God Allows Evil for the Good

There is a lot of evil in the world. I don't think that's controversial statement; most people would agree with it. But is the presence of evil good evidence to hold that God does not exist? That's what many atheists argue. They claim an all-good God could have created a world where no evil exits. Some have gone so far to argue that the fact that evil exists at all proves an all-good God doesn't.

But is this argument sound? I don't think so. In his book God, Freedom, and Evil, Alvin Plantinga lays out a very careful argument for why an all-good God would create a world where evil exists. Plantinga writes:

A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, an else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.1

I think this argument is correct. God valued significantly free creatures so much that he allowed them the ability to choose to do evil. I've previously offered a digestible example in a short video you can find here.

Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977. Print. 30.

Is Morality Grounded in Nature, Utility, or God?

Just as there are three possible sources for moral obligations (determined, designed, or discovered—see previous video), there are three competing ideas offered today for the grounding of morality. Can one derive objective moral principles from naturalism or utilitarianism or must moral law be grounded in God alone? In this last of a four-part series, Lenny discusses the problems with both naturalistic and utilitarian view of morality and shows why moral values and duties are rooted in God and his laws.

The Problem of Accounting for Morality From Evolution

J.P. Moreland commenting on the problems with attempts to base morality on evolutionary principles:

One could argue that the evolutionary account of morality commits the genetic fallacy—it confuses how morality came about with what morality is and what justifies it. There is a point in this rejoinder. Taken by itself, the evolutionary account of morality is an example of the genetic fallacy. But there are some cases where the genetic fallacy is not really inappropriate. These are cases where the causal account of the origin of an idea serves to discredit that idea in some way. In a trial, if the testimony of a witness comes from someone with bad motives, then one can rule out his testimony because of where it came from. His testimony could still be true, but it is unlikely. In the case of the mirage, one can rule out the veridicality of this experience by citing what caused it (hot air waves), even though it could still be an accurate experience.

If evolutionary theory is all there is to the development of the cosmos from the big bang to man, then any view which postulates the brute existence of morals would seem to do so in an ad hoc way. The general background theory would count against the veridicality of the claim to know that morals exist, even though it would still be logically possible for them to exist. If theism is true, one's background theory explains the existence of human morality. But if one denies God and accepts evolution, then it would seem more reasonable to accept an evolutionary, subjectivist view of morality. The existence of objective values would still be possible, but it would be unlikely and ad hoc, given this background theory.

References

Moreland, James Porter. Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987. Print. 125.
Photo courtesy John LeMasney and licensed via the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.

Why Would a Loving God Allow the Earthquake in Nepal?

Like most people, I grieve for the tremendous tragedy the Nepalese people are suffering after a violent 7.8 earthquake and its aftershocks devastated much of the nation on Saturday. According to the latest reports, over 4,800 people have dies and at least 9,200 have been injured in the disaster.1 Those numbers are staggering and help is desperately needed for the survivors.

Of course, when a tragedy like this happens, questions of why arise. I saw one meme that shows an image of a girl praying with the superimposed text:

 "Dear God, please help the victims of that terrible earthquake — wait, aren't you the one that created it? Why are we asking you for help? This makes no sense!" (Emphasis in the original.)

As with most memes, this is a dramatic oversimplification of an issue that seeks to sound good without thinking through its underlying assumptions.

I don't think there's any doubt that this meme is meant to argue against the existence of God. It seems to be implying at least two reasons to hold that belief in God is unreasonable. The broader question is "Why would a loving God create something as devastating as earthquakes?" But another question may be "Why would a loving God allow such a devastating earthquake strike such an impoverished nation like Nepal where the death toll would most certainly be high?" Let's look at each in turn.

Earthquakes and Life

The causes of earthquakes are studied by geologists in a rather new field of science named plate tectonics. As this LiveScience article explains, scientists believe the Earth's outer layer is like a hard shell broken into several plates that move over the earth's mantle. When the mantle pushes and pulls these plates, they rub against one another in certain ways, causing earthquakes. Sometimes plates are pulled apart, such as the process that forms the deep trenches in the oceans, sometimes they rub sideways like those like in Los Angeles's San Andreas fault, and sometimes one plate is pushed underneath another, like the plates that for the fault in Nepal.2 The plate movement in Nepal is much faster than most other plates on earth, and it is the reason why eight of the ten highest mountains on earth fall within the borders of the small nation.3

As we learn more about the earth's plates and their movements, astrobiologists and geologists are beginning to discover just how crucial plate tectonics is for life to exist. In their book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, Drs. Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee note that of all the planets we observe in our solar system, only the earth has signs of shifting plates in the form of mountain ranges and ocean basins.4 Some of the key benefits they list concerning plate tectonics are:5

• It promotes high levels of global biodiversity as species as they must adapt to different environments which ensures they don't fall extinct easily.
• It manages the amount chemicals that form carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, helping to keep the earth's temperature stable, keeping liquid water abundant on the planet.
• It creates ocean basins and lifts dry land out of the sea, allowing advanced life like humans to be land-dwelling animals.
•  It also recirculates the minerals that erosion has deposited in the sea,
• Finally, it creates earth's magnetic field, sheltering life from "potentially lethal influx of cosmic radiation, and solar wind "sputtering" (in which particles from the sun hit the upper atmosphere with high energy) might slowly eat away at the atmosphere, as it has on Mars."

Ward and Brownlee conclude that if there were no more earthquakes, the earths temperatures would quickly become unlivable and "planetary calamity for complex life would occur shortly after the cessation of plate movement."6 Earthquakes are necessary for you and me to exist on earth at all.

Why would such a poor country be hit by such a big earthquake?

