Building Faith Muscles in Your Kids

Last week, I got to have a nice conversation with my eighteen year old son about some different things that's been on his mind. He told me that he's been mulling over concepts of predestination and free will, and reading up on the subject.  We discussed the Calvinist and Arminian models as well as Molinism. We also talked about the nature and purpose of salvation and touched on creation models.

Some of you may think that because I'm an apologist, our family has "theology hour" or some such thing.  That would work about as well in my home full of teenage boys as it would in yours. However, there are a few things you can do to nurture the faith of your children.

1. Realize that It's Their Faith You Want to Develop

I think it's natural that people want the best for their children. In affluent cultures such as ours, that desire sometimes gets mistranslated, though. As parents we can mistake providing a safe, loving home for our kids into providing a care-free area for them to grow up where every difficulty is eliminated or marginalized as much as possible.

Probably the most important principle I can offer is this first one: your desire is not to give your kids your faith, but to have them develop a strong faith of their own. This is key. Teenagers are naturally inclined to seek out meaningful lives. They actually want to understand their world and do things that are important. But our kids don't yet have the experience to know how to go about understanding the world. They're like a young hockey player who has some raw talent, but who doesn't know what it takes to make it in professional athletics.

Your job as parent is to train them. You can't simply tell them what to believe, you have to ask them what they think in a certain situation. You have to let them understand the basics of Christianity then ask them how they would express it. This means drawing their attention to big topics.

One way you can do that is to use movies to point out different worldviews.  For example, my family may go watch the latest superhero action movie. The movie is a lot of fun, but I also try to draw attention to the values the film is promoting. Listen to their ideas of why this hero is so cool and ask why would they want to be like him or her. Ask a lot of questions! The more you explore their point of view, the more they will see where their beliefs may be inadequate. Just as a young athlete must get acquainted with the rules of the game and know the mechanics of moving  on ice skates, so the young Christian must learn to stand upon those things he or she believes. We are to train our children in the way they should go; we shouldn't try to carry them there.

2. Faith Requires Exercise to Grow Stronger

Next, don't shun tough questions that they have or difficult situations in which they're placed. We have a tendency as parents to want to "helicopter" our kids out of uncomfortable or difficult situations. But doing so actually impedes their growth. Faith is like a muscle; in order to make is stronger, one must use it.

This is again just like developing an athlete. You would never take a person who only played in a neighborhood league and force them to face the professionals. Athletes grow by joining leagues where the level of play is higher than they're used to, but where they can be coached and receive additional instruction on how to improve. As they grow, they're own style and skill come to the fore.

One way I help youth ministries do this is by leading different apologetics missions trips to places like Salt Lake City, Utah or Berkeley, CA. We take kids out of their comfortable environment and train them how to interact with students on a college campus who do not share their Christian beliefs. They get to dialogue with atheists or others and they then can see how those views compare to their own. All the while, we are training the students and talking with them after every encounter.

The problem is if we don't let our kids struggle just a bit with tough questions or with objections to their faith, they will never learn that what they believe is actually able to withstand the pressure. I've talked with many people who in college lost their faith. It wasn't because they thought the objections to Christianity were too difficult to overcome. Instead, they concluded that, since their parents and pastors told them to just ignore those "troublemakers" with tough questions that Christianity didn't really care about the truth at all. Since they had never faced someone antagonistic to their beliefs before, they never knew that Christianity could handle to toughest shots thrown at it.

Our kids can do amazing things. They are truly interested in forming their beliefs, but that formation requires them to have some experience with those beliefs. Help them grow into mature Christians by allowing them to explore their faith and be challenged every once in a while. The conversations that result may surprise you!

Truth and Inclusivism

We must keep in mind that truth and reality are not in themselves pluralistic. If your gas tank is empty, social acceptance of your right to believe that it is full will not help you get your car to run. Everything is just exactly what it is, and you can develop cultural traditions, vote, wish, or whatever you please, and that will not change a thing.

Truth and reality do not adapt to us. It is up to us to adapt to them. A four thousand year old tradition does not become truer as the years go by. If it is false or wrong, it simply continues to be a long-standing error. If it is popular, it is widespread. If adopted by the powerful, it is authoritative. But it is still wrong. Acceptance of its right to exist in a pluralistic society does not make it any more correct, and will be of no help to those following it when they finally run into reality.

Some of my intellectual friends say that this is true in the domain of "fact," but that religion is the realm of "faith." They are victims of the unfortunate delusion of current culture that "fact" is limited to what is sense-perceptible. Hence they say that whether past or current living species where created by God or not, for example, is a matter of "faith." The implication is that for faith things are, somehow, as you think them to be. Much of what is now written in support of pluralism or "inclusivism" in religion assumes that there is no "way things are" with God, or at least that we cannot know how they are. Hence all views of God are said to be equally true because all are equally in the dark--an astonishingly fallacious inference.

— Dallas Willard, "Being a Christian in a Pluralistic Society"

Top Five Apologetics Posts for October

People turned to the articles on the Apologetics Notes blog 21,799 times last month. One key piece that generated our second-highest traffic of all time focused on the recent Hillsong controversy. While I've written before about the importance of holding to natural marriage as the only legitimate form of marriage, I took a different tack with Hillsong, calling them out for their unbiblical Word-Faith teachings. The post really resonated and generated a lot of talk on social media. Here then are the top five posts for October:

1. The Missing Piece in the Hillsong Controversy
2. What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Bible
3. Moral Laws Necessitate a Moral Lawgiver
4. Christianity Properly Diagnoses the Human Conditon
5. Does Being Old Disqualify the Bible's Teachings?

