailing conditions tend to last longer and are more likely to remain in production, while others may become ‘extinct’. Many designs also show progressive development from the simple to the more complex, as is evident in the history of tools, vehicles and computers.

While the analogy between nature and human artefacts is not perfect, for no man-made object can (yet!) reproduce itself or be classified as ‘living’, it serves to illustrate that most phenomena which are used to support the ‘evolution’ argument are entirely compatible with the process of design. In contrast, those who reject the possibility of intentional design in nature, have yet to explain the exact process whereby even the lowest type of living organism came into existence. The simplest of these is still more complex and ingenious than the most intricate of human inventions.

God and Science

Divine causality is no longer an acceptable form of explanation in most ‘respected’ academic circles. Perhaps this is partly a reaction against those unsubtle mental images of a God who manually runs everything in the universe. Such views originated from the attempts of human beings to account for what they could not understand at the time, and are clearly too crude and inadequate to coexist with the accelerating pace of discovery. Unfortunately, when they are formulated into dogma, they also become a hindrance to an even greater admiration for God's work which might come through a deeper study of nature. At the other extreme, they set up a conflict between science and faith which is conducive to rejecting God altogether.

Similar dangers exist when some of the Biblical stories are given simplistic interpretations. For example, according to the Scriptures, God made the universe in six days. Those who accept this literally and those who dismiss it as ridiculous equally overlook the biblical quotation: ‘For the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day’ (II Peter3:8; Psalm 89:4).

It is partly true that with the progress of scientific understanding there has been an ever decreasing need to attribute phenomena to ‘God’ as a direct causal agent. However, one must be very careful in jumping to atheistic conclusions. It is equally true that with the relentless progress of automation and robotics in industry we no longer need to attribute the manufacture of many items to human labour. Does that eliminate humanity from the picture altogether? Are we not still the beginning and the end of the production process? It is interesting that God refers to himself as ‘Alpha and Omega’ in the Scriptures (Rev. 1:8).

It may also be significant that Christ, as far as we know, generally avoided discussing the laws of nature in any technical way. He did not give people models of reality which may have suited their level of understanding at the time, but which would later become embarrassingly obsolete.

Uncertainty

Science has been very dedicated to the discovery and understanding of laws which reveal the predictability of natural events. Mathematical formulas can describe the motion of the planets and foretell the position of the moon decades ahead with great precision. Such laws seem to work reasonably well on a large enough scale, but physicists have discovered that at the quantum level (extremely small) the behaviour of a particle is not totally predictable. To many scholars, this fundamental uncertainty undermines the concept of a God who created a perfect system.

Uncertainty, however, may be an essential feature of God's intentions. If it is part of our mission to explore the possibilities on our own initiative, then it can be argued that some degree of freedom may be essential both in ourselves and in the material world. If everything were predetermined by rigid natural laws and predictable down to the finest detail, then how would it be possible for us to influence anything? On the other hand, freedom can never be absolute either, for then nothing could be built and there would be no universe at all. If freedom and predictability are both necessary, the question is how could the two be harmonised?

Imagine a person who is free to move about on a small ship. When he goes to one side, the ship leans over a little until all the forces are in balance again. The laws of hydrostatics ensure that the ship as a whole remains stable despite the random movements of the passengers. Likewise, the universe itself may have compensating mechanisms that maintain overall equilibrium on the larger scale, while allowing considerable freedom and flexibility in many matters of detail.

The uncertainty that comes with freedom does not imply any imperfection. It is not that God cannot control everything, but He probably chooses not to. Some degree of uncertainty may be very necessary, for otherwise we could never voluntarily participate in making the future.

The First Commandment

When we were advised in the Scriptures not to make craven images of God, the warning may equally have been intended to include mental images in the form of rigid ideas. As with a parent or friend we can have an intimate personal relationship, but we must always remain aware of how little we really know about them. This is especially true with God. We need to recognise that the full reality about God is vastly beyond the accumulated collective human knowledge and imagination. He does not fit neatly into any man-made concept. The way he described Himself to Moses can best be summed up in the words, 'I am who am' [I am the one who is.] (Exodus 3:14) Perhaps that is the strongest conviction we can have about Him.

God and the Individual

As individuals, each of us is only one person of several billion on a small planet, somewhere in a vast universe where there are more galaxies than the number of people on the earth. If there is a God, would He concern Himself with something so apparently insignificant?

First, a person who has reservations regarding such a possibility may need to resist any inclination to imagine God as if He had our own human limitations. Decades ago, we already had powerful computers that could ‘simultaneously’ interact with hundreds of users giving each one the impression that he always had the computer’s full attention. If this was possible with a mere human invention, then why should it be so incredible that God could interact with every individual as if he were uniquely special?

Nevertheless, the question, ‘Are we individually important to God?’, is a valid one. The evidence of the Scriptures is unambiguously ‘yes’. A small part of this will come through in later chapters, however, the reader is once again invited to study the Scriptures which contain abundant indications of His love for us. When we speak of God’s love, we refer to His limitless concern for our individual and collective happiness in the deepest, broadest and most far-sighted sense.

The Kingdom of God and Concepts of Paradise

Unfortunately, most images of ‘heaven’ depicted in religious art tend to offend our natural desire for more developed levels of happiness. They may portray an idyllic refuge of tranquillity and abundance for those whose lives have been dominated by starvation and war but they are hardly inviting for anyone who has experienced the satisfaction of accomplishment. They evoke an anticipation of the kind of paradise where development has ceased and nobody ever did anything new or exciting. Rather than stimulating the curiosity, they are often more conducive to disinterest in religion, and almost certainly misrepresent eternal life.

Despite the abundance of material written on the subject, we are still very unclear as to the nature of paradise. We do not know how many dimensions there are in the universe nor what they might contain. Some reports from people who have had near death experiences suggest that they were greatly disappointed in having to return to the life we have here, finding this a mere shadow of a far greater reality. They say that it is like trying to communicate colour to a person who knows only black and white.

Whatever heaven is like, the Scriptures suggest that God has been very actively working (Gen. 1:1-31, John 5:17), so the concept of it being a state of idleness is unlikely to be valid. If God and His possibilities are infinite, there should always be something new for us to discover and pursue. As with knowing God, we must remain open-minded about what that future might hold.

The Scriptures are, without doubt, the most valuable source of information we have about God; however, a very relevant question remains unanswered: 'Can the existence of God or the authenticity of the Scriptures be proven at all?' It is to this problem that we now turn our attention.