At this point the atheist may narrow his claim and simply ask "OK, but why would God allow such devastation in an area where there are so many people?" AS I explained above, there are many areas such as the sea floor where these kinds of earthquakes occur and they hurt no one. But land-based earthquakes are necessary to do some of the things I mentioned above. It is no surprise that Nepal is prone to devastating earthquakes. The Himalayas attest to the fault's activity. In fact, the last devastating quake happened in 1934, killing about 10,000 people. Geologist Hongfeng Yang said that geology of that part of the world is "generally consistent and homogenous" and the region should expect a severe earthquake every four to five decades.7

I live in Southern California, with my house very close to the San Andreas Fault. We know that the San Andreas is overdue for a very large earthquake. While we don't know when it will come, it is a recognized danger. Both private citizens and the government have made preparations for when "the big one" hits. In Nepal, the warnings of the 1990's were ignored, as Samrat Upadhyay explained in his recent article in the Los Angeles Times.8 My survival may depend on having emergency supplies in my home if an earthquake hits. But in other areas of the world, planning and infrastructure buttressing may be thwarted not by God but by the corruption or greed of those responsible for such safeguards. While no one can assume there would be no loss of life in any natural disaster, the loss of lives can be significantly mitigated by those who live in the area.

 The meme seeks to blame God for creating earthquakes.  Yet, without them, our world may be a sterile as Mars or as lifeless as Venus. People have the capability to prevent a significant amount of damage and loss of life from the quakes. Perhaps we should begin by investigating why no one acted on the warnings instead of trying to point an uninformed finger at God.

References

1. Watson, Ivan, Jethro Mullen, and Laura Smith-Spark. "Nepal Earthquake: Death Toll Climbs above 4,600." CNN. Cable News Network, 28 Apr. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/asia/nepal-earthquake/.
2. Oskin, Becky. "What Is Plate Tectonics?" LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 04 Dec. 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. http://www.livescience.com/37706-what-is-plate-tectonics.html.
3. McClain, Sean, and Shirley S. Wang. "How the Nepal Earthquake Happened Like Clockwork." WSJ. The Wall Street Journal, 26 Apr. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-nepal-earthquake-happened-like-clockwork-1430044358.
4. Ward, Peter D., and Donald Brownlee. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe. New York: Copernicus, 2000. Kindle Edition. 194.
5. Ward and Brownlee, 194.
6. Ward and Brownlee, 206.
7. McClain and Wang, 2015.
8. Upadhyay, Samrat. "Nepal Earthquake: We Had Been Warned." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0428-upadhyay-nepal-earthquake-20150427-story.html.

Why Doesn't God Provide More Proof He Exists?

It's an objection that has been thrown around for years; if God exists, why doesn't he make himself more obvious? Certainly a miracle would convince the hardened atheist, right? Not necessarily.

In this short video, Lenny tackles the question head on and shows that sometimes more proof is not better and maybe the problem lies with those who just don't want to see the evidence in front of them.

Being Moral Without God: What's Required?

Is being a moral person important? I don't know of anyone who doesn't think so. No one wants to trust a person who is ruthless, untrustworthy, and narcissistic. Even people who believe moral truths are fictional seem to still believe these are necessary fictions that help us survive.1 Vanity and selfishness are never held to be ideals to which one should aspire.

Given that behaving morally is recognized as an important part of being human, it amazes me how little people actually consider what morality is or how it is grounded in reality. Christians ground moral truths in the character of God. Atheists cannot do so, yet atheists like Phil Zuckerman claim to find their morality in "empathetic reciprocity." Others, like philosopher Marc D. Hauser, hold that morality is the outcome of evolutionary forces and thus a physical and chemical outworking of biology and history.2

Can morality be rooted in a physical cause? What gives moral principles their authoritative power? This is where most people falter in that they haven't considered just what is required to consider an action moral or immoral. Why is my choice to cheat on my taxes immoral while cheating on my diet isn't?

When speaking of what makes an act fall into the sphere of actions that may be considered morally significant, we must have some basic ideas of morality itself. This means that any moral system or moral framework must include at least three components. These are the recognition of moral obligations and duties as real, the moral freedom of the agent to choose to obey those moral duties and obligations, and the genuine responsibility of the agent as that duty presents itself. Let's look at the first of the three today and we'll take the other two in subsequent posts.

Understanding Moral Obligations

The first piece in understanding morality is the easiest to understand. There are real obligations, laws, duties that we are required to obey. As a comparison, we can look to the legal system. People are required by law in the United States to drive on the right side of the road if the street allows for two-way traffic. Usually, there is also a maximum speed limit that people must obey. However, there are some areas like portions of the German Autobahn that have no speed limit. In those areas it is not illegal to drive at even 200 miles per hour.

Turning back to morality, moral laws must exist of a person is to be held accountable to them. Just as the Autobahn above, one cannot be said to be morally culpable if there is no moral law that a one is violating. Because human beings recognize that honesty is a moral virtue to which we should all adhere, it becomes binding on the individual who seeks to cheat at a test. While cheating on one's diet may not be good sense, it is not in itself dishonest and doesn't violate a moral law. If you were to lie about your diet-cheating, you could then be morally culpable, but the cheating itself is morally neutral.

Moral obligations exist apart from their acceptance

Moral laws and obligations are things we are required to do and any system that claims to account for moral values must also account for real, binding laws and obligations. This isn't as easy as it may appear. If these values and duties are truly obligatory, it means that their existence is independent of their acceptance. Just because no one obeys the speed limit on California freeways doesn't mean the speed limit doesn't exist nor does it mean that you cannot get a ticket because you were "going as fast as everyone else." They are all wrong and you are, too! Moral obligations may be held by some people, all of the people, or no one, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist.

Moral obligations may conflict with our desires

One unique aspect of moral duties and obligations is that of they are real, it may be the case that they are distasteful to us. In other words, it is sometimes necessary to relinquish personal pleasure for the sake of doing the good. ;As an example, let's use the concept of not cheating on one's taxes. No one likes to pay taxes and being honest may cost people discomfort, especially those who are struggling to get by in the first place. However, because there is a real moral duty to be honest, one should not cheat on one's taxes. To be moral doesn't mean we only accept the moral laws that we like or that don't cause us discomfort. In fact, we applaud those like Mother Teresa who make great sacrifices to their own comfort in order to obey a higher moral principle. Real moral obligations may mean being honest even when it costs you something.