What is Middle Knowledge?

One of the more contentious issues within theology is the tension that exists between God's predestination of the saints and the individual's ability to freely choose to follow Jesus. The Bible recognizes both, and there have been many arguments as to how to reconcile these views. Some have suggested that man doesn't really have free will, but that God controls all aspects and choices of every life. However, there are problems with this position, most notably how it reduces human beings to puppets and makes God responsible for evil. Others believe that man has absolute freedom apart from God, but this view also presents difficulties. Some include the issue of God not being able to foresee the future or being a part of time as we know it. It also in no way answers the biblical fact that man is predestined by God.

It's easy to see why this debate has raged on for hundreds of years! Choosing to emphasize one side seems to contradict the other. However, there is another position that I feel more completely explains both God's predestination and man's libertarian freedom by showing both can be true and not in competition with one another. It is a theory first put forth by a Spanish monk named Luis de Molina in the 16th century called "middle knowledge" or Molinism. We'll base our outline on William Lane Craig's understanding of the doctrine found in his book The Only Wise God.

God Knows the World As It Actually Is

Craig explains that God holds different kinds of knowledge. God has what is termed necessary knowledge. This is knowledge that can never be false. It encompasses things like the laws of logic and the idea that 2+2=4. God also has free knowledge. Free knowledge is knowing creation as it actually is, including the past, present and future. Another way to state this is free knowledge is how God actually chooses to make the world. God was free to make any kind of world he desired (thus the "free" designation) and he chooses to make this specific world with all the events that go along with it.

The difference between free knowledge and necessary knowledge, though, is that "God could lack [specific free] knowledge and still be God. He must have this sort of knowledge to be God, but its content would be different. For if he would have created a different world, his free knowledge would be different." 1

Examples of God's free knowledge may be found in Isaiah 45, where God speaks directly to Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon 150 years before he was born. Craig also offers other examples of free knowledge. "God's knowledge seems to encompass future contingencies: God foreknows Nebuchadnezzer's divinations to determine his battle routes (Ezek. 21:21-23). Even more remarkably, just as God knows the thoughts that humans have, so he foreknows the very thoughts they will have."2 Psalm 139 also supports this idea.

So God knows all of the events of human history, past present and future. This includes every detail of the universe - the thoughts that we think, how lots will be cast, when cocks will crow, everything. God knows this to be true because it exists in reality. If reality were different, though, God's knowledge would be different. God only knows the truth to be true.

God Knows All Possibilities

Not only does God know exactly how the world really is, He also knows the way the world would be if events were different. A favorite example of may own is in Acts 27:21-32 where Paul is aboard a ship to Rome and a great storm arises. The ship's crew were terrified for their lives, but Paul delivers a prophecy given by God saying "there will be no loss of life among you , but only of the ship" (v. 23). However, some of the sailors still sought to escape by  lowering the life boat. Paul then warns them that "unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved" (v. 31). Paul knew that all aboard would be saved. But if events were different, he knew that the outcome would be different and the prophecy would be false.

Craig offers 1 Samuel 23:6-13 as another example. He writes "the story was understood to show that God knew that if David were to remain at Keilah, then Saul would come to get him, and that if Saul were to come to get David, then the men of the city would hand him over."3 

In either case, we have different outcomes for the same event if the choices of the individual involved were to be different. God knew both outcomes, yet he also know which choice the individuals would freely make. Thus God created a particular situation to achieve a particular end (delivering Paul to Rome or sparing David from Saul), not by controlling the choices of those involved, but by knowing which choices they would make when faced with that situation.

Middle Knowledge

The idea that God knows what would happen in any situation were that situation different is termed middle knowledge. Adherents to middle knowledge hold that God not only knows what is, but He knows what would be if something were different.

This is the key to solving the predestination and free will problem. God knows all aspects of every possible world he could create. It's part of his natural knowledge and is essential to him. His middle knowledge consists of "what every possible free creature would do under any possible set of circumstances and, hence, knowledge of those possible worlds which God could make actual."4 God then freely decides to create the actual world in which we live and knows every detail, past, present, and future, of how that world will be.

The ramifications of this idea go far and deep. God doesn't just "look ahead" into the future and predestine someone he knew would choose him. He decides to create a world in which that person will actually exists to choose him, knowing that he will choose that way given those circumstances. He personally decides to give life to everyone and every event in our world after looking at all possibilities and scenarios, in order to suit his purposes! It's a much bigger picture of God that still maintains the reality that our choices are freely made and significant.

Using the concept of middle knowledge, we can see how God can predestine each one of us to a saving grace in Him while at the same time preserving the idea of human freedom to choose. God loves you enough that his entire creation is ordered so you would choose to follow him. It's pretty amazing to think about.

References

1.Craig, William Lane The Only Wise God
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Pub., 1999. 127-128.
2. Ibid. 32
3. Ibid. 132
4. Ibid. 131.

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.