Moral obligations focus on our motivations

One additional aspect of looking at moral obligations is the fact seeking to be moral is a focus on the will as much as it is a focus on specific actions. David Baggett and Jerry Walls make this point in their book Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. They write, "Morality confers obligations and constraints not only on our behaviors but even on our motivations."3 For example, imagine you were t see a man such into a burning building and pull out a trapped child. The local press captures the act and the man is lauded as a hero. However, if it is later found out that the man knew the child would be trapped and he rushed in to gain the accolades of the press, his selfish motivation basically nullifies his actions, even though in both cases the child is saved.

In all, what anchors morality must be able to account for real moral obligations. If one grounds his or her morality in naturalism, then he must come up with a convincing account of what moral obligations are, why they are objective (that is they sit apart from both our acceptance of them or our desires), and ;how they bear upon our motives as well as our actions. That's much easier to do on theism than naturalism, but that isn't the only factor involved. See my next post on why people must be morally free agents and genuinely responsible for their actions are also required.

Read part two here!

References

1. See Michael Ruse's belief that "morality is a function of (subjective) feelings; but it shows also that we have (and must have) the illusion of objectivity" from "The Moral Argument in a Nutshell". Come Reason's Apologetics Notes. 03/14/2015. http://apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/03/the-moral-argument-in-nutshell.html
2. Baggett, David, and Jerry L. Walls. Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print. 22.
3. Baggett, 2011. 16.

Geometry, Morality, and Suffering in the World

What's the definition of a straight line? Anyone who's taken high school geometry should be able to answer that question with ease. A straight line is simply the shortest distance between two points. The definition is descriptive and concise.

Now, what's the definition of a crooked line? That's a little more difficult. If I tell you that a line I've drawn is crooked, you could imagine many possibilities. The line could be comprised of several angles or it could have a soft radius. It could zigzag or simply fall away from the second point, never actually reaching it. We would say the Tower of Pisa is crooked even though the building's sides are perpendicular to each other. It's simply crooked in relation to the state of being vertical.



Because there are many ways lines may be considered crooked, it would be hard for you to tell just what kind of shape my crooked line actually is simply be me describing it to you as crooked. But there is one thing you would know: it is not the shortest distance between the two points I had in mind. A crooked line is not straight.

Morality is Like Geometry

When people talk about things like good and evil, they tend to assume such ideas are understood. Yet, just like the problem with straight lines and crooked lines above, it's important to stop and think about what the concepts of good and evil entail. Evil is, as I've written elsewhere, a privation of good. It is where good is somehow damaged. Just like darkness isn't a think unto itself, but the absence of light and cold isn't a thing unto itself but the absence of heat, evil isn't a thing unto itself, but the absence of good.

In other words, evil is to good as crooked is to straight. The only way someone can identify evil is to first understand what it means to be good and to know that the evil action (or inaction) falls short of that. There are many ways to be evil, but being good is a much narrower path, just as crooked is a broader category than straight.

Of course, this idea is not at all new with me. C.S. Lewis made it famous in his book Mere Christianity. He wrote:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, why did I who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in violent reaction against it?1

Lewis makes some clear points here. Any objection to the "immoral acts" of the Christian God must appeal to some standard, and that standard cannot originate within the world-system the objector is trying to condemn. Any time a person holds up act A and judges it on the basis of good or bad, he or she is implicitly appealing to a standard outside of the system. There must be what we would call a transcendent reference for all actions. Lewis continued in his explanation:

A man feels wet when he falls into the water because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed, too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies.2

Here lies the problem with atheists who claim to offer the existence of cruelty or suffering as evidence that God doesn't exist. By appealing to such evils, they assume that an objective standard exists. But that standard must be above the creation that causes the cruelty and suffering being objected to. There must be "a law above the law" to compare the natural processes that lead to disease or death from things like earthquakes and floods.

Seeking to Straighten Crooked Lines

In geometry, it is impossible to draw a completely straight line. Even with a ruler, there are microscopic imperfections that alter your pencil's path. But that doesn't mean we cannot ever grasp the concept of a straight line or continue to try and get our lines as straight as possible. If a child draws a crooked line, we correct her and tell her to try again. The same should be true for good and evil.

Perhaps the world has gone crooked. Recognizing that doesn't mean there is no God, it only means that the world has somehow distanced itself from God's destination. The solution is therefore to find the shortest distance to the endpoint and get there right away. That's how you make the crooked straight again.

References

1. Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: MacMillan Pub., 1952. Print. 45.
2. Lewis, 1954. 45

Questions for Skeptics: Why Aren't You More Skeptical of Your Morality? (Video)

A lot of skeptics object to the God of the Bible as being cruel, intolerant, genocidal, or worse. All of these claims hinge on a specific moral position, though. How does the skeptic know that he or she has the appropriate moral high ground? From where does their morality stem?

In this short video, Lenny discusses the problem of moral grounding and asks why these skeptics don't question their own moral position in the same way they question God's.

Are Christians Like Atheists With Respect to Islam?

In his book Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris makes the claim that Christians know just what it's like to be non-believers. In fact, he asserts they are non-believers if one is considering the Muslim god. Harris writes:

Why don't you lose any sleep over whether to convert to Islam? Can you prove that Allah is not the one, true God? Can you prove that the archangel Gabriel did not visit Muhammad in his cave? Of course not. But you need not prove any of these things to reject the beliefs of Muslims as absurd. The truth is, you know exactly what it is like to be an atheist with respect to the beliefs of Muslims. You think that Muslims are fooling themselves? You think that anyone who thinks that the Koran is the perfect word of the creator of the universe is misguided? Understand that the way you view Islam is precisely the way Atheists view Christianity, and in fact the way we view all other religions.1

Harris seems to make a convincing claim. Is this right? Are we rejecting Islam in the same way that atheists reject Christianity? Actually, no. Harris offers a false analogy here; Christians have very strong reasons for rejecting Islam while still holding to Christianity as the one true faith.

Evaluating the Evidence

Harris first tries to stack the deck with his claim that Christians cannot prove that the angel Gabriel didn't visit Muhammad in a cave to unveil the first verses of the Qur'an. That story is itself not part of the Qur'an, but in the later written collections of traditions about Muhammad known as the Hadith.2 These stories were compiled by al-Bukari some 200 years after Muhammad's life.3 While this doesn't exclusively invalidate the Islamic revelation tale, it certainly doesn't put it on the same footing as the Gospel accounts that were written within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to Jesus's resurrection.

More importantly, the Qur'an references the Bible throughout its pages. Note that the angel claimed to visit Muhammad is the Arch-angel Gabriel. Gabriel is mentioned in both the Old Testament (Daniel 8:16, 9:21) and the New Testament (Luke 1:19,26). Jesus (Isa) is talked about repeatedly as is acknowledged as a messenger from God. Further, the Qur'an points to the Gospels and even instructs Muhammad to verify his doubts with “those who have read the book before you” (Sura 10:94) meaning Muhammad should check with the Christians and Jews who had the Word of God in their book.

Contradictory Claims

Given that Muhammed is to compare his teachings with those of the Bible, it is reasonable to say that the Qur'an recognized and leverages the authority of the Bible. Yet, as Muhammad's teachings evolved over the years, they became more and more unlike those found in Scripture. Islam's description of God is nothing like that found in either testament. So, it is reasonable to reject Islam on the basis that the very authority of their faith (the Qur'an) extols that Bible as the confirmation of the truth, yet contradicts the Bible on the essentials of who God is and what his message is. The Qur'an gives us the test as to whether Muhammad's message is reliable itself: compare it to the Bible. All Christians know that Islam and Christianity are simply incompatible belief systems. They cannot both be true. Since the Qur'an relies upon the Bible and holds it up as a preexisting standard, one is more reasonable to believe the Bible rather than the Qur'an.

The Category Error of Harris' Atheism

There's one other point I want to make in Harris' charge. Believing in no God at all is markedly different than believing in one specific God over another. The fact that there is a Creator of the universe has been recognized throughout all of human history. Getting attributes of the Creator wrong is not the same thing as dismissing any chance of a creator at all.

Other atheists I've engaged with have offered a more sweeping but similar charge, something like “There have been thousands of gods people have believed in across history; you don't believe in Thor or Zeus or Ra. While you're an atheist regarding all these, we just believe in one less god than you.” Such a retort is silly. Imagine turning in your math quiz blank and telling your teacher, “There are thousands of answers to those problems that you don't believe are right. You reject them all. I just believe in one less right answer than you.” I don't think such logic would carry you very far.

Atheists like Harris are categorically different than theists like Christians and Muslims. We recognize that the problem of “Why is there something rather than nothing” is a problem on the table and needs an answer. As a Christian, I will work out the problem with the factors that are set before me. The evidence adds up to Christianity. Harris turns in his blank page and smugly walks away telling everyone else he aced the test.

References

1. Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Knopf, 2006. Print.7
2. Al_Bukarhi , Muhammad.“The Revelation.” Sahih al_Bukarhi, (Vol 1, Book 1, Num 3). Web. http://www.sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_1_01.php
3. "Sahih Bukhari."SahihBukhari.com, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. http://www.sahih-bukhari.com/.

The Cause of the Universe Must Be Intentional

We know the universe began to exist. That fact is agreed upon by the majority of theists and atheists alike. But what else can we know from that fact? By conceding that the universe has a beginning, does that give us proof of the Christian God? Not really, but it gets us closer than you may initially realize.

The first thing one can infer is whatever it is that caused the universe to exist (I will refer to this as the Cause with a capital C) must itself exist prior to the universe and its created parts. This means that the since the Cause created all matter, it must itself not be made of matter. If the Cause is made of matter, then it isn't an explanation of the universe, it is part of the universe. The cause of the universe must be immaterial.

Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that since time is also a part of the created universe, the cause of the universe's existence must be at least initially timeless. It must exist in a state of timelessness prior to any creative act. However, this conclusion adds additional facts to the picture. As I said yesterday, one can define time as a change in states or a succession of events. If there is a before and after, there must be time involved. Therefore, at the creation event time begins because there is a change in states. The Cause was not creating in its timeless state and it now is.

Such a description is fine when one is thinking about time beginning, but it begs a question: what makes the Cause start creating at all? If the Cause (whatever it is) is timeless, then why all of a sudden start creating? Here is where we need to differentiate how different causes work, and it leads to some interesting conclusions.

Two Types of Causes

There are two types of causes that we have observed through all of history. The first are causes that are the result of a certain set of circumstances. The 35th domino in a line of dominoes falling will cause the 36th domino to fall. In the same way, vinegar will cause a cup of baking soda to react and ultimately cause carbon dioxide gas to be released. Similarly, heat will cause fuel and oxygen to ignite into fire. All these causes (the domino, the vinegar, and the heat) create an effect that follows inevitably from the laws of nature. They are what I would call mechanical and they are contingent upon the universe being the way it is. Given the chemical properties of baking soda and vinegar the effect must occur if the causal conditions are met.

But such causes require other things to already be in existence. The 35th domino wouldn't have fallen had the 34th domino not fallen. The force of gravity must exist (lining up dominos in the International Space Station is much harder to do and won't give you the same effect.) Molecules must be able to share electrons in a certain way before the vinegar can react with the baking soda. There is therefore no mechanical cause that can jump start the whole process.

The other type of cause is a personal cause. Personal causes can happen spontaneously. If I have a desire to raise my arm, I simply raise it. There needs to be no preceding event that makes me want to raise my arm. The cause is created in my mind. While some desires or intentions may stem from external stimuli (such as wanting to raise my arm because it is tired, it aches, or I want to answer a question the teacher posed), such a prior cause is not required. I'm not compelled to answer a question the teacher posed, I may simply want to contribute to the discussion. I may simply have a desire to answer and I then intend to answer by causing the effect of putting up my hand.

Desired from Eternity Past

Of the two types of causes we know, which would be better at explaining the cause of the universe? The first one can't do so because it requires something to exist already. Some try to argue about the laws of gravity creating the universe, but such arguments fail to take into account what's required before any law, including gravity, can work. These kinds of causes don't answer the question of beginnings, they simply push it back a step and imagine a universe-making machine. The obvious question is "what made the machine?"

The second kind of cause makes more sense. But intentions and desires don't exist on their own; they are the products of a mind. A mind is not a physical thing, like a brain. It is fundamentally different and because thoughts, intentions, and desires are themselves immaterial, they can be present in an immaterial mind.

So, we have a Cause that is immaterial, timeless, and shows desire to create. That means the cause is personal; it has a mind. You may at this point say, "But wait! How can a timeless mind have a desire? If there is a change in the Cause where a desire is created, that means such a Cause is not timeless." This is true. However, it isn't necessary that a desire come into being. Some intentions or desires can always be there. Think about the desire to survive, for example. All humans have it, even if they never have to exercise it. The desire for life exists since birth, but only when we are threatened do we act upon it.

It is reasonable, then, to have a timeless, immaterial, personal Cause for the universe that desired to create (and create us) from the eternal past. While that doesn't specifically argue for the Christian God, it comes pretty close and excludes a whole lot of other contenders.

Image courtesy Jessica Mullen and licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License.

Is God Existing Before Time Illogical?

Yesterday, I had a short online conversation with someone about the existence of God. Specifically, we discussed what could be reasonably inferred from the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The argument is simple:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause for its existence.

The challenge came when my interlocutor questioned how the cause of the universe (whatever that may be) can be timeless itself. He asked, "Wouldn't a cause require time?" I think this is a fair question and one that needs unpacking a bit. The concept of time and God's relation to it is pretty misunderstood by most people, but with a little explaining, I think we can gain a little clarity.

How to Define Time

Has anyone ever asked you to define time? Think about how you would answer that question. Can you come up with a definition that doesn't include the word time in it? Defining time using its units of measure (hours, minutes, seconds, etc.) doesn't really help since their definitions include "a unit of time." So, how does one define time?

Basically, time may be defined as the succession of moments. That sounds a little obtuse, but it means whenever there is a change, time has passed. If a point A things are one way and then at point B things are different (no matter how slight) time has elapsed. Basically, if there is a before and an after, you will have time. For our universe, molecules are always in motion so time is always moving forward.

Modern science agrees that with the creation of matter, time was also created. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity demonstrated that time and space are linked.1 While time passes more quickly or slowly based on one's speed and mass, everything in our universe and the universe itself experiences some kind of passage of time.

The Before and After of Creating the Universe

Given all that, it raises the question of how God could have created the universe before there was any time. To ask, "What's before that, before time?" strikes one as nonsensical. There can't be a before time since time itself deals with before and after. Yet, the argument for God's existence above makes the deduction that God created the universe. That means God existed prior to the universe's creation; but wouldn't that also imply there was a time before time? The answer is not in the way you're thinking. This is where our use of language can get us into trouble, so I want to be careful in my explanation.

God's existence does precede the creation of the universe in some sense. God must exist to do the creating. Prior to time, it would be technically wrong to say that God existed before creation, but that God existed beyond creation. Philosophers will speak of God existing logically prior to the universe, not temporally prior. The best way for me to illustrate the distinction is by illustration, one I heard William Lane Craig use.2 Think of a bowling ball resting on a pillow on a bed. The ball makes an impression on that pillow; the pillow has a rounded dent in it. Yet, it doesn't have to be the case that the ball was at some point not making the impression on the pillow. Imagine now that the ball had been resting on the pillow from eternity past; the dent will still be there. The ball is the cause of the dent, but that doesn't necessitate the ball needing to exist prior to the dent. Similarly, a truss can be the cause of one's roof not falling down even if the truss and the roof were built simultaneously.

Because we can have a cause that doesn't have to exist chronologically prior to its effect (of holding up the roof or making the dent in the pillow), we speak of the cause being prior to the effect only in the logical sense. The ball must be there or the dent never forms. Thus the ball is logically prior to the dent, but not chronologically prior. When we apply this to God, we can say that God existed in a timeless state prior to creation. It was only Him and since God does not change, then there is no before or after and time doesn't exist. At the very moment God chooses to create, time becomes a reality. From that instant on, events have a before and after and they exist in time.

References

1. "The Relativity of Space and Time." Einstein Online. Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2015. http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/specialRT/relativity_space_time.
2. Craig, William Lane. "God and Time." ReasonableFaith.org. Reasonable Faith, 2 Dec. 2007. Web. 28 Jan. 2015. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-and-time.
Image courtesy Andrew Shiva [CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons.

Miracles Don't Contradict The Laws of Nature

Miracles are a big topic. The skeptics dismiss then, faithful believe in them, many pray for them to occur in their lives. However, a lot of atheists seem to mis-define them. I was talking with an atheist friend who stated "By definition, a miracle violates natural law." By violate, I think he means "contradict." He isn't alone in that definition. The 18th century Scottish skeptic David Hume also sought to dismiss any claim of miracles as unreasonable in his Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding. He wrote:

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle.1

That definition has become popular with hose seeking to debunk any miracle claims. However, Hume was wrong. A miracles doesn't violate the laws of nature, it suspends them. That's a big difference. The suspension of a law isn't a violation; it's simply an intervention. If you were in your kitchen and saw an egg rolling off the counter, you would know that gravity will pull that egg to the ground. However, you can intervene and catch the egg to keep it from falling to the ground. You've exercised your power to stop what would by the laws of nature produce a mess. So if God can intervene in our world to keep a man from falling into the sea, allowing him to walk on water, we would see it as a miracle.

Some may object that the example above isn't fair. After all, catching an egg is just as natural as letting it fall. While this is true, the concept of intervention holds if the one intervening is not limited to the natural world. As an example, think about computer programs. If you are a programmer, you write a computer program to perform certain tasks in a certain order. Perhaps you are creating a shopping site and you wish customers to enter their names, address, credit card number, expiration, and card verification value (that little three digit number on the back of the card) before you process the sale.

You've created these rules and any time the customer checks out, they will always follow this pattern. But, as the programmer you sometimes have to test certain portions of your code. When you are running sample transactions over and over, it becomes too time consuming to enter all that information each time. Yet, because you are the programmer, you can choose to initiate your code at any point. You can write a script that will bypass all these requirements and process a transaction with no data whatsoever. Then, when you are satisfied with the code, you remove the test script and allow the page to function as it normally does.

"Back-Door Code" to the Universe

There is nothing illogical about this kind of suspension of the computer program's rules. They weren't violated, they were bypassed. Similarly, God wrote the rules for how the world works. Therefore, he can write "back-door" code to bypass the normal systems and it is perfectly appropriate to do so. Just as a computer programmer can still not violate the operations of his programming language but suspend the laws of submit a blank transaction, so God can work within his own abilities and suspend the laws of nature to achieve his desired result.

Philosopher Richard Purtill defines a miracle as "an event in which God temporarily makes an exception to the natural order of things."2 That's a pretty good definition.

1. A miracle is a temporary (the natural course of order will resume upon the miracle's completion)
2. It is an exception to the ordinary course of nature
3. It requires us to know what the limits of "ordinary course of nature" are.

A miracle is not God contradicting Himself or His laws.

References

1 Hume, David. "Of Miracles. Part I." An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Bartleby.com, 1993. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/14.html#12.
2   Purtrill, Richard L. "Defining Miracles." In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God's Action in History. By R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1997. 62. Print.

Back to the Future and the Existence of God

We made it! It's finally 2015, that famous year Marty McFly visited in the 1989 Back to the Future sequel. For years, Internet blogs and commentators have been waiting to see the hoverboard, flying cars, and the Nike self-lacing shoes. Some of these are actually getting closer to being a reality, while others may never be seen.

I've always been interested in the way people envision the future. It actually says a lot about humanity. Sometimes, sci-fi writers get things pretty accurate; Jules Verne's submarines and Star Trek's flip phone/communicators are prime examples. But other times they get things terribly wrong. Two such predictions can be seen in Back to the Future II: flying cars and a fax machine in every room. The reason for this is not technological. Both flying vehicles and fax machines exist today. Instead, there are other considerations that come into play.

For me, there are significant parallels in the way people misunderstand the future and the way unbelievers misunderstand God. Using the flying cars and the fax machine examples from the movie, Let's briefly look at two ways people get God wrong.

People Overestimate Themselves

Let's begin with the flying car example. People have been predicting them almost as long as the Wright Brothers safely touched down at Kitty Hawk. But there are some incredible dangers that are attached to flying. First of all, safe driving requires the attention of the driver. But if you've ever commuted to work, you know that as people become more comfortable with their daily routines, they tend to over-estimate their ability and begin to drive and eat, drive and put on make-up, or drive and text.

With flying cars, however, there wouldn't be merely a single plane of traffic flowing horizontally, but there would be multiple planes where other vehicles could approach yours. Cars could merge from above, below, or diagonally. This is why we currently use air traffic controllers who watch all the planes in the sky and direct traffic. Now, imagine the millions of vehicles we use to commute all take to the skies. Who will make sure everyone is behaving appropriately in the sky? What kind of risk would a "crazy driver" place you in in the air? And, as Christopher Neiger notes, if your flying car breaks down, it will fall out of the sky and you can't drive them if the weather's bad.1

Similarly, when I talk with people about the existence of God, they over-romanticize their view of what God should or shouldn't do based on a very limited viewpoint. Some will say a God of love would never allow such and such. But God knows a whole lot more about us, our future, and our choices than we do. I don't think these pictures of God are taking into account how issues of human freedom work, the problems of all other world views,  and they underestimate the true immorality of most people.

People Underestimate the Glory of God

Another classic scene in BTTF II is when Marty McFly is fired from CusCo and fax machines all over the house relay the message. We look back and laugh at the scene now. While most folks yearn for a flying car, not really thinking through all the dangers they bring, I know of no one who is demanding a fax machine in every room! But in 1989, fax machines were still considered a great business innovation; no longer did you have to wait for documents to be sent via mail, but they could be instantly transported to anywhere as long as the recipient had a machine of his own. It would be natural that such technology would extend to the home environment.

Then the Internet happened.

With email and scanners, fax machines are redundant. Add to that laptop computers, wireless connectivity, and the ability to go online via your mobile phone, and fax technology is pretty much obsolete. It is actually a hassle for most people to retrieve a fax unless they sign up for a service that delivers it to their email account. But, we can't blame the script writers of BTTF II for not predicting the online explosion that we've experienced in the last 15 years. The underlying communications structure of the Internet, TCP/IP, was only beginning to be established in the late 80s2, and the Tim Berners-Lee wouldn't invent the language of the World Wide Web for another year.3

I believe many people suffer from the same problem with believing in God. In his book, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, Paul Vitz offers the "Defective Father Theory" and provides many examples of notable atheists throughout history who had such difficult relationships with their father than partially caused them to see God in a similar light.4 Other people cannot grasp how one can be happy and still live without whatever specific vice they desire to hold on to. Still more cannot see that the world to come will be much more glorious than anything we can envision today. Their view of heaven is just a bigger version of the world they now experience; they see a fax machine heaven instead of an Internet one.

As we jump into 2015. I pray that you would be open to God's leading in your life. Don't underestimate His love for you nor overestimate your need for Him. Perhaps this year won't take you where you anticipated. That's OK. It may very well be that God has a much better plan for your life than you can foresee. And you may be able to use these ideas to share God's love with others. While movies like Back to the Future are fun, they really do offer a way to open conversations about issues of eternal consequence.

References

1. Neiger, Christopher.  "Top 5 Reasons You Don\u0027t Want a Flying Car"  03 October 2011.  HowStuffWorks.com. Web. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/5-reasons-you-dont-want-flying-car.htm 02 January 2015.

2. Stewart, William. "TCP/IP Internet Protocol." Living Internet. William Stewart, 1996. Web. 02 Jan. 2015. .
3. W3C. "Tim Berners-Lee." W3C. W3 Consortium, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 02 Jan. 2015. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/.
4 Vitz, Paul C. Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. Dallas: Spence Pub., 1999. Print.
Image courtesy Ewen Roberts and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Why Thinking About God Matters

Philosopher Greg Ganssle on the "big questions" of life and why thinking about God matters:

Why think about God? After all, no one knows whether there is a God, much less which God is real. Well, I am not as sure as you that no one knows. If God exists, then he knows, to be sure. He would have no identity crisis. Besides, we ought not claim that no one knows that there is a God until after we have done our thinking about God. So one reason to bother thinking about God is to see if you can find good reasons to think that there is a God. Another reason is to see if you can find good reasons to think there is no such person as God.

There are other reasons to think about God besides trying to figure out if there is such a person. What you believe and think about God affects nearly every area of your life. Many of the big and deep questions that shape how each of us sees the world are very closely related to questions about God. For example, it is a big and important question whether life has any meaning or purpose other than whatever meaning we give it ourselves. If we push this question very far, we will wind up thinking about God. If there is a God who created us and knows us, then whatever purpose we have will probably be related to whatever purpose he has for us. Another big and important question has to do with the nature of moral reality. Are there things that are right or wrong regardless of the opinions of others? Again, if God has a purpose for us, it might be that his purpose involves our living up to or reflecting moral reality. You can see that the question of God is a central question. If we want to think well about our lives, we will want to do some of our best thinking about God.

From Ganssle, Gregory E. Thinking about God: First Steps in Philosophy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004. Print. 16.

Dialogue with an Atheist (video)

A couple of years ago I was invited onto a local television show entitled "That's so Chratheist!" The host, Truman Ardent Smith, is an atheist but wanted to show how Christians and atheists can discuss their differences in an amicable spirit. In this discussion/debate we covered a lot of ground, discussing evolution, morality, and some of the arguments for God's existence. I think you'll enjoy the exchange.

   

Why Recognizing Right and Wrong Points to God's Existence

Here's an interesting question that many people have asked: if you can't see, taste, hear, smell or touch something, then how do you know it exists? How can you logically know that a something is there when there's no way to test for it? Don't you have to just accept the existence of that something on blind faith?

Of course, in the context of religious discussion, this question is often asked by the skeptic regarding the existence of God. Can anyone really say that they know God exists by some means other than personal "feelings" or pure faith? Well, actually, the answer is yes. There are several different ways one can show God's existence is more probable than not,and you might be surprised from where these ideas came. One way is to look at how God must exist in order for people to be moral.

Ethics or morality is the idea that certain actions or motivations by people are good or right and other actions or motivations are evil or wrong. The idea of judging another's actions as right and wrong really only apply to people. Nature is not said to be "wrong" when a hurricane destroys property and causes death. Nor are animals judged as right or wrong when they hunt another beast for food. Even when they kill another in their own social group - such as two lions fighting to establish dominance -we don't categorize them as doing the "wrong" thing. So, why are people uniquely thought of in this way?

This question is at the basis of one of the arguments for the existence of God. Philosophers generally refer to this as "the Moral Argument."  the idea that if God doesn't exist, ideas of morality are nonsense and they are "non-binding". In other words, if God doesn't exist, morals are just made up laws by man and there is no logical reason to adhere to them.

In contrast to animals, when we look at the actions of people we understand that people have an ability to make decisions and understand the consequences of those actions. Further, we expect people to be accountable for their actions. But therein lies the rub. If God doesn't exist, to whom are people accountable? Who is going to judge those who break moral laws?

The only way right and wrong can exist at all is if a God who's nature is intrinsically moral created us to live in accordance with that nature and His laws, and this God holds each person accountable for his or her ethical decisions. In other words, morality stems from God's nature because it is who He is. We as humans are considered to do moral acts when we are acting in accord with his nature and we are immoral when we are acting outside of it.

Romans 2:14,15 says "[W]hen Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves [their] thoughts accusing or else excusing them." (NKJV) Now, Paul argues in this passage that all mankind has a kind of universal understanding of basic rights and wrongs in terms of actions and intents.

Everyone on earth understands that things like duplicity or torture for fun are just plain wrong. In other words, people understand ethics or morality. We are supposed to act ethically and upright, and not behave in a way that is morally repugnant. The question that I raise here is why should we act in such a way? Who says that being morally strong is better than being selfish and self-indulgent? And if society sets the rules, who says their rules are right?

Only if God exists can there be things such as right and wrong. And only if God exists does it make any sense at all to try to adhere to those distinctions. Otherwise, even asking the question doesn't make any sense.

Why Won't God Heal Amputees? (video)

One objection to God's existence that has become popular in atheist circles is the fact that God won't heal amputees. A web site of that name argues, "The Bible clearly promises that God answers prayers... So what should happen if we pray to God to restore amputated limbs? Clearly, if God is real, limbs should regenerate through prayer. In reality, they do not."

In this short video, Lenny answers the charge that God is not real because he won't heal amputees and shows why the objection fails.

Morality Relies Upon God's Character, Not Simply His Commands

The moral argument for the existence of God has always been compelling to me; I see no way to anchor the reality of objective moral values than within the person of God Himself. Yet, some atheist claim any attempt to source morality in God means that God is somehow capricious in doling out just what should be counted as right and what should be counted as wrong.

 This is not what Christians believe. As Dr. Scott Rae in his book Moral Choices writes so succinctly, morality is anchored not in arbitrary commands, but in God's very nature. He explains:

Morality is ultimately grounded in the character of God, the ultimate source for morality is not God's commands but God's character. The virtues, or character traits, that are made clear by God's character and further clarified by Jesus' character, are the ultimate foundation for morality from a Christian worldview. God', commands are derived from his character. God issues the commands that he doe' because he is the kind of God that he is. For example, God commands that we low our neighbors, ultimately not because "love makes the world go 'round," though that result is surely a good thing, but because he is that kind of God. In addition, God mandates that we be forgiving people not primarily because forgiveness restores relationships, though that is certainly true but because God is fundamentally a forgiving God. The virtues, then, are primary, and the moral principles, or God's commands, are derived from them.

References

Rae, Scott B. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 2000. Print. 24.

The Difference Between God Being Understandable and Illogical

I recently received a question from a Ethan, who had read my article answering the question "Who Created God?" Ethan wasn't satisfied with my answer that God is a being who is eternal; he has no beginning. He wrote:

How can you say that it is reasonable that something has existed for eternity? Existence for eternity is incomprehensible; just as incomprehensible as something coming from nothing.

What Ethan failed to understand is that there's a difference between something being fully understandable, such as an eternally existing being, and something being logically incoherent, such as something coming from nothing. There are a lot of things we don't fully understand yet we accept as true. For example, there are certain properties of quantum mechanics that just don't seem to make sense to us, but when we use the calculations based on those principles, they produces very accurate results. Because we don't know all there is to know about quantum laws, it is understandable that we would find things mysterious, yet we trust the results because they are reliable.

The second class of ideas, those that are logically incoherent, are completely different. These are things that are not simply misunderstood, but impossible to ever achieve because they violate the laws of logic. For example, if I were to ask if the number two smells worse than the number four, you would immediately tell me that such a question is preposterous. Numbers are abstract object, they aren't physical and scent is a physical characteristic. To try to compare physical characteristics of non-physical entities is simply silly. It cannot work. This is known as a category error in logic.

Similarly, to say a something came from a nothing is to endow the nothingness with the power of creation. But, just like the numbers issue, you have a problem. Nothing by definition has zero properties. IT cannot create because it doesn't have the property of creative ability. Nothing simply means "no thing". That's why the idea of "out of nothing nothing comes" has been recognized as true as long as it has.

Since we as human beings have always existed inside time and we all have a beginning, the idea of an eternal being is definitely a hard one to wrap one's mind around. But an eternal being isn't any more incoherent than the numbers two and four being eternally even. There we never a time where two or four could ever be considered indivisible by two. God's eternal existence isn't a contradiction, it simply is a bigger idea than we can fully comprehend.

One last point. Since we know that something cannot come from nothing, and the universe is a something that indeed have a beginning, then that should tell you at the very minimum there has to be something else out there and that something needs to be eternal. Whatever begins to exist must have some type of cause for its existence. So, if an eternally exiting thing is impossible, then the universe itself can not have existed from eternity past. Therefore, Ethan is now faced with a real dilemma: where did the universe come from?

The Virtue of God's Hiddenness

One of the questions that I often get asks is "If God doesn't want people to go to hell, then why doesn't he make himself more known?" Previously, one way I've answered this is to point out that even if God were to do a miracle in front of someone, it doesn't guarantee that the person would place their trust in him.

However, I want to raise another possibility as to why God doesn't make Himself more obvious: God values trust. Jesus emphasized God's desire for trust in his dealings with Thomas. Remember, the disciples had seen the risen Christ on that first Easter evening, but Thomas wasn't present. John then records that Thomas wanted more proof than the testimony the others offered, stating "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe" (John 20:25, ESV). Jesus appears to Thomas a week later and says, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29, ESV).

Before we go too far, it's important to note that Jesus wasn't telling Thomas to believe with no evidence. Thomas had walked with Jesus for three years and had seen many miracles, including the raising of the Jairus' daughter and more recently Lazarus. The Gospels tell us that he also spoke plainly about his death and resurrection (Matt 16:21, Matt 17:22, Mark 9:9, John 2:18-21, John 11:25). Jesus was not asking of a blind faith, but one built upon the time and evidence he had already provided.

Similarly, instead of proving himself to us at every turn, God desires that we trust him by looking at the ways he has already revealed himself to us. I can think of at least three reasons why God would want to look for us to trust Him.

1. Trust allows us to develop an honest relationship with God

Trust is the key to faith. Imagine a man who marries an attractive woman, one who seems to be hit upon by almost every man she meets. Now imagine that right after marriage, he continually tracks her whereabouts via her cell phone's GPS, he places hidden cameras in her car and in the home, and makes her prove that she hasn't had an affair. What kind of relationship would they have?  Does such a man truly love this woman, or does he simply want to control her?

In order for love to be real, one must have some trust in the beloved. God wants to cultivate the virtue of trust in us. It would be as inappropriate for us, as children of God, to demand proof of God's actions as it would be a young child demanding proof that her parents are not torturing her because of their demand to have her eat her vegetables or to not cross the street alone. Trust must be practiced to become mature, and trusting God helps us develop that virtue.

2. Trust allows us to survive the dark times

Another benefit of developing the virtue of trust is that it can carry us through the darker times of our lives. We live in a fallen world where each of us will face difficulties. Struggles, sickness, and death are all part of the human condition. However, for the person who trusts God and his word, they can have the confidence that such difficulties are able to be overcome. A believer can more bravely face his trials knowing that God is sovereign over them and that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Rom 8:18). Without trust, one is faced with desperation and despair. Dark times test the trust one has in God and can steel their hearts to trust him.

3. Trust allows us to be more effective in our walk with God

God also wishes us to learn to trust him because such trust allows us to be effective Christians in the world. As a hockey fan, I know that a team needs trust to succeed. The forwards must trust their defense in order to be aggressive enough to rush the net. The defense, in order to block the player coming down the center, must trust their goalie to stop the outside shots. Everyone on the team has to trust their training and coaching to execute plays properly.

Likewise, Christians who are the most effective for the kingdom are those who trust that God will help them with the tasks he has called them to do. They can take some risks, they can work through the difficult times with the hope of better days and they can see how much God has done for them to this point.

4. Trust allows us to be blessed by God's faithfulness

One final point: only those who trust God have the blessing of seeing their trust rewarded. When God answers prayer, delivers one from a trial, or provides success in ministry, the one who trusted him can look back and glorify the God who keeps his promises. The blessing of seeing God work to the good of his people is impossible for someone who would never trust that God would make good on his